The University of Maryland (UM) BioPark announced today that the JS Yoon Memorial Cancer Research Institute, a basic research organization looking at the fundamental genetic and epigenetic basis of cancer, has expanded its space within the Biotechnology Innovation Center at the BioPark. The Institute, which moved into the Park in mid-2013, is housing six employees at the BioPark who are charged with performing basic cancer research designed to lead to therapeutic and diagnostic solutions addressing a variety of cancer types.  

“What sets us apart from other cancer-focused entities is that we seek to elucidate the molecular basis of cancer and to use this knowledge to develop therapies and diagnostic tests, rather than the current method which is the other way around,” said Ji Eun Lee, Managing Director, JS Yoon Memorial Cancer Research Institute. “We’re thrilled to be conducting our research at the BioPark, which offers excellent proximity to the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM), Johns Hopkins, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institutes of Health. It’s also a huge benefit to have access to the top-rate resources and core facilities available through the UM SOM as we conduct our research.”

Our world is changing at an unprecedented pace. To prepare our students, lessons must go beyond the "3 R's" and foster 21st century skills. Skills like critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity will be essential for students to take on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Note: As of August 6th, 2013, Smithsonian Student Travel is now known as EF Explore America. Please visit our website at http://www.efexploreamerica.com.

NYC Economic Development Corporation president Kyle Kimball on New York City working with large pharmaceutical companies and venture capital firms to create $100M fund.

Development of a Microfluidic Platform for Blood Testing in Neonatal and Pediatric Patients STTR (R41) - RFA-HL-14-025

This FOA encourages applications to develop microfluidic devices to analyze blood for factors related to the thrombotic, transfusion, and/or hemostatic status of pediatric/neonatal patients. Platforms should support clinical and/or research applications. Microfluidic designs that are multifunctional, with the capacity to perform multiple assays on a single blood sample, are of interest. Use of these devices could significantly reduce levels of phlebotomy-induced blood loss in pediatric/neonatal patients.

Development of a Microfluidic Platform for Blood Testing in Neonatal and Pediatric Patients SBIR (R43/R44) - RFA-HL-14-026

This FOA encourages applications to develop microfluidic devices to analyze blood for factors related to the thrombotic, transfusion, and/or hemostatic status of pediatric/neonatal patients. Platforms should support clinical and/or research applications. Microfluidic designs that are multifunctional, with the capacity to perform multiple assays on a single blood sample, are of interest. Use of these devices could significantly reduce levels of phlebotomy-induced blood loss in pediatric/neonatal patients.

Aging baby boomers, Obamacare and a greater push toward electronic medical records.

Three Baltimore-area investment heavyweights — Paul Silber, Rick Kohr Jr. and Harrison Perry — are hoping that’s the winning combination for an investment fund they have launched to pump money into health care companies in the mid-Atlantic region.

Against a backdrop of slowing healthcare expenditures and ongoing implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the dynamics of the U.S. medical device industry have become increasingly fluid. In this article, Elliot Hyun, a medical device analyst at GE Capital Healthcare Financial Services, discusses the current status of the industry – and what lies ahead for investors.

Q. What is the state of the medical device industry?

A. Broadly speaking, we have seen growth slow in recent years, as the industry has grappled with both persistent utilization softness following the end of the most recent economic downturn as well as the increasingly real headwind of pricing pressure from customers. As such, we believe industry growth has slowed from the mid-high single-digit range prior to the recession to the low single-digit area today.

It is customary in higher education to dismiss rankings as misleading and arbitrary, quantifying things that don’t much matter about colleges and universities.

But one list of undisputed significance is compiled each year by the National Science Foundation: the top institutions ranked by total research spending. Such money supports laboratories, attracts top faculty and graduate students and gives many undergraduates a chance to learn through experimentation.

Many start-up medical device and diagnostic companies offer some of the most promising technologies in the industry. As a result, most large medical device companies have created significant business development and venture funding units to tap into this innovation. However, some promising technologies will never see the light of day – not due to the validity of technology, but because of significant commercial missteps.

Here are three common mistakes on the road to commercialization and how to navigate them successfully:

Alan Auerbach is the brains and leadership behind Puma Biotechnology PBYI -2.29%, a biopharma acquirer and developer of innovative cancer treatments that has had a great stock run this past week. The Los Angeles-based company’s shares surged 88 percent from Wednesday to Friday, closing the week at $86.75 per share. Today they’re up more than 1%, trading at close to $88 per share. The founder, chairman and CEO’s shares in the company have appreciated by $167 million on the good news, nearly doubling his stake from $185 million to $352 million.

