For more than three years, we have been helping further technologies related to nine patents that IKOtech, LLC licensed from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and The Ohio State University.

An assemblage of mostly off-the-shelf components on a bench top at the university has proven that it's possible to quickly and gently isolate desired biological cells with a quadrupole magnetic sorter (QMS). Separations are achieved by labeling the targeted cells in a mixed cell population with magnetic nanoparticles and sorting them based on their resulting magnetic properties. The process has broad applications, but is especially helpful in stem cell, cancer and diabetes research.

From the beginning, IKOtech has relied on us to refine each component and every process while integrating it all into one easy to use automated system. The company's engineers and scientists not only are developing the capitalized laboratory equipment portion, but also the sterile disposable flow channels and tube sets that each experiment requires.

Second-generation prototypes of the QMS, IKOtech's flagship product, were tested at the University of Minnesota, Ohio State and the Cleveland Clinic with promising results. Third-generation prototypes, also developed by Techshot, currently are in beta test at several other Midwest locations.

Although the initial market for QMS is the research industry, applications are being developed for it that will meet four needs in the clinical arena:

" The positive or negative selection of hematopoietic stem cells from peripheral blood for transplant as cancer therapeutics;

" The enrichment of rare cancer cells from circulating blood and bone marrow samples through the depletion of T-cells to aid in rapid cancer diagnostics;

" The depletion of alloreactive T-cells from bone marrow samples as part of a stem cell transplant for cancer therapeutics; and

" The positive selection of pancreatic islets from digested pancreatic tissue for transplant into individuals with Type 1 diabetes.

Our services uniquely meet IKOtech's hardware development needs. While many contract engineering and product development companies can provide some combination of mechanical or electrical or software engineering services, few maintain a staff that includes all three disciplines.

Our unique ability to integrate these disciplines with in-house scientific and regulatory capability under its ISO 9001-compliant design configuration control system allows it to develop products that are designed and documented to meet the FDA regulatory requirements for good design practices.

Our innovative use of novel pumping technologies, cost-effective injection molding and extruding processes, computer controlled automation, and a custom software user interface have significantly improved IKOtech's QMS product line.