Registration Fee: None
Lunch provided
Registration Deadline : 9/20/10
Registration LINK
First 35 classroom Teachers who register will have their substitutes pay reimbursed
Calling all Science and CTE teachers as well as School Counselors and Curriculum Specialists across the western region!
Do you want to learn more about biotechnology and its impact in your classroom and on our students? This conference will do just that! The program will focus on the critical role of biotechnology to the current and future North Carolina economy and how that impacts our schools and students. Topics to be addressed will include: Why is biotechnology important to WNC? What biotechnology resources are available to our schools? How are students using biotechnology degrees in this area? There will be speakers and panel discussions. If you have questions, please contact April Spencer at (828) 418-0011, ext. 20 or aspencer@wresa.org
]]>The Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering has opened its doors in Greensboro, next door to the construction site that will be its permanent home by the end of next year.
The new endeavor, a collaboration betwen North Carolina A&T State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, is widely regarded as one of the UNC system's most innovative educational initiatives.
It was established to help North Carolina capitalize on the emergence of nanotechnology.
What is Nanotechnology?
A government agency, the National Nanotechnology Initiative, defines nanotech this way:
"Nanotechnology is the understanding and control of matter at dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications.
"Encompassing nanoscale science, engineering, and technology, nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter at this length scale.
"A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick; a single gold atom is about a third of a nanometer in diameter. Dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers are known as the nanoscale.
"Unusual physical, chemical, and biological properties can emerge in materials at the nanoscale. These properties may differ in important ways from the properties of bulk materials and single atoms or molecules."
On the Cutting Edge
Fewer than 10 schools nationally offer degree programs in nanotechnology, according to the National Nanotechnology Initiative.
The North Carolina school has opened with 18 students in two degree programs - 17 in the doctoral program in nanoscience, and one is in the professional master's degree program in nanoscience.
"We're delighted and a little surprised at the popularity of the program," said James Ryan, Ph.D., dean of the school.
The school's new $65 million building is on the South Campus of the Gateway University Research Park on East Lee Street near Interstate 40-85 in Greensboro. Gateway is also a joint venture between N.C. A&T and UNCG.
]]>North Carolina State University statistics professors Subhashis Ghoshal, Ph.D., and John Monahan, Ph.D., are among 53 statisticians worldwide to be named named Fellows of the American Statistical Association at
the annual association meeting in Vancouver, B.C. More
Raleigh-based contract research organization INC Research has been purchased by Canada's Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and U.S. private-equity firm Avista Capital Partners for a reported $600 million. More
North Carolina State University scientists Dimitris Argyropoulos and Elon Ison, Ph.D.s, have received a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to advance their research into improved techniques for getting biofuels and petrochemicals out of woody biomass by using liquid carbon dioxide. More
nContact, founded in 2002, is developing a device called VisiTrax that applies radiofrequency energy to the outer surface of the heart to treat arrhythmias. It has raised about $30 million in four previous rounds.
According to the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, return investors include Intersouth Partners of Durham, Finistere Partners of San Diego, Massey Burch Capital of Nashville, Tenn., Harbert Venture Partners of Birmingham, Ala., Tall Oaks of Charlottesville, Va., Village Ventures of Williamstown, Mass., and Hippo Ventures.
Durham-based Inspire Pharmaceuticals has hired Charles Johnson, M.D., to become executive vice president of research and development and chief medical officer, effective September 15. More
Raleigh intellectual property consulting firm Fuentek has hired Julie Markoski, Ph.D., a co-founder of fuel cell company INI Power Systems, as a technology transfer consultant. More
Jim Roberts, a former international business development manager for the North Carolina Department of Commerce, has joined the statewide Center of Innovation for Nanobiotechnology as director of membership services and fundraising. More
The Cary law firm of Coats and Bennett has hired Jennifer Fox, a former attorney with Novozymes North America, to head its newly created life sciences and biotechnology division. More
Carolina Liquid Chemistries, a Winston-Salem firm that develops and sells materials and equipment that allow physicians to monitor their patients for possible over-use of high-powered pain medications, has added a test for the drug buprenorphine -- a painkiller and treatment for narcotic addiction. More
Esoterix Clinical Trials Services, a division of Burlington-based LabCorp, has entered a collaboration with Clearstone Central Laboratories, adding access to Clearstone's global network of labs, including China, France, Singapore and Canada, to LabCorp's existing labs in the United States and Belgium. More
The Tar Heel state is third, with some 530 companies and 57,000 workers, at biopharmaceutical, agricultural, medical device and other research-based companies using the tools of biotech to develop products.
And focusing specifically on badly needed new options for helping people with mental illness, companies in North Carolina and just three other states are developing 192 of the 313 medicines being created to treat those millions of patients.
A new survey shows North Carolina biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies have 41 of the specialized experimental therapies in the pipeline.
The study "Medicines in Development for Mental Illnesses," compiled by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America also shows 62 of the medicines in development in New Jersey, 57 in California, and 43 in New York.
The count state-by-state is 203, but there are only 192 actual medicines involved. In some cases, medicines are being developed jointly by two companies in different states.
