Draft:DVS Sciences

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DVS Sciences Inc. (now Defunct) was a Canadian company engaged in the design, manufacture and sale of biological research equipment (Mass cytometry) before being acquired by Fluidigm in 2014.

Company Name and Founders
DVS Sciences was originally founded by 'Dmitry Bandura, Vladimir Baranov and Scott Tanner to provide consulting services as a condition of their spin-out to the University of Toronto from their previous employer. The first initial of each name was used for the company name DVS Sciences. (DVS was also a fun a play on the word "Devious" suggested by Scott's daughter). Olga Ornatsky was also a principal in the company, but could not be named in the original founding due to the terms of the consulting contract. DVS Sciences formally became an instruments-and-reagents company in March 2006 when selected as the Commercialization Partner by the funders of the university research project.

History
The concept for using atomic mass spectrometry as a reader for element-tagged biomarkers was first conceived and patented by Scott D. Tanner and colleagues in 2000 while working for MDS SCIEX. The patent application that first described the technology of the CyTOF instrument was (finally) submitted in 2005. SCIEX felt unable to devote the resources to develop and commercialize the idea, but agreed to license the patent to DVS Sciences. Initial funding for the development of the technology of mass cytometry was provided by Genome Canada through the Ontario Genomics Institute, with additional support from the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.

With funding from Genome Canada and the faculties of Engineering, Medicine and Arts & Science at the University of Toronto, Scott, Dmitry, Vladimir and Olga found a new physical home in a purpose-built laboratory in the basement of the chemistry building at UofT.

The CyTOF instrument was officially launched at the Great Lakes International Imaging and Flow Cytometry Association meeting in Pittsburgh in late 2009. A larger launch took place at the International Society for the Advancement of Cytometry in May 2010. By the end of 2010, DVS Sciences had installed four CyTOF instruments (OICR, NIH, Stanford University, Academica Sinica Taiwan) and closed a Series A investment from a syndicate led by 5am Ventures and including Pfizer Ventures, Mohr Davidow and Roche Ventures. The investment allowed the establishment of an independent home for DVS Sciences in Markham Ontario, the opening of a corporate head office in Sunnyvale California, and the assembly of a global sales and marketing team.

The CyTOF instrument, and DVS Sciences, came to prominence with the 2011 publication of a seminal paper by the Nolan group at Stanford University. Imaging Mass Cytometry was introduced in a 2014 seminal paper by the Bodenmiller (University of Zurich) and Gunther (ETH Zurich) groups.

Fluidigm Corp (now Standard BioTools) acquired DVS Sciences in 2014.

First Commercial installation
The worlds first CyTOF was sold to the University Health Network (John Dick) through funding provided by the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR). This instrument was soon after installed at the University of Toronto laboratory where it remained and was operated on behalf of the OICR until 2013, when it was donated to the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto).

Products
DVS Sciences designed and manufactured the CyTOF instrument along with MaxPar reagents. Prior to the Fluidigm acquisition, DVS Sciences produced two versions of the CyTOF instrument, CyTOF (Code-Named Beta and later as C5) and CyTOF2 (Code-Named Omega and later as C7). They also manufactured an AutoSampler (AS-5).

Awards

 * 2011 - Top 10 Innovations of 2011 (The Scientist)
 * 2011 - York Technology Alliance Momentum Company of the Year.
 * 2014 - Life Sciences Ontario Company of the Year.