CHARLESTON, W.Va.-- In June, a Morgantown biotechnology firm plans to start selling a medical research instrument that's already generating significant interest from some of the world's largest drug and technology companies.

Protea Biosciences has built several prototypes of the instrument, which rapidly identifies a broad range of chemicals and biomolecules found in biological samples such as tissue, blood and urine.

Two multinational pharmaceutical firms and a computer and technology company have scheduled visits to Protea's lab in Morgantown next month. The companies' representatives will watch a demonstration of the biomedical research instrument.

"It's the first one of its kind in the world, and it's right here in West Virginia," said Stephen Turner, Protea's CEO. "We're going to take it through its paces over the next several months. We believe this will revolutionize biomedical research by enabling the discovery of new biomarkers for disease diagnosis and drug development." 

The technology -- called Laser Ablation Electrospray Ionization (LAESI) -- allows scientists and researchers to analyze tissue samples in less than five seconds -- a process that can take up to an hour using current equipment.

"One of our directors described it as a Xerox machine for biologists," Turner said. "The idea is that it's something every biologist will have to have."

The technology has a number of potential uses:

Surgeons could use the 40-pound machine to determine, within seconds, whether they've removed all parts of a cancerous tumor. Current methods of "tumor margin analysis" take 30 minutes or more. Scientists at WVU's Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center will be among the first researchers to have access to the LAESI instrument.

Homeland security officials could identify chemical warfare agents more rapidly. Turner has already met with officials at a federal bio-defense research center at George Mason University in Virginia.

Drug researchers are expected to use the technology to target specific disease-causing proteins and develop pharmaceuticals to combat them. The technology also can rapidly identify viral infections in human cells. In addition to proteins, LAESI technology also identifies lipids, metabolites, peptides and other biomolecules.

Food inspectors could use the instrument to prevent food born-illness outbreaks.

Companies could use LAESI to identify counterfeit drugs and determine how long drugs stay active in the human body.

LAESI technology was invented in the lab of Akos Vertes, a professor at George Washington University. Vertes' work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed scientific journals.

In 2008, Protea obtained an exclusive license to sell and market the technology. Protea has since enhanced the LAESI technology by developing instrumentation and computer software. The software allows researchers to analyze three-dimensional images of tissue or other biological samples.

The LAESI instrument works like this: A laser pulse strikes the biological sample, creating an aerosol from the sample. Charged particles come from another direction and hit the aerosol. The particles are then steered into an ion trap and read by a mass spectrometer -- an instrument that analyzes compounds.

Many research labs already have mass spectrometers.

"We're not coming in and saying, 'You have to throw away everything you have,'" Turner said. "They can continue working with the mass spectrometer they already have."

Instruments now used to analyze biological samples require researchers to grind up the material before it's examined. The LAESI technology eliminates that step.

"There's no sample preparation," Turner said. "You just lock and load."

The LAESI instrument, assembled at an engineering company in Alexandria, Va., comes with rollers attached, so it can be wheeled around a lab.

"Someday this could be in a backpack," Turner said. "You could take it in the field and do your report there."

In addition to selling the LAESI machines, Proteawill use the instrument to analyze biological samples that customers send to the lab. The biotech firm also plans to collaborate on research projects with other companies and possibly federal agencies. 

Protea has 43 workers in Morgantown, with a plan to create another 160 jobs by 2013.

Turner and West Virginia University scientists started Protea in 2001. The company was WVU's first spin-off biotech firm.

The West Virginia Jobs Investment Trust, the state's leading venture capital firm, has invested $1.7 million in Protea to help the company complete the development of the LAESI technology.

In July, the state Economic Development Authority approved a $900,000 low-interest loan that Protea used to purchase mass spectrometers.

Protea operates out of a facility near WVU's School of Medicine in Morgantown. Seventy percent of Protea's stockholders live in West Virginia.

Reach Eric Eyre at erice...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-4869.