Archive for February, 2009
Friday, February 27th, 2009
By Jay Forte
Ours is an unpredictable world. Many times, regardless of how effectively we plan, some things just fail. The dinner party that should have been great based on the planning, but the meal was a disaster.
The meeting’s presentation that was well prepared, but then the equipment failed. Or, a disciplined and diligent savings plan that lost nearly half of its value in today’s recession. These challenging situations define our days. Some curse and yell; others see them for the opportunities they present.
Inaugural Poet Maya Angelou writes, “I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.” Failures, changes and unexpected events have the ability to either destroy or advance; it is in our outlook and response that allows us to turn these failures into opportunities.
Thomas Alva Edison experienced repeated failures. His true success was not his invention of the light bulb, but rather his tenacity and outlook that believed failures were a means to gain new information and new perspectives.
Our most successful employees are not those who land on their feet after every project or event; instead, they are those who have the persistence and optimism to learn from difficulty and use what they learn to re-imagine, recreate and re-experiment. They are the ones who have learned to be positive and to constantly hunt for opportunities.
Organizations that constantly hunt for opportunities, perform better, innovate more and succeed in tough times because they possess the following qualities:
1. They create, support and live a culture that teaches, inspires and encourages employees to look for the opportunity in every event. Failures are unparalleled opportunities to reinvent success.
These organizations “celebrate extraordinary failures and punish average successes.” Effort, innovation and intent are celebrated; unusual, non-conventional and non-conformist perspectives are applauded. Occasional failures show that employees are pushing performance to the edge.
As Tom Peters states, “A day without a screw up is a day without enough reach.” These workplaces encourage their employees to focus on the positive; they create a culture that is open, free thinking, and believes “yes we can.”
2. They commit the time and effort to help employees learn their strengths and use them to develop opportunity-thinking. Each of us has the potential to be great at certain things; we each have intrinsic talents and strengths.
Successful employees know their talents and understand that these talents help them to be naturally perceptive in certain areas; they commit to deliberative practice in develop these areas. They focus their hunt for opportunities in their talent and strengths areas, areas in which they have the greatest insight.
3. They focus on learning and actively solicit input from everyone. Organizations that hunt for opportunities are always learning, asking great questions and are exceptional listeners. They listen to new perspectives, facts, ideas and dreams.
They listen to customers, employees, vendors and strangers. They read books, blogs, periodicals, and newspapers. They read and listen to topics that may appear to be unrelated. They regularly ask, “how about,” or, “what if.”
They assess what they hear; they consider everything. They then share what they hear with their teams to expand their hunt for opportunities.
4. They focus on exponential, not incremental, opportunities. All discussions of opportunities are directed to significant, not average, results; performance “lite” is unacceptable. They use the information they glean about the market, customer, strengths, and trends to consider opportunities that have the potential to be significant.
Successful organizations know nothing lasts forever and they must continually reinvent themselves – each time more significantly than the last. These organizations constantly review what they do; they focus on the exponential in their hunt for exponential opportunities.
5. They share success with everyone. Today’s best ideas are not uniquely resident in management. Organizations that hunt for opportunities realize that opportunity-thinking must happen at every level.
Therefore, all successes are openly shared and celebrated. Failures are communicated to inspire employees to rethink, redefine and reinvent.
In an intellectual workplace, innovation, inventing and opportunity hunting must be core expectations of all employees; every employee must watch, listen and communicate more effectively to identify improvements and opportunities.
The more successes are shared with everyone, and failures are seen as a way to improve, the more performance- and idea-risks employees will take – all in the hunt for opportunities.
In today’s uncertain recessionary period – where the regular, average or incremental approaches are not sufficient – successful organizations have mobilized their teams to be on the hunt for opportunities.
It may be in a retail store that creates a new and more “hip” line of products that are less expensive to match today’s reductions in consumer spending.
It may be a financial services firm that sponsors savings, investing and retirement education to create more savvy and loyal investors who better appreciate and value the firm’s conservative and pragmatic approach.
Some people are distracted or discouraged by failure and change. Others see these as opportunities for greater success.
This perspective comes is encouraged and supported in a culture that is on a constant hunt for ways to be better and to make a greater difference. Not only can the hunt for opportunities increase your success, but it may help you invent the next product, service or idea the rest of us cannot live without.
Jay Forte is a speaker, consultant and nationally ranked thought leader. Jay’s first book “Fire Up Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition” is due February, 2009.
