Explore the Neuron Forest and Discover Arizona Opportunities in the Arizona Pavilion at BIO 2016

Rising above the Arizona Pavilion at the BIO International Convention, you will find picture-postcard vistas of Arizona’s natural wonders.

Inside the Arizona Pavilion, visitors have the opportunity to explore new vistas as they take a virtual reality journey inside the human brain, meet with award winning life science innovators, and learn about a wide range of Arizona opportunities.

CHANDLER, Ariz.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Life science innovators from around the globe are travelling to San Francisco for the BIO International Convention that will be held at Moscone Center June 6 – 9, 2016. When they arrive, Arizona’s life science community will have a surprise waiting for them in the Arizona Pavilion. (Booth #5322)

“Arizona’s fast-growing life science ecosystem offers many unique advantages for companies seeking partnerships across the spectrum from discovery to development to delivery of life science innovations,” shared Joan Koerber-Walker, president & CEO of the Arizona Bioindustry Association (AZBio). “Rising above the Arizona Pavilion this year are the beautiful vistas that many will recognize as uniquely Arizona. At ground level, visitors will find that there is more to Arizona’s life science community than they may have expected.”

Visitors to the Arizona Pavilion will have the opportunity to interact with representatives from Arizona research institutes and life science companies and to take a virtual reality journey through the human brain using a suite of imaging tools from arivis.

“When I was a young girl, I remember watching the science fiction film Fantastic Voyage (20th Century Fox, 1966) and marveling at what I saw on the screen. Imagine if you could take a journey within the human body and see everything! Thanks to these life science innovations from arivis, science fiction becomes science fact as the combination of big data and large scale imagery provides a unique tool for exploration and discovery,” shared Koerber-Walker.

Designed to accelerate the path from discovery to development to delivery of life-changing and life-saving innovation, here are examples of what the arivis Vision tools can accomplish in just 60-seconds to help researchers and clinicians:

• find 12,000 Alzheimer Plaques and see 471 million data points as they work to find the best treatment for Alzheimer’s disease (arivis Vision4D™)
• quantify the effect of a new drug on 11,500 cells and see the immediate context of immune response based on 300 million data points with 9,000 rendered images in full immersive VR (arivis Vision4D™ and arivis InViewR™)
• identify and quantify 3 different species amongst 10,000 bacteria and their precise location in a tissue and visualize them in 3D with 150 million data points (arivis Webview™)

The Arizona Pavilion will also feature displays and opportunities to connect with Arizona life science innovators on the forefront of life science innovation.

• Beacon Biomedical develops highly accurate, easy to administer and extremely affordable point-of-care tests for the early detection of cancers.
• Iron Horse Diagnostics is a molecular diagnostic company focused on the development and commercialization of novel tests to support the diagnosis and management of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and other neurological diseases.
• NuvOx Pharma is a biotechnology company based in Tucson, Arizona with a novel patent portfolio allowing it to develop an innovative platform of dodecafluoropentane (DDFP)-based oxygen therapeutics to treat a host of human conditions. Founded in 2008, NuvOx Pharma has demonstrated therapeutic feasibility in radiation-resistant cancer, hemorrhagic shock, traumatic brain injury, myocardial infarction, retinopathy and stroke.

“These three companies are great examples of Arizona innovators focused on creating products that have the potential to be truly life-changing,” shared Sergio Gazic, Bioscience Portfolio Manager at the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA). “Each has been recognized and rewarded for their efforts as winners of the Arizona Innovation Challenge and has continued along the path towards commercialization.”

The ACA competitively awards $3 million in grants annually – $1.5 million in the spring and $1.5 million in the fall – to the most qualified, innovative startups and early-stage companies under the Arizona Innovation Challenge. Up to $250,000 is granted to each recipient to commercialize their technologies and grow their businesses. Grant money is provided only as each company reaches specific business milestones during a 12-month period. Companies located anywhere in the world may apply, as long as they plan to establish operations and commercialize their product or service in Arizona if they are awarded an AIC grant.

