Sci Foo 2008

With an endorsement from my “info-friend” Attila @ PIMM I am very happy to be invited this year to attend “SciFoo” camp at the Googleplex somewhere in California. It’s like the ultimate achievement of my blogging ScienceGeek career!

The e-invite:

Jim,

We’d like to invite you to join us on the weekend of August 8-10 for Science Foo Camp (or “Sci Foo”), a unique, invitation-only gathering organized by Nature, O’Reilly Media, and Google, and hosted at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA.

Now in its third year, Sci Foo is already achieving cult status among those with a passion for science and technology. The Economist said that it “capture[s] the essence of innovation”; in a photo essay for Edge (http://tinyurl.com/3o9sam), George Dyson wrote of the “the impossible choice” when deciding which sessions to attend; another attendee described it simply as “The best gathering ever. Period.”

As before, we will be inviting about 200 people from around the world who are doing groundbreaking work in diverse areas of science and technology.

Participants will include not only researchers, but also writers, artists, investors, and other thought-leaders.

The format is highly informal: all delegates are also presenters and demonstrators; the schedule is determined collaboratively on the first evening; and sessions continue to be organized and re-organized throughout the weekend. This creates a unique opportunity to explore topics that transcend traditional boundaries, and discussions are of a kind that happens at the best conferences during breaks and late into the night.

Of course, there will also be time to have fun and relax at Google’s legendary campus.

Sci Foo 2008 will run from about 6pm on Friday, August 8 until after lunch on Sunday, August 10. Campers need to make their own way to and from the event, but Google will provide accommodation and meals, and there is no registration fee. For those who don’t have cars, there will also be free shuttle buses between the hotel and the Googleplex.

Please RSVP by replying to this email. We do have space restrictions, so if you’d like to attend please be sure to reply as soon as possible, and in any case by May 16.

We hope to see you at the Googleplex in August!

Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media

Chris DiBona, Google

Timo Hannay, Nature

About Nature

————-

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is dedicated to serving the information and communication needs of scientists and medics. NPG’s flagship title, Nature, first published in 1869, has now been joined by over 80 other titles, among them the Nature research journals, Nature Reviews, Nature Clinical Practice and a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. It also operates the leading scientific website, Nature.com, and a range of innovative online services, from databases to collaboration tools and podcasts. For more information, see http://www.nature.com.

About O’Reilly

—————

O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly has been a chronicler and catalyst of leading-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. Whether it’s delivered in print, online, or in person, everything O’Reilly produces reflects the company’s unshakeable belief in the power of information to spur innovation. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism. For more information, see http://www.oreilly.com.

About Foo Camps

—————-

The “Foo Camp” meeting format has been pioneered by O’Reilly (see http://xrl.us/b9sv). In this context, “Foo” originally stood for “Friends Of O’Reilly”, but it is also a meaningless ‘placeholder word’

commonly used by computer programmers, rather like the term ‘X’ in algebra. The success of O’Reilly’s original technology Foo Camps has stimulated a wide range of similar events, from Science Foo Camp to Disney’s Pooh Camp.

My 100th Post: Marligen Makes a Deal

It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything about Marligen, the only Biotech company in my home town of Ijamsville. And even though they are less than a mile from the Montgomery County line, they’re still a FredCoBio member. That’s like having a semi-sterile cell culture flask, I guess. Here’s the news clip, via businesswire.com:

Marligen Exclusively Licenses Genisphere Labeling Technology for the Detection of microRNAs on the xMAP® Platform

Marligen Launches Vantage™ Line for the Purification, Labeling and Detection of microRNAs

IJAMSVILLE, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Marligen Biosciences, Inc., a supplier of innovative products for the life sciences research market, will become the exclusive provider of Genisphere’s biotinylated labeling kits for detection of microRNAs on the xMAP^® multiplex platform. The microRNA labeling kits using Genisphere Inc.’s 3DNA^™ dendrimer signal amplification technology will be an integral product to Marligen’s new offering supporting researchers studying microRNAs. The Vantage™ product line includes reagent kits for purifying, labeling and detecting microRNA species.