For information on keynotes, speaking, consulting or to see the daily “BLOGucation,” visit: www.humanetricsllc.com or www.FireUpYourEmployees.com
Posted in Columns, Tech Culture, TechJobs, Viewpoint | Comments Off
Friday, February 27th, 2009
HOLLYWOOD, FL – MAC1 Industries Corp. (Pink Sheets: MIRA) has merged with Tycoon Industries, LLC, formerly known as Tycoon Telecom in a stock exchange.
Tycoon Industries is known as the company that developed the international SIM card without roaming charges.
Other technologies that are in Tycoon’s pipeline involve amazing breakthroughs in science and technology, the company says.
Tycoon Industries, LLC became a subsidiary of MAC1 Industries Corp. and will remain operating independently to continue with its business model, technologies and channels of distribution.
Tycoon will cooperate with MAC1 to cross distribute MAC1′s patented LED energy savings light bulbs and solar technologies.
Online: wwww.mac1ind.com
Posted in Acquisitions, Energy, Florida, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Friday, February 27th, 2009
CLEMSON — Clemson University space physicists have traveled around the world to launch rockets to test atmospheric conditions.
This shows the fourth launch of a rocket at Poker Flat Research Range. Center: time exposure of first- and second-stage firetrail. Background: auroral arc in the north.
Scientists most recently launched a salvo of four rockets over Alaska to study turbulence in the upper atmosphere. The launches took place at Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks as part of a NASA sounding rocket campaign.
Associate professor of physics and astronomy Gerald Lehmacher is the principal investigator for the experiment and was assisted by graduate students Shelton Simmons and Liyu Guo.
“After six days of cloudy and snowy weather, we had perfect conditions with a clear, moonless night sky over interior Alaska,” said Lehmacher. “We needed excellent viewing conditions from three camera sites to photograph the luminescent trails the payloads produced in the upper atmosphere.”
The rockets were 35-foot, two-stage Terrier Orions. They released trimethyl aluminum that creates a glowing vapor trail nearly 87 miles up. Sensitive cameras on the ground track the trails. From that Lehmacher and his team can analyze upper-atmospheric winds by tracking how the vapor trails form, billow, disperse and diffuse.
Two of the rockets had an additional deployable payload with instrumentation to measure electron density and neutral temperature and turbulence.
The instrumented sections are a collaboration of Clemson with Penn State University and the Leibniz-Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Germany. The University of Alaska assisted in the study with ground-based laser radar and other optical instruments. The project is sponsored by a NASA grant for three years.
In January, Clemson physicists traveled to Norway to carry out a joint experiment with Japanese scientists to study atmospheric winds and circulation from heating created by electrical currents associated with Northern Lights displays.
The measurements were made with instruments flown on a Japanese S-310 rocket launched from the Andoya Rocket Range in northern Norway, as well as a suite of sensitive radar and camera instruments on the ground.
The experiment was a collaboration between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the department of physics and astronomy at Clemson. Professor Miguel Larsen was the investigator responsible for the wind measurement aboard the instrumented rocket and was assisted by three undergraduate students, Lucas Hurd, Matt Jenkins and Matt Henderson.
Posted in Hardware, South Carolina, University Tech | Comments Off
Friday, February 27th, 2009
By Stephen Johnson
Special to TechJournal South
TYSONS CORNER, VA – The government and commercial market for Cybersecurity products and services was a hot topic at the 6th Annual Bootcamp for Growing Companies and Entrepreneurs on Thursday at the McLean Hilton in Tysons Corner, Virginia.
The Bootcamp, sponsored by the Business Alliance of George Mason University, attracted more than 200 attendees. It was held on the same day that President Obama proposed a 21 percent increase in the Homeland Security Department’s fiscal 2010 cybersecurity budget.
Obama called for $355 million in Cybersecurity spending in DHS, up from the $294 million fiscal 2009 budget, “to make private and public sector cyber infrastructure more resilient and secure,” according to the budget.
Other federal agencies have their own budgets for Cybersecurity.
DHS is using most of the fiscal 2009 budget to deploy Einstein, a system to analyze civilian agencies’ systems for cyber threats and intrusions.