The ACA also serves as the lead agency coordinating the Arizona Pavilion and works in partnership with AZBio and Arizona’s research institutions, universities, life science companies and economic development offices to host the Arizona Pavilion. AZBio hosts the pavilion’s landing site at www.AZBio.org/BIO2016 which provides links to all Arizona Pavilion partners and to information on a wide range of economic incentives and advantages along with the scientific and clinical resources that are available across Arizona’s life science ecosystem.

Arizona’s bioscience and healthcare industry included 1,421 establishments and 320,028 employees in 2015. Arizona bioscience and health care employment grew by more than 33% from 2006 to 2015, nearly twice the national rate of 17%.

The Arizona Bioscience Roadmap Progress Report, commissioned by the Flinn Foundation and presented by TEConomy Partners in early 2016, reported that non-hospital biotech employment across the state represented 24,040 jobs and 1,284 establishments in 2014.

During the economic recovery of 2009-2014, bioscience jobs in Arizona increased 14.8%, nearly double the rate of Arizona as a whole. From 2002 to 2014, Arizona bioscience jobs (including hospitals) increased by 49%, adding more than 36,700 jobs for a total of 110,410. The U.S. posted a 13.7% gain in bio jobs during this span.

“Arizona’s research organizations, life science innovator companies, and leading healthcare systems are working together with a single focused goal of improving the quality of life for people here in Arizona and around the world,” shared Koerber-Walker. “The BIO International Convention is the perfect place for us to share our story with the global life science community. The next step is to show them. That’s why we are inviting everyone to join us for Arizona Bioscience Week this September and see for themselves.”

Arizona Bioscience Week will provide an opportunity for researchers, life science entrepreneurs and life science investors to come together to connect and engage so that together they can build new collaborative partnerships that can benefit people today and for generations to come. Beginning on September 18, 2016, Arizona will host a series of events including the Cavendish Global Impact Forum to showcase its leadership advantages in precision medicine and in the quest to help people with neurodegenerative diseases. A boot camp for biotech entrepreneurs will be hosted by Life Science Nation. The AZBio Awards will celebrate life science innovators and will include honoring industry icon Dr. George Poste with the AZBio Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement. The White Hat Life Science Investor Conference will showcase privately held companies in the diagnostic, medical device, health IT and therapeutic sectors from across the Rocky Mountain Southwest region.

“We set out to create an experience for both our local community and our guests from around the global life science community. It has blossomed into a statewide collaboration with even more events yet to be announced,” added Koerber-Walker. “To make it possible for people to maximize their opportunities to connect, engage, and collaborate, we needed something to tie it all together just as the BIO Partnering System does for BIO 2016. Thanks to a partnership with Jujama, we will have it. One partnering system, spanning multiple events statewide and open to every attendee. Just imagine the possibilities!”

For more information on Arizona Bioscience Week, visit www.AZBio.org/AzBW.

About AZBio

A key component in Arizona’s life science ecosystem, the Arizona Bioindustry Association (AZBio) is the only statewide organization exclusively focused on Arizona’s bioscience industry. AZBio membership includes patient advocacy organizations, life science innovators, educators, healthcare partners and leading business organizations. AZBio is the statewide affiliate of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and works in partnership with AdvaMed, MDMA, and PhRMA to advance innovation and to ensure that the value delivered from life-changing and life-saving innovation benefits people in Arizona and around the world.

For more information, visit www.AZBio.org and www.AZBio.TV.

VR Resources for the media:

B-Roll – The neuron forest: https://youtu.be/chdgJN8QM8c

Caption: This movie shows a direct volume visualization of automatically segmented neurons by arivis software. Images are from a ZEISS Lightsheet Z.1 and the sample was cleared using LUMOS. Aspects of the data are highlighted with different colors while semi-transparent surfaces facilitate “a look inside.”
(Olga Efimova, National Research Center, Kurchatov Institute, Moscow, Russia)

B-roll: InViewR (arteries of the brain and brainstem): https://youtu.be/Xlea5WaNUGA

Caption: 360 degree exploration of the human brain and brainstem vasculature
(Christopher Zugates, arivis)

Additional Images available upon request.