Vertical Fluorescence Profiler, the “FLIPPER”

Ciencia, Inc.

East Hartford, CT

• Fluorescence Lifetime Profiler of Photochemical Efficiency in Real time, or FLIPPER in short
• FLIPPER was designed to assist in the understanding of the global processes controlling the time varying fluxes of carbon and associated biogenic elements in the ocean

• The FLIPPER prototype was developed as a fully submersible oceanographic vertical profiler for in situ measurements
• Its purpose is to study phytoplankton and related issues of photosynthesis and primary production
• The prototype is unique in that it can measure in real time the structure of chlorophyll concentration and of phytoplankton photochemical efficiency in the water column

• The technology has a potential application in the medical, food processing, and pharmaceutical industries
• Ciencia has received a significant investment from HTS Biosystems for a product development effort that will incorporate frequency domain technology to instrumentation for high-throughput drug discovery
• Ciencia has entered into a product development agreement with a company for development of a sensor for process analysis of powder mixtures in the pharmaceutical industry

• FLIPPER addressed NASA’s oceanographic needs
• Other applications include monitoring of photosynthetic parameters in marine phytoplankton, oceanographic, estuarine, limnological and riverine studies, environmental monitoring of phytoplankton populations, ocean optical properties research, and fisheries and ecosystem studies

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Biological/Physical Sciences, Earth Environmental Sciences


Curator: SBIR Support                12/08/08