FRACTAL APPROACH TO ANTIVIRAL RESEARCH

1. FRACTAL APPROACH TO ANTIVIRAL RESEARCH Oleksandr P. Fedchuk, Associate Professor, Ph.D. I.I. Mechnikov Odesa National University Odesa, 65110 Ukraine Contact phone : +38 (048) 718 5391 E-mail: grade@farlep.net Cellular: +38 097 686 0584

2. Julia setfractal Julia set fractal was taken as a model for infection dissemination process. The central larger part of the fractal cluster denotes the place where the viral infection was introduced. It is seen quite well that the ways of infection dissemination over the substrate is chaotic but also deterministic as well.

3. Self-similarity of Julia set fractal as a model of viral infection Demonstration of the object's and projection's fractal dimension equivalence.

4. Difference in optical densities in non-infected HEP-2 cells and infected cells as seen in luminescent microscope INFECTED HEP-2 CELLS NON-INFECTED HEP-2 CELLS It is obvious that introduction of the virus into the cell’s nucleus leads to the significant increase to the optical density and thus to the changes in the diffraction pattern.

5. General view of the fractal microscope kit We use 5 mW He-Ne unimode laser as the source of coherent radiation. The use of this type of radiation results in the speckle-type of diffraction pattern which presents the optical Fourier transform of the object and, thus, contains a lot of information about object’s structure which could be extracted using mathematics.

6. The diffraction pattern as seen along the laser beam propagation direction. Itis quite obvious that the geometrical magnification (limited by the device’s size only) could be made easily enough of about 1000x without any complications caused by immersion procedure. This figure describes the diffraction pattern character which is transmitted into computer for further processing with the use of problem oriented original software.

7. Brief technology description Developed a new Fractal Microscopic System (FMS) for continuousmonitoring of the tiniest changes of an object’s optical density. FMS provides a quantitative view of virus-cell interactions in a time-series of frames at any stage of the interaction. The FMS is useful in life sciences and drug design, in agriculture and veterinary sciences, in physics of liquid crystals and surface phenomena, in polymer and colloid chemistry

8. What does a fractal image tell scientist ? • The fractal image after processing makes it possible to estimate the size of the minimal cluster composed by the units under consideration (e.g. cells, nuclei or viruses) and the fractal dimension D of the cluster itself which demonstrates the level of the space filling as well as the cluster progress. • In one example, we have shown that the intra-spinal brain fluid has liquid crystalline properties and forms a fractal cluster. The cluster’s fractal dimension was changed as a result of brain trauma and the recovery process was accompanied by the changes of the fractal dimension. The treatment of the trauma enhanced the rate of the fractal dimension changes. • Another experimental application of the fractal microscope is with leukemia blood serum samples. The normal serum had distinctively other values of the fractal dimension than that taken from the leukemia patient. The treatment of the leukemia case demonstrated the changes in fractal dimension towards normal values of this system parameter.

9. Innovative Aspect and Main Advantages • The FMS is based on the fractal structural properties of an object’s organization. The computerized fractal microscope could take frames of any nano-scale process, monitoring it in real time. The FMS has numerous benefits compared with the standard techniques, such as the direct infected cells’ luminescent microscopic counting: • It is a better and simpler way of providing a quantitative description, • It provides an objective quantitative numeric measurement, • It gives in-line quick monitoring of virus-cell interaction could be realized at any stage.

10. Problem Description & Market Need • The problem is to elaborate and introduce a new original effective device for virus-cell interaction monitoring at every stage beginning from the very first ones (especially in the cases of emergency). • The starting market are the international pharmaceuticals’ drug design centers interested in express analysis of the drug efficacy evaluation as well as clinical laboratories all over the world. • The potential market is very wide and includes firstly the healthcare systems of developing countries which need urgently the portable device for field antiviral detection and research.

11. Areas of Application Applications of FMS to life sciences and drug design: • For anti-viral applications FMS provides a quantitative view of the virus-cell interaction in a time-series of frames at any stage of the interaction, • For detecting viral infections of the animal semen during artificial insemination, Applications to agriculture and veterinary sciences: • Food and drug quality monitoring, • Viral infection transfer monitoring in domestic animals and wild nature. Applications to surface science phenomena: • For organic materials water dissolution limits establishment, • For chain polymerization process monitoring and for production of polymers, • For problems of surface and interface exchange in physics and physical chemistry, • Self-organization and clusterization control in nano-technologies.

12. CONCLUSIONS As the result of the theoretical discussion of the real experiment, we would like to state the following: • The possibility of the fractal approach application to the problem of virus-cell interaction is comprehensively based on the platform of modern coherent optics, mathematics and computer science. • The use of the proposed approach has a lot of benefits as compared to the standard techniques, especially due to its better and simpler way of the quantitative, objective and express type of virus-cell in-line interaction monitoring. • The fractal approach could be used widely with the purpose of virus-cell interaction every stage details' evaluation and it will allow, in perspective, the perpetual dynamic monitoring of the processes on the molecular level of self-organization. • The proposed fractal approach is mainly applicable in laboratory and clinical antiviral research as well as in drug design and testing process due to its attractive abilities of high sensitivity, express character and numerical way of data processing.

13. STAGE of DEVELOPMENT • A prototype of the FMS has been assembled and tested. It is ready for presentation and metrological procedures. • International patent applications are anticipated.

14. TARGETED MARKET SEGMENT • Fractal microscope could be used as an express-method of viral particles presence monitoring as well as the evaluation their infective index. • Thousands of the proposed devices are anticipated in the developing countries suffering from viral infections • The market price of the device could be made as small as a triple price of the computer included.

15. Competition The anticipated competition is presented mainly by the following companies engaged in optoelectronics devices production such as: • THORLABS 435 Route 206, P.O.Box 366, Newton, NJ 07860-0366, U.S.A. Tel: 973 579 7227, Fax: 973 300 3600, www.thorlabs.com • MELLES GRIOT Carlsbad, California 1-800-835-2526 Fax: 760 804 0049, E-mail: sales@catalog.mellesgriot.com • NEW FOCUS 2584 Junction Avenue, San Jose, CA 95134-1902 phone: 866 683 6287, fax: 408 919 6083

16. Competitive Matrix

17. Opportunities • The opportunity for joint work is provided as the joint stock US-Ukrainian enterprise organization based either in Ukraine or in the U.S.A. • I seek from my potential companion a fruitful cooperation in the world market access • The enterprise will cost not more than 10 million US dollars

18. Contact information • Oleksandr P. Fedchuk, Associate Professor, Ph.D., • Contact phone #: +38 (048) 718 5391, 732 5565 ; cellular +38 097 686 0584 • E-mail: grade@farlep.net • I.I. Mechnikov Odesa National University Balkivska Str. 30A, appt.79, Odesa, 65110 Ukraine