Genisphere’s unique 3DNA^™ dendrimer technology is based on highly branched DNA structures serving as scaffolds for multiple biotins. The use of Genisphere’s signal amplification technology in combination with the Vantage™ microRNA detection panels offers researchers a fast and cost-effective system to directly profile multiple microRNAs in a single sample. The complete system offers exceptional sensitivity and throughput capabilities of greater than 100 samples in a single day and is compatible with total RNA or enriched RNA including degraded RNA from archived tissues. The initial Vantage™ microRNA Detection Panels are designed for profiling the relative abundance of different microRNA species known to be relevant in oncology. The Vantage™ Products will be launched at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research.

“High throughput profiling of MicroRNAs presents a challenge when combining rapid, effective labeling with improved detection sensitivity,” said Dr. Robert Getts, Director of R&D at Genisphere. “The complete Vantage™ package, having integrated our rapid 3DNA™ dendrimer microRNA labeling method with Marligen’s carefully designed detection panels, provides an optimized solution with consistent performance and much needed sensitivity on the xMAP® high-throughput detection platform.”

“Because microRNA play such an important role in tumor development and progression, it is vital we offer researchers innovative tools that allow them to profile these biological markers in archived samples. Our collaboration with Genisphere allows us to provide one of the most rapid and sensitive methods to screen directly from such samples,” said James Lazar, Chief Scientific Officer of Marligen Biosciences. “This will not only advance basic research but should expedite the application of microRNA detection in the diagnosis of cancer.”

It’s strange, because this article couldn’t be more timely. The Founder & CEO, Sherry Challberg, was the one who hired me in April 1988 to move South to Maryland. It’s hard to believe that it has been 20 years ago to this day.

I was working in a lab at the University of Rochester doing papilloma virus research (which supported research leading to a Nobel prize for Micheal Bishop in 1989 and in support of research into Open Reading Frames, which lead to the 1993 Nobel Prize for Sharp & Roberts and also 1989 Nobel prize in Chemistry for Thomas Cech’s discovery of Ribozymes) and steroid hormone modulation of gene expression (in support of research into Protein Phosphorylation as a regulatory mechanism of proteins leading to the 1992 Nobel prize for Edmund Fisher and Edwin Krebs and leading to the discovery of COX-2 enzyme and COX-2 inhibitors in 1991 which was subsequently “borrowed” by Pfizer and made into the blockbuster drug Celebrex, reaffirming Dr Young’s assertion that I was leaving academia to go work in the “Evil Empire” that is Industrial research).

But enough name dropping, lest you think this blog is just about shameless self-promotion.

Back to the story. We moved down here in 1988 to work in the Molecular Diagnostics Division of Life Technologies. This was sold in 1990 or ‘91 to become Digene. To the left you see the 25 year old version of yours truly, pretending I am doing lab work. This is from the front page of the Baltimore Sun’s Business section on Dec. 21, 1988. The story was about our pending FDA approval for (one of?) the first clinically approved DNA test on the market. You may notice that the paper has a tinge of orange from age, and if you look closely, you’ll see my beard was still orange, too. By the way, the Dow closed at a mere 2,166 that day, a 1-year CD would yield 9.00 % and the Prime was 10.5%.

ImQuest in Mississippi

I just found it funny that this PR Newswire press release was picked up by the SunHerald, covering Southern Mississippi. It’s a nice write-up, but not sure I’d like to go all of the way to Delhi to have to present it!

