Calyx Inc - formerly known as BioInspira - is anchored in an award winning concept developed at University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: creation of a versatile sensor platform that detects a wide variety of airborne chemicals with high specificity and sensitivity. The firm is organized around creating bio-based chemical sensors with receptors designed to bind to target chemicals with high selectivity. The sensor chip employed is made from patterned viruses that have been designed to bind to specific gas molecules and change color based on types of gases and concentrations. Using a design process that is well developed in the pharmaceutical industry, the effort is to develop arrays of sensors with similar high accuracy across a range all chemical compounds. The firm's first product is a sensor-enabling detection grid for natural gas leaks, providing 24/7 remote monitoring to help natural gas industry recoup the annual $5B value of lost gas leaking from their infrastructure.
