Vitalea Science Expands its Scientific Advisory Board Expands Microdosing to Environmental Fate and Metabolism of Agricultura



Vitalea Science, Inc., a privately held company that improves and accelerates clinical drug development, today announced that Luis Ruzo, Ph.D. joined Vitalea'ss Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).

Dr. Ruzo is Managing Director/CEO of PTRL West, a private testing laboratory that conducts studies to satisfy regulatory requirements for environmental fate, metabolism, and analysis of agrochemicals, industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Ruzo received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Michigan State University and performed post-Doctoral work at the University of Guelph, Ontario and University of Amsterdam in the photochemistry and metabolism of halogenated aromatics. He was also Professional Research Chemist and Co-Director of the Pesticide Chemistry and Toxicology Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Ruzo'ss areas of expertise include: chemistry, metabolism and analysis of pesticides, drugs and environmental pollutants; mass spectrometry, and NMR spectroscopy; and regulatory aspects of pesticide and pharmaceutical registration.

Application of Vitalea'ss Accelerator Technology to analysis of environmental fate and metabolism of agricultural and industrial chemicals represents a significant growth opportunity, in addition to the better known evaluation of new pharmaceutical compounds. Accelerator Technology, which for drug development is based on administering microdoses of new chemicals to humans and tracing the metabolism of these drugs with ultra-sensitive Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS), is also applicable to safely testing environmental fate and metabolism in human and non-human organisms for a wide range of other chemicals.

Dr. Ruzo brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to Vitalea for exploring additional applications of Accelerator Technology, said Stephen Dueker, Vitalea'ss Co-founder and President. The extension of AMS-based analysis to agricultural and industrial chemicals has the potential to bring new levels of sophistication to current analyses, in addition to opening substantial new business opportunities.

It'ss a tremendous opportunity to join the SAB of a creative company focused on commercializing this exciting new analytical capability, said Luis Ruzo. The ability to reduce radiation levels to study environmental fate and metabolism promises to provide a new level of safety, quantitation and data to the challenge of bringing new chemical products to market that better meet our increasing environmental standards.

About Vitalea Science (http://www.vitaleascience.com)
Vitalea Science is a leading contract research organization that provides ultra-sensitive detection strategies for drugs and drug candidates at microdose levels. Situated in Northern California, the company was formed by chemists and physicists from the University of California and the Department of Energy'ss Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2003.

About PTRL West (http://www.ptrlwest.com/)
PTRL West is a full service contract research laboratory that performs a variety of regulatory studies involving agrochemicals, industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The company was founded in 1987 and has a sister company in Germany that has been in operation since 1992. PTRL West conducts studies needed to satisfy regulatory requirements in the areas of environmental fate, metabolism, and analysis of agrochemicals, industrial chemicals (including high production volume compounds (HPV)) and pharmaceuticals. PTRL'ss work follows guidelines of US EPA, FDA, EU/OECD, JMAFF and other regulatory organizations.





Vitalea Science Expands its Scientific Advisory Board Expands Microdosing to Environmental Fate and Metabolism of Agricultura