Driven by genius: Colorado inventor showcase winners.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: FEATURE - Beacon Biotechnology

The state's inventors strutted their latest stuff at November's Colorado Inventor Showcase at the University of Denver's Daniels Cable Center. The DaVinci Institute event, also sponsored by ColoradoBiz, featured innovations in everything from software to toilet seats, with the judges naming five inventions--the BrightSPOT Reader, VanDyne SuperTurbo, BioHAWT, AlchemyGrid and Fiberlight--as the year's best.

INVENTOR OF THE YEAR:

Beacon Biotechnology team for the BrightSPOT Reader

THE 2008 INVENTOR OF THE YEAR IS NOT A PERSON, BUT BEACON BIOTECHNOLOGY LLC'S AURORA-BASED TEAM.

"There are three entities that contributed IP (Intellectual Property)," Beacon CEO Fred Mitchell says. "Combining the three pieces makes something completely different and very powerful."

The first entity, Arizona-based Prolume, contributed a synthetic luminescent blue molecule found in deep-sea crustaceans that is thousands of times brighter than that of a firefly. The second firm, Colorado-based imaging specialists Black Forest Engineering, added a light-sensing chip. And the third contributor, Aurora-based Avidity, bonded Prolume's light-generating molecules to Black Forest's light sensors.

The end result is the disposable BrightSPOT Reader, "a product that detects infectious disease," Mitchell says. "We can do over 100 tests on one chip, and one chip handles a single drop of blood. If it's positive, a spot lights up. The results are much more predictable than traditional methods."

The exact position of the spot corresponds to a given disease, tipping off a PDA-based reader to deliver test results on the spot. "You're able to do this at the point of care," Mitchell says. "The current way of testing people, you have to have a lab that runs the test nearby." Mitchell says there are some "dipstick" tests on the market, but they "do not have the degree of differentiation of our test."

With regard to Third World HIV testing, the BrightSPOT Reader "is less expensive than processing in a lab, and it also has an increased value because it happens in the village," Mitchell says. Health-care providers can...