Resolution Optics, a Halifax maker of sophisticated microscopes, has hired Sandra Wood as its CEO, building on the trend of experienced business people collaborating with university researchers to commercialize a product.

Wood was most recently an account manager at the Greater Halifax Partnership and was previously a sales representative in the pharmaceutical field.  She will enhance the business team of a company formed by two Dalhousie University professors, Manfred Jericho and H. Juergen Kreuzer.

The company, which operates out of Innovacorp’s BioScience Enterprise Centre in Halifax, produces and markets a digital inline holographic microscope, which produces 3D images of micro-organisms and also 4D images, mean it shows how they change through time. It has already sold the product to universities in Canada, Poland and the U.S. and Wood believes there is a huge market for the DIHM in industry.

``The DIHM platform they have designed allows researchers to see things they may have never seen before or that were too expensive or time consuming to analyze,’’ said Wood in a statement. ``It is cutting edge technology which enables 3-D analysis and 4-D tracking of live organisms with a larger depth of field than any other digital holographic microscope.’’

Resolution Optics has received an undisclosed amount of equity investment from Innovacorp, and has also been funding its growth through the National Research Council’s Irap program. Wood said the company plans to sit down with Innovacorp again within six weeks to discuss further early stage financing, and is talking to private sources of funds about coinvesting in the raise.  She believes Resolution Optics is about two years away from a bona fide round of venture capital financing.

Dalhousie, other universities and the multi-institution commercialization network Springboard Atlantic are growing increasingly active in teaming up with seasoned business people to work together to commercialize scientific research.