Aiming to reduce disease

Alfred Dentone and his wife Orlene stand next to their koi pond on Sunday afternoon at their house in Lodi. Alfred has been named CEO of a company that will develop a hatchery to breed high-quality and disease-free sea urchins. (Whitney Ramirez/News-Sentinel)

Aiming to reduce disease

Acampo man to harvest sea urchins for medical research

By Ross Farrow
News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Wednesday, December 5, 2007 7:15 AM PST

Comments (No comments posted.)

With more and more people becoming upset over the use of rats, mice, primates and other mammals in medical testing, scientists are turning to another type of creature to conduct experiments in the hopes of reducing disease among humans.

It is the sea urchin, an echinoderm (meaning spiny skin) that can be found in the sea on exposed rocks, coral reefs and in tidal pools. And Acampo resident Al Dentone is one of the leaders in the effort to develop the use of sea urchins for scientific research.

"The key is preventing disease instead of having to treat disease," said Dentone, 61, who was recently named chairman and CEO of a new company called Sea Urchin, Inc.

Dentone will help oversee a project to breed 100,000 sea urchins per year for biomedical research at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Stephen Watts from UAB, whom Dentone describes as the "world's leading authority on sea urchins," will oversee the research of sea urchins on campus with Addison Lawrence of Texas A&M University.

Dentone will be in charge of the business operations, which he will conduct from his Acampo home with an occasional trip to Birmingham.

"It's an outstanding project, and it's well-overdue," Watts said in a phone interview Monday from Alabama.

The project, which began about a month ago, will be conducted thanks to a $700,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency focused on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere.

What makes sea urchins so valuable for research is that scientists know their entire DNA, allowing them to study their cells and compare them to human cells.

However, mammals still need to be used for some medical experiments, he said, because sea urchins don't have the organs that people have.

"If you need to find out how a toxin affects your lungs, you need an animal that has lungs," Dentone said.

Sea urchins can also be used to judge how the quality of salt water, such as San Francisco Bay, will affect marine life, he added.

Once enough sea urchins are bred for biomedical research, more will be bred for the growing sushi market, Dentone said. The new urchins will replenish with urchins the oceans that have been overharvested.

Born in Stockton, Dentone said he has always been interested in science.

Al Dentone at a glance

Age: 61
Residence: Acampo
Education: St. Mary's High School graduate; B.S. in biology with a chemistry minor, University of California, San Francisco
Wife: Orlene Dentone
Children: Al Dentone, two sons; Orlene Dentone, one son and one daughter
Grandchildren: Eight
Source: Al Dentone.

The project

Scientist Stephen Watts will lead the mass production of sea urchins at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, as Acampo resident Al Dentone does the business work for the project. (Courtesy photo)

Phase 1: Expand the existing hatchery at University of Alabama-Birmingham to breed 100,000 sea urchins per year so that they will be used to research how to prevent disease. The tanks will be so controlled that they will be pathogen-free. Being away from the Gulf Coast will allow workers to keep coastal viruses and bacteria away from the sea urchins. One urchin can produce enough eggs to spawn five to six million babies, although not all of them will live.
Phase 2: Commercially produce sea urchins for the sushi market. It's a billion-dollar industry, with 65 percent of the demand for eating sea urchins coming from Asia, and another 25 percent demand coming from coastal areas of Europe.
Source: Al Dentone, Stephen Watts.

So what is a sea urchin?

Sea urchins, which don't have the human organs that mammals have, will be bred in mass quantities in Alabama for biomedical research. (Courtesy photo)

Sea urchins are small and spiny. They have no eyes, and they eat kelp and algae. Still, the sea creature's body is similar to a humans and may hold the key to preventing and curing several human diseases, according to a University of Central Florida researcher and several colleagues.
The purple sea urchin has 7,000 genes in common with humans, including genes associated with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases, and muscular dystrophy. They can live up to 100 years.
Source: Science Daily.

"I had a chemistry set when I was 8 years old," he said.

Dentone became interested in disease prevention after some koi he acquired about 20 years ago became ill. He fed his fish some antibiotics, which didn't work very well. To prevent further disease, he searched for a company that produced a vaccine to prevent disease.

He called a Canadian company named Aqua Health. The CEO happened to answer the phone himself, and they had a nice conversation. Dentone acquired the vaccine he wanted for his koi, but he and the CEO talked a few more times.

The CEO eventually asked Dentone to submit a business plan on developing a vaccine used by people who collect fish as a hobby. Until that time, he said, Aqua Health only provided vaccines for commercial fish, like salmon, trout and catfish.

Dentone and the CEO never met until Dentone presented his business plan to the firm's board of directors, who offered him a job.

A short time later, Dentone developed the vaccine for fish hobbyists.

And four years ago, Dentone came out of retirement to form the ROAN Group, which has patented a powdery substance of brewer's yeast cells that improved the immune system of fish and poultry, he said.

The yeast cells were placed in a capsule and mixed into fish and animal food. That way, the cells won't be destroyed by the animal's stomach acid, Dentone said.

But now, it's a new career — harvesting sea urchins to make people healthier, and to increase the supply of urchin sushi.

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.

Reader Feedback

Comments on this story are now closed.

Archives

Story Tools

Indexes