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Boris Rotman, Ph.D. Chief Scientific Officer
Founder of BCR Diagnostics, Inc., Dr. Rotman has done basic and applied research in the fields of Biochemistry, Cellular Immunology, and Molecular Biology. Early in his career, he was the first to synthesize derivatives of fluorescein as fluorogenic substrates for extending the sensitivity of enzymatic assays. Fluorogenic substrates are non-fluorescent molecules yielding fluorescent products upon enzymatic cleavage.
Using a fluorogenic substrate of β-galactosidase, he pioneered the concept that reducing the reaction volume to picoliters allows for measuring the activity of single enzyme molecules. In the past decade, this concept has found clinical applications for ultrasensitive testing.
An unexpected by-product of using fluorogenic substrates was the discovery of a general cellular phenomenon known as fluorochromasia. His laboratory was the first to apply fluorochromasia for quantitative measurements of antibody-mediated cytotoxicity of tumor cells. In 1985, fluorochromasia was used as the basis to develop a new cytotoxicity assay (fluorescent cytoprint assay) for determining the chemosensitivity profile of fresh human tumor specimens.
In addition, the discovery of activating antibodies in his laboratory opened the field of functional antibodies, i.e., immunoglobulins that induce conformational changes in enzymes.
Dr. Rotman obtained a Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois, and he is Professor emeritus of Medical Science at the W. Alperts Medical School of Brown University. In 1990, he received the Award for Scientific Achievement from the Governor of Rhode Island.
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