News Archive

BD Diagnostics, a segment of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a leading global medical technology company, announced today the CE mark and launch of the BD MAX™ GC rt PCR assay in Europe. The BD MAX GC rt PCR assay is an in vitro diagnostic test intended for testing Neisseria gonorrhoeae (GC) positive results from the BD ProbeTec™ GC Qx Amplified DNA Assay performed on the BD Viper™ System with XTR™ Technology. The assay may be used for detection of GC DNA in residual male or female urine specimens, or residual endocervical, vaginal or male urethral swab specimens that have tested positive for GC using the BD ProbeTec GC Qx Amplified DNA Assay.

With a budget bill passed this weekend and the University System of Maryland successfully lobbying for limited cuts to its state funding, the final day of the state’s legislative session was less intense for the higher education lobby.

The most significant bills for this university and the university system received support in both chambers of the legislature and passed with little controversy.

But for what amounted to a quiet day, the university system secured significant victories, with measures that use university resources to spur economic development and a state grant program aimed at attracting talented faculty to state universities passing one right after the other on the morning of sine die.

A less-invasive brain diagnostic test, a surface so slippery bacteria can’t stick to it, and a low-cost mylar wrap to help warm babies’ heads after surgery were three of the projects on display at Boston Children’s Hospital’s first-ever Innovators Showcase Friday.

The event is part of a larger push by Chief Innovation Officer Naomi Fried’s office to seek out innovators across the organization, support them with advice and sometimes money, and help guide them towards commercialization.

A group of University of Maryland undergraduates put together a spectacular hackathon this weekend, attracting more than 750 college students from across the country to take part in the 36-hour long event. The hackathon, which went by the name of Bitcamp, lasted from April 4-6 in Cole Field House on school grounds, providing students with the opportunity to collaborate with fellow innovators in creating brilliant new hardware and applications for mobile devices, computers or the Web. 

Health technology is advancing so rapidly that within a decade the small handheld medical reader used by Dr. Leonard McCoy in Star Trek — the tricorder — will look primitive.

We are moving into an era of data-driven, crowdsourced, participatory, genomics-based medicine. Just as our bathroom scales give us instant readings of our weight, wearable devices will monitor our health and warn us when we are about to get sick. Our doctors — or their artificial intelligence replacements — will prescribe medicines or lifestyle changes based on our full medical history, holistic self, and genetic composition.

After seeing how the federal agencies intend to implement the recommendations from The White House Lab to Market Summit the difference between product and process oriented people really hit home.

Product people burn with a passion to get the job done. Process people focus on rules and procedures to minimize risk.  Thus, product people are like the accelerator and process people are the brakes.  You need both in your car, but if the brakes run the show you’ll never get out of the driveway.  Similarly, whenever deal makers are subservient in a system to process people, frustration is sure to follow.

A blood sample could one day be enough to diagnose many types of solid cancers, or to monitor the amount of cancer in a patient’s body and responses to treatment. Previous versions of the approach, which relies on monitoring levels of tumor DNA circulating in the blood, have required cumbersome and time-consuming steps to customize it to each patient or have not been sufficiently sensitive.

Now, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have devised a way to quickly bring the technique to the clinic. Their approach, which should be broadly applicable to many types of cancers, is highly sensitive and specific. With it they were able to accurately identify about 50 percent of people in the study with stage-1 lung cancer and all patients whose cancers were more advanced.

Alios BioPharma, Inc., a biotechnology company developing proprietary therapeutics for respiratory viral diseases, today announced it has completed a $41 Million Series B financing. All existing investors — Novo Ventures, SR One, Roche Venture Fund and Novartis Ventures — participated in this round, which was led by a new, undisclosed investor.

“We are pleased to welcome our newest investor and to have the continued support from our current investors for this round of financing,” stated Lawrence M. Blatt, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Alios BioPharma. “This funding will allow Alios to retain ownership and control of our novel, first-in-class anti-respiratory virus development programs.”

Rockville-based malaria vaccine development company Sanaria Inc. won the 2014 Vaccine Industry Excellence (VIE) Award for the “Best Prophylactic Vaccine” presented last week during the 14th World Vaccine Congress.

The Sanaria® PfSPZ Vaccine demonstrated complete protection against malaria in all volunteers (6/6) who received high dose immunizations in a trial at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH.