This looks like a pretty good opportunity for our “younger” readers out there.  The Job Search page continues to be one of the most popular on this site and I often wonder how many of these inquiries are from recent graduates?

In any event I saw a brief note in the FNP today and then pulled the original press release from Hopkins web site.  Here’s the skinny:

JHU Biotech Program, U.S. Army Enter
Collaborative Relationship
Agreement will expand educational opportunities in
biodefense research field

The Johns Hopkins University and the U.S. Army have agreed to work together to train scientists to develop vaccines and medicines to defend against biological attacks.

Students accepted into the program will study part-time to earn Johns Hopkins Master of Science in Biotechnology degrees with concentrations in biodefense. Simultaneously, they will work for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), located at Fort Detrick, Md.

Under a five-year agreement between Johns Hopkins’ Advanced Biotechnology Studies Program and USAMRIID, graduate students will be employed under the Army’s Student Career Experience Program and will be eligible for Army reimbursement of their Johns Hopkins tuition.

“Based on a long history of excellence in biotechnology research and education at both institutions, this is an invaluable cooperative effort that will significantly enhance the educational opportunities of our biodefense students,” said Richard McCarty, chair of the Advanced Biotechnology Studies program in the university’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Advanced Academic Programs. “We hope it will lead to future interactions and joint scientific research between our respective faculty and scientists.”

Johns Hopkins advisors will work with students to select an appropriate course structure that will capitalize on the resources being offered by USAMRIID, such as research staff and laboratory facilities.

USAMRIID does basic and applied research on biological threats to develop vaccines, drugs and tests to protect soldiers, but much of the science it produces is also applied to civilian medicine.

“USAMRIID is very excited about sponsoring these master’s students and offering them the opportunity to work at USAMRIID on vaccines and therapeutics against extremely interesting pathogens,” said Peter Hobart, USAMRIID’s science director. “This is one more manifestation of the institute’s keen interest in working closely with colleges and universities to train the next generation of scientists.”

About the Advanced Biotechnology Studies part-time Master of Science in Biotechnology Program: Grounded in biochemistry, molecular biology, and cell biology, this program allows students to delve into pure science, applied science, lab science, regulatory affairs, and biotechnology enterprise. They can pursue a general master’s in biotechnology or focus on one of three concentrations that are available fully online: bioinformatics, biotechnology enterprise, or regulatory affairs. Concentrations in biodefense and molecular targets and drug discovery require some on-site instruction.

For more information about Johns Hopkins’ part-time graduate degree available through the Advanced Biotechnology Studies Program, please visit biotechnology.jhu.edu or contact our academic advisors:

Patrick Cummings, Senior Associate Program Chair Biotechnology 410-516-4724; cupat@jhu.edu

Dr. Kristina Obom, Associate Program Chair Biotechnology/Bioinformatics 301-294-7159; kobom@jhu.edu

Lynn Johnson Langer, Senior Associate Program Chair Biotechnology (MS/MBA, Bioscience Regulatory Affairs, and Biotechnology Enterprise) 301-294-7063; ljlanger@jhu.edu

According to their web site today, Invitrogen has signed an agreement with Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) for Human Embryonic Stem Cells.

According to the release:

Under the terms of the agreement, Invitrogen will have the right to work with karyotypically normal hESCs to develop novel research and drug discovery tools.

“Invitrogen’s goal is the development of research tools that enhance the ability of scientists to work with embryonic stem cells and to enhance the utility of these cells for research and drug discovery,” said Joydeep Goswami, Vice President, Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine. “Having the ability to work with karyotypically normal hESCs through our license with WARF allows us to develop better technologies for research, such as more defined media and engineered stem cell lines. This agreement is another step in our strategy of pursuing advances in the high-growth area of regenerative medicine.”

This is interesting in several regards.  WARF appears to be holding it’s own in defending several patents related to hES cells, although the verdict is still out.

Perhaps more interesting is that IVGN’s RegMed group is, I believe, in Frederick.  At least Dr Rao, who is also a VP of the Stem Cell Group, is in Frederick.

In a press release yesterday, it was announce that Frederick-based Vaccinogen’s potential blockbuster colon cancer “vaccine” therapy has been approved for manufacture at their Emmen, Netherlands facility.

From the FoxBusiness web site:

FREDERICK, Md., May 7, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX News Network/ —-Vaccinogen Inc. said Dutch health authorities licensed it to manufacture its break-through OncoVAX anti-colon cancer vaccine, immediately clearing the path to more than $100 million of potential European sales.

The Dutch approval of the company’s facility based in Emmen, The Netherlands also paves the way to its pivotal US FDA Phase IIIb clinical trial — the final step before the vaccine can be sold in the United States.

“The facility can produce up to 3,500 vaccines annually, equivalent to $130 million in revenues,” said Michael G. Hanna, Jr., Ph.D., Vaccinogen CEO. “That number only scratches the surface of potential demand for a Stage II colon cancer vaccine. One of every three patients who have their cancer removed see it return — and the results are usually fatal.”

“Our experience with OncoVAX has resulted in increasing the patients’ chance of survival by more than 50%,” he concluded. “This represents an opportunity for a new lease on life for tens of thousands of patients around the world.”

The Dutch license permits the company to commercialize the vaccine, first in Switzerland and then in seven other countries in Eastern Europe. The OncoVAX vaccine represents a potential medical breakthrough because it uses a patient’s own cancer cells to prevent the cancer from returning after a successful operation to remove it.

The product is actually not a standard “vaccine” like you’d get for rabies or HPV or influenza.  These vaccines are produced and tested in large batches in fermenters and everyone gets essentially the same dose.  OncoVAX is actually an autologous vaccine, whereby a small section of the excised tumor is sent by the surgeon to the production facility where the tumor section is processed and made antigenic.  It is then injected back into the patient, where their own body produces antibodies to the tumor and kills it.

While Vaccinogen is not the only company working on this new era of “personalized medicine”,  they are among the first to pave the way through clinical trials.  This explains, in part, the extreme effort (in terms of $$ and time) it has taken to get this novel process through the rigors of FDA approval in the States.

I was remiss in not posting that FITCI hosted the first of the Season Happy Hour & networking event on Friday. I had been in Kansas since Wednesday and was too busy working on my presentation and dodging tornado’s to post. Plus, I forgot to look ahead in my calendar.
The Happy Hour was well attended, by the Chamber of Commerce, RCM&D, OED, Ft Detrick’s tech transfer office and many other people I didn’t have the chance to meet & greet. I had only been back for about an hour, though, from my trip. Since I had to get up at 4 AM to get to the airport, I was pretty exhausted by 4 PM and the happy hour, so I didn’t stay long.

I stopped in to feed my cells, but ended up getting a Biodiesel sample for testing, so I did that instead, then got myself home.

Speaking of events, I will be out at the Greater Baltimore Tech Council’s Golf Classic on Monday May 19th and AFCEA Frederick’s Golf outing Tuesday May 13th at Whiskey Creek. The GBTC event is “SOLD OUT”, but there is still room for both individual golfers and Sponsorships at the Frederick event.

1st Annual AFCEA Golf Tournament Come Join Us Prior to the Spring Research Festival Where: Whiskey Creek Golf Course When: May 13th - 1 pm Shotgun Contact Abby Richon to sign up or become a sponsor 301-644-3913 x2178 arichon@ape-bio.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it <!– document.write( ‘</’ ); document.write( ’span>’ ); //–>

Lunch Complementary Beverages on the Course Dinner Silent Auction Hole-In-one Contests Great Networking $100 per government golfer $125 per industry golfer

Click here to download PDF for available sponsorships

This press release came out today through the PRWeb:

Local Biotech Companies Merge Operations

Advanced Product Enterprises and BridgePath Scientific become APE-BridgePath Scientific

Frederick, MD (Vocus/PRWEB ) April 29, 2008 — The Baltimore-Washington metropolitan region is a productive R&D arena, with over $7 billion spent each year on scientific products for research and product development. Two local companies catering to the same target market, but with different niches, have teamed up to offer a spectrum of services to commercial, academic, and governmental research organizations.

