MariCal Thrives on Collaborative Research

MariCal is a privately held, Portland-based aquatic life sciences company with global partners and customers. Its co-founders are internationally recognized experts in mammalian metabolism, monovalent and divalent ions, and water. MariCal was born from their initial research involving extracellular ion receptor proteins known as Calcium Receptors (CaRs) and their function in humans.

MariCal's scientists isolated the biological mechanism (“master switch”) that enables fish to sense and respond to their environments' salinity and nutrients. It then produced several patented applications to assist the aquaculture industry with growing healthy and robust fish populations, without using genetic alternation, drugs or hormones. MariCal's SuperSmolt® process, which improves the seawater transfer and subsequent growth of anadromous fish, is employed commercially in the world's leading salmon aquaculture markets.

Salmon health and human health are of interest to many other organizations around the globe, as are MariCal's scientific discoveries and products. In 2004, MariCal entered into a partnership with the Alaska Sealife Center of Seward, Alaska to develop novel enhancement and restoration methods for commercial and sport fisheries in Resurrection Bay, Alaska.

That same year, MariCal also signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Tokyo-based health care equipment and health food company Hakuju Institute for Health Science. They also began a collaborative research arrangement to search for possible biological relationships between electrical fields and Ion Receptor proteins. MariCal's initial connection to this large Japanese company came about through a conference hosted by the Center for Law & Innovation in June 2002. At that conference, MariCal's CEO William Harris spoke about his company's work in CaRs and sparked the interest of another speaker who was also a Hakuju consultant. The parties met later in Portland at an event coordinated by the Center and later agreed to conduct joint research.

MariCal's website, www.marical.biz, is rich with information about the company's history, products, intellectual property, scientific innovations and promising future.