Today, Sanofi US launched its second Partners in Patient Health (PiPH) Innovation Challenge: Collaborate | Innovate, which will award $100,000 to the winning team. This year's theme is "Co-Creating for Breakthroughs: Moving toward a collaborative research and development ecosystem." The Challenge calls on non-profit patient, provider and professional associations to partner with other associations and/or academic institutions to propose new approaches which translate patient insights into improvements in the drug development process.

A treatment breakthrough can cost billions of dollars and decades of time to research. Patient organizations are in the position of helping patients and their constituents to play an important role in research and development (R&D). Patient involvement in the entire process can lead to improvements in efficiency and effectiveness of industry efforts in developing new therapies.

When you speak with Dr. Joseph Loscalzo about the new Boston Biomedical Innovation Center, you can’t help but get excited about the prospects of enhancing the health of the nation by promoting greater commercialization of NIH-funded discovery science.

“We have all the people we need to make it work. We have all the resources now in hand that we need to make it work. So I think that we are in a very unique situation to prove that this concept is a valid one for the future development of technologies that spring from what the NIH supported over the years as basic investigation that can now be applied to patient care.”

Flu or influenza (caused by influenza virus) is a miserable experience as it daunts the victim with countless sneezes, head aches and fever.

Flu develops when tiny droplets coughed or sneezed into the air by an infected person are inhaled by an uninfected person. Flu is often confused with common cold. But, they are different, though certain flu symptoms are the same. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, fever and muscle pain associated with flu goes away with prevention and treatment in a day or two, however, fatigue may last for a week.

Few companies watch their bottom line with more anxiety than startup firms, but the ones who want to move into a new business accelerator in Columbia will need to think beyond revenue and expenses.

Howard County's Conscious Venture Lab is on the hunt for fledgling companies practicing a form of what's often called responsible or sustainable capitalism — businesses with aims that include but aren't limited to profits. The accelerator's organizers want firms that consider not just shareholders in their decisions but also a broad range of other "stakeholders" such as employees, suppliers and the environment.

GlaxoSmithKline has announced the formation of a consortium comprised of "six internationally-renowned comprehensive cancer centres", three in North Americva and three in Europe.

In forming the Oncology Clinical and Translational Consortium (OCTC), GSK says it will benefit from the partners' expertise in preclinical, translational and clinical development of novel anticancer therapeutics including kinase inhibitors, epigenome modulating compounds and immunotherapies. In return, the centres will have access to studies with GSK's early-stage cancer pipeline "and opportunities to advance the next generation of novel oncology therapeutics".

Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) promotes the development and commercialization of products and processes through industry/university research partnerships. MIPS provides matching funds to help Maryland companies pay for the university research. Projects are initiated by the companies to meet their own research and development goals.

The Life Sciences Manager is responsible for connecting Maryland companies to faculty and researchers in University System of Maryland institutions, plus St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and Morgan State University to address corporate technology development needs. The Manager facilitates the creation of academic-industrial R&D partnerships through the MIPS program, with a particular emphasis on biotechnology, medical and other life sciences. The Manager evaluates proposals on an ongoing basis and acts as a technical coordinator for the MIPS program by identifying the technical reviewers for proposals. Additionally, the Manager coordinates the economic development reviews on MIPS proposals and implements existing MIPS concepts, processes, tools and other procedures necessary to evaluate and monitor ongoing projects, and develop improved capabilities therein.

Strand Life Sciences Private Limited, a global life sciences company headquartered in Bangalore, is collaborating with the San Francisco Bay Area based El Camino Hospital to locate a Strand Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine at the Genomic Medicine Institute of the El Camino Hospital to accelerate the adoption of next generation sequencing based research panels and counseling services by the physicians at the Hospital and its partner clinics.

A Letter of Understanding was signed on Wednesday December 4th by Dr. Vijay Chandru, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Strand Life Sciences and Dr. Eric A. Pifer, Chief Medical Officer of El Camino Hospital. This signals the start of a collaborative effort to bring advanced genomic tests in cardiology, oncology, pharmaco-genomics and personalized medicine to the community served by the El Camino Hospital, a community that has traditionally been an early adopter of high technology solutions.

Cerner Corp., one of the top EHR vendors in the country, is teaming up with Claritas Genomics to advance personalized medicine by building tools and connectivity that will better integrate next-generation, sequence-based diagnostic testing into clinical practice.

The relationship with Cerner will enable Claritas to tap into an existing, scalable computing infrastructure that integrates ordering of genomic sequencing tests, laboratory processing, results interpretation, return of results to the clinician and incorporation of the result in the patient's electronic medical record, executives of both companies announced in a Dec. 5 news release.

