St. Louis, Missouri (January 18, 2002) - Just down the hall from the Washington University labs where the much-lauded human genome project is nearing completion, Jim McCarter and his team are studying the genetics of a much smaller organism.

McCarter is one of the world's few experts on the genetics of parasitic worms, or nematodes.

"There are only a handful of us worldwide that care about the application of genomics to parasites," said McCarter, who has spent the last 11 years studying the topic. "I decided it was worth a couple decades of my life."

McCarter is founder, president and chief scientific officer of Divergence, a company developing products to control agricultural pests, particularly parasitic nematodes. McCarter is building on the knowledge he attained while a doctoral student at Washington University, where he studied the genetics of nematodes and its similarity to human genetics.

At Divergence, McCarter and his staff of 14, mainly scientists, are researching ways to interrupt the life cycle of parasites such as hookworms or heartworms without adverse side effects to the host, whether a human, animal or plant.

Divergence, located in the Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise, has raised $3 million in startup capital from angel investors, including John McCarter, chairman of the Field Museum in Chicago, former president of DeKalb and Jim McCarter's father. John McCarter is chairman of Divergence.

Jim McCarter hopes to partner Divergence with another life sciences company to work on product development and sales while Divergence continues to focus on research and early-stage development. McCarter said the company has identified potential partners in agriculture and in plant and life sciences. No pharmaceutical companies are currently developing products to fight parasitic nematodes, McCarter said, although more than 3 billion people are infested with the parasites.

"There is an urgent need on the human side for vaccines," he said.

McCarter is also a post-doctoral fellow and group leader in the parasitic nematode genome project at the Washington University School of Medicine. Currently, he spends four days a week at Wash. U and one day a week at Divergence. That balance will shift in April, when his research fellowship ends.

McCarter hasn't kept his knowledge to himself. In 1991, he created the Young Scientist Program, an outreach to train disadvantaged children in the sciences.

McCarter was also a cofounder in 1995 of the Mad Scientist Network, an online resource where scientists answer students' questions. The site, originally created as a resource for the St. Louis Public School District, now has 500 scientists participating worldwide.

RELEASE: ©2002 St. Louis Business Journal By: Angela Mueller. All rights reserved.