Inc. Roar Biomedical, Inc. designs, manufactures and markets protein activity kits for clinical research and pharmaceutical drug discovery programs. SIP provides the pharmaceutical industry with a new technique in high-throughput screening that eliminates the use of radioactivity. Roar supports clinical studies at several research institutions. Future plans include a line of photometric assays utilizing a patent pending technique that increases sensitivity over conventional methods. The goal of these efforts is the development of innovative, environmentally-acceptable approaches for the control of deleterious insect species.
Insects have a profound negative impact on the world's agriculture and public health.
To counteract the damaging effects of insect activity, a multitude of pesticides and more recently, genetically modified crops, have been developed. However, concerns about contamination of groundwater and food supplies by pesticide residues, coupled with the loss of pesticide efficacy due to the emergence of insect resistance, highlight a need for the discovery and development of new strategies to spare valuable resources and protect human health from pest insects. The primary sense used by insects to locate food sources and human hosts is the sense of smell. Research at Sentigen is aimed at the identification of olfactory receptors, the molecules that mediate volatile odor recognition, in selected pest species. These receptors will serve as screening targets for the discovery and design of novel compounds and systems for insect pest management based on the manipulation of odor -driven behavioral responses.