An early Pi Day BioBeers – Friday March 2nd at FITCI

I know, I know, seems like we just had BioBeers, but that was in January.  The date is set and the beer will be cold and the munchies adequate for those who get there in time.  The next BioBeers will be at the Frederick Innovative Technology Center (FITCI) 4539 Metropolitan Court 21704 

In honor of our new sponsor, BioStat Solutions, I have decided this BioBeers needs to be in celebration of Pi Day, March 14th-> 3.14 for those nerdy enough to need to know.  Pi Day is a holiday commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi).  I realize the really *big* Pi day doesn’t happen until 2015 (At 9:26:53 on Pi Day 2015, the date will be 3/14/15 at 9:26:53, corresponding to 3.141592653), but I believe our Mission qualifies us science nerds to celebrate this day with Beer, the oldest form of Biotechnology.  We can chat statistics all night long, or at least until the beer runs out.  We hope to be outside, so dress for success, or consult your local meteorologist before heading out. 

As usual, the event runs from 4:30 PM until 7 PM.  Please RSVP via the LinkedIn event, MeetUp group or just shoot me an email.

Speaking about me, I have a new email fredcobio@gmail.com (all the others still work) and I am moving to another consulting gig in North Carolina.  Same type of consulting, but leaving my home away from home for warmer weather, proximity to home and more money.  I start on 2/27, so won’t be back until after 9 PM the night of BioBeers.  Ping me if you are curious, but I will be able to be home every other week and weekend (working 8 10′s and off 6) so you many coincidentally contact me more often.

Next BioBeers Friday January 27th

After skipping December’s edition because I was out of town and the Holidays “Occupying” everyone’s time and availability, we’re back on track for a BioBeers in January. 

The next event will be back at ImQuest Biosciences, 7340 Executive Way Suite R from 4:30 until 7 PM on Friday January 27th.

The theme (we have to have a theme now since we started it!) is Shaking the Winter Blues!  We have two new sponsors lined up: Kymanox and Noble Life Sciences.  We are also fortunate that ImQuest is letting Susan Jessee serve as the “Interim Grand Poobah” in my absence.  I’ll be in the Great White North working while you are all enjoying fermented beverages and free food.   Rumor has it that there may be Door Prizes as well!

As always, the best way to RSVP is through the LinkedIn Event or MeetUp.  My project here in Ohio is heating up.  The group i am subcontracted through is asking for as many as another 20 consultants, so if you can travel to Ohio (expenses covered) and have a background in GMP QA, RA, Validation, shoot me an email at fredcobio@gmail.com.  Otherwise, stay in Frederick and have fun without me!

Introducing new contributing members

Holiday Greetings to all of the Frederk County Biotechnology Community out there in the internets, assuming your access is not restricted by Big Brother !  As some of you may know, I started working in Cleveland first week in December on a consulting project.  I don’t want to discuss details publicly, but suffice to say it is a very important project, I’m working with a group of excellent consultants (one ‘old’ friend from LTI and one former FMC MedImmune person in the 20 on site), being in Cleveland is like my second home, money is good and I love driving on the PA Turnpike.

While I am pre-occupied in Ohio a couple of benevolent volunteers stepped forward to help keep BioBeers and the blog running.  Since we have a recurring occupancy of ImQuest Biosciences,  Susan Jessee has graciously volunteered to  take a lead role in organizing the Event and I am working with her while I am in town this week as to dump as much on her as I can.

Also on the rolls is Terrence Brann, a former LTI, GTI, ONCOR & SAIC-Frederick worker “between jobs,” as we say in this day and age.

So, I encourage you all to be as supportive and useful as always and help us keep the momentum rolling while I spend a few quality months-years in the Great White North.

I want to personally thank you all for being there for me and making Frederick County Biotech better than the rest.  We are “leading the way” and our quest is spreading through the “other” counties in the State that seem to get all of the attention.

I wish you all good health, happiness and prosperity in 2012 and beyond.

Halloween BioBeers Friday

I find it hard to believe that it’s almost Halloween!  This year is flying by.

First things first. The next BioBeers is happening at ImQuest (7340 Executive Way Suite R 21704) this Friday October 28th. And it’s a costume party.  Costumes are not mandatory, but encouraged.  The ImQuest guys are going to go all out, from what I have been told.

