Michael Braukus

Headquarters, Washington, DC March 30, 2000

(Phone: 202/358-1979)

Nancy Lovato
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
(Phone: 818/354-0474)

RELEASE: 00-49

LEADING CANCER INSTITUTE TESTS NOVEL MONITORING TECHNIQUE

A cancer detection technique that uses an advanced sensor developed at NASA's

Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, is being tested by the prestigious Dana-
Farber
Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, for use in monitoring the effectiveness of cancer
treatment.

The sensor is part of a device called the BioScan System (tm), developed by
OmniCorder Technologies, Inc., Stony Brook, NY. OmniCorder has been developing
and
testing the system for three years and received Food and Drug Administration
clearance to
market it in December 1999.

"Since we announced the BioScan System's (tm) clearance by the FDA, we have
been
inundated with requests to install and test the unit in clinics and hospitals
across the country
and overseas, for a variety of cancer as well as other disease applications," said

OmniCorder president and CEO Mark Fauci. "We selected the Dana-Farber site
because
we feel that this center could best help us to have the largest and most immediate
impact on
improving cancer treatment."

The application at Dana-Farber is different from those that have been tested
at other
sites. The BioScan System (tm) has been used to locate and confirm the presence
of a
cancerous breast lesion by detecting the cancer's ability to recruit new blood
supply - one
of the hallmarks of a malignant lesion. The goal of the Dana-Farber research is
to evaluate
the BioScan System's (tm) ability to monitor biological effects of cancer
treatment and to
help physicians detect treatment-induced changes in cancerous lesions of the
breast, skin
and other organs. Armed with this information, they can better determine
effectiveness of
the treatments.

Dana-Farber is testing several new classes of anti-cancer products, including

some -
called antiangiogenesis factors - specifically designed to limit cancer growth by
inhibiting its
blood supply. (Angiogenesis is the formation and differentiation of blood
vessels.) The
BioScan System (tm) was designed to detect minute changes in blood supply to
cancerous
lesions and may help doctors measure precisely any decrease in blood supply to the
cancer
caused by these new treatments.

"Current technologies to monitor the effects of cancer treatment might miss

important
biologic and clinical effects, especially of newer treatment strategies such as
antiangiogenesis approaches and drugs to induce differentiation," said Dr. George
D.
Demetri, medical director, Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology, Department of
Adult
Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Drs.
Demetri and Milos Janicek, from Dana-Farber's diagnostic oncoradiology division,
will be
co-principal investigators in the study.

"The technology harnessed by BioScan(tm) - if it proves what we hope it will

- has the
potential to provide this ability for researchers and clinicians who might
otherwise miss
subtle yet important effects of new drugs," Demetri said. "By doing so, it could
have a
substantial effect on developing new therapeutic approaches to cancer, such as
directing
researchers to optimize biologically active doses and even reducing the time it
takes to
demonstrate a drug's efficacy for FDA registration. It will be important to
correlate the
findings of this technology with clinical outcomes. With this type of tool, it is
conceivable
that once a drug has been approved, the same technology would allow us to monitor
and
individualize cancer treatment on a patient-by-patient basis."

OmniCorder is exclusively licensed by JPL to use the sensor technology,

called
Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector, and also holds licenses from other
organizations.
OmniCorder is a leading developer of non-invasive infrared disease detection
systems. The
JPL sensor has been used in terrestrial applications, such as locating hot spots
during fires,
and it has potential uses for search and rescue, spotting faulty welds and
blockages, and
volcano observation. It also will fly sometime in the next several months on a
small space
technology research vehicle mission to detect the severity of radiation in the Van
Allen Belt.

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