Science and Enterprise

Month: October 2013

  • Simple Solar Water System Devised to Kill Pathogens

    Engineering and food science faculty at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana  designed a solar device to kill waterborne bacteria that the inventors say can help provide clean drinking water to millions of people in developing countries. Civil and environmental engineering professor Ernest “Chip” Blatchley and food science biologist Bruce Applegate, with the help of students,…

  • 3-D Printer Maker Lands $19 Million in First Venture Funds

    Formlabs, a developer of three-dimensional printing technology in Somerville, Massachusetts, secured $19 million in its first venture funding. The financing round was led by venture capital company DFJ, with Pitango Venture Capital, Innovation Endeavors, and returning angel investors. Formlabs is a spin-off from MIT’s Media Lab, founded in 2011 by three engineers and designers. The…

  • Consortium Funds Bio-Semiconductor Component Research

    Semiconductor Research Corporation in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina is supporting research at six universities on components performing electronic functions, but based on biological models. The $2.25 million Semiconductor Synthetic Biology research studies will be conducted at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Yale, Georgia Tech, Brigham Young, and University of Washington. Semiconductor Research…

  • Network Analysis Shows Drug Resistant Infection Factors

    Operations researchers and computer scientists at University of Maryland in College Park and American University in Washington, D.C. identified interpersonal network interactions that help spread antibiotic resistant infections through a hospital. Maryland business professors Sean Barnes and Bruce Golden, with American University information technology faculty Edward Wasil, published their findings earlier this month in the…

  • Panel Recommends Steps for Sharing Patient Trial Data

    A study group of academics and pharmaceutical industry experts recommends expanding access to data from clinical trials, including data on individual participants, under tight protocols and conditions.

  • Tighter Home Weatherizing Standards Can Save $33 Billion

    Weatherizing U.S. homes to tighter international standards can save up to $33 billion in energy bills each year, according to calculations by engineers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California, part of the U.S. Department of Energy. The team led by environmental engineer Jennifer Logue published its findings in this month’s issue of the journal…

  • Consortium Formed for Antibiotic Resistance Drug Discovery

    A collaboration of Anacor Pharmaceuticals in Palo Alto, California with Colorado State University and University of California in Berkeley is researching new types of antibiotics to treat a broad range of infections, including those resistant to current antibiotics. The $13.5 million, 3.5 year project is funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, part of the…

  • Challenge Seeks Better Insecticide Performance Test Methods

    A new challenge on InnoCentive is looking for new methods or processes for tracking the interactions between insecticides and the pests they aim to kill. The competition has a total purse of $10,000 and a deadline of 18 November 2013 for proposals (free registration required). InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts conducts open-innovation, crowd-sourcing competitions for corporate…

  • Heat, Iron-Oxide Nanoparticles Improve Cancer Drug Delivery

    Pharmaceutical and engineering researchers at Oregon State University in Corvallis developed a technique with heated iron-oxide nanoparticles that in lab tests was shown to kill ovarian cancer cells with chemotherapy drugs. The team led by Oregon State pharmacy professor Oleh Taratula published its findings this month in an advance online paper in the International Journal of…

  • Software Written to Guide Yoga for Vision Impaired

    Computer scientists at University of Washington in Seattle wrote software for Microsoft Kinect game modules that provides spoken feedback for yoga students with little or no vision. The team led by doctoral student Kyle Rector describes the software known as Eyes-Free Yoga next week at ACM’s SIGACCESS International Conference on Computers and Accessibility in Bellevue,…