Science and Enterprise

Month: October 2010

  • Research Improves Canola Yields, Adds Benefits for Farmers

    Canola, a flowering plant known for its low saturated-fat cooking oil, can also help winter wheat farmers in the Pacific Northwest control weeds, as well as convert into biodiesel, and produce cattle feed supplements. Those are the results and impacts of research conducted by Frank Young, an agronomist with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) office…

  • More Research Urged on Marcellus Drilling Impact

    The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is calling for a comprehensive research plan that provides guidelines and an assessment tool for regulators and managers in order to minimize the environmental impact of Marcellus Shale gas drilling. Marcellus Shale is a deep geological formation along the east coast of the United States with an…

  • R&D Spending Creates 11,000+ Jobs in Indiana Since 1999

    An analysis of Indiana’s 21st Century Research and Technology Fund estimates the fund created more than 11,000 jobs since it began in 1999, sparking $427 million in economic activity in the state. Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research in Muncie, Indiana conducted the study. The Indiana General Assembly created the fund in…

  • Noninvasive Alcohol Test Gains U.S. Army Grant

    The U.S. Army has awarded a grant to TruTouch Technologies, a developer of alcohol testing systems in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the company to further develop its technology. The grant for $438,000 was awarded by the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command and the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center at Fort Detrick,…

  • Clinical Trial of Stem Cell Therapy Underway

    Geron Corporation in Menlo Park, California said today the first patient has enrolled in the clinical trial of its drug GRNOPC1, that contains oligodendrocyte progenitor cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESC). The objective of this Phase 1 study is to assess the safety and tolerability of GRNOPC1 in patients with complete American Spinal…

  • Fewer Venture Funds Raise More Capital in Q3 2010

    Thomson Reuters, a business news and database publisher, and the National Venture Capital Association report today that U.S. venture capital (VC) companies raised nearly $3 billion in the third quarter of 2010, up from $2.1 billion in the second quarter of the year. However, the number of VC companies raising funds in the third quarter…

  • Private Spaceship Makes First Glide, Landing Tests

    Virgin Galactic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a company developing the world’s first commercial manned space flight system and tourism business, completed yesterday the first piloted free flight of its craft, the VSS Enterprise. The company says its two main goals of the flight were a clean release of the test craft from its mothership…

  • ImmunoGen, Novartis to Collaborate on Cancer Drugs

    ImmunoGen Inc., a biotechnology company in Waltham, Massachusetts, said today it has a collaboration agreement with Novartis to discover and develop targeted anticancer therapeutics using antibodies to several antigen targets to be named by Novartis, a pharmaceutical manufacturer headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. Under the agreement, Novartis will pay a $45 million fee to ImmunoGen for…

  • Biotech, Pharma Companies Partner on Schizophrenia Research

    Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, a global drug manufacturer in Osaka, Japan, and Envoy Therapeutics Inc., a drug discovery company in Jupiter, Florida, said today they formed a three-year research alliance aimed at discovering drugs for schizophrenia with greater efficacy and safety compared to current therapies. Envoy’s technology, called bacTRAP, combines genetic engineering with molecular biology techniques…

  • Virginia Medical Device Company Wins Small Business Grants

    HemoSonics LLC, a developer of blood diagnostics devices in Charlottesville, Virginia, has received three grants totaling some $2 million from National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Office of Naval Research. The company was founded by three faculty members at University of Virginia, also in Charlottesville, to commercialize their research in biomedical engineering. HemoSonics’ technology, called…