Annual biotech celebration draws record crowd

SUZETTE COOK/Alachua County Today

Mia Laduke and Josh Fisher, center, are entertained by a humanoid robot at the 11th Annual Biotech Celebration.

ALACHUA – Brent Johnston says the View Master is the way to go. The sales rep for BioTek Instruments, Inc. based in Highland Park, Vt. says no one can resist picking them up. “People like them,” he says. “They’re retro you know.”

But take a look at the images inside the classic stereoscope first introduced in 1962, and it’s anything but retro. BioTek touts some of the most complex microscopes and cell imaging systems in the world used by scientists to see cells with up to 60 times magnification. And then there’s the camera built into each instrument for digital imaging.

It’s vendors like this that Director at UF Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator Patti Breedlove said made the 11^th Annual BioFlorida Celebration of Biotechnology held at Progress Park, “The biggest turnout ever.

Innovation corridor, the tent that actually had biotech representatives in it, was packed and stayed packed the whole time,” Breedlove said.

“One of the CEOs just about lost her voice. It was just non-stop talking.”

Breedlove said more than 655 people were in the tents and that 165 were putting on the event so 500 were strictly attendees.

“It does put the spotlight on what goes on here,” Breedlove said about Progress Park and RTI Surgical which hosted the event on May 1.

What started out as an event with tables filled with scientific equipment and supply vendors for scientist only, has now become a showcase for support businesses surrounding research and more.

“Over the years, other companies that are important support to the biotech sector including insurance companies, banks and law firms have joine,” Breedlove said.

“Now you also have UF departments because they’re looking for students for their graduate programs.”

Santa Fe College surgical technology major Josh Fisher and his friend cognitive neuroscience major Mia LaDuke were entertained by the humanoid and programmable robot known at Nao. The 59 centimeter (23 inches) tall unit was dancing and showing off for them.

Fisher Science Education sales rep Steven Steinfeld noticed the growth in attendees. “We definitely were busy the whole time,” he said. “The visitors seemed pretty excited to see what we had.”

Steinfeld was promoting the Nao robot which is an educational robot from Aldebaran Robotics based in Paris. The bot is used to teach coding and comes complete with voice recognition software and STEM curriculum. Purchase price: $17,000.

Rep Lindsay Kotula said there are hundreds of videos on YouTube that have been made starring Nao, which she says has a given name of “Sonny.”

Breedlove is excited about the turnout of the event and the timing of it as she announced news about recent IPO that are homegrown.

“The greater Gainesville Area now has four NASDAQ listed biomed tech companies,” Breedlove said. Those four companies are RTI Surgical, AGTC, Exactech and Axogen.

“That’s more per capita than any other city in the United States.”

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