News Archive

Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering students have designed a lightweight, easy-to-conceal shirtlike garment to deliver lifesaving shocks to patients experiencing serious heart problems. The students say their design improves upon a wearable defibrillator system that is already in use and should help persuade patients at risk for sudden cardiac arrest to wear the system around the clock.

“In two studies, up to 20 percent of patients who received the defibrillator garment that’s already available did not keep it on all the time because of comfort and appearance issues, problems sleeping in it, and frequent ‘maintenance alarms,’ which occur when the device does not get a good signal from sensors on the patient’s skin,” says Sandya Subramanian, who led the undergraduate team that built the new prototype. “We set out to address these issues and design a device that heart patients would be more likely to wear for longer periods of time—because their lives may depend on it.”

Rockville-based CytImmune Sciences Inc. has raised $400,000 from the Maryland Venture Fund, Montgomery County and an unnamed venture investor to push Aurimune — a drug that pairs a decades-old tumor-fighting agent with gold nanoparticles — into phase 2 trials.

The Maryland Venture Fund led the round with $200,000, with another $100,000 coming from the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development and the unidentified investor.

GSK, formerly Glaxo SmithKline, and the Philadelphia Foundation have announced a $5 million grant package available to non-profits which will lead to healthier lives.

It’s called the GSK IMPACT Grant. IMPACT stands for Innovative, Measured, Partnered, Accountable, Community Centered and Transformative. Katie Loovis is GSK’s director of Community Relations.

Simeon Taylor, MD, PhD, a seasoned pharmaceutical executive who has served in senior positions with Eli Lilly and Bristol-Meyers Squibb, has joined the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) as industry liaison with its Center for Clinical Trials and Corporate Contracts (CCT).

In his new role for CCT, he will assist faculty in developing research strategies that will maximize corporate partnering and funding opportunities, and the possible creation of valuable intellectual property. CCT is part of the University’s Office of Research and Development, and the part-time consultancy is funded in keeping with the University’s 2011-2016 Strategic Plan

In this Hangout, we will discuss when a small business should contact the FDA, and what formal and informal mechanisms exist for device, drug, biologic, and diagnostic developers to obtain early advice from the FDA.

Mobile devices are revolutionizing the health care system for patients and medical providers. Using this new technology wisely and securely is the goal of the health information technology experts who talked about trends in the field during a Health IT Forum at the Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus.

The Health IT Forum series, held four times a year, is a community partnership co-sponsored by Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, the TechCouncil of Maryland and the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce. The May forum, titled “mHealth: Bring Your Own Device,” attracted dozens of IT experts from the region.

After a lengthy and somewhat contentious markup, the House Science, Space and Technology Committee approved the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology (FIRST) Act (H.R. 4186) by a vote of 20-16 on May 28th. As discussed in previous editions of Capitol Update, the bill reauthorizes and prioritizes federal investments at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) by funding research and development (R&D) to address national needs. The bill also sets priorities to drive the nation’s investments in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education programs.

The FIRST Act would require that the NSF publish a justification of each grant’s scientific merits and relevance to the broad national interest in order to meet minimum standards of public accountability and transparency in its grant funding decisions. The FIRST Act does not change NSF’s peer review process. Provisions of the FIRST Act also broadens the definition of STEM education to include computer science and supports student participation in nonprofit competitions, out-of-school activities and field experiences related to STEM.

More than a decade has passed since scientists completed the Human Genome Project, a worldwide effort to decode our DNA. That DNA sequence contains instructions for making all of the proteins that our bodies need to function.

Now researchers have cataloged the vast majority of those proteins, creating a dynamic map of the human body called the proteome.

Before coming into the program I would highly stress putting together a comprehensive product roadmap for the duration of the program as well as 2 months after. Start by splitting the upcoming 3 months into individual weeks & writing out goals both for the tech side (development, design, ux etc.) of the company as well as the business side (sales, fund raising, partnerships etc.). If possible have them written on a huge calendar for everyone in the company to see & be aware of.

Then go more granular and translate those weekly goals into individual tasks using any project management software, here I’d recommend Trello since its very intuitive, has great array of browser plugins to support different styles of task management & it’s totally free.

Qiagen announced a collaboration with Eli Lilly and Co. to co-develop universal and modular assay panels for the simultaneous analysis of DNA and RNA biomarkers targeting multiple cellular pathways involved in common cancer types. The agreement includes the development of tests that will be based on Qiagen’s multi-modal, multi-analyte Modaplex analysis platform, which can process multiple sample types and biomarkers in a single test.