CoNotes

ISS facilities are located in Champaign, Illinois at 1602 Newton Drive in Interstate Research Park, an infrastructure housing several high-tech companies located at the intersection of Interstate highways 74 and 57. Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, one of the fastest-growing technological areas in the country identified as the Silicon Prairie, is home to the University of Illinois. A number of high-tech software and instrumentation companies employing about 4,000 people are located in this area.

ISS was founded in 1984. Since the very beginning, ISS has been committed to the development of highly sensitive fluorescence instrumentation for research, clinical and industrial applications. This mission has been established over the years with the introduction of advanced steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence instrumentation; it continues today with current R&D efforts pioneering scanning fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, particle tracking of single molecules and imaging.

Over the years, the innovations introduced to research-grade fluorescence instrumentation generated a second product line for medical applications. In 1992, ISS started a project with the research group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign headed by Prof. Enrico Gratton and aimed at understanding the behavior of fluorophores in scattering and turbid media; the goal was the development of an instrument suitable for the non-invasive measurements of metabolites in the human body. As a result of this collaboration, ISS introduced a non-invasive Tissue Oximeter for the measurement of the absolute oxygen concentration in tissues, called OxiplexTS. The first prototype of the instrument was completed in 1998; about one hundred units of OxiplexTS have been installed worldwide so far. A second instrument, Imagent, utilized for the mapping of activated brain areas, was added in 2001. Both products have been developed with the generous contribution of The National Institutes of Health through the SBIR program and today they are successfully marketed worldwide by our division ISS Medical, fully dedicated to the development of instrumentation for medical applications.

ISS instruments are installed in universities and corporations worldwide. Our customers include several major universities, corporations, hospitals and research institutions across the globe, including, in the United States, The Mayo Foundation, the VA Administration, The National Institute of Standards and Technology, The National Institutes of Health, Oak Ridge National Laboratories and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).