News Archive

Every summer, the National Security Agency offers about 250 internships to undergraduate and graduate students interested in pursuing careers with the federal agency. If you can snag one, your career will be off to a great start.

But getting one is the hard part. There are more than 10,000 applicants every year for the internships, which span the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Richard Ledgett, deputy director of the NSA, on Wednesday told members of the BWI Business Partnership the selection process is grueling because of the high standards and required security clearances.

Johnson & Johnson’s ($JNJ) Janssen arm is planning to open another biotech incubator, this time setting its sights on South San Francisco in hopes of finding a few promising drug developers.

The new operation, dubbed Janssen Labs @South San Francisco, will be a 30,000-square-foot mix of lab and office space with room for up to 50 startups, J&J said. Mirroring Janssen’s flagship San Diego incubator, the new facility will be staffed by some of J&J’s biotech brains and provide operational support, education and business services to its guest companies. 

Richard Griffin, Director of Economic Development for the City of Frederick, and Julie Garner, Director of External Affairs, Maryland for AstraZeneca, accepted the award at the 2014 MEDA Awards Ceremony. The ceremony annually honors “standouts” in the field of economic development and the professionals who foster MEDA’s success today.

The award-winning plant, located next to the original 163,802 square foot biomanufacturing facility, provides increased capacity and has enabled AstraZeneca and MedImmune to meet the demand for new products. The company boasts world-class protein engineering and process development capabilities.

William E. (Brit) Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland and a longtime national figure in public higher education, will resign from his leadership post when a successor is named, Mr. Kirwan announced on Tuesday.

Mr. Kirwan, who is 76, has led the Maryland system for 12 years and served as president of Ohio State University from 1998 to 2002. He has been at the forefront of national conversations about reducing college costs, including athletics spending.

Mike Baader, the head of Venable’s Baltimore office, will be joining the law firm’s longtime client, Greenspring Associates, as a partner and general counsel, sources said.

The sources said Baader will stay on with the firm for several months to assist in the transition. Courtney Capute has been named to succeed Baader as head of the law firm’s Baltimore practice.

The National Institutes of Health contracting arm has launched a $20 billion governmentwide acquisition program, Nextgov reports based on solicitation documents.

RCT Ventures has just announced a new opportunity for early-stage medical device companies: the 2014 MedTech Innovator competition.  Companies and university-stage teams are encouraged to apply.  Ten semi-finalists will be selected by a panel of medical device venture capitalists that will receive free registration to the Wilson Sonsini Medical Device conference.  There, a live audience will select the winner, who will receive the $100k grand prize.

RCT Ventures’ last contest, Medtech Idol, had a fascinating array of gadgety competition with Aventamed‘s impressive ear-tube placement device coming out on top.  When asked about the competition, Paul Grand, Managing Director for RCT Ventures said, “In today’s lean start-up model, the $100k prize should be enough to allow the winner to bridge the funding gap and achieve a milestone that can help them secure a larger funding round or critical industry partnership.”

Join members from NHLBI’s SMARTT team on May 28, 2014 (1:00-2:30 pm EST) for a free webinar to hear how three investigators utilized SMARTT services to advance the development of their lead candidates.

Webinar agenda

• Overview of SMARTT
• Translational Investigator presentations:
• Steven Idell, MD, PhD, Vice President for Research at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler
  Development of fibrinolysin single chain urokinase plasminogen activator (scuPA) for pleural effusions
• Athan Kuliopulos, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine at Tufts University and Tufts Medical Center
  Development of PZ-128 for the prevention of arterial thrombosis in acute coronary syndrome and percutaneous coronary intervention
• Barry Coller, MD, Vice President for Medical Affairs and Physician-in-Chief, The Rockefeller University
  Development of novel small molecule platelet inhibitors for pre-hospital treatment of myocardial infarction.
• Challenges in Early Translational Science: Industry Perspective
• Q&A with SMARTT

Representatives from NHLBI staff and from SMARTT’s regulatory, manufacturing, and pharmacology/toxicology facilities will be available to answer questions.

“Hi, my name is Krzysztof Sitko, cofounder of Aegle, and I’m going to tell you today about how we failed throughout all of DreamIt Health, and why you might consider investing in us anyhow.”

A month ago, that wasn’t how I pictured my presentation at our startup accelerator’s Demo Day. I was working tirelessly alongside my cofounders to put together a business. Yet there I was in front of a room of 200 to announce that we didn’t have a market for the product we had been working on.

THIS MOBILE HEALTH TOOL HELPS PEOPLE TO BE ABLE TO CONFRONT THEIR ANXIETIES AND THEIR FEARS.

A new self-help tool has now been developed by a team of psychologists, physicists, and developers, which uses augmented reality over a mobile health platform, with the goal of helping users to be able to treat their phobias and overcome their anxieties.