Jim Graham, senior vice president for Federal Programs at Reston, Virginia-based SecureIT, told a Bootcamp audience that the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), signed into law by President Bush in January 2008, covers a broad scope of initiatives:
“These initiatives include Trusted Internet Connections (TIC); intrusion detection and prevention; research & development; cyber counterintelligence; situational awareness; classified network security; cyber education and training; deterrence strategies; global supply chain security, and implementation of information security technologies.”
Bruce Schoemer, senior vice president, National Security Group, at Camber Copr., noted that the number of cyber attacks on government and commercial networks has skyrocketed in the last three years.
Graham and Schoemer said that Cybersecurity is rapidly becoming a huge market, with both opportunities and uncertainties for technology companies, and that the federal government’s Cybersecurity initiatives will drive developments in the commercial marketplace.
Graham said that compliance-related spending is expected to top $15 billion this year, and that the cost for a typical company is about $500,000.
He said that the federal government’s demand for information security products and services will increase from $6.6 illion in fiscal 2008 to $9.6 billion in 2013, a compound annual growth rate of 7.9 percent.
Earlier this month, Obama appointed Melissa Hathaway to a position within his administration to spearhead Cybersecurity and to lead a 60-day review of the federal government’s actions to safeguard networks against malicious infiltration.
Hathaway, a former consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, previously assisted the Bush administration in creating the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative.
Posted in Events, Internet/New Media, IT, Security, Virginia, Washington, DC | Comments Off
Friday, February 27th, 2009
RALEIGH, NC – Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a software tool that will make it faster and easier to translate video games and other software into different languages for use in various international markets – addressing a hurdle to internationalization that has traditionally been time-consuming and subject to error.
If you want to sell or promote a software application in a foreign market, you have to translate it into a new language. That used to mean programmers would have to pore over thousands of lines of code in order to identify every little string that relates to what appears on a user’s screen.
This could be incredibly time consuming and, even then, there was always room for human error. Programmers have to be certain they are not replacing code that governs how the program actually works.
But now researchers from NC State and Peking University have created a software tool that identifies those pieces of software code that are designed to appear on-screen and communicate with the user (such as menu items), as opposed to those pieces of code that govern how the program actually functions.
Once those “on-screen” pieces of code have been identified, the programmers can translate them into the relevant language – for example, translating the tabs on a toolbar from English into Chinese.
“This is a significant advance because it saves programmers from hunting through tens of thousands of lines of code,” says Dr. Tao Xie, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State.
“Productivity goes up because finding the ‘need-to-translate’ strings can be done more quickly. The quality also goes up, because there is less chance that a programmer will make a mistake and overlook relevant code.”
As an example of how the software tool can identify errors and oversights made by human programmers, Xie says, the researchers found 17 translation omission errors when they applied the software tool on a popular online video game. The errors were then corrected.
The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Army Research Office.
Posted in IT, North Carolina, University Tech | Comments Off
Friday, February 27th, 2009
By Allan Maurer
GAITHERSBURG, MD – Since acquiring two of its major competitors in the last year, BroadSoft has become unquestionably the leading provider of VoIP applications to the telecommunications industry, says Leslie Ferry, VP of marketing at the company. One of the reasons for its success is development of innovative products such as its Xtended service, which integrates voice and Web 2.0 applications.
Founded in 1998, the company has raised nearly $90 million from venture investors. BroadSoft is one of more than 40 presenting companies at TechJournal South’s third annual Southeast Venture Conference March 11-12th, 2009 at the Intercontinental Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia. Fewer than 50 seats remain for the 2009 event. (See www.seventure.org to register).
Ferry says that while BroadSoft is not currently actively seeking additional venture money, “We always want to stay in front of people for when we come up with the next great idea.”
Ferry attributes much of Broadsoft’s current success to the leadership of CEO Michael Tessler. “He focuses on operations as well as strategy,” she says. “He’s always looking ahead to where we need to be and they help us deliver from a revenue standpoint. But he also has great operations sense, including cash management.”
Another thing helps the company stay on the forefront as well. “We take our telecom clients solutions they can sell immediately,” Ferry says.
BroadSoft provides the enabling technology that allows telecommunications service providers such as Sprint and Verizon to sell VoIP services to their customers. Its BroadWorks technology empowers wireless, wireline and cable carriers to deliver next-generation voice and multimedia applications and advanced features.
Ferry notes that because VoIP services are much less expensive than traditional land lines and offer additional services that increase productivity without additional costs, companies looking for ways to save money in the current economic environment are adopting them at a rapid pace.