ImQuest Scientists Present Important HIV Microbicide Development Results at Microbicides 2008 in Delhi, India

By ImQuest Life Sciences

FREDERICK, Md., April 8, 2008 –

ImQuest scientists Robert W. Buckheit, Jr., Ph.D. and Karen M. Watson, M.S. presented the results of studies performed with products licensed by ImQuest Life Sciences, Inc. at the recent Microbicides 2008, an international conference held in New Delhi, India and attended by microbicide scientists, developers, and care givers from around the world. Dr. Buckheit was invited to speak by the Conference organizers, presenting the results of ImQuest’s current research on the pyrimidinedione series of microbicide candidates in a special symposium entitled “New Approaches to Microbicide Candidates”. ImQuest is currently developing the highly unique, dual acting pyrimidinediones as potential microbicide candidates based on their significantly high potency against HIV-1, their unique mechanism of action, and their ability to potently suppress the sexual transmission of wild type and drug resistant viruses.

According to Dr. Buckheit (Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of ImQuest Life Sciences, Inc., and President of its subsidiary, ImQuest BioSciences, Inc.), “It was highly gratifying to speak on our novel pyrimidinedione products at this Conference and to have them recognized as a new approach to HIV prevention by the thousands of dedicated people leading these efforts around the world.” ImQuest has obtained funding from the National Institutes of Health and The International Partnership for Microbicides to further develop these products.

At the conference, Ms. Watson (Manager, Topical Microbicide Research and Development) presented three papers, including additional data on the pyrimidinedione IQP-0528, newly emerging data on the microbicide candidate ISIS 5320 (IQP-0831), and results from laboratory studies performed using ImQuest’s recently developed Microbicide Transmission and Sterilization Assay which quantifies the ability of microbicide products to completely suppress the sexual transmission of HIV.

ImQuest Life Sciences, a privately held U.S. company located in Frederick, Maryland specializes in the preclinical and clinical development of novel compounds for the treatment of infectious disease and cancer. ImQuest BioSciences, also located in Frederick, Maryland, is a leading provider of anti-infective and anti-cancer drug and vaccine development services to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. Both companies are highly involved in efforts to develop an effective anti-HIV topical microbicide.

LLCT to supply Primary Cells for ATCC

I just saw this news feed from March 31, via Cell Therapy News:

“International Stem Cell Corporation Announces Manufacturing and
Supply Agreement with ATCC“
Oceanside, California, March 31, 2008, International Stem Cell Corporation (OTCBB:
ISCO) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with ATCC (American
Type Culture Collection, Manassas, Va.) to manufacture living primary cells and cell
culture products for worldwide distribution by ATCC into the biological research market.
ISCO, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Lifeline Cell Technology (Walkersville,
MD) develops and manufactures optimized human cell culture products for research use.
These products consist of frozen cells and cell culture media and reagents and include
stem cell products.

That’s a real shot in the arm for LLCT. I know they have had it rough the past couple of months, with the sudden death of their CEO in January.  I know a few people there and I wish them much success.  Maybe a couple will come to BioBeers?

Also of note, Mike Gove is quoted as the VP of Marketing for ATCC.  It’s always good to see a familiar name and former LifeTekker on the roster and in the news (for something positive).

Another busy day in the news

I was so caught up with some of the news yesterday, that I missed a whole special section of the business pages in the FNP called Progress 2008.

This section contained features on many local companies we’ve covered in the past: Akonni, FiberCell Systems, SAIC-Frederick, SuperArray and Dynport.

As the Opening “Editorial” suggests:

There may be no more exciting industry than biotechnology in these opening years of the 21st Century.

Maryland has more than 350 biotech companies and Frederick is a growing hub for research, home to nearly 40 biotech firms.

Economic development is targeting this low-impact, high-potential area; our educators are gearing to train the next generation of workers for what is anticipated to be a booming sector.