I also find it hard to believe that people continue to step up to the plate to sponsor BioBeers.  We have two new sponsors, aside from The Scale People (also 1st time sponsors) and the wonderful folks with the iWIN group at LifeTech.

I have two additional sponsors: Hagerstown Community College and Federal Allies Institute.  I am very glad to share this space with our neighbors to the north in Hagerstown.  We may all end up moving there in another 25 years!

As usual, it’s best to RSVP via LinkedIn, MeetUp, by leaving a reply here or sending me an email to gahaga@gmail.com  We can talk about what costumes we’re wearing because it will be awkward if we both wear the same thing. Yeah.

Jobs and the Next BioBeers

A quick Sunday post with a couple twists.

First, the next BioBeers is happening at ImQuest on Friday October 28th. And it’s a costume party, so dress like something other than a nerd scientists. Come on. You can do it.

I have two sponsors thus far: Life Tech and The Scale People

I still need more sponsors, so if you’re intested let me know.

I was also contacted by someone looking to fill various positions in Frederick:

Manager Quality Assurance / Quality control – Individual who can provide leadership to QA/QC/Analytical groups and has proven track record in pharmaceutical industry. Experience in pre and post inspections, product approval submissions (ANDA, NDA) to FDA, interaction with global clients, familiarity with regulations and participate in management decisions. Ph.D. or MS in Pharmaceutical sciences or related field with ten years of Pharmaceutical industry experience.

Manager Operations Manager Operations – Experience in cGMP (Current Good Manufacturing Practices) Pharmaceutical operations, preferably in solid dosage forms, process development, maintenance of utilities and facilities, and planning. Interact with clients. Must have regulatory knowledge in cGMP, equipment, scale-up and production. BS or MS in Chemistry or engineering or related sciences with a minimum of seven years of experience in a reputable pharmaceutical company.

Two other positions in a new Lab:  Post Doc and Technician 

 The effort will include engineering proteins and biomaterials for regenerative medical applications using human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Other projects will include developing methods to characterize cell growth and differentiation of MSCs in 3-D tissue culture; applying protein engineering methods to discover sequences that enhance protein affinity, stability, or expression; designing and fabricating bioactive scaffolds; and, in vivo

characterization of candidate scaffolds. A Ph.D. in Bioengineering, Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, or related field with lab or industry experience in molecular biology and cloning; protein engineering,

expression and purification; biomaterials engineering; and MSC biology is preferred.

if you’re interested, let me know aqnd I will route you apopropriately:  gahaga@gmail.com

BioBeers on Friday

I’ve been waiting until the last minute to remind everyone BioBeers is this Friday, August 19th starting at 4:30 PM at The Frederick Innovative Technology Center (FITCI), 4539 Metropolitan Court 21704. 

I was waiting because I had a couple people fighting over the last sponsorship spot.  The Lucky winners this month are The Frederick County Chamber of Commerce, FITCI and Meridian Biogroup.

Don’t forget, we’re going rain or shine (never know what the weather will bring but I think it’s supposed to be a nice day with only a slight chance of T-storms) and we’re outside, so wear something fun and flashy and Hawaiian or Tie-Dyed.

Beer is coming in a few more flavors this time via Barley & Hops and we’re getting *fancy* food from Olives.  There’s also a rumor circulating that ImQuest, the unofficial Chicken Wing Sponsor of BioBeers, is going to bring some wings to round things (like my fat belly) out.

RSVP by leaving a comment, reply to my email, through the MeetUp group or the LinkedIn Group.  See you all on Friday!

Next BioBeers is Set

I should have realized that having the June BioBeers in July (which was a fabulous event in case you missed it) would mean the regularly-scheduled August BioBeers would creep up on me like streptavidin to biotin and I was ready for it.

I just wasn’t ready to blog it, yet.

{drum roll, please}

The next BioBeers will start promptly at 4:30 PM on Friday August 19th.  The Venue is the Frederick Innovative Technology Center (FITCI) at 4539 Metropolitan Court, Frederick 21704.

Put that in your GPS and search it if you don’t know where it is already.

Sponsors thus far are the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce and Moore Wealth and one more that’s not ready to be outed.

Since we’re going to be outdoors in August, let’s have a theme?  How about a Hawaiian or Tie-Dye shirt theme?  Sounds informal and festive, right?

