BioBeers Friday, Badgers, News and other Random Stuff

As if I haven’t pestered you all anough already BioBeers is this Friday at ImQuest Biosciences Friday February 18th starting at 4:30 PM. I am getting Ribs from RibCity, so please do RSVP so I can get the right amount. RSVP’s trickling in thus far and I am giving you multiple choices. You can RSVP by emailing me, leaving a comment or go on the MeetUp or LinkedIn sites (both require FREE registration). Badger, badger as in “Her hungry fingers tore at my shirt buttons like wild badgers” (a hilarious episode of Prairie Home Companion I listened to on the way back from Fredericksburg VA last week http://is.gd/UWzJWF can’t help it that I am a radio junkie). 

Speaking of Badgers, Akonni was in the news this week for signing a licensing agreement with USAMRIID which covers covers nucleic acid sequences, primers, and probes that will serve as the basis for multiplexed molecular tests for Bacillus anthracis, vaccinia/orthopox virus, Yersinia pestis, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus. How neat is that?

Speaking of neat stuff, you all may know that I have been working on an inexpensive, hand held thermocycler (LavaAmp).  Well, so compatriots of ours, Tito Janokoswski and crew with pearl biotech, have released a DIY $500 thermocycler.  It’s based on the standard tube format PCR in aluminum block, so I don’t consider this a threat at all to our low resource, low power, portable device, but cool news nonetheless out of the DIYBio guys.  They also have the Open Gel Box, which I contributed to.  Keep it up!

So back to FredCoBio and stuff happening here BioElectronics is poised for huge growth.  I know I haven’t blogged about them in a while, but their patch works and it’s not expensive and it’s really the only thing out there.  I think it’s awesome!!

FredCoBio and the Immaculate Confection

This may be a bit of a stretch to link Mary Spiro’s piece, “Gummi guts: artist Jason Freeny bestows rubbery confection with internal organs“ in the Baltimore Examiner with FredCoBio, but here’s the catch:  The artist is from Middletown and it’s biotech, geeky stuff.  Also, really cool stuff.

"Immaculate Confection" by Jason Freeney via Baltimore Examiner

There are a number of cool images on Jason’s web site MoistProuctions, and a neat slide show on Mary’s Baltimore Examiner piece as well as an interview.  Although he’s in Manhattan now, you can find more of the former FredCo resident on his blog and his Facebook Page:  Gummi Fetus.

All this talk almost makes me want to comment on the recent banter spewed forth by the RTLifer’s about one of our largest Biotech companies, but instead I’ll ask you to enjoy this YouTube video of a Gummi Bear (fetus)being destroyed for the sake of science (via joannelovesscience.com)

By the way, you trolls, if you’re so committed to your mission, why not take a pledge to never use a single product that was developed using Stem Cells?  Same thing to those trolls destroying Pharma Execs (and at one point in time threatening me and my family) claiming to be Aminal Rights Activists:  Don’t use any drugs or products that used Aminaml Testing?  Why not?  It would be the right things to do.

On another note, I saw an interesting article in the FNP yesterday that Emergent Biosolutions is pulling out of Frederick.  This caught me by surprise because I didn’t even know they were in Frederick.  According to their Press Room, they’ve owned these buildings since 2004, but never renovated or improved them.  Building in Gaithersburg instead.  OK, you win some and you lose some.  I thought I heard somewhere that they won a contract fo9r H1N1 vaccine, but I may be mistaken.

I somehow missed Balog’s Biotech “Battle over biosimilars” last Sunday in the FNP.  Personally, I think giving the “biosimilars” more protection, mimimizing the competition will have the opposite effect of putting new products on the shelf faster.  It will stop competition dead in it’s tracks at the expense of the people needing these new therapies and ultimately, more people will die.  The US Patent System is broken and archane and needs to be overhauled thrown out the window.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention a write up in FNP last week about MedImmune.  The new facility is on schedule to open in 2011.  I also learned, informally, that Synagis will be the first product produced there, but the plans are to move to more “flexible” manufacturing to permit other uses in the future.

Phot by Sam Yu via Frederick News Post

I will be making a guest appearance at the Frederick County Workforce Service’s Center at noon on Wednesday 8/12 for a “Lunch-n-Learn”.  If you’re looking for work, then I might suggest you attend.  You may not “learn” anything, but it’s all about the networking.  I know I have been through the Center more than once in the past 9 years.  I think it’s the least I can do to return the favor.

