Holy Cow!

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a blog about Frederick County Biotech. This story is neither about Fred Co nor biotech, but it’s my blog and I can rant when I want to.

I am at a loss for words. Hold on, they’re coming back to me. In waves, kinda like diarrhea. Maybe this can be my inaugural BPSDB post?

The Global Warming conspiracy, in Nature no less, reports that the ozone-hole recovery is threatening the Antarctic Ice cap. Yes brothers and sisters, the Ozone hole, so widely attributed to be the demise of the planet in the 80’s, a tell-tale, doomsday prophecy of humans ruining the universe due to gluttony and lust of chlorofluorocarbons and exhaust from burning of fossil fuels, the ozone hole shrinketh.

From the article ( a drum roll please):

Antarctic ice threatened by ozone-hole recovery

Global winds could accelerate melting.

Amanda Leigh Haag

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The ozone hole may have delayed Antarctic warming

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Recovery of the ozone hole above Antarctica could warm the Antarctic and cause more ice to melt in coming decades, researchers say. As the ozone hole heals, wind patterns that shield the interior of the polar region from warm air may break down, causing warming in the Antarctica as well as warmer and drier conditions in Australia.

Despite global temperatures rising, the interior of Antarctica has experienced a unique cooling trend during its summer and autumn over the last few decades. Scientists attribute this cooling to the hole in the ozone layer, which alters atmospheric circulation patterns and strengthens the westerly winds that swirl around the continent. These winds have isolated the Antarctic interior from the warming patterns seen on the continent’s peninsula and throughout the rest of the world.

“The warming of the Antarctic may have been delayed because of the ozone hole,” says atmospheric scientist Judith Perlwitz, a climate scientist at the of the University of Colorado at Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Let it be said, as real climatologists have been telling us for decades, there is no consensus that we are in a period of global warming. As this article supports, the Antarctic (the Southern Hemisphere in general) has been experiencing a “unique cooling trend”.

Sounds like we’re heading for an Ice Age, to me.

Ok. Rant accomplished. I hope my invite to SciFoo ‘08 isn’t retracted. I’ll overblog this with something good I just read about FredCoBio…

Baylog’s Biotech

I’ve enjoyed Jason Balog’s write-ups about Biotech in the FNP. I believe this is the second one.  He seems to have an interesting angle on the events of the times and certainly has a good grasp of the local Biotech scene.

Among the interesting points:

• approximately two dozen lawmakers were forming a biotechnology and life sciences caucus to promote the industry throughout the state.
• The Biotechnology Investment Incentive Tax Credit remained intact and was again funded in the budget at the amount of $6 million
• The Md Stem Cell Research fund “did suffer a cut, I am happy to report that lawmakers settled on $19 million for the fund with $1 million more possible, depending on the availability of extra money from the Cigarette Restitution Fund.”
  • My Rant here:  Funding Stem Cell research with tobacco money? Oh, the horror.  In case you forgot, a vast majority of MdSCRF funding went to Hopkins who, by the way, already make a boat load of cash treating patients who use tobacco.

And the summary paragraph:

It was a quiet year in the legislature on the life sciences front. The current budget situation did not allow for the expansion of current programs or the initiation of new programs. However, momentum continues to build for the life sciences industry in the state as reflected by the creation of the new biotechnology and life sciences caucus. Many anticipate that the next two legislative sessions are going to be critical for the industry to grow in Maryland, and assuming that the economy cooperates I would expect to see new and exciting initiatives to help Maryland become the premier location for the life sciences industry.

Recent News and Links with the past

I have been busy the past few days and haven’t been able or motivated enough to put a real post together. So this morning, after being reminded that I had left MedImmune off the Companies list (which is one of the most popular Pages on the Blog in terms of hits), I wanted to take a step back to a press release from Feb. 6th from a new company started in Frederick County named Vaccinogen. This could be a really big story if they are able to demonstrate this process is effective.

Here’s the blurb from their web site:

Frederick, MD – February 6, 2008 – Cancer research pioneer Michael G. Hanna Jr. Ph.D., also Vaccinogen, Inc.’s Founder, Chairman and CEO has acquired the rights to OncoVAX®, a vaccine with the potential to prevent colon cancer from recurring in many patients.

“This agreement represents a major step forward in defeating cancer by increasing the body’s immunity to it,” said Dr. Hanna, who has been working on cancer vaccines for more than 30 years.

“This agreement represents a major step forward in defeating cancer by increasing the body’s immunity to it.”

In the agreement, Vaccinogen obtained exclusive license to OncoVAX® Active Specific Immunotherapy as well as an important component of the product TICE BCG. The vaccine is made from the patients’ own tumor and is injected back into the patient to effect an immune response against recurrence of that cancer.

The FDA views Stage II colon cancer as an unmet medical need. When colon cancer recurs after surgery it is frequently fatal. OncoVAX® prevents that recurrence and thereby reduces recurrence and deaths by over 50%. Vaccinogen is currently preparing to commercialize the vaccine in Switzerland.

