Other than the sign hanging on the outside wall reading "Xemed," the little white house just past the Strafford Apartments looks like an ordinary house. There's a driveway, a front yard and a walkway that leads to the front door, which reads "Come In." What most people don't know is that inside this house, the employees of this company whose name is posted on the outside wall are working on a medical breakthrough that could affect many people with lung diseases.
UNH physics Professor F. William Hersman, or Bill as everyone calls him, has created a spin-off company of UNH. Hersman has been with the university since 1982, and while working on research had some "new inventions," as he called them. He then created the business to commercialize some of his ideas.
"We've created a way to magnetize xenon," Hersman said, referring to why the company's name begins with the element's atomic symbol.
According to the company's website, xemed.com, the magnetized xenon is known as MagniXene, and is harmless to humans, meaning it can be inhaled and pass through the lungs. The gas is breathed out of a little bag, along with a certain amount of oxygen.
Once the gas is inhaled, a person can pass through an MRI machine that is adjusted to a different frequency than that of a normal MRI machine. From here, doctors can see how a person's lungs are functioning.
Traditionally doctors use X-rays when testing patients, however there are many benefits to this new technology. With MagniXene there is no radioactivity. Second, according to Hersman, X-rays can only see the structures of the lung.
"They can't tell which structures are functioning properly," he said. "With this, you can see it [MagniXene] in the bloodstream."
The magnetization of the gas starts with a laser. The laser is shined on a material that has the ability to absorb laser light. After this, the "electrons line up and exert torque that twist the nuclei into to line with the electrons," said Hersman.
Hersman said that seven or eight years ago he discovered how the gas could be magnetized, and from there a biochemist from Stoneybrook and a physicist from Princeton realized that it could be beneficial to the medical field.
"The first prototype was developed a couple of years ago," said Hersman. This prototype makes the gas in large quantities for humans, because previously it was tested on mice.
This prototype was installed at Harvard Medical School, where Phase 1 clinical trials under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were administered. Phase 1 trials mean that the gas was tested on healthy people to make sure that it does no harm.
Phase 2 trials allow the gas to be tested on individuals who are sick to see if it will do any good. According to Hersman, the company received final approval in December, and in January tested two people with disease.
"What you see is much different than in someone who is healthy," said Hersman, about viewing the test results of a sick patient.
Hersman says that the company "has a detailed plan for the future," and plans to sell the technology to clinical sites at a discount with "no profit."
"We want to get as many participants as we can and get pharmaceutical companies involved after we can demonstrate what it can do," he said.
Currently the company is publishing scientific papers for libraries, said Hersman. There are about 24 people working for the company, including graduate students and undergraduate interns. Hersman himself, in addition to teaching Sophomore Thermodynamics four days a week, is working seven days a week, 12 hours a day for his company, in hopes that one day all the hard work in the little white house will pay off with the saving of thousands and thousands of lives.
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