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An Experiment Gone Right
Today, a cutting-edge manufacturer of a wide range of medical and surgical devices, BiotiCorp can trace its roots back to the famed ‘Decon’ lab at Scaliger School of Medicine in Rhetor. The lab, so named due to the notorious sensitivity of its hazard detection system and the frequency with which students researching there would be trapped overnight for decontamination, has produced an overwhelming number of scientific advances in the last century, and was, in 2912, where doctoral students and future founders of BiotiCorp, Ted Santos and Diyo Nikolas, first met.
Nikolas was studying the effects of quantum travel upon the precision of surgical assist robots when she found herself once again locked in the lab by the triggering of a decontamination alarm. Santo, who had only recently transferred to the school, was also in the lab at the time, and panicked when the alarms sealing the lab sounded.
Trying to calm the obviously agitated researcher, Nikolas asked Santo to explain his project to her. Having received a grant from the Navy to look into Targion disease, a neurological disorder that had been appearing in starmen with long service records, Santo was studying genetic gravitational compression with the hopes of finding a cause. By the end of the lockdown, the two had realized that their research was connected.
Three years later, Doctors Nikolas and Santo released a paper in the Rhetor Journal of Medicine proving the connection between genetic gravitational compression that occurs in quantum travel and the increased fatality rates for transporting emergency patients while in surgery. The work was groundbreaking and immediately had an effect on Search and Rescue protocols. Seeking to capitalize on the valuable discovery, Scaliger School of Medicine eagerly invested in the foundation of a private research center that would be run by the pair, and BiotiCorp was born.
The company’s first commercial product was a software suite for surgical robots that allowed them to better compensate for the effects of quantum travel and greatly reduced transitory deaths of patients. The suite was almost universally adapted, and BiotiCorp reinvested all profits in additional research, solidifying what would become the company’s reputation for consistently pushing medicine forward.
The Cutting Edge
Having recently moved into a massive, brand-new facility outside Candalor on Reisse, BiotiCorp continues to take innovative strides with each new product release. For over three decades, they’ve been partnering with the top researchers and doctors from multiple disciplines to pioneer unique and advanced medical technologies to improve the quality of care for everyone in the Empire. Expanding from software into manufacturing, BiotiCorp created their own line of surgical assist robots, branded the Autodoc. While they may not be as feature-rich as some their competitors, the robots are known for their continuously reliable performance under less than ideal conditions. This robustness makes them a favorite for Navy corpsmen and doctors serving aboard mobile hospital platforms like the Endeavor.
The Autodoc series found itself briefly in the spotlight after the recent attempted assassination of the Governors Council in New Castle. With most of the major Borea hospitals inaccessible in the aftermath of the attack, the injured members were rushed to a Cutlass Red that they were fortunate enough to find parked on a nearby landing pad. Equipped with BioticCorp’s Autodocs, the council members were stabilized on board as they were rushed to emergency care facilities. In a later speech, Governor Jesper Donovin specifically credited the Autodoc with saving his life and tried, unsuccessfully, to pass a bill that would require one to be installed in every government-operated building.
It was in trying to further improve their surgical assist robots that BiotiCorp first approached their next major product line, medical scanners. Addressing the 2935 Scaliger School of Medicine graduating class, Dr. Nikolas proclaimed that the most important tool that any medical practitioner can have is knowledge. By improving scan techniques, BiotiCorp hoped to increase the ability of both assist robots and Humans to accurately determine what is happening inside a patient, giving treatments an even higher likelihood of success. Upon its release, the Vitalus Pro MediScan was received by the medical community with much acclaim. Featuring advanced clinical parameters for rapid patient analysis and hosting an extensive feature set, the Vitalus Pro line of scanners provides monitoring solutions capable of meeting a wide range of acuity demands.
There has been some concern that because they are so highly portable, that Vitalus scanners might be considered an invasion of privacy, since anyone equipped with one could learn a vast amount of personal information from an unsuspecting person. Lobbyists at the Empire Civil Rights Association are pushing for the Senate to make it illegal to scan someone without their permission, but some counter that such a law would make it harder to provide people with emergency care. Though the debate is ongoing, use of the Vitalus continues to spread.
Not all of BiotiCorp’s innovations have been as successful as the Autodoc and Vitalus. In 2924, the company introduced a new anti-contamination chamber intended for use at landing zones to prevent off-world diseases and microbes from infecting local populations. The PurLyfe system was in use at customs centers for less than a month when the news broke that people being processed through the system were getting ill. It was revealed that the system had been too zealous and was removing helpful microbes along with the bad. BiotiCorp implemented a massive recall and terminated all sales and manufacture of PurLyfe devices. Despite the negative press, public favor remained with BiotiCorp for their swift handling of the problem and for the way the company rushed to help those affected.
Reconstruction
Never ones to rest on their laurels, Nikolas and Santos have been investing large amounts of their company’s time and resources into what they believe will be their next big breakthrough. Project Calliope, headed by BiotiCorp’s chief medical engineer Livia Haskel, is a full-body diagnostic and surgical system that has a variety of applications in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. Inspired by her own personal trials after she was burned in a ship accident, Ms. Haskel and her team seek to improve upon the available physical alteration systems currently on the market. While people have been able to adjust their eye color or the shape of their nose relatively easily for years, Calliope is intended to allow people for the first time to safely and quickly undergo massive structural bone and tissue changes that would have previously taken a team of surgeons multiple operations to perform.
After a successful presentation to the Senate and High Command by Dr. Santos and Ms. Haskel, Calliope was adopted for early trials by the military with supposedly impressive results. Starmen who a short while ago would have had to face life with debilitating scars, can now be repaired back to normal, or if the starman prefers, even better than before. With such positive feedback, Calliope is now beginning to make its way to civilian medical centers for the first time. Patients who have experienced the device first-hand have described it as ‘life changing.’ The full social and cultural effect of having the ability to completely alter one’s appearance so easily remains to be seen, but it seems certain that BiotiCorp has once again transformed the universe we live in.