Company Overview

ISS facilities are located in Champaign, Illinois at 1602 Newton Drive in Interstate Research Park, an infrastructure housing several high-tech companies located at the intersection of Interstate highways 74 and 57. Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, one of the fastest-growing technological areas in the country identified as the Silicon Prairie, is home to the University of Illinois. A number of high-tech software and instrumentation companies employing about 4,000 people are located in this area.

ISS was founded in 1984. Since the very beginning, ISS has been committed to the development of highly sensitive fluorescence instrumentation for research, clinical and industrial applications. This mission has been established over the years with the introduction of advanced steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence instrumentation; it continues today with current R&D efforts pioneering scanning fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, particle tracking of single molecules and imaging. Over the years, the innovations introduced to research-grade fluorescence instrumentation generated a second product line for medical applications.

Our Products

Research-Grade Fluorescence Instrumentation

ISS is dedicated to provide innovative fluorescence instrumentation to scientists working in the life sciences, drug discovery, material sciences and basic physical-chemical research applications. Our fluorescence product line includes steady-state spectrofluorometers, spectrometers for the determination of multiple decay times, fluorescence microscopes, laser scanning confocal microscopes, a spectrometer for fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and a particle-tracking system for single molecule detection. ISS has a long history of innovation and holds the relevant patents pertinent to frequency-domain instrumentation: ISS is the leader in frequency-domain time-resolved fluorescence instrumentation.

ISS instruments share a series of interchangeable accessories covering a variety of applications; modular components allow the user to upgrade the instrumentation with novel capabilities as well as to assemble a custom-designed instrument. Instruments are designed with an open architecture from the excitation side to the collection channels; the excitation light sources of ISS instruments are xenon arc lamps, continuous wave lasers, laser diodes, light emitting diodes, multiphoton lasers and synchrotron radiation rings.

ISS fluorescence instruments are installed in universities and corporations worldwide. Our customers include several major universities, corporations, hospitals and research institutions across the globe, including, in the United States, The Mayo Foundation, The National Institute of Standards and Technology, The National Institutes of Health, Oak Ridge National Laboratories and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Biomedical Instrumentation

The biomedical instrumentation division of ISS is dedicated to the research, design and development of non-invasive optical technology that finds applications in medicine. This product line includes OxiplexTS™ and Imagent™.

OxiplexTS™ is a tissue oximeter for the non-invasive measurement of oxy- and deoxy-hemoglobin concentration in tissues, total blood volume and oxygen saturation. Its current investigation areas cover peripheral vascular disease (PVD), sleep-apnea disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), neonatology, neurosurgery (both in operating rooms and intensive care units) and sport medicine. The frequency-domain instrument utilizes near infrared light in the wavelength range 690-850 nm, which is delivered to the tissue by fiber optics sensors.

Imagent™ is an instrument for the detection of activated area of the brain under a stimulus. Light is delivered through fiber optics held in place by a headgear; fiber optics bundles collect the optical signal that traversed through the scalp and the brain areas. Up to 64 sources and 16 detectors can be arranged in various geometric patterns to capture, upon activation, both fast signals (a few millisecond long) and slow hemodynamics changes (about 100 milliseconds and longer). While the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) technique is sensitive only to changes in relative deoxy-hemoglobin concentration (BOLD signal), Imagent™ can detect changes in both oxy- and deoxy-hemoglobin concentrations. Tests to prove the co-registration of signals acquired by Imagent™ with signals acquired using fMRI have been successfully completed and published.