Terry Chase, in the Chesapeake PERL lab.

Glowing Larvae Turn to Gold for UMUC Alumnus

By Chip Cassano

A few million wriggling, glowing moth larvae might sound like the premise of a bad horror movie, but for Terry Chase—a 2000 graduate of UMUC's master's program in biotechnology management and president and CEO of Chesapeake PERL, Inc.—they are central to the future of a young, exciting company based in College Park, Maryland.

Chesapeake PERL (Protein Expression and Recovery Labs) mass produces complex recombinant proteins—a key ingredient in a variety of vaccines, antibodies, and toxin-detection systems—by infecting the larvae of a common pest, the cabbage looper moth, with specialized viruses. The larvae are raised in an incubator, and in effect, the viruses turn the larvae into miniature protein factories. In a final sci-fi twist, the viruses also introduce a "reporter protein" that—when the target protein is ready for harvesting—causes the larvae to glow, at which point they are homogenized and the resultant product purified.

"There's a great need for this kind of manufacturing," Chase said, "and we have a system that is more flexible than what is currently available and in many ways superior in quality and in some ways less expensive."

Investors and industry analysts alike have responded enthusiastically, and the June 24, 2002, issue of Fortune magazine put Chesapeake PERL on its list of 13 "Cool Companies 2002." The company also won the 2002 Maryland Incubator Company of the Year award (sponsored by the Maryland Technology Development Corp., Saul Ewing, and American Express Tax and Business Services) in the biotechnology and life science division.

Chase—who holds an undergraduate degree in microbiology from the University of Maryland, College Park—credits UMUC with helping her develop and hone the management skills she needed to lead a company like Chesapeake PERL.

"[Before coming to Chesapeake PERL] I was promoted, through no fault of my own, from being a lab technician to being a manager," Chase said. "Up to that point, the only management I had done involved managing a pool as a lifeguard. So when I started attending UMUC, I immediately began to use what I learned. Project management was new to me, financial management was new, human resource management was new, and the classes I took immediately started to help. I learned that there are procedures for a lot of things that managers do, and that was a kind of awakening for me. I learned that there are strategies to managing projects, and it helped a great deal, and it advanced my career."

Now, as president and CEO of a young and growing company—Chesapeake PERL has 10 employees and two locations, one in College Park and one in Newark, Delaware—Chase is facing a new set of challenges.

"We've overcome a lot of hurdles already, but like any small company, we still have a lot in front of us," Chase said. "Managing our growth is a primary one—deciding how many people to hire. Another is deciding how best to attract new business. Those are significant hurdles, but we're thrilled to be facing them."

For more information about Chesapeake PERL, visit www.c-perl.com.