Part of moving forward and progressing with health IT initiatives involves proactively setting new goals and establishing a roadmap for the future. The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange Foundation has taken this to task by releasing its 2013 report that puts forth recommendations for the health IT industry over the next decade.   

Report officials outline 10 recommendations in four critical areas of focus including patient engagement, payment models, data exchange and interoperability and innovative encounter models. 

Less than 10 percent of hospitals have warmed up to RFID technology. That’s the assessment of Mark Roberti, the founder and editor of RFID Journal, so it’s very much an emerging trend in healthcare. The idea is that by using resources more effectively, hospital staff can spend less time running around trying to find medical supplies and more time with patients.

“The reason why healthcare costs are so high is hospitals keep buying things they already have and waste money,” Roberti said at a conference organized by his Journal which focused on RFID in Healthcare. Hospitals have been so focused on the priority of saving lives that they have been slow to adopt technology that saves money.

ZocDoc dug into America’s “largest database of patient behavior” to discover the top patient trends of 2013.

ZocDoc makes it easy for people to book doctors appointments through its online booking service. More than 4 million patients use ZocDoc every month, and their interactions provide a wealth of data and insights that were never available before.

Each year, nearly $100 billion is spent in the United States on healthcare related research, with an increasing proportion of the breakthrough research being carried out in academic medical centers. While continued medical progress relies on enhanced academic-industry collaboration, the information available on the academic commercialization system function across these institutions is not uniform and often difficult to access.

The Medical Innovation Playbook is the first-ever comprehensive study of technological innovation and commercialization at the nation’s top healthcare centers.

As aging populations put a strain on cash-strapped governments, chronic illness and rare disease prevention is taking centre stage in healthcare. To meet new levels of demand, the sector is ramping up its innovative capacity through collaborations. But harnessing the disruptive potential of these partnerships is still very much a work in progress, according to participants of the INSEAD Healthcare Alumni Summit in Zurich in October this year.

Collaborations are widely seen by the sector as crucial to raise extra finance amid a credit crunch, share risk, boost research productivity, discover new therapies – and ultimately to reinvent the way healthcare is delivered. So large and small pharma companies, hospitals, pharmacy chains, venture capital firms, IT consultants, and academia are forming an array of partnerships.

A Johns Hopkins undergraduate biomedical engineering student team headed by Indian American Piyush Poddar that devised a two-part system to improve the way life-saving shocks are delivered to hearts earned first prize in the undergraduate division of a national Collegiate Inventors Competition.

Winners in the Collegiate Inventors Competition, conducted by Invent Now and the National Inventors Hall of Fame, were announced Nov. 12 after the finalist teams presented their projects to contest judges at the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Va.

The OneStart Americas competition, a partnership between Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable and SR One, the venture capital arm of GlaxoSmithKline, officially launched on November 4 at UCSF. The kick-off event was followed by similar events held this month in Los Angeles, San Diego and Boston.

OneStart Americas invites individuals or teams of burgeoning life science entrepreneurs under 36 years of age to apply in one of four tracks: drug discovery, medical devices, diagnostics, or health information technology. 35 selected semi-finalists will undergo two-months of extensive mentorship from venture capitalists, pharmaceutical executives, and other entrepreneurs in order to turn their idea into a comprehensive business plan.

Eight former pro football players learned this year that they have signs of a degenerative brain disorder called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition linked to depression, dementia, and memory loss. These somber findings were uncovered using a new method of brain imaging that, for the first time, enables researchers to spot signs of the condition in the living brain. Previously CTE could only be identified after a victim died.

The new method could help quantify the risks of repetitive blows to the head (see “Images of a Hard-Hitting Disease” and “Military Brains Donated for Trauma Research”). It could also help future players avoid the degenerative and sometimes lethal condition by limiting their exposure, and it may help scientists develop better protective gear and treatments.

FRANCIS S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has been distributing a chart that shows the success rate of grant applications to NIH for scientific research. While the rate was about 30 percent as recently as a decade ago, it has plunged to about 15 percent, which Dr. Collins says is the lowest in history. One reason for this is that more applicants are seeking funds, but the budget squeeze also is to blame. Dr. Collins is worried that the low success rate will cause young scientists and researchers to abandon the laboratory for other careers or to take their talents and ideas to other countries.

Emergent BioSolutions Inc.’s U.S. Health and Human Services contract to help produce flu vaccines in the event of a pandemic are key to the firm’s expansion, Chief Financial Officer Robert G. Kramer says.

The Baltimore Development Corp. on Wednesday confirmed that it is offering a second $250,000 new job creation tax incentive to Emergent.

In support of the Christie Administration's commitment to nurturing the growth of emerging technology and biotechnology businesses, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) announced that 65 companies have been approved to share the $60 million allocation available through the State’s Technology Business Tax Certificate Transfer Program in Fiscal Year 2013.

