Investing in Innovation

Helix 51 incubator company Inspirotec Inc. announced in early March that its patented commercial air sampling device can detect viruses in the air, including COVID-19. The same AirAnswers platform technology is available for airborne allergens, bacteria and other airborne viruses. All sample testing takes place in Inspirotec’s biological-rated labs located inside Helix 51.

Inspirotec, one of the first companies to join RFU’s incubator, recently completed a proof of principle study in collaboration with the University of Chicago Medical Center in which its AirAnswers™ device sampled air inside a COVID unit of the hospital, detecting airborne virus.

Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Julian Gordon, PhD, who launched the company in 2013, said the technology could pave the way for a new field of viral tracking, early warning and remediation.

“Contact tracing is a proven tactic in fighting pandemics,” Dr. Gordon said. “But we can refine the process by determining whether contacts are themselves emitting viruses into the environment before any symptoms appear, and follow up further the environments of individuals who have been exposed. This principle could be used to visualize any epidemic, like tracking a weather system — track how it moves geographically or through a population.”

The goal is to “anticipate and minimize public exposure in the current pandemic as well as future epidemics;” Dr. Gordon added.

The company originally showed the feasibility of measuring airborne viruses in a controlled environment chamber through a collaboration with the U.S. Army at its Edgewood Chemical Biological Center — the nation’s principal research and developmental resource for non-medical chemical and biological defense. It has shown that its technology is capable of measurement of a wide variety of biological agents, including allergens and viruses across many different environments, whether in homes, businesses or institutions.

“The $10 trillion question that underlies the potential global impact of AirAnswers is how much of the virus do you have to inhale to get infected,” said Tom Brya, the company’s president and CEO. “I’ve seen some literature that suggests hundreds of contacts. But we’re measuring very fine particles of allergens and COVID that are inhaled deeply into the lungs and are small enough to pass into the blood. The fine particles we detect and quantify in the air can create the most harmful allergic reactions and overwhelm the inflammatory defense system, creating a cytokine storm throughout the body. The same thing happens with air pollution, allergies and asthma, which some of the literature shows correlates to heart disease, stroke and, more disturbingly, Alzheimer’s and other dementias.”

We will establish a new standard in health care

Inspirotec and the University of Chicago will jointly pursue NIH funding for a planned study to investigate such critical data. Long-term studies of the company’s allergen-measuring system and remediation support services are underway with Argonne National Laboratory and UC’s Chicago Multiethnic Prevention and Surveillance Study (COMPASS), which looks at impacts on the health of the city’s residents from factors like pollution. A recent Harvard University study revealed a link between long-term exposure to air pollution and higher COVID-19 death rates.

“If we can understand what’s in the environment and look for correlation with health status, we can get a better idea of what we can do to remediate the situation,” Dr. Gordon said. “We will establish a new standard in health care.”

Inspirotec’s work to detect COVID-19 and other airborne diseases, allergens and pollutants is just one example of what’s possible at RFU’s Helix 51, which provides a supportive environment, including meeting, office and wet lab space for companies working to develop treatments for disease and innovations in healthcare delivery. All member companies are currently undertaking COVID–related research.

“It’s a transformational time for us,” Mr. Brya said. “We have patented technology and the ability to help not only allergy and asthma sufferers, but to be the first line of defense in terms of getting back to a new normal in the time of COVID.”

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