Rafael Macias The Current

UM-St. Louis chemistry professor William Welsh is the founder of GenChemiCs, a contract research organization.

by Benjamin Israel
staff editor

Building on research he did at the Center for Molecular Electronics, chemistry professor William Welsh has founded a company that will be the first tenant in the Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise.

The company, GenChemiCs or GCC, uses sophisticated computer models to test chemicals for bio-tech, pharmaceutical and other high-tech companies and government agencies, Welsh said.

"We can design a drug on a computer before they even synthesize it, and we can use computer-based models that can predict the toxic effects," Welsh said. "We can go further. We can maybe change the chemical structure to eliminate that toxicity."

As a subcontractor, Welsh said, his company can do that work more quickly and efficiently than a large corporation or government agency. "We have less overhead, less hierarchy and less red tape, and we're experts," Welsh said.

He has no plans to use GCC to manufacture or market products. "Our entire focus is going to be as a contract research organization."

Welsh said his basic research at the Center for Molecular Electronics laid the groundwork for the kind of applied research that GCC would do.

GCC was the first company accepted for the Nidus Center, said Bob Calcaterra, president and chief executive officer of the Nidus Center. The Nidus Center is a business incubator built by Monsanto on its campus at Olive Boulevard and Warson Road in Creve Coeur across the street from the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. According to the Nidus Center web site, Monsanto and others built the center "to help promote the St. Louis region as a world center in biotechnology and the plant sciences."

Calcaterra said 45 companies applied for five spaces in the center. To be accepted, start-up companies must meet strict requirements, Calcaterra said.

"We feel that Bill is leading edge," Calcaterra said. "He's ahead of a lot of people in this country in the area."

Cell Med, the only other company the Nidus Center has accepted, is a bio-tech company founded by scientists affiliated with Washington University, Calcaterra said.