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When temperatures rise in the desert, leaving little solace but a slice of shade from a saguaro cactus, some animals take shelter in another place - a time lapse of sorts called anhydrobiosis.
It means "life without water," and enables some small organisms' survival for up to 120 years without growth, reproduction or movement.
San Diego-based Biomatrica Inc. has applied the principles of this phenomenon in a new technology called SampleMatrix that is being used to preserve lab samples without refrigeration.
The dry-storage technology can be used to save money and space for biotechnology or forensic applications or for military use to keep vaccines suitable during transport for soldiers in remote areas.
Testing Biomatrica's technology now are several large pharmaceutical companies, academic laboratories, NASA, the U.S. Navy and the San Diego County Sheriff's Department crime lab.
Biomatrica founders Rolf Muller and Judy Muller-Cohn are husband and wife, business partners and molecular biologists who saw a gap in the $34 billion bio-stability market for sample storage.
Muller, the chief scientific officer, named some of the testing parties as GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, DuPont and some research labs at Harvard University and every University of California campus.
Helping The Bottom Line
That's a heavy-duty list for a startup with 12 employees, including just three salespeople.
Muller-Cohn, the chief executive officer, said while it costs a lab about $1 per year...