Biological sciences professors Roger Laine and Jennifer Lo have developed a method of diagnosing chronic sinusitis, which would enable doctors to treat the condition directly instead of treating the symptoms.
Chronic sinusitis is an infection of the sinuses lasting more than six weeks and affecting 33 million people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
“They discovered there is a cause for this, which was unknown,” said Ronald Brown, University Relations editor.
Most of the cases were thought to be caused by bacteria and were treated by antibiotics, Laine said.
Laine and Lo’s study discovered more than 90 percent of the cases of chronic sinusitis are caused by fungus and should be treated with antifungal medication, Laine said.
Laine and Lo developed a method of identifying the presence of fungus by using a cloned enzyme called chitinase to stain fungal walls.
Laine’s company, Anomeric, manufactures a diagnostic kit that identifies the fungus causing chronic sinusitis, he said.
Two prestigious peer-review journals recently published articles highlighting Laine and Lo’s inventions, Brown said.
One of these ear, nose and throat journals, “The Laryngoscope,” published an article depicting the story of how the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, N.Y., diagnosed a person seriously ill from chronic sinusitis with Laine and Lo’s invention, Brown said.
The Mayo Clinic also has published articles advocating the use of antifungal medication for cases of sinusitis caused by fungus, Brown said.
The Mayo Clinic is using diagnostic kits provided by Laine’s manufacturing company to diagnose cases of chronic sinusitis, Laine said.
The market for Laine’s product is $165 million just in the diagnostic kit, he said.
The profit generated from the kits would trickle into the economy, employing people who will consume other products, which could become an inspiration to the dwindling economy, Laine said.
“There is a market for this new product, and if we can get the word out, we can help fuel the economic engine in the state,” he said.
One of the problems Laine faces in marketing his product is advertising enough to get ear, nose and throat doctors to buy his product, he said.
It would have cost Laine $25,000 to run an advertisement in the same issue of the journals that had articles highlighting his work.
After spending $1.4 million on the chitinase project and facing a gap in venture capital from the recent economic decline and terrorist activity, Laine has been renegotiating his license with the University since June 30, 2001, he said.
Without a license, any use of Laine’s invention is considered an infringement of the patent, unless the technology is used for internal research purposes, said Mani Iyer, director of LSU’s Office of Intellectual Property.
Laine obtained the license July 1, 1993, and it expired June 30, 2001, Iyer said.
Iyer issues the patents for the University’s inventions and licenses the inventions to businesses and commercial entities, he said.
Laine is renegotiating the terms of his license with Iyer and is confident his license will be renewed, Laine said.
The other problem Laine said he sees with the success of his product is keeping knowledgeable people in Louisiana.
“There is a problem of retaining trained people in this state,” Laine said. “Every Ph.D. I’ve produced has left Louisiana.”
Along with the fungal diagnostic kit, Laine has worked on a rapid automated bacteria screening system and a rapid antibiotic sensitivity test with Anomeric, he said.
He has not developed a market for the bacterial screening tests yet but is optimistic about their potential, he said.