The medicines, in human clinical testing or under review by the Food and Drug Administration, are for addiction, anxiety, dementia, depression, schizophrenia, eating disorders, developmental disorders and insomnia.
The 5-year-old privately held clinical-stage company completed a $13 million Series C round of financing. CeNeRx specializes in developing new drugs to treat disorders of the central nervous system.
Proceeds from the latest influx will primarily be used to fund a new Phase II trial of CeNeRx's lead anti-depression compound, TriRima, which the firm believes will overcome some of the side effects of other drugs of its type.
Existing investors participated in the financing, including North Carolina-based Pappas Ventures and New York investment firms Perseus Soros Biopharmaceutical Fund and L Capital Partners.
]]>The presentation, open to all registrants, is part of a monthly series sponsored by Business Leader Media. It's to begin at 7:30 a.m. at Events at Newton Square, a meeting venue at 230 Newton Road in Raleigh.
An Edgecombe County native with a distinguished career of leadership in industry and public service, Tolson took the helm of the Biotechnology Center on July 2, 2007.
The state-funded Biotechnology Center was established in 1984 as the world's first government-sponsored organization dedicated to job creation and economic development through a multi-faceted approach to growing the statewide biotechnology industry.
By directing grants, loans and curricula and creating links among citizens, agricultural and other business leaders, policy makers, educators and scientists, the Biotechnology Center has helped propel North Carolina into a top-three position of life-science leadership nationally, and into major prominence globally.
Registration for this Business Leader Breakfast is available on the Web at www.businessleader.com/triangle-blb by clicking on the "Purchase Tickets" or "Purchase Tables" links.
The company, Medicago USA Inc., uses tobacco plants to produce virus-like particles. These particles are extracted from the tobacco leaves, distilled and turned into vaccines.
The body's immune system reacts to these harmless particles that act like a flu virus, which builds resistance to the harmful virus.
Medicago's technology also saves time, which is crucial in a flu epidemic. In the recent H1N1 outbreak, the company was able to produce a vaccine in about a month. Traditional methods take longer, and don't produce predicatble amounts of vaccine.
The company shared its technology at a news conference today, along with the announcement of a $21 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Medicago chose Research Triangle Park for its facility, which will create up to 85 jobs and $42 million in investment.
]]>And our future building is getting closer to completion every day.
It's been amazing to watch day after day as our old asphalt parking lot transformed into
the beautiful cylindrical structure.
Now that we can see teasing glimpses of the glass walkway linking the old to the new, we're all waiting, quite impatiently I might add, to fill up that new building with people and ideas.
Biotech in North Carolina has a rich past, with the foresight of Governor Hunt and the General Assembly in the early 1980s. The Biotechnology Center has built on the promise it made then, supporting the growth of our industry to 57,000 employees at 530 companies.
We saw the promise of biotech fulfilled, as in 2009 we added jobs in an economy that rapidly shed them.
We see even greater promise ahead, particularly in our Agricultural Biotech Initiative. We're working with farmers, university researchers and companies to add $30 billion in ag-related revenues to the state's $70 billion ag economy.
So for us, that new building represents growth - not just for our staff, but for the industry too. We'll have more programs that help spur new companies with grants and loans, improved capabilities to aid in workforce training, funding for research, and enhanced educational programs for teachers.
When we open the doors on the James B. Hunt, Jr. Leadership Annex, we'll be opening the doors to North Carolina's future and more clean, high-paying jobs for the state.
]]>Decompression sickness involves gas bubbles that develop in blood vessels during sudden decreases in atmosphereic pressure. It primarily affects scuba divers, aviators, astronauts and compressed-air workers.
Oxybio is also testing Oxycyte in Switzerland and Israel to see how well it can transport damage-limiting oxygen to traumatic brain injury patients.
]]>Winston-Salem's Targacept has signed an agreement with upstart Cary drug-development company Cornerstone Therapeutics, buying access to the library of experimental Cornerstone compounds that fit Targacept's business model.
The compounds are part of a series Targacept is hoping to cash in on, called NNR therapeutics. They target brain-cell regions, called neuronal nicotinic receptors, to regulate some functions of the central nervous system.
Targacept's product candidates are aimed at treating a wide range of disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia and depression. Cornerstone licensed its line of nicotinic receptor compounds from New York's Feinstein Institute for Medical Research.
Under the terms of the agreement, Cornerstone gets an upfront payment of $1.5 million and is eligible for success-based milestone payments ranging from up to $45.6 million to up to $74.9 million, depending on which of two specified lead compounds is progressed by Targacept.
Concurrently, Cornerstone announced the purchase of access rights to respiratory treatments from Altair Pharmaceuticals. The companies aren't disclosing terms of that deal.
Naina Bhasin, Ph.D., director of business and technology development at The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, has been appointed vice president of business development and operations. More
Research Triangle Park-based contract research organization Quintiles has hired Teleflex chief financial officer Kevin Gordon to be its new CFO, succeeding Mike Troullis. More
Durham pharmaceutical company Oxygen Biotherapeutics is working with the U.S. Navy to see if the company's Oxycyte oxygen-carrying medication can prevent or treat decompression sickness -- aka "The Bends." More