This competitive program enables technology and biotechnology companies to sell New Jersey tax losses and/or research and development tax credits to raise cash to finance their growth and operations. Since the program was established in 1999, more than 500 businesses have been approved for awards totaling $710 million. Each of the 65 applicants approved this year will receive an estimated $920,000, which is 15 percent more than last year and over double the Fiscal Year 2011 average.

Northwest Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: NWBO), a biotechnology company developing DCVax® personalized immune therapies for solid tumor cancers, has completed an underwritten public offering of 4,895,834 units at a public offering price of $4.80 per unit, resulting in gross proceeds of $23,500,000. Northwest also announced today that the underwriter has exercised in full its option to purchase an additional 734,374 units to cover over-allotments. Exercise of the over-allotment option increases the gross proceeds to the Company to $27,025,000.

Each unit consists of one share of common stock, and a warrant to purchase 0.5 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $6.00 per share. The warrants are immediately exercisable and expire on the fifth anniversary of the date of issuance. The shares of common stock and warrants are immediately separable and will be issued separately.

About 29,00 people signed up for health insurance through the troubled HealthCare.gov website on Sunday and Monday, a number that is higher than the site's first month of operation in October, sources familiar with the numbers said on Wednesday.

Noble Life Sciences (Gaithersburg, MD) announced today that the company has been awarded a Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) grant of $100,000 from the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO). The grant will be used to develop assays to determine the effect of cancer treatments on metastatic cells derived directly from patients. Metastasis-initiating tumor cells isolated from the blood of cancer patients will be used to assay the activity of drugs both in culture and in novel metastatic mouse models developed using these invasive circulating tumor cells (CTCs).

Dr. Stephen Horrigan, Chief Scientific Officer of Noble Life Sciences, noted, “In over 90% of cancer deaths, metastasis, not the primary tumor, is responsible. Yet virtually all cancer drug development testing is based on activity in primary tumors. The development of these metastasis-associated assays will enable us to offer highly innovative services to clients who are developing novel therapeutic drugs, in particular those that target metastatic cancers and cancer stem cells. One goal of our development effort will be to demonstrate the ability to test ex vivo the sensitivity and resistance of metastasis-initiating invasive CTCs to candidate drugs. A second goal will be to create patient-derived metastasis mouse (PDM mouse) models thereby establishing mouse avatars for preclinical testing of human metastatic tumors.”

From our genomes to Jawbones, the amount of data about health is exploding. Bringing on top Silicon Valley talent, one NYC hospital is preparing for a future where it can analyze and predict its patients' health needs--and maybe change our understanding of disease.

The office of Jeff Hammerbacher at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine sits in the middle of one of the most stark economic divides in the nation. To Hammerbacher’s south are New York City’s posh Upper East Side townhouses. To the north, the barrios of East Harlem.

Technology once used to help helicopters fly better will in the future be used to help patients breathe better.

InnoVital Systems, a spinoff of Beltsville defense contractor Techno-Sciences, will pair its experience developing technology for the military with medical research by MedStar Health and the Cleveland Clinic to create a new medical device. The InVent Diaphragm Assist is an implantable device that can help patients with respiratory illnesses breathe, instead of a ventilator system.

The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), Maryland’s largest trade association for technology and life science companies, today announced that it has partnered with Year Up National Capital Region (NCR) in a workforce development initiative designed to address the need of Maryland employers for skilled technical workers and provide urban young adults with the skills, experience and support they need to flourish in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers. Together the groups will host quarterly Workforce Development Roundtable discussions with TCM constituents in the region to discuss workforce initiatives, the first of which is scheduled for January 8 from 7:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.

“We welcome the opportunity to work with Year Up NCR to identify ways we can create a more robust pipeline of enthusiastic young adults seeking careers in the technology industry, who will meet our members’ growing demand for skilled workers,” said Philip Schiff, TCM’s CEO. “Year Up’s experience in empowering young adults with marketable skills and other opportunities will be valuable as we work together to consider the training, recruitment tactics, diversity programs, internships and employer/higher education partnerships required to build a competitive workforce.”

Revolution Growth is investing $22 million in Sweetgreen, an organic salad retail chain launched by three Georgetown grads in 2007 that has since expanded across the District and five states, the company announced Wednesday.

Sweetgreen is a relatively low-tech investment for Revolution Growth, a $450 million fund founded by Steve Case, Donn Davis and Ted Leonsis. Under the deal, Case will join Sweetgreen's board. The funds will go toward national growth in “key markets,” as well as building the company’s “team and corporate culture, and growing community programs and marketing initiatives,” according to a news release.