And speaking of networking, I am working on the next BioBeers with a target date of Thursday 8/27.   Pencil it in.  We can discuss fetal Gummi bear stem cell research…

Greetings from #scbPA

A quick morning post about Day 1 at SciBarCamp Palo Alto.

After an uneventful flight across the contintent on Tuesday, we (my traveling companion in Palo Alto is my new business partner in Gahaga Joseph Jackson)  were bright and early Wednesday in search of coffee on Main Street Palo Alto.

I find it odd that they get so little rain here that most shops are open foyer, without doors and awning and such to keep the rain out.  Also, the weather is odd because it’s so “temperate”, tempertures hovering only a few degrees between 58-63 F all day/night in mid-July.

So we stopped in for a coffee at the University Cafe on University Ave to kill an hour before things got started

Then down the street to the Institute for the Future, our gracious hosts for the two-day event, the same place we held BioBarCamp last year.

In standard BarCamp format, Alex Pang of IFTF made some opening remarks:

Then everyone mingles and discussed topics for sessions (to be held all day today):

Sessions are then posted to a White Board with room assignments and time slots, 1 hour each session:

During all of this session planning, there is a lot of networking and catching up to do with people you only encounter at these sorts of unconferences.  One new person I had a chance to chat with briefly was Chia Hwu from 23andMe who I hope will be giving us more insight  into their recently announced Research Revolution.

I was trying to figure out why my web cam wasn’t working on Ustream.  Still can’t figure it out.  We then had a Keynote Address by Sean Mooney (recently relocated to the Bucks Insititute from Indiana University).  I tried tweeting it and streaming it, but found that so distracting I couldn’t concentrate on the talk.  Excerpts of the keynote stream (via my new friend Naomi Most from PirateCat Radio) can be seen HERE (trying to get this post up and get in a shower, so I won’t embed).  I would also suggest following via the FriendFeed room, which integrates twitter feeds and allows more detailed discussions.

This all wrapped up around 6 PM and we split up into smaller groups for food.  I hung around with the organizers and went right next door for some Sushi at Miyake‘s:

Pictured here are Chris Patil, John Gilby and Brian Mallow.  I like hanging out with these guys because they know how to have fun.  Brian, Joseph and I ended up running into Shelley and her husband and having a couple beers at a nearby pub.  Brian is hilarious. I think he managed to reiterate a good portion of this routine into our pub conversation last night.  Well worth the watch:

Must wrap up and grab a shower now.  It’s going to be another full day of sessions, belly laughs and maybe even a couple beers.  Then NASA Ames is cohosting a Singularity U event called “Humanities Greatest Challenges” .  This is going to be an awesome day.

Bomb Scare at MedImmune, Changes at Lonza and other news of the day

I stopped by the usual place for lunch today and was surprised to see the place full of MedImmune “regulars”.  Regulars at Happy Hour, not lunch.  Apparently, there was a “bomb threat” call in and they decided to evacuate the place at around 10:30-11 AM.  That is just bizarre.  Who’d call in a bomb threat except some disgruntled former employee or a contractor pissed off because they were booted off the site?  Maybe it was the Antiboby Freedom League, a rogue antibody rights terrorist organization.  Screw the babies, Save the antibodies!  Bizarre.

I took advantage of a beautiful day Friday morning to play a round of golf with a number of Lonza guys (who shall remain nameless lest they weren’t supposed to be playing golf).  Apparently, Shawn Cavanagh has been replaced at Lonza-Walkersville by Anja Fiedler.  I don’t know if this is entirely newsworthy or indicates a big change in direction at Lonza, but since it was reported one one of my other favorite blogs, I thought I’d mention it, too.  My take was that Shawn was ready to try something else and that people are looking forward to see what this change means.  Time will tell.

And for something else really sublime, check out this nerdy  YouTube by Invitrogen (Not yet Life Tech apparently).  this dude is definitely invited to the next BioBeers:

Monday Funnies

I was surfing through my blogroll this morning and came across a funny little comic on Ouroboros I thought you would enjoy:

Ouroboros borrowed these comics from Alexander Dent on his blog Dent Cartoons.  There are tons of funny comics on his site. Here are a couple few more (click to enlarge in high resolution):