Dr. Joseph Garner (left) and Patrick Haley have merged as APE-BridgePath Scientific, providing solutions for research and development institutions.

I couldn’t be more pleased with this merger. The combination of the two companies will allow us to serve the biotech industry at-large in a more cohesive manner

BridgePath Scientific and Advanced Product Enterprises, LLC (APE) of Frederick have merged their operations into APE-BridgePath Scientific. “Both companies are currently headquartered at the Frederick Innovative Technology Center incubator,” stated Dr. Joseph Garner, President and CEO of APE. “We have collaborated on a number of projects, and joining the two companies will provide our clients with a complete list of value-added services from one organization. We believe the addition of highly trained and business minded scientists to the product lines sold by BridgePath, will allow APE-BridgePath Scientific to provide a high level of understanding and technical support to commercial, academic, and governmental researchers that is currently lacking in the industry.”

“I couldn’t be more pleased with this merger. The combination of the two companies will allow us to serve the biotech industry at-large in a more cohesive manner,” stated Patrick Haley, President and CEO of BridgePath Scientific. BridgePath Scientific provides scientific and laboratory equipment, supplies and custom research and development product fulfillment. They carry tens of thousands of products. Founder, President and CEO Patrick Haley is an active member of the Frederick community and the State of Maryland. He has served on many business, community, industry, and civic boards and councils, including the Technology Council of Maryland, Goodwill Industries of Monocacy Valley, and the Suburban Frederick Kiwanis Club. Haley is a long time member of the Business Development Advisory Council (BDAC) for Frederick County, currently serving as Chairman, and the Frederick chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA). He is also co-founder and former Chairman of the Board of the Frederick Innovative Technology Center, Inc. (FITCI), Frederick County’s first technology incubator.

Advanced Product Enterprises, LLC provides preclinical contract research for pharmaceutical and vaccine companies along with several scientific research products. Their founders of APE have over 30 years of academic and industry research experience and recently launched APE Biodiesel, providing complete testing for biodiesel fuels. Dr. Joseph Garner, President and CEO of APE, was trained and received his PhD in molecular biology at the University of Maryland and studied at the Center of Marine Biology. He is active in a number of regional and national organizations, including the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the Business Development Advisory Council for Frederick County. Dr. Garner has presented research worldwide at scientific meetings, including Translation UK in Dundee, Scotland and International Marine Biotechnology Conference in Australia.

APE-BridgePath is located in the Frederick Innovative Technology Center’s second incubator located at 4539 Metropolitan Court in Frederick, Maryland. For more information about the company and their services, visit www.bridgepathscientific.com and www.ape-bio.com or call 1-888-496-8333.

The news keeps coming in for LifeLine, in Walkersville. I was doing research for another project and saw this on their website today:

International Stem Cell Corporation Obtains Exclusive Rights in the US and Canada to Distribute Approved Human Skin Model for Toxicity Testing

---

OCEANSIDE, California, April 29, 2008

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International Stem Cell Corporation (OTCBB: ISCO) announced today that it has entered into an exclusive agreement with CellSystems Biotechnologie to distribute laboratory-cultured models of human skin useful for testing the hazardous properties of consumer products and for dermatological and pharmaceutical research. Such testing is likely to be soon required for certain types of consumer products sold into the European Union.

According to International Stem Cell’s (ISCO) President Jeffrey Janus, “This agreement is another positive step in ISCO’s strategic plan to become the primary source of high quality human cells for the therapeutic and research markets by leveraging its manufacturing and distribution resources.”