I should also post an update off their web site from Feb 27th, that announces the availability of the vaccine in Europe:

Frederick, MD – February 27, 2008 –Vaccinogen, Inc. announced that its new vaccine to block colon cancer from recurring will be commercially available in Europe starting June 2008.

“This makes OncoVAX® the world’s first commercially viable vaccine for colon cancer,” said Dr. Michael G. Hanna, Jr., Ph.D., Chairman & CEO of Vaccinogen. “It is the beginning of our worldwide strategy of profitable distribution. Questions of the feasibility of patient specific anti-cancer therapies have been raised and this new European initiative will obviate these issues.”

Pro Vaccine AG, a leading Swiss-based pharmaceutical distributor, will begin distributing OncoVAX® throughout Switzerland starting with Zurich and Neuchâtel by June 2008. “We are very excited about the prospects of offering OncoVAX® to Swiss and foreign patients,” said Renato Duckeck, GM of Pro Vaccine.

Pharmacenter Hungary, a rapidly growing oncology company that commercializes a broad portfolio of oncology treatments, will begin distributing the vaccine in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia starting in the third quarter of 2008. Dr. Christian Galli, Director of Business Development of Pharmacenter Hungary noted, “We recognize the excellent opportunity OncoVAX® provides us and the growing population of colon cancer patients in Eastern Europe.”

And I also wanted to go waay back to an article I started a post about in January that ran in the FNP when Vaccinogen first started. From the FNP, 1/22/08:

A company that uses a unique system to fight colon cancer has opened in Frederick.

Vaccinogen, located at 5300 Westview Drive, uses some of the patient’s own cancer cells to help cure the disease.

The company is headed by Michael Hanna, director of the National Cancer Research Center in Frederick from 1975 to 1983.

“At that time, I headed the entire operation,” he said of the cancer center. “We went from a small center to 50 buildings.”

After he left, the center’s operations were broken into several divisions, each headed by a different director, he said.

Although a resident of Bethany Beach, Del., Hanna said he is happy to be back in Frederick. It seemed the perfect place to locate the headquarters for his company.

Vaccinogen has a manufacturing plant in Emmen, Holland.

Although still undergoing studies here for approval, Vaccinogen’s system is being used in Switzerland.

“It is considered a transplant there,” Hanna said.

The immunotherapy, known as OncoVAX, follows surgery for removal of Stage II colon cancer. The tumor cells are processed in the facility in the Netherlands.

A specific vaccine is created using those cells and injected into the patient in four doses during a six-month period. The vaccine unleashes the body’s own immune system to fight cancer cells.

“It is the first time a patient-specific therapy has been successful,” Hanna said.

“We have done all the hard work. There are final clinical trials that need to be done,” he said.

Even though it was put on the fast track by the federal Food and Drug Administration, it will be four years before OncoVax could be on the market in the United States, Hanna said.

He said he would like to eventually build a manufacturing plant in the U.S., most likely in Baltimore.

“It is truly a Frederick product,” Hanna said. Research for the process began at the Frederick Cancer Research Center.

When he left the local cancer research center, Hanna ran a research institute for Litton Bionetics on individualized targeted therapy. That institute was later acquired by Azko Nobel. At that time, Hanna’s research team also developed a treatment for bladder cancer that is considered the standard for today.

Hanna acquired the OncoVaX technology and formed a company called PerImmune in 1997. In 1998, PerImmune merged with Intracel Corp., but Hanna continued to hold OncoVAX assets and formed Vaccinogen.

More than $300 million has been spent on research during the 35 years of OncoVax’s development.

Besides Switzerland, and eventually the U.S., Hanna said the company is working to market the product in Eastern Europe and other locations.

I knew a bit about the history of Vaccinogen before this story came out because we were doing a little work with their predecessor, Intracel, as they were closing up operations. Intracel also made HDL and LDL, which I believe Vaccinogen also acquired and is making today. Anyway, they have real nice History and TimeLine pages, with nostalgic pictures scrolling across the top of their About Us page.

So here’s where the story gets real interesting. The whole thing started in the 60’s with the formation of Litton Bionetics, which became a popular target of the conspiracy theorists in the 90’s due to their links with the military and germ warfare. It is a documented fact that Litton Bionetics was a major Defense Contractor of the time and the recipient of a1970 Dept. of Defense appropriations request for 10 million dollars for a 5 year study to develop immune system targeted micro-organisms for germ warfare. What they did with the money is where people get excited.

This research was overseen by Dr. Hanna the likes of emerging giants in the field such as Dr Robert Gallo, working at the National Cancer Institute at the time. To make a long story short, the conspiracy theorists claim, amongst other things, that this group is responsible for introducing AIDS & Ebola as a contaminant in a polio or small pox vaccine used in Africa in the 70’s. The allegation is that the vaccine was contaminated with monkey retrovirus that were used in germ warfare experiments.

Quite frankly, I was expecting to do a brief post on he topic, but my research took a strange turn towards the bizarre I had not anticipated. A long, unsubstantiated rumor, or maybe just a bit more Frederick County Biotech folklore?

And I thought Stem Cells were controversial……

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.

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!

