Science and Enterprise

Month: July 2012

  • GM Developing Wi-Fi Pedestrian Detection Technology

    General Motors says its researchers are developing a new feature for drivers that detects pedestrians and bicyclists on congested streets or in poor visibility, before the driver can see them. The system is based on Wi-Fi Direct, a peer-to-peer wireless standard that makes it possible for enabled devices to communicate with each other without a…

  • University, Company to Develop Advanced Infrared Detectors

    Rochester Institute of Technology in New York received a National Science Foundation grant for research on infrared detectors grown on silicon wafers, with potential applications in astronomy, remote sensing, and medical imaging. The $1.2 million award will fund RIT’s development, fabrication, and testing of a new type of detectors grown on silicon wafer substrates by…

  • Space Institute Funds Medical Product Commercialization

    National Space Biomedical Research Institute in Houston will support the commercialization of two health care products made by small U.S. companies. The awards of $100,000 each were made by the institute’s Space Medicine and Related Technologies Commercialization Assistance Program (SMARTCAP) to ACell Inc., of Columbia, Maryland and Enterade USA of Newberry, Florida. SMARTCAP provides seed…

  • Award Funds Malaria Drug Anti-Counterfeiting Technology

    The organization Saving Lives at Birth has awarded a Boston University engineering professor a grant to complete development of technology that can determine the potency of drugs like those to treat malaria. The two-year $250,000 grant will fund Muhammad Zaman’s (pictured left) work on PharmaCheck, a handheld microfluidic — lab-on-a-chip — device. PharmaCheck scans pills…

  • New Method Devised to Predict Distributed Grid Power

    Computer scientists at University of Southampton in the U.K. have developed mathematical techniques that encourage accurate predictions of distributed electric power contributions to regional power grids. The work of Valentin Robu and colleagues from Southampton’s Agents, Interaction and Complexity Research Group was presented this week at the Twenty-Sixth Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Toronto. As…

  • Small Business Grant Awarded for Artificial Pancreas Insulin

    Biodel Inc., a biopharmaceutical company in Danbury, Connecticut, has received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to develop concentrated faster-acting insulin formulations for use in an artificial pancreas. The two-year grant totaling $582,473 was awarded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of National Institutes of Health (NIH). Biodel notes…

  • Patent Awarded for Heat Resistant Polylactic Acid Polymers

    Cereplast Inc., a manufacturer of bio-based plastics in El Segundo, California, received a patent for its formulation of heat-resistant polymers with polylactic acid. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued number 8,222,320 to Cereplast CEO Frederic Scheer and researcher William Kelly on 17 July 2012. Polylactic acid is a natural resin that can be formed…

  • Lymphoma Drug Found to Uncover Dormant HIV

    A team led by researchers at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill have found a drug given to fight lymphoma was able to dislodge heretofore hidden virus in patients with HIV. The findings appear online in this week’s issue of the journal Nature (paid subscription required). The researchers, led by UNC medical professor David…

  • $2.6B Venture Fund Aims for Health Care, Energy Companies

    New Enterprise Associates Inc., a venture capital company in Chevy Chase, Maryland, says it has closed its 14th fund with $2.6 billion in capital. New Enterprise says the new fund is its third consecutive property exceeding $2.5 billion, and brings the company’s total committed capital to more than $13 billion across all of its funds.…

  • Model, Software Find Minerals in Mountain Ranges

    A geophysicist at Tel Aviv University in Israel has developed modeling techniques and associated software for discovering minerals in mountain ranges, which are difficult to survey for mining opportunities. Lev Eppelbaum, a professor in the university’s geophysics and planetary sciences department, presented his methods in a paper at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union…