Science and Enterprise

Month: July 2010

  • Canadian Joint Venture to Produce Nanotech Fibers

    Domtar Corporation and FPInnovations today announced a new joint venture to build a commercial-scale nanocrystalline cellulose demonstration plant. During its pilot phase, the plant, located at Domtar’s Windsor, Quebec pulp and paper mill site, will produce one metric ton of the material per day. Nanocrystalline cellulose is an abundant nanomaterial made of cellulose fibers from…

  • Science Sectors Help Power 2Q Jump in Venture Financing

    Venture capitalists invested $6.5 billion in 906 deals in the second quarter of 2010, with both numbers representing sizeable gains over the first quarter of the year. And in the second quarter, science-based industries were among the leaders in attracting venture capital (VC). PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the National Venture Capital Association provide these findings in…

  • Academic-Business Partnership Proposals Sought by NSF

    National Science Foundation (NSF) wants innovative ideas on energy, sustainability, and the education of next generation entrepreneurs from small business and academic institutions, and is prepared to pay $7 million for those ideas. This NSF program, called Partnerships for Innovation, aims to produce academic scientists better able to adapt their findings to practical applications and…

  • Biotech-Manufacturing Partnership to Open Biodiesel Pilot Plant

    Novozymes, a Danish maker of industrial enzymes, and Piedmont Biofuels, a biofuels manufacturer and coop in Pittsboro, North Carolina, will unveil tomorrow a new pilot plant demonstrating improved process for the production of biodiesel. The companies say this is the first pilot plant of its kind in the United States and uses a new method…

  • Robotic Exoskeleton Provides Disabled More Precise Mobility

    An Auckland, New Zealand company has built a pair of robotic legs strapped to and worn outside the body that helps disabled people stand, walk, climb steps and ramps, and move in any direction.  The company, Rex Bionics, says the robotic exoskeleton has undergone seven years of development and testing, including regulatory approval in New…

  • Biotech Company Wins NIH Biodefense Grants

    MacroGenics Inc, a biotechnology company in Rockville, Maryland, today announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the company three new grants representing total funding of $9.8 million. MacroGenics develops therapeutics to treat autoimmune disorders, cancer and infectious diseases. The company says the NIH grants will advance its Dual-Affinity Re-Targeting (DART) platform, as…

  • Financing Deals: 14 July 2010

    Pacific Biosciences in Menlo Park, California, a developer of molecular biology technology, announced completion of a new round of financing worth $109 million. This round includes a previously announced $50 million investment by Gen-Probe Inc., a maker of molecular diagnostic products and services. Hugh Martin, Pacific Biosciences’s chairman and CEO says the funding will be…

  • Algae Biofuels Project Advances from Lab to Greenhouse

    The oil and gas company Exxon Mobil Corporation and Synthetic Genomics Inc. (SGI) opened today a greenhouse to provide more real-life conditions in their algae biofuels program. The facility is located on the SGI campus in La Jolla, California. SGI specializes in commercial applications of genomic research. SGI and Exxon Mobil researchers are using the…

  • Partnership to Develop Psychiatric Treatments

    Aestus Therapeutics in North Brunswick, New Jersey) and Eisai Inc. in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey will collaborate on research and development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. The collaboration will cover pre-clinical validation of potential therapeutics leading to clinical proof-of-concept studies. Aestus says it has previously identified products with the potential to…

  • Genomic Behavior Profile Developed of Human Arteries

    Scientists at HemoShear LLC in Charlottesville, Virginia, have produced a profile of all genes that influence the biology and function of the human artery system. The research offers insights into the range of genes found in specific cell-types that make up human arteries. Brett Blackman, one of the company’s founders, said HemoShear’s team “identified individual…