In March 2008, the company launched its Xtended program that enables service providers to offer enhanced, productivity-improving applications that extend the value of their telephony service.
“In today’s dynamic and competitive marketplace, providers need to ‘extend their networks’ to attract and retain customers with innovative, differentiated services,” Ferry says.
Several service providers, including Alteva, SimpleSignal, Telesphere, Unity, and WorldxChange Communications, have implemented the Xtended platform and Ferry says people in the industry show continuing interest in it.
The service offers 23 applications so far and allows companies and third-party developers to create their own “mashup” applications as well. All applications are available for trial at the Broadsoft Xtended Marketplace.
They include Chumby, a Web-enabled consumer electronic device that lets users see their call history, click to return missed, placed or received calls or set do not disturb. MobilMax gives users a mobile Web ap that allows them to quickly access the services they use most.
A Salesforce.com ap connects users to the Salesforce.com database so they immediately see who is calling with background data about previous transactions.
Some companies are reporting good results with aps they develop as well.
“Immediately after deploying the Xtended technology, we developed two applications, one of which has improved WorldxChange’s debtor collections by over $100K in the first month of deployment and is in customer trials,” said Cecil Alexander, CEO of WorldxChange, a leading provider in New Zealand. “There are also two more products in the queue.”
Last year the company, which has led the industry in terms of number of clients and revenue, gained an even more prominent position as it acquired two of its competitors on “terms favorable to Broadsoft,” says Ferry.
It acquired Sylantro Systems Corp., a provider of VoIP applications based in Campbell, California, and GENBAND’s M6 product line.
This year the company plans a number of major product announcements, Ferry says, including a business video offering in March..
“Everything looks pretty good for 2009,” Ferry says. “Everyone is looking for ways to take costs out of their business and moving to solutions like VoIP helps them do that.” Consumers themselves may be cutting back on some things, “but not on telephony and entertainment,” she says.
Online: www.broadsoft.com
Posted in Company Profile, Events, Georgia, Internet/New Media, IT, Maryland, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Friday, February 27th, 2009
JUPITER, Fla. (AP) – Let the discoveries begin. The Scripps Florida Research Institute, part of a budding biotech hub in the state, is officially opening for business.
Gov. Charlie Crist is attended the facility’s ribbon-cutting in Jupiter on Thursday. Scripps, a branch of the similarly named institute in California, will focus on biomedical science, drug discovery and technology development.
Florida is also set to become home to branches of the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science.
Posted in Biotech, Economic Development, Florida | Comments Off
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
By Dr. Leslie Van Romer
Fat is creeping in and eating up your profits, probably without you even knowing it.
At least 66 percent and up to 85 percent of all Americans are overweight; 33 percent are obese (thirty or more pounds overweight).
You only have to open your eyes to see that at least one out of three people (and probably more) at work are carrying around too much weight. Their inflated bottoms may actually be deflating your company’s bottom line.
Overweight and obese workers impact American companies by lowering productivity, raising worker claims, mushrooming medical costs, and increasing lost workdays. Look at the stats:
• Overweight and obese Americans cost the nation between $69 billion and $117 billion per year.
• Obesity is associated with 39 million lost workdays, 239 million restricted workdays, 90 million bed days, and 63 million physicians’ visits.
• Three main conditions related to obesity are type 2 diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease, costing employers more than $220 billion annually in medical care and lost productivity.
• The average absence away from the workplace for a worker who files an obesity-related short-term disability claim is 45 days.
The good news: you don’t have to fall into the same trap as the average American business. By trimming the excess weight in your employees, you will sharpen your edge and outshine your competition.
It takes a two-pronged strategy to effectively tackle your the workplace obesity epidemic. The employer and the employee must work together to transform flab into fab – fab bodies, fab health and fab money in everyone’s pockets.
Let’s explore these seven strategies for your company makeover.
1. Provide Healthy, Weight-Friendly Food Options
If you own a small company with forty employees or less, consider removing the soda and candy vending machines and replacing them with large fruit bowls, boxed 100 percent fruit juices, and bottled water – all free of charge.
With a larger company, you could offer affordable, more nutritious options in vending machines and cafeterias, such as fresh fruits, fruit salads, large vegetable salads with tasty low-cal dressings, veggie sandwiches on whole grain bread, bean and rice wraps, and low-fat, low-salt bean and vegetable-based soups.
