Category: Finance

  • Lab Developing Fabric that Repels Chemical, Bio Agents

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is developing a new material for military wear that repels chemical and biological agents using a fabric made from carbon nanotubes. The five-year, $13 million project is funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, with collaborators from MIT, Rutgers, University of Massachusetts, Natick (Mass.) Soldier Research Development and Engineering…

  • Drug Developer BioCryst to Acquire Presidio Pharmaceuticals

    BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Durham, North Carolina and Presidio Pharmaceuticals Inc. in San Francisco agreed to a merger of the biopharmaceutical companies. The deal in which BioCryst acquires Presidio is an all-stock transaction valued at $101 million. The merger will combine two clinical stage drug development operations that the companies say will focus on infectious…

  • Study Aims for Improved Oil Extraction Methods Using CO2

    Engineers at University of Pittsburgh are studying new, more economical ways of extracting crude oil from older wells using carbon dioxide (CO2). The work of principal investigators Eric Beckman and Robert Enick is funded by a 1.3 million grant from the National Energy Technology Laboratory, part of the U.S. Department of Energy. Older oil wells…

  • Rice, NIST to Partner on Nanoscale Carbon Materials Research

    Rice University in Houston and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland will collaborate in research on nanoscale carbon particles interacting with other materials at the molecular and atomic levels. The five-year, $2.7 million cooperative research agreement is funded by NIST and expected to benefit the emerging field of advanced nanomaterials manufacturing.…

  • Consortium to Develop Northeast U.S. Biofuels Supply Chains

    Pennsylvania State University in University Park will lead a consortium of institutions, national labs, and companies to develop biofuel production and supply chain demonstration projects in the U.S. Northeast. The $10 million, five-year project is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. The Northeast Woody/Warm-season Biomass Consortium, or NEWBio, will…

  • Cloud Services Create Rare Disease Solutions Challenge

    Assay Depot, a cloud-based network of scientific services, and Rare Genomics Institute, a network and crowdfunding platform for genetic diseases, started a challenge competition for research proposals leading to diagnostics and treatments for rare diseases. The challenge will award prizes of $10,000 in cash and donated research services valued at up to $400,000 from participating…

  • Challenge Seeks Kids’ Central Nervous System Measurements

    A new challenge competition is looking for methods for measuring an infant’s central nervous system development that can be administered in a pediatrician’s office. The competition, handled through the open innovation company InnoCentive, has a prize of $25,000 and a submission deadline of 15 December 2012. InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts conducts open-innovation, crowd-sourcing competitions for…

  • NSF Grant Funds Research on CO2 as Fossil Fuel Substitute

    Brown University in Providence received a $1.75 million grant for research on substituting carbon dioxide for fossil fuels in industrial chemicals. The funding from National Science Foundation’s Centers for Chemical Innovation program will support a joint chemical innovation program at Brown and Yale universities, headed by principal investigator Tayhas Palmore (pictured left), a materials scientist…

  • Edwards Lifesciences Acquires Blood Monitor Device Company

    Edwards Lifesciences Corp., a developer of cardiac and blood monitoring technology in Irvine, California, acquired BMEYE B.V., a maker of non-invasive blood-oxygen monitors in the Netherlands. The purchase price was €32.5 million ($42.0 million). Edwards Lifesciences designs and manufactures tissue replacement heart valves and valve repair products, as well as critical care, cardiac surgery systems,…

  • Resourceful Robot for High-Level Tasks in Development

    A research team at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta is building a robot with the ability to use objects in its environment to accomplish high-level tasks. The three-year project, being led by computer scientist Mike Stilman, is funded by a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research. “We want to understand the…