City Steps up Bioremediation of Algae in Carroll Creek

We have all waited with great anticipation for the development of the Carroll Creek Promenade through downtown. As many of you know, seasonal flooding of Carroll Creek has prevented development of the of area historically. Back in the late 70’s, after flooding of a good portion of downtown following hurricane Agnes in 1972, the idea of a flood control project (with associated retail development) was born. The past few years have seen the project come to fruition, with new Condos popping up and restaurants like La Paz, the Green Turtle and Hinode all drawing attention.

One problem became obvious in the middle of last summer season: the flow in the creek was so slow that algae soon overtook the scenic waterway, rendering it a sludgy, slimy, smelly green cesspool. A process we biologists refer to as eutrophication. This is a bit of a misnomer and has always fascinated me with respect to etymology. From the Greek eutrophos, well-nourished : eu-, meaning “good” and trephein, to nourish. But from a practical stand point, this really comes to mean making waters rich in mineral and organic nutrients that promote a proliferation of plant life, especially algae, which reduces the dissolved oxygen content and often causes the extinction of other organisms.

I was interested to read in the Gazette yesterday that the City has contracted a firm, Bioverse, of Minnesota, to take action against our beloved slime. They will install a number of AquaSpherePRO devices, which are spheres of beneficial bacteria and enzymes: a Probiotic prescription, of sorts.

We hope that the combination of the Bioremediation and improved water flow (which increases to dissolved oxygen and inhibits algae formation) will work and we can walk along the creek this summer unencumbered by the stench that is biology.

More News on Md Stem Cell Funding

Just a quick follow-up on Jason Balog’s FNP article last week. I’ve seen a couple different angles on the same story I wanted to report on since I know you’re all on the edge of you seats. Really, I’m just looking for any excuse not to do the real work I am commissioned for at the moment, writing Preventive Maintenance SOPs.

This from the Daily Women’s Health Policy Report:

Maryland House Approves FY 2009 Budget That Reduces Stem Cell Research Funding
[March 21, 2008]

The Maryland House of Delegates on Wednesday voted 105-34 to approve a fiscal year 2009 budget that reduces funding for the state’s stem cell research program to $15 million, the Washington Post reports. According to the Post, Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) allocated $23 million for the program in his budget proposal. The Senate last week approved its FY 2009 budget that reduces funding for the program to $5 million, the Post reports (Wagner, Washington Post, 3/21).

During debate over the budget, the House rejected two amendments proposed by House Minority Leader Anthony O’Donnell (R) and Del. Tony McConkey (R) that would have eliminated even more funding for the stem cell research program. McConkey argued that the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, which administers the grants, has been slow in distributing two previous rounds of funding provided by the Legislature (Wagner, Washington Post, 3/20). “I think this is a reasonable amendment given our fiscal situation,” McConkey said.

Del. John Bohanan (D) said eliminating all the funding could wipe out the stem cell program. “One year of hiatus causes enough disruption to this program that we may as well opt out of it and not fund it ever again,” Bohanan said (Witte, AP/Washington Times, 3/20). It is important that the state maintain its commitment to stem cell research given federal funding restrictions, Bohanan said. He added, “This is an important program that we’ve just begun” (Washington Post, 3/20).

I heard last year that a number of people who had been funded are really getting annoyed at TEDCO, because they haven’t received monies they were granted (presumably in 4Q 2007 funds were supposed to be available). Now it is apparent that one of the main reasons funding is being cut is because TEDCO hasn’t paid out the funds already authorized. There is some perception that they have $20MM sitting around in a check book somewhere. I am not certain how the speding authozation process takes place, but I’m pretty sure this is not the case.

On 15 March, the Baltimore Sun reports:

First among them is the House’s move to fund the state’s embryonic stem cell research grant program at $15 million - an $8 million cut - compared with the Senate’s efforts to bring that funding down to $5 million.

The disagreement centers on the fact that of the $38 million appropriated to the program in the two years since the General Assembly agreed to fund stem cell research, only $7.1 million has been spent, with $8 million more committed.

Some Republicans have called for cutting the entire $23 million O’Malley proposed.

In yesterday’s House hearing, Del. John L. Bohanan Jr., a St. Mary’s County Democrat, asked fellow members of the Appropriations Committee to vote down an amendment proposed by Del. Gail H. Bates, a Howard County Republican, who sought to cut all the money this year.

“No matter how you slice it, it is a major hiccup for this developing industry,” he said. “If you do that, it would send a bad signal to researchers.”

“I’m suggesting this is the time to hiccup,” Bates said, noting the economic downturn. The committee voted against Bates’ amendment and several other GOP efforts to impose more cuts. Bates and Del. Susan L.M. Aumann, a Baltimore County Republican, said more reductions were necessary to prepare for the possibility that the economy will get worse.

This quote just boils my blood! It is NOT AN EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH FUND!!! Only a small amount of the initial fund went to anyone doing Embryonic stem cell research. By the way, this research would still have to follow federal guidelines, using approved ES lines, lest the researchers be disqualified from receiving any funding from the NIH.

So, in a strange twist of fate, the problem hinges on the fact TEDCO can’t spend money fast enough.

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?