Among the highlights of the feature on SAIC-Frederick called “Cutting Edge”:

• Science Application International Corp., or SAIC, has been a mainstay of Frederick’s biotech research community since 1972 when President Nixon’s declared the “War on Cancer”
• SAIC-Frederick employs about 1,770 people, and operates on the largest single research contract awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services.
• SAIC-Frederick occupies 68 acres and 116 buildings at Fort Detrick
• Working with about 800 employees of the National Cancer Institute, the company operates from basic research and experimental levels, up to clinical trials and vaccine production (in their new facility off Rt 85 adjacent to the Ballenger Creek waste water treatment plant).
• SAIC-Frederick is currently monitoring 300 clinical trials that are under way all around the world, from Africa to Southeast Asia, and in the United States as well
• The company is also managing test locations at 16 hospitals around the country to deliver the latest in cancer care to rural and underserved urban areas
• In a separate article in today’s FNP, the parent of SAIC-Frederick reported revenues for 2007 of $8.94 billion, up 11 percent from the previous fiscal year

Dynamic DynPort: Headquartered just off U.S. 15, the DVC building covers a total of 60,000 square feet in the small business park, paralleling Thomas Johnson Drive. With over 87,000 employees worldwide, according to senior manager of communications April Finnen, “DVC is a world-class provider of solutions for the development of biopharmaceutical products.” More than specializing in vaccines for biological defense, Finnen said more recently DVC has begun to specialize in chemical defense and emerging infectious diseases.

Don’t forget to check out their current openings HERE. Rumor has it that they’re also looking to hire a number of for paid students internships over the summer! The application deadline is Aprill 11th, so you don’t have much time. I also wanted to give the interns from Hood we have working here get a jump on the competition, so I didn’t let the news out earlier.

FiberCell Doing Well: Since I know the owners pretty well, not much I can add. I know that they are busy this week strumming up business in New England (I’ve heard there are a few decent Biotech & academic institutions up there) and then off to the Left Coast for more Business Development. Rumor has it they’re going to get a big order for some systems from one of those Pharmas in NE. I hope they do. All I know is that John needs to be here tomorrow with me to cut open the three HF systems I have running with my MSC which have (hopefully) differentiated into neurons using placental basement membrane extract as a matrix.

SuperArray: The company has become a thriving biotech firm that sells its products worldwide : So successful, rumor has it, that they’re looking at a brand new, larger facility. SuperArray is home to about 65 employees. Although still a small number in comparison to many other companies, SuperArray has no problem finding business. “Sales are increasing. We are making a name for ourselves,” says Heather Fox-Brashears (yet another former Life Tekker). SuperArray experienced an 85 percent increase in revenue from 2005 to 2006.  I hope to be able to use their Stem Cell products pretty soon, pending my results from this weeks FiberCell collaboration.  I had set up some experiments about a year ago, but I was not able to follow through on it so I owe them a visit.

And finally, Quick Draw about Akonni.   They have been in the news so much lately, I don’t know if there is much more to say about them, other than the fact that they’re doing pretty well, leasing more space and expanding.  Here’s something I didn’t know:  The company was founded in Russia in 1988 by Dr. Andrei Mirzabekov, the director of the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology in Moscow. The team was brought to the United States in 1995 and the technology’s license was acquired by Akonni in 2002.  They are about 25 people strong, but I look for them to add more pretty soon.

I also wanted to direct you to the North (or is that the West?) with the announcement that Washington County is opening a new incubator in Hagerstown. According to the Herald-Mail, Hagerstown CC “has opened 11 wet labs suitable for biotech research, with $1.3 million from the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, Maryland Technology Development Corporation and the Washington County Commissioners”.  Sounds like people have caught on to the success of incubators elsewhere in the state.  Now if they start one in Ocean City…..

Too many topics, too little time

Today, as the weather breaks and the sun warms the ground, there are so many stories coming out from little old Frederick County, I won’t be able to do justice to them all.

In the Frederick News-Post today there are three interesting articles: The Tech Transfer Boon at the Fort, Our Resident Supply of Infected Mosquitos and an infestation of “cRusty crabs” in the Monocacy.

The first article is about The Fort Detrick Technology Transfer Initiative (FDTTI), where start-ups like me have access to technology developed at Ft Detrick. 11 companies have received FDTTI funding, nine of them are from Maryland, four from Frederick, with three from FITCI.

