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SELECTBIO Conferences Point-of-Care & Rapid Diagnostics 2022

Michael Heller's Biography



Michael Heller, Professor, Dept Bioengineering, University of California-San Diego

Michael J. Heller received his PhD in Biochemistry from Colorado State University in 1973. He was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University from 1973 to 1976. From 1976 to 1984 he was supervisor of the DNA Technology Group at Amoco Corporation (Standard Oil Indiana) During that time he carried out early bioengineering and recombinant DNA work on plants, algae and photosynthetic bacteria for energy and chemical production, and developed some of the first fluorescent resonant energy transfer (FRET) and chemiluminescent oligonucleotide probes for DNA hybridization analysis. He also oversaw Amoco’s sponsored energy and chemical research work at Cetus Corporation, which included the cloning of thermophilic enzymes. Dr. Heller was the Director of Molecular Biology at Molecular Biosystems, Inc., from 1984 to 1987. He was a co-founder of Integrated DNA Technologies, and served as President and Chief Operating Officer from 1987 to 1989. He was a co-found of Nanogen and served as the Chief Technical Officer from 1993 to 2001. Nanogen carried out the successful development and commercialization of electronic DNA microarray technology for clinical diagnostic genotyping applications. Dr. Heller is a Professor (Recall/Emeritus) in the Departments of Nanoengineering and Bioengineering at the University California San Diego. He is also now a Distinguished Scientist at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Center for Cancer Early Detection and Research (CEDAR), in Portland, Oregon. He has also co-founded a company called Biological Dynamics which is developing new sample to answer cancer diagnostics technology, based on the novel dielectrophoretic (DEP) technology developed at his UCSD lab. Dr. Heller has extensive industrial experience in biotechnology, biomedical and molecular diagnostic devices and nanotechnology, with particular expertise in the areas of DNA probe diagnostics, electrokinetic lab-on-a-chip devices, DNA synthesis, FRET/fluorescent-based detection technologies and electric field assisted self-assembly of DNA nanostructures. Dr. Heller has over 100 publications and 56 issued US patents.

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Detection of Cancer Related Protease Biomarkers from Blood Spot Cards – “Transition to Viable Companion Diagnostics for Cancer”

Wednesday, 14 December 2022 at 15:30

Add to Calendar ▼2022-12-14 15:30:002022-12-14 16:30:00Europe/LondonDetection of Cancer Related Protease Biomarkers from Blood Spot Cards – “Transition to Viable Companion Diagnostics for Cancer”Point-of-Care and Rapid Diagnostics 2022 in Long Beach, CaliforniaLong Beach, CaliforniaSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Proteases represent a large class of enzymes that degrade proteins and have been associated with a wide range of diseases, including cardiovascular; coagulation disorders; inflammatory diseases, diabetes, sepsis; infectious diseases and cancer. While proteases have seen some limited use in disease diagnostics, their full potential has not been exploited. At our UCSD lab we have developed rapid sample to answer protease assays based on fluorescent charge-changing peptide substrates. These liquid biopsy assays can be carried our using small volumes (5ul-10ul) of whole blood, plasma or serum. No sample preparation is required, and the fluorescent peptide products can be detected in about 30 minutes using simple mini-gel electrophoretic formats. We now have significant results showing the elevation of specific proteases (trypsin, chymotrypsin, MMPs and Cathepsins) in pancreatic (PDAC) and other cancers. We also have preliminary results showing protease biomarkers can be detected from samples applied to “Blood Spot Cards.” Use of blood spot cards would represent a paradigm change with major advantages including they require only a small blood sample (5-10ul), are cost $$$ effective (compared to a blood draw tube) and would allow time course studies and companion diagnostics to be carried out (hours, days, weeks).


Add to Calendar ▼2022-12-12 00:00:002022-12-14 00:00:00Europe/LondonPoint-of-Care and Rapid Diagnostics 2022Point-of-Care and Rapid Diagnostics 2022 in Long Beach, CaliforniaLong Beach, CaliforniaSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com