On another note, the contractor I am working under, Raland Technologies, is looking for a couple more people with Scientific, Training facilitation and Instructional Design backgrounds.  If you are interested, please get in touch.

RSVP by leaving a comment, reply to my email, through the MeetUp group or the LinkedIn Group

Biotech Connect

The Dog Days of Summer are here and the Biotech Livin’ in Frederick is easy……

I’m setting up a couple of events you all may be interested in.  First and foremost, working on the next BioBeers in August at “The Incubator” aka the Frederick Innovative Technology Center or FITCI for short.  I have one firm sponsor and could use one or two more, if you are interested.  No date, at his point in time.

Just got out of a great meeting at the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce with Frank and SAIC-Frederick.  We’re setting up, with Frank’s help, the next Tech Connect for Bio event at the Chamber.   What we are trying to do is to peel the onion back a bit deeper and give local companies more insight into what is going on at Fort Detrcik and how they can participate as either a partner in providing goods and services or in licencing out technologies developed on the Fort for commercial purposes.   This is the main reason Jim Hartley and I started BioBeers in the first place.  Jim is working with our old (I say that with the best intent) friend Deb on this amazing system they have developed:

You need to scroll over to the right hand column and pick the “SAIC-Frederick Targeted Protein Delivery” icon to see their video.  I don’t know how to copy and attach a flash file.  As you’ll see from the viseo, they even roped in another former LifeTech employee, Dave Hoekzema, to lead the commercialization effort.  It’s like the holy trinity of innovation that the fools formerly in charge of  Invitrogen jettisoned.

The third thing is an event I am helping to set up.  Lilypons Water Gardens has an annual wine festival and Dog Jumping contest.  You know those events you may have seen on ESPN where the dog sprints down a dock and leaps as far as they can into the water chasing a decoy?   So I was there in my official capacity as a  Chamber of Commerce Ambassador talking to Margret about trying to find out if they could use spent grains from beer making as fish food and she mentions their annual event, The Puppy Palooza on Sept 3rd & 4th.  Margret mentioned that the crowd was more of a “beer crowd” than a wine crowd and if I knew anyone she could talk to about making this a Beerfest?  In case you didn’t know, we have a local brewery call “Flying Dog.”  I know some people there and we’re going to make it happen.  The 1st ever Flying Dog competition at Lilypons sponsored by Flying Dog and hopefully represented by all of the local breweries.  Stay tuned!

June BioBeers to be Held July 8th at ImQuest

Eat, Drink and be Merry and pretend it’s still June.  Next BioBeers returning to our friends at ImQuest Biosciences.  Hosts for this month’s festivities are Life Technologies Corp., Lonza-Walkersville and Moore Wealth. As usual, there will be no agenda, but come out and mingle uncomfortably with fellow science geeks.  No excuses for missing the June Biobeers in July.

RSVP via the LinkedIn event, MeetUp Group or by sending me an email, please…

April 8th Biobeers and SAIC-Frederick NCI tour today

Biobeers on Friday rocked the Akonni house.  We had about 200 people and killed 3 kegs in just about 3 hours, a new Biobeers record (although some people have nothing to be proud about).  Let’s hope we can break that record in June.  I have several people offering to sponsor in June, but we need a venue.  If anyone has space for 200 people and the desire to have 200 people in biotech roost in their hood foe a few hours in June, let me know…

I uploaded some pictures sent to me by Cheryl at Akonni onto MeetUp.  If you have any you’d like to share, please let me know.

And speaking of FredCoBio stuff, I was invited by my friends at SAIC-Frederick to be a part of a “Media Tour” of NCI-Frederick.  the tour included a nice overview, a tour of the Laboratory of Proteomics and Analytical Technology (LPAT), the NCI Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer and the Electron Microscope Lab.  It was a good tour, fairly basic on the hard core science side of things, but a good tour nonetheless.

I learned a couple things:

1.  US consumers spent about $5.1 billion USD on Halloween in 2010.  The entire budget for NCI annually is $5.2 billion.  That means we spent about as much on pagan rituals and high fructose corn syrup products (excluding motor fuel)  in 2010 as we did on cancer research.

2.  The Federal Government spent in 30 days in the was in Iraq as much as they have in the past 30 years on cancer research (per the NCI budget).

OK, which one is has the best ROI?  The War on Cancer or the War on Terrorism?