ISCO’s human cell and cell culture research products are manufactured and distributed under the “Lifeline” brand by wholly-owned subsidiary Lifeline Cell Technology, LLC, based in Walkersville, Maryland (www.lifelinecelltech.com).
The laboratory-cultured models of human skin, called EST-1000 and AST-2000 were developed by CellSystems and contain cells manufactured by Lifeline. These three dimensional skin cell models are used as alternative methods to animal testing in the field of Skin Corrosion, Skin Irritation, Skin Sensitization, Genotoxicity and Phototoxicity.

“We have worked with the Lifeline staff and know their abilities to provide excellent
customer service and their ability to consistently produce high quality products; a critical factor for researchers that depend on human cells for the success of their research,” said Horst W. Fuchs, President of CellSystems Biotechnologie. This agreement between our companies opens a distribution channel for CellSystems’ skin model products to scientific researchers throughout the United States and Canada.”
“While the sale of these Lifeline stem cell and research products provides ISCO
immediate cash flow, it also helps embed ISCO’s products into successful therapeutic and quality control procedures worldwide, providing a revenue stream of shared royalties beyond traditional sales,” added Janus.

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

---

The ozone hole may have delayed Antarctic warming

---

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…

I ran across this article last week in medicalphysicsweb.com, so might as well post it. All kinds of news from the Fort this week:

Apr 15, 2008

A new take on MRI contrast

The US National Cancer Institute (NCI) has given the go-ahead for preclinical characterization of a nanomaterials-based contrast agent that’s being billed, at least by developers in industry, as “a completely new approach to enhancing contrast during MRI procedures”.

The modified fullerene compound comes from the labs of Luna Innovations, a Roanoke, VA-based technology-transfer company with interests in healthcare, telecoms, energy and defence markets.

Studies of the MRI contrast candidate will include characterization of its physical attributes, its in vitro biological properties and its in vivo compatibility using animal models. Researchers will also examine critical parameters related to distribution, metabolism, elimination and toxicity.

The study programme is expected to take a year from receipt through the in vivo phase. Evaluation will be carried out at the NCI’s Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL) in Frederick, MD. The NCL’s remit is to standardize preclinical characterization of nanomaterials intended for therapeutic and diagnostic applications.

“The outcome of this characterization study is the report necessary for an Investigational New Drug application,” said Chris Kepley, nanoimmunology group leader at Luna and principal investigator on the study. “The process of getting a new drug to market can be a lengthy one. However, with the NCL behind us we hope to move forward more quickly bringing to market a next-generation solution for MRI contrast agents.”

I ran across an article in Medical News Today from 18 Feb:

Disfigured Wounded US Soldiers To Get New Skin, Ears And Fingers

Article Date: 18 Apr 2008 - 9:00 PDT

The US Department of Defense has announced the launch of a five year collaborative program to make use of cutting edge medical technology to treat service members who are badly disfigured from injuries received while serving in wars.

Giving an example of the type of innovative treatment the new initiative would be developing, Lt Gen Eric Schoomaker, who is Surgeon General of the US Army told a press conference held at the Pentagon yesterday, Thursday 17th April, about one case of a badly burned Marine who was going to receive a new ear grown from his own stem cells.

Using the patient’s own stem cells to regenerate replacement skin, tissue and other body parts is an area currently being explored by the new Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM) said Schoomaker.

AFIRM will come under the US Army’s leading medical research, development and acquisitions agency for related supplies, the US Army Medical Research and Material Command at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, which ultimately reports to Schoomaker in his capacity as Army Surgeon General.

I’m not clear from this article exactly how much of the research will occur at the Fort, but the possibilities are exciting to me, especially since I am working in the field. I knew that there was a bit of this research going on through DARPA funding, but I am glad that “RegMed 2.0″ has made it to the mainstream and Frederick is, once again, leading the pack.

For the initial five year period, AFIRM will be funded by an overall budget of around 250 million dollars, 80 of which will come from the Department of Defense, and the rest from organizations like the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and matching funds from other public and private organizations.

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.