Spokane Heart Research Makes Advance New Lab Is First Capital Expenditure For Spokane-Based Biogenetic Ventures

A trio of researchers doing heart disease research will be first to use a biotech laboratory being designed and constructed by BioGenetic Ventures of Spokane.

The project, costing more than $1.2 million in equipment and lab facilities, will fill the third floor of the former King’s Port Motel at 44 W. Sixth.

Sacred Heart Medical Center has owned the building since 1988. It has leased space to various users, including Washington State University, Sacred Heart Cancer Center and Spokane Heart Institute.

Under the new plan, Sacred Heart will lease the 7,000-square-foot third floor. That will become the new research center for Rick Meek and physicians Katherine Tuttle and William Dittman, who are conducting heart disease research.

“This lab will bring in some of the most advanced equipment around, some of it not available anywhere else in this area,” said Peter Allison, president of BioGenetic Ventures. He hopes the lab is operating by next summer. The lab is the first capital expenditure for BioGenetic Ventures, a 2-year-old private firm that underwrites biotech research to produce new medicines or treatments.

Tuttle and Meek both work at the Spokane Heart Institute, an independent, nonprofit clinic whose mission is the reduction of cardiovascular disease.

Their primary research involves studying why heart patients and diabetics suffer blood vessel damage and kidney failure.

Dittman, a blood specialist, is researching how genetic therapy can offset hardening of the arteries.

BioGenetic Ventures will lease the lab space from Sacred Heart. Apart from the cost of outfitting the lab, BioGenetic Ventures will spend up to $1 million in the next three years for research projects conducted at the lab and at the Heart Institute.

In return, BioGenetic Ventures becomes the primary beneficiary of royalties and profits generated from products developed at the lab.

The Heart Institute and the researchers will be next in line for those royalties.

“Having a central lab will be a huge help in applying for grant money and consolidating our efforts,” said Tuttle, director of research at the Heart Institute.

She and other Heart Institute researchers now shuttle between Sacred Heart, the institute and the Health Resources Center for their work.

As they seek federal grants for research, the lab and its equipment will be critical, added Meek.

“It looks a lot better when you apply and can say you have your own PCR (polymerase chain reaction) equipment (used in DNA tests) and a cell culture room,” Meek said.

A major technological acquisition will be the area’s first microarray equipment, said Jeffrey Stewart, director of intellectual property for BioGenetic Ventures.

That equipment uses fluorescent sensors to perform precise measurements of genetic material.

“From how genetic research used to be done, it provides the difference between a sniper and a nuclear bomb,” he said.