Science and Enterprise

Month: September 2010

  • Flywheel Developer Awarded ARPA-E Contract

    Beacon Power Corporation, a developer of energy storage systems and services in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) to develop components of a more advanced flywheel energy storage system over a two-year period. Beacon Power says the contract is valued at $2.8 million.…

  • FDA Gives Muscular Dystrophy Therapy Orphan Drug Status

    Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT), a biotechnology company in the Netherlands doing work in human gene therapy, said today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated its gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) as an orphan drug. In October 2009, a committee the European Medicines Agency also granted the therapy, known as…

  • Water Purification Technology Launched Based on Rare Earths

    Molycorp Minerals Inc., a producer of rare earths in Greenwood Village, Colorado, says it has launched of a new rare earth-based water purification technology called Xsorbx. Rare earths are a collection of mineral elements, such as cerium and lanthanum, used in advanced and strategic manufacturing products — e.g. electric car batteries, flat-screen TVs, and wind…

  • NRC Report: Biometric Technology “Inherently Fallible”

    Biometric systems — designed to recognize individuals based on biological and behavioral traits such as fingerprints, palm prints, or voice or face recognition — are “inherently fallible,” says a new report by the National Research Council (NRC). In addition, says the report, no single biological and behavioral trait has been identified that is stable and…

  • Dana-Farber, Sanofi-aventis Partner on Cancer Research

    Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Belfer Institute of Applied Cancer Science in Boston, Massachusetts and Sanofi-aventis, a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Paris have struck a collaboration and license option agreement to identify and validate new oncology targets for further discovery and development by Sanofi-aventis. Dana-Farber’s Belfer Institute and Sanofi-aventis scientists will work together on discovering new…

  • NIH Foundation, Eli Lilly Launch US-Russia Science Partnership

    The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) in Bethesda, Maryland and Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, Indiana have started a U.S.–Russia Forum in Health Sciences to encourage collaboration on shared priorities in health related research. FNIH is establishing the forum with a $1.3 million grant from Eli Lilly as the founding private…

  • Commerce Dept. Makes Science-Tech Commercialization Awards

    Six U.S. technology R&D organizations are the winners of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s i6 Challenge, a competition of ideas for technology commercialization and entrepreneurship.  Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced the winners today at an event on regional innovation clusters co-hosted by The Brookings Institution. The i6 Challenge identifies the nation’s best ideas for technology…

  • Clinical Trial Shows Results for Rheumatoid Arthritis Drug

    A six-month clinical trial of the drug fostamatinib, developed by Rigel Pharmaceuticals of South San Francisco, California, shows improved outcomes for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who responded inadequately to ongoing treatment with another RA drug, methotrexate. Fostamatinib is an inhibitor of spleen tyrosine kinase, a modulator of immune signaling. The double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 2…

  • Partnership to Develop Sensors for Wound Infections

    ECI Biotech, a developer of diagnostic sensors in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Systagenix, a medical device company specializing in wound care solutions based in the U.K., have agreed to produce sensors to improve the diagnosis and treatment of chronic wound infections. The agreement covers licensing and manufacturing of diagnostic wound sensors, which ECI Biotech says will…

  • Microfinance Expands for Research Funding

    SciFlies is the latest Web site for collecting public donations for research, taking the grassroots funding model found in the arts and media and applying it to science. With Sciflies and similar sites, researchers pitch their ideas to the public at large, who then can contribute to their favorite projects. The SciFlies idea is similar…