News Archive

WASHINGTON – Today, President Biden announced 30 of America’s most distinguished leaders in science and technology as members of his President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). A direct descendant of the scientific advisory committee established by President Eisenhower in 1957 in the weeks after the launch of Sputnik, PCAST is the sole body of external advisors charged with making science, technology, and innovation policy recommendations to the President and the White House.

• Multiple Move-in Ready Spec Suites at the end of Q2 2021 
• Building delivering Q2 2021 
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• Located In Federal Opportunity Zone

With COVID-19 continuing to spread throughout the world, there is a demand for rapid, noninvasive diagnostics. George Mason University researchers Robin Couch and Allyson Dailey, members of the College of Science and the Institute of Biohealth Innovation, are working to answer that call with their research on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for infectious disease detection. VOCs are gases that emanate from a variety of sources, including from humans. Much like a sommelier can smell wine and determine the composition of it, Couch and Dailey have been looking at the scent prints of bacteria. They have been able to successfully diagnose mice infected with biothreat agents using this method, and were able to differentiate standard bacteria strains from antibiotic-resistant strains, as seen in Nature Scientific Reports. Mason holds a patent around the technology on the extraction and analysis of gases through the VOC extraction chamber. When the news of COVID struck the world in March 2020, the researchers embraced it as an opportunity to further test their approach on viruses.

Join us on September 30th for the 6th year of the Women Building Bio conference. Don’t miss an event where women converge to advance the industry with all stakeholders, men and women, front and center joining forces.

Our half-day hybrid conference will offer full virtual attendance or the option for in-person viewing at one of 5 regional locations across our state. In-person requires pre-registration at a specific location and space is limited, so do not delay!

A senior official for American biotech company Novavax said the company is committed to equitable COVID-19 vaccine allocation and has made a “great effort” to manufacture its vaccine in different sites across the globe. However, whether its vaccine will be used as booster shots or prioritized in countries struggling with supply will be up to policymakers, he said.  

Speaking at a Devex event held on the sidelines of the 76th United Nations General Assembly, John Trizzino, executive vice president at Novavax, said policymakers are responsible for determining how the COVID-19 doses will be used.

Image: https://www.devex.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Sept. 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — HemoShear Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held clinical stage biotechnology company, has earned a milestone payment for the advancement of potential lead product candidates for the treatment of gout under its collaboration with Horizon Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: HZNP). This milestone marks the fourth payment that HemoShear has earned, following previous payments for the identification and validation of two novel gout drug targets in accordance with the Horizon exclusive drug discovery agreement established in January 2019.

Listen to the audio as Rich Bendis, President and CEO of BioHealth Innovation conducts a fireside chat with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) since 1984. Dr. Fauci oversees an annual budget of over $6 Billion and has advised 7 President’s on many domestic and global health issues. He has an extensive portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose and treat many existing and emerging infectious diseases.

Listen now via Apple https://apple.co/3nNlHWH, Google https://bit.ly/3Ar0uoZ, and Spotify, https://spoti.fi/3ExxAWH

Remember the frenzy in 2017 when over 200 cities and towns across the U.S. bid to house the second headquarters for Amazon? Northern Virginia in the D.C. region won that bid ultimately.

But cities, states and regions might want to dust off those bids to enter a new $1 billion competition by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) that promises more winners across the country in applied science areas to help make the U.S. more technologically competitive and inclusive. Thankfully, this competition will look more like the Olympics with many gold, silver and bronze winners compared with the winner-take-all approach of Amazon HQ2. 

EDA will grant $500,000 in technical assistance to 50 to 60 regional coalitions to develop and support three to eight projects to support a regional growth cluster this fall. Next year, EDA will award 20 to 30 regional coalitions $25 million to $100 million to implement those projects from among those that were successful in Phase One.