Give employees coupons for making healthier food choices. For example, with five coupons the employee wins a healthy lunch on the company.
2. Create a Healthy, Weight-Friendly Work Environment
No matter how small or large your company, if your employees (not to mention you), are bombarded at work by doughnuts, cookies, muffins, candy, and soda, then their efforts to get slim and fit will be sabotaged, no matter how motivated your employees are to lose weight.
Dare to be bold. Dare to be different. Dare to be defiant. Ban high-calorie, no-nutrient, refined and processed junk foods and beverages from your workplace.
Then, replace them with weight-warriors and health-heroes – fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and legumes, raw unsalted nuts and seeds, dried fruits, and water. Your actions speak volumes about your clear intentions to help your teammates and employees help themselves and help the health of your company.
3. Plan Healthy, Weight-Friendly Meetings and Lunches
Restaurant foods are typically incompatible with weight loss. Schedule meetings after or before lunchtime. Meetings conducted without food can be run with greater efficiency, saving time and money.
If you wish to offer snacks, make sure they are good-for-you snacks, such as grapes, oranges, apples, bananas, sliced watermelon or cantaloupe, dried fruit, or cut-up veggies with hummus or avocado dip.
If a business lunch is unavoidable, choose a restaurant that offers healthier, weight-friendly choices, such as large, vegetable salads, low-cal soups, and veggie sandwiches (nix the mayo). Take a look at the side dishes.
A baked potato covered with sautéed-in-water vegetables, instead of butter and sour cream, following a green leaf salad, fits the health bill.
Encourage employees to prepare healthy, weight-wise snacks and lunches from home. Provide a pleasant eating area and a convenient kitchen with a refrigerator and microwave so everyone can easily store and heat up their brown bag meals.
The healthy snacks they pack could be just the trick to stave off unhealthy cravings for fast food, chips and candy.
4. Encourage a Healthy, Weight-Friendly Exercise Program at Work
Start with inexpensive, low-tech changes, such as encouraging the use of stairs instead of elevators. Make sure the stairwells are clean, freshly painted and well-lit with alarmed stairwell locks on the ground floor in larger buildings.
Send out frequent bulletins and reinforce the message in meetings to bring brown-bag lunches and take brisk walks every day. Map out safe walking routes. If possible, create a walking/jogging path.
Good sneakers should be worn to work or kept at the office at all times. Fifteen-minute breaks can be used for walking while munching on healthy fruit and veggie snacks, instead of sitting and eating chocolate bars. Give out pedometers and organize a fun walking contest.
The person who walks the greatest total distance in one month will be rewarded with a gift certificate or cash. That will spark some exercise interest!
For a bigger investment, think about paying half or more of the dues for your team members to work out at a local gym. As an added incentive, they must prove three-time-a-week attendance, or they will lose that privilege.
Or, set up an adequate gym at the office so working out is free (employees love free!), convenient, and accessible to everyone, whether before work, at lunchtime or after work. As your team shapes up, so will your company, giving you a substantial dollar return on your investment.
5. Design a Healthy, Weight-Friendly In-House Program
Create a comprehensive healthy living program for all of your employees that gives simple direction, hope, support, and accountability.
Offer periodic, motivational health presentations, hands-on workshops and individual eating and exercise plans, designed to help your team members define their weight and health starting point, set their yearlong and monthly goals, and then track their progress.
Included in that program could be guest speakers, on-site nutrition and fitness experts, fact-finding questionnaires, well-body score cards to chart progress, consultations, weekly support phone calls and e-mails, a weight-loss support group, hands-on cooking and food-prep classes, appropriate CDs, and weekly articles.
6. Offer Healthy, Weight-Friendly Cash Incentives
Propose cash incentives to make losing weight and getting fit more fun and alluring to your employees. Offer annual bonuses to all employees whose weight, blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides stay within normal ranges.
Give cash rewards to the employee who loses the most weight in one month, three months, or a year, as well as to the person who maintains ideal weight for a pre-planned period of time. You can make the competitions friendly and fun, and include the entire company, as well as their families.
Family participation and support are key to a successful transition to a healthier lifestyle.
7. Lead Healthy, Weight-Friendly Changes
You are a leader, a visionary. You can see the possibilities for you, your team and your company.
And there is nothing more powerful than leading by example, incorporating the basic food and exercise principles that promote ideal weight, build health, and prevent premature disability and diseases. Leading is not about perfection; it’s about progress – steady progress toward your vision.
Leading is about sending the clear message that you care about the members of your team. You demonstrate that daily by the level of your commitment in providing a weight-friendly and health-supportive environment, door-opening opportunities and meaningful rewards for a job performed with consciousness and excellence.
Is it tough to lose weight and keep it off? You bet. But together, you and your team will beat the obesity odds, and out-perform, out-smart and out-live your heavy-weight competition.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Leslie Van Romer is a doctor of chiropractic, author, and expert in weight loss, diet and nutrition. She helps her clients with the prevention of diabetes, breast cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, fatigue, and premature aging. For more information on her book or to hire her, visit www.gettingintoyourpants.com or call 1-888-375-3754.
Posted in Columns, Healthcare, Viewpoint | Comments Off
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
TAMPA, FL – Global Imaging Systems, a Xerox company, has completed its acquisition of ComDoc, an independent dealer of document management equipment.
This acquisition gives Global Imaging Systems access to more than 14,000 new customers and an increased presence in four states.
Online: www.gisx.com
Posted in Acquisitions, Florida, Hardware | Comments Off
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – In the midst of a difficult economy, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center continues to award grants, this time for projects that bring together university and corporate scientists around the state.
The Collaborative Funding Grants program, designed to help generate discoveries that the corporate partner might commercialize, had its second deadline of the funding year today.
The awards pay for a postdoctoral researcher or technician in a university laboratory. They are jointly funded by the Biotechnology Center and the William R. Kenan Jr. Institute for Engineering, Technology & Science at North Carolina State University.
The Biotechnology Center’s goal with the program is to stimulate North Carolina’s economy and, in the process, create good jobs. It’s also aimed at promoting long-term cooperation among North Carolina universities, nonprofit research institutes and biotechnology companies.
CFGs pay $40,000 to $50,000 to support the university researcher or technician who will perform projects of commercial interest under the guidance of a principal investigator. The university and corporate collaborator also contribute money to the project.
Those awarded $100,000 include:
• Kevin Anderson, D.V.M., North Carolina State University professor of veterinary medicine, for his work on a diagnostic test for identifying infectious bovine mastitis. He’s collaborating with Advanced Animal Diagnostics, an 8-year-old Research Triangle Park firm that itself received a $20,000 Biotechnology Center loan two years ago.
• Thomas Fischer, Ph.D., scientific director of the Francis Owen Blood Research Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for his work combining recent developments that understand how to stop blood loss with advances in polymer and fiber science to develop an advanced generation of textiles for controlling hemorrhage.
Fischer is also chief science officer at collaborator Entegrion, an RTP-based UNC-CH spin-out company started with the help of a $150,000 Small Business Research Loan from the Biotechnology Center.
• Duke’s Lori Setton, Ph.D., for her work developing injectable “drug depots” capable of keeping anti-inflammatory drugs within osteoarthritic joint spaces.
That’s to reduce the number of injections needed for pain relief and to reduce side effects by keeping the medicine where it’s needed. The technology is being developed in conjunction with Morrisville-based PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals.
The Biotechnology Center provided PhaseBio a $15,000 Business Development Loan in 2002, a $75,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Bridge Loan in 2005 and a $150,000 Small Business Research Loan in 2006 to help it develop its novel drug-delivery technology.
The $50,000 recipients were:
• The Duke University Civil and Environmental Engineering Department’s Claudia Gunsch, Ph.D., to support the assistant professor’s research in biological wastewater treatment, in collaboration with Entex Technologies of Chapel Hill. Gunsch and Entex are collaborating on experiments at the South Durham Water Reclamation Facility to improve wastewater treatment efficiency.
The research will include removal of potentially hazardous and increasingly worrisome endocrine disruptors that may be sneaking into the environment from unused medicines flushed down toilets and from the urine of women taking birth-control pills.
Sheila Collins, Ph.D., of The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, for her work in collaboration with RTP-based Zen-Bio on a better understanding of obesity. Zen-Bio, which has received $235,000 in loans from the Biotechnology Center since forming in 1995, was recently awarded a $1.88 million Phase II SBIR grant to help it commercialize its line of synthetically grown human cells for use by scientists studying obesity, diabetes, and common cancers.
Posted in Biotech, Money, North Carolina, University Tech | Comments Off
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