I was very interested about the growth of genetically-modified mosquitoes within Fort Detrick, because I am sure someone will read this and mount a new round of protests about GMO and all of the wide-spread pain and pestilence that is cultivated behind the concertina-wired walls of the Fort. Actually, I found it interesting because we know one of the PI’s at the lab through our daughter’s primary school. They are not really making GMM’s (genetically-modified mosquitoes), not there’s anything wrong with that or that they’d tell us if they were. I’ll bet there are plenty of GM-drosophila (fruit flies), though.

The third story is about the invasion of the Upper Monocacy with “rusty crayfish“, theorized to come form dumped bait buckets. So the DNR would like to ban fishing with crayfish in the Monocacy to prevent further spread of the invaders, which overwhelm the native crawdads and compete with game fish food resources. From the sounds of it, the rusties are much bigger and reddish in hue. Maybe they can be farmed for human consumption?

On to the other news:

Since posts about Jobs seem to popular, I saw a news feed about a Bioscience Career Fair in Bethesda. I’ll just cut and paste the feed:

BioSpace, the world’s leading online bioscience job board and life science career fair company, will host

the BioCapital Career Fair in Bethesda, MD on Thursday, April 17, 2008. The

event will take place at the Bethesda Marriott from 11 am to 4 pm. Life science professionals from across the BioCapital region including

Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., will attend the biotech

job fair to meet in person with leading biotech and pharmaceutical

companies. Candidates will interview for careers with Aerotek Scientific,

Emergent BioSolutions, Lockheed Martin, SAIC-Frederick and many others.

Companies at the event will be hiring to fill clinical research jobs,

science jobs, engineering jobs, pharmaceutical sales jobs, formulation jobs

and a myriad of other opportunities.

The last BioCapital Career Fair, held on October 23, 2007, provided the

employers with over 500 pre-registered job seekers. Before the event

several exhibitors took advantage of the private BioSpace Career Fair

resume database to scout talent and schedule interviews ahead of time.

BioSpace encourages interested career fair candidates to pre-register

for the event at:
http://careers.biospace.com/Jobs/Public/CareerReceptionDetails.aspx?RECEPTION_ID=139

Candidates are required to hold a four year degree in a relevant

discipline and have at least two years of experience in a

bioscience-related field or industry.

The Bethesda Marriott is located at 5151 Pooks Hill Road, Bethesda, Maryland.

And last, but not least, a nice bit of news coming out from ImQuest, on Executive Way. ImQuest BioSciences, Inc. announced today the publication of the results of an important structure- activity relationship study to investigate the efficacy and toxicity of a series of pyrimidinedione analogs against HIV-1 and HIV-2.

Maybe they need to have a Job Board, too!

Tech Awards wrap-up

The Tech Awards last night was a pretty good time. Aside from running into a few people I hadn’t seen in a number of years, I also met a few new people. It’s all about Networking. I was hoping to post a few pictures, but will have to see what I’ve got. I forgot to grab my camera from the house when I left in the morning and made a quick dash into the house over lunch. I ran in the back door, grabbed the camera off the PC in my daughter’s room and right out the front door. Apparently, I left the back gate open and the slider into the back porch open a bit, too. When my wife got home from work she thought someone had broken in. I was just worried about waking up the dogs, because they would have wanted to got outside and get some attention. I didn’t realize until I got to Lynfield and took the camera out that the battery was critically low. Such are the hazards of teenage daughters. I forgot to plug it in last night, so the battery was still drained this morning and I couldn’t download the few pictures I took.

But this is supposed to be a post about the event and not a litany of lame excuses of why I didn’t post any pictures.

I learned that I am a poor prognosticator. The only award winner I guessed correctly was Akonni (Small business of the Year). I was pretty sure about that one, as they’ve made all the right moves. They have a fascinating product, with both military and health care uses, they’ve run the gamut of the various funding organizations and moved into the downtown historic district along Carrol Creek. Plus, they’re growing and hiring people and the new facility is really great.

