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Jake Cotter ’12 and Dakota Hamill ’12 formed a friendship that has lasted long after their time at Salem State as chemistry majors. They created Prospective Research, Inc., a research company focused on potentially developing new antibiotics.
By MICHAEL COLANERI
Like old-style prospectors, Jake Cotter ’12, Dakota Hamill ‘12 and their company, Prospective Research, Inc., are searching for treasure. While it isn’t gold they're looking for, the locations are similar.
Their goal is to develop lifesaving antibiotics using the secret language of bacteria. The way they accomplish that, however, is fairly novel: by sifting through thousands of dirt specimens.
While initially counterintuitive, this research method actually taps into what nature has already been doing for billions of years. As Dakota notes, it has a fruitful history. “Rapamycin was discovered on the shores of Easter Island,” he notes.
Canadian scientists traveled to the Polynesian island in 1964, and discovered bacteria that secreted what eventually became Rapamycin, named after the traditional title of the island, Rapa Nui. “They initially thought it would be a good anti-fungal, but it has saved countless lives as an immunosuppressant in organ transplants, and has anti-cancer potential as well,” Dakota adds.
However, Rapamycin, like many microbe derived medicines, was unearthed in the mid-20th century. In fact, no new antibiotics have been discovered in more than 30 years. Unfortunately, during that time, resistance to antibiotics has grown to become a serious problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), more than 2 million illnesses and 30,000 deaths have been caused by antibiotic impediment. The resistance itself is normal, just a natural step in a germ’s evolution, but it has become a serious global health concern.
In response, the CDC has established four core actions to fight the defiance, one of which is to develop new drugs.
That’s where Prospective Research in Beverly hopes to make a difference.
The company was formed several years after Jake and Dakota graduated from Salem State in 2012. Both chemistry majors, they formed a relationship that lasted past commencement. A couple of years later, Dakota was applying to graduate school and Jake was working at a local research company. Unsatisfied with the conventional options of further study, Dakota “put together this crazy presentation, filmed myself and sent it to a venture firm in Ireland that funds novel research.”
The ‘crazy’ presentation got their attention. “They called back and invited me to meet them in Ireland. But I couldn’t come alone; they said that they didn’t accept single-person companies. I called Jake because he’s the only person that’s worked with me on this stuff for years.”
Jake was convinced by the potential of the research and the passion of his friend. “I knew that (Dakota) was going to be doing this work forever, whether he was broke or a billionaire.”
They were accepted into the program and spent six months in Ireland with nine other companies. They also received $100,000 in funding, which allowed them to move the operation out of Dakota’s basement into a STEM incubator program at Endicott College. Last year, the company received a second round of funding for $500,000, which will allow it to continue researching.
As Dakota explains, “for half a century, pharmaceutical companies screened millions of these soil bacteria. They found numerous life-saving drugs, but towards the end of the 60s and 70s, weren’t finding anything new while spending billions of dollars. Almost every large pharmaceutical company closed down their natural product screening departments 30 years ago. They re-focused on combinatorial chemistry, using organic synthesis to create libraries of millions upon millions of molecules in the lab. That failed completely, and we find ourselves here today, returning to nature as a source of new medicines.
“It’s like trying to reengineer hundreds of millions of years of life,” Jake adds.
Dakota continues, “bacteria can produce incredibly complex molecules, and in their genetic code are blueprints for all types of medicines, but they stop producing them when brought into the lab. Our method attempts to reproduce the natural stresses and chemical cross-talk these bacteria are exposed to in their natural environment, and tap into what they already do.”
The potential is staggering. “Currently, we can only grow 1 percent of the bacteria that live in soil in the lab. Ninety-nine percent are unexplored. Of that 1 percent, only 10 percent of their blueprints are expressed. Ninety percent of that information, which could produce amazing, revolutionary drugs, is still locked in the genome. We want to mine the genome for new antibiotics.”
While based in Beverly, the company still performs some research on Salem State’s campus using a mass spectrometer, which was purchased with funds from a Mass Life Sciences Center grant.
But the connections to their alma mater don’t end there.
“Our time at Salem State was great. We had amazing professors, the MacTaylors (Christine and Ronald) and (Tracy) Ware. They were tough, but the process made you better,” says Dakota.
“And after graduation, it continued,” Jake adds. “They allowed us to come into the labs on campus and they’d talk with us and discuss our work.”
The company also employs Salem State interns, such as Renee Sweeney ’17, a chemistry major from Salem who graduated with a bio-tech concentration.
Dakota lauds her work, “she is perfect, exactly what you want from an intern. We started her with the basic stuff, demonstrating the way you do things and then slowly gave her more responsibility. Now she runs a major portion of the lab work. We give her a task, and she goes and does it and then presents us with the data and the results a week later. If something's not working, she'll ask us for advice and now has complete confidence in what’s she’s doing. She’s awesome.”
“We really believe in internships, in adding real-world experience to classroom instruction. In those environments, you learn how important it is to be meticulous and careful, because you know and can see the impact.” Jake adds.
In the end, Jake and Dakota want to build a great company that makes a difference. “We love the business,” adds Jake. “It gives us the opportunity to do something we’re passionate about that can affect a lot of people.”
You can help support chemistry students in achieving successful careers in the science industry, just like Jake and Dakota have. Learn how.