And so the battle of Frederick last night was won by the IT guys, as both of the other winners were IT companies.

Firm of the year went to Regent Education Incorporated . According to Rick Harris, Executive Director of the Tech Alliance of the Tech Council of Maryland: “This company has revolutionized the way financial aid is analyzed and dispersed in the United States. It has seen growth by more than 300 percent, which is phenomenal, by any standard and their products are truly breakthrough technology. Regent is a model for how to start and grow a business to meet a need.”

Mike Gaver with GTI Federal took the Executive of the Year award. To be honest with you, I am not really sure about the “product” they provide, but can see from their web site that they have contracts with the General Services Administration (GSA), U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), the State of Maryland, DHS, DOE, Navy, the State Department and the NIH to name a few.

There was a final award give to SAIC-Frederick, Inc.. This was the Technology Leadership Award. A lot of times people forget how big and important SAIC really is to Fort Detrick and the county’s biotech community. For example, here are all of their job openings in Frederick:

At Fort Detrick

Geoffrey Way Vaccine Production Facility

Clinical Monitoring Program on Industry Lane

TJ Drive contracts and Admin

Advanced Technology Program on Toll House

Must run.  Maybe some pictures later..

Tech Awards Tonight

Tonight, the Tech Council of Maryland is sponsoring the 6th Annual Tech awards at the Lynfield event complex on Hansonville Rd. I will be attending and sitting at the FITCI table.

This years finalists are:

Executive of the Year:

• Michael Dailey, FITCI
• Mark Gaver, GTI Federal
• Chris Hagenbuch, safeTspace

Firm of the Year:
• Regent Education Incorporated
• Orases
• Integrated BioTherapeutics Inc.

Small Business of the Year:
• Biological Mimetics, Inc.
• Akonni Biosystems Inc.
• Imagilin Technology, LLC

I am obviously biased towards the Biotech groups in the fold, so I offer these predictions. I can assure you I have no insider information:

Exec. of the Year: Mike Dailey

Firm of the Year: Orases (I know nothing about them but they have a great web site. I think IBT will win something next year, but haven’t made enough of a splash this year, IMHO)

Small Business of the Year: Akonni

I’ll give the lowdown on the “best night of networking” tomorrow.

FITCI Expansion?

There is a nice article in today’s FNP about FITCI. The photo on the FNP web site isn’t very high resolution, but if you read the print version, you can actually see/read the company names on the poster.

I have blogged about FITCI a bunch before, so I won’t belabor the point. It’s nice to see that all the money Frederick County and City are giving to FITCI ($150K per year from County and $50K per year from City) are returning almost three times that amount in terms of jobs and tax revenue. I am glad to be a part of their success. Maybe Mike will even finish the blogterview is sent out to him in November?

Life Extention for 20 bucks

Taking a tip from Attila at PIMM, I am going to blog briefly again about SENS and the concept of Life Extension. If old age still accounts for 2/3 of all human deaths, why is there not a focused effort to combat it? And according to other studies, improving peoples health will actually increase long term health care costs so why aren’t the big Pharma and insurance companies all over it? In concept, we need to start thinking about aging as a disease.

Personally, I have been obsessed with the concept since reading Robert Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love” in 1979 or 1980 (kind of fuzzy on the exact date for some reason). It is a story about a man who is thousands of years old and stays alive through a series of regenerative medical procedures and good genetics.

At a recent AFCEA luncheon (I wish they’d fix their damn web site and start leaving a trail of speakers and presentations!), I posed a question to one of the Directors of NCI (don’t recall his name) about how long he thought human life could be extended. His answer was that he thought that human life expectancy has already increased dramatically in only the last generation. 100 years ago, life expectancy was somewhere in the 60’s (in the US, that is) and today it is over 70. He fully expects that number to continue to grow and said he wouldn’t be surprised if someone born in the next 30-50 years (maybe one of my great grand kids?) would be able to live to 150 or 200 years old.

That should be enough to earn $20 for blogging about Longevity Research, eh?