NIH is committed to improving the participation of all people in our small business research SBIR & STTR programs. One of the goals of the SBIR and STTR programs is to encourage participation in innovation and entrepreneurship by socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses (SDB) and women-owned small businesses (WOSB), groups who historically have been underrepresented in both the SBIR/STTR applicant and awardee pools, and have slightly lower success rates than applicants across the board.

Inova Health System and the University of Virginia plan to announce a $112 million partnership Wednesday that will bring a regional campus of UVa's School of Medicine to Northern Virginia.

A new algorithm developed by a Johns Hopkins computer scientist could revolutionize the way scientists look at genes.

A team of 17 scientists led by Michael Schatz told the JHU Hub that the open-source software creates a clearer picture of an organism’s DNA. The results were published in the journal Nature Methods.

Last week at the Cleveland Clinic’s annual Medical Innovations Summit, Daniel Kraft, chair of medicine and neuroscience at Singularity University, and an oncologist, painted a dazzling picture of a healthcare future where digital tools empower everyone and can solve several of healthcare’s bigger problems.

But he also posed a question whose answer will be borne out over the next few years: The tech and data tsunami is coming, but do we have the right platforms in place to catch the wave?

TEDCO is happy to announce its new Seed Investment Fund. After careful consideration of feedback received from our recent market stakeholder survey, we've decided to transform our Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF), Cyber Security Investment Fund (CIF) and Life Science Invest,ment Fund (LSIF) into a single Seed Investment Fund.

The new program will make it easier than ever for startup technology companies to seek Seed Funding from TEDCO.

GE Healthcare and Johns Hopkins Hospital partnered to construct a NASA-style command center to better manage patient safety, experience and volume. The Judy Reitz Capacity Command Center leverages systems engineering principles that are commonly used in the aerospace, aviation and power industries.

There are a lot of scientific papers out there. One estimate puts the count at 1.8 million articles published each year, in about 28,000 journals. Who actually reads those papers? According to one 2007 study, not many people: half of academic papers are read only by their authors and journal editors, the study's authors write. 

But not all academics accept that they have an audience of three. There's a heated dispute around academic readership and citation—enough that there have been studies about reading studies going back for more than two decades.

Vigilant Bioservices Open House In the UMB Biopark 801 W. Baltimore St., Suite 303, Baltimore, Md. 21201 (street parking & garage on same block west of Biopark)

Wednesday, November 16th

(Tours start on the half hour) 11am – 1pm 3pm – 5pm

Join us for the monthly Science in the City Happy Hour With the tenants of the Biopark 5:00pm-6:30pm

RSVP: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Stephen Quake’s laboratory at Stanford University looks like biology’s version of Thomas Edison’s famous New Jersey workshop. Roll-down curtains cast shadows across odd devices buzzing and clicking in the aisles. You half expect to find Quake, author of 135 patents and rarely seen wearing anything other than a faded polo shirt, sleeping on one of the benches, just as the Wizard of Menlo Park was known to.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Roche’s PD-L1 assay as a diagnostic to identify PD-L1 expression levels in patients considering treatment with Tecentriq (atezolizumab) for previously treated metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Immunomic Therapeutics is committed to providing a workplace that bolsters scientific ideas. The Cancer Discovery Incubator will enable and accelerate beginning ventures with the capacity for measurable change in oncology health. The goal is to empower the beneficiary to conduct proof-of-concept experiments and ultimately, attract funding, partnerships, and fuel growth.

New York biotech has historically lagged behind more established life sciences hubs like Boston and San Francisco, but collaborations between its research institutions have helped the city start to move forward. Another step in that direction was taken this morning, with the launch of what’s being called Bridge Medicines.

Reston-based telemedicine provider Avizia Inc. raised $6 million in Series A funding, amping up a fundraising round we reported earlier this year to a total of $17 million.

Biotech venture capital is supposed to be the highest-risk/highest-reward type of investment there is. But many biotech VCs are actually pretty conservative, hesitant to wager on edgy science that might take a decade to pay off.

Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission announced today the launch of Accelerating Cure, a new initiative to support regenerative medicine and cell therapy technologies moving from research to commercialization and finally to clinical trials. Accelerating Cure will fund close to $9 million with its five programs to address the different stages the technologies need to go through. The Commission also announced that Dr. Amritha Jaishankar joined the team as the Award Manager for the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund.

Kevin Plank's underdog story has become synonymous with Baltimore — the city his company Under Armour calls home.

Now his investment company, Plank Industries, is looking to rebuild an entire area of the city. Billions of dollars will be poured into Port Covington in one of the largest urban redevelopment projects in the country, which will include housing, retail and an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Entrepreneur, the magazine that celebrates small business, recently released a list of what they consider to be the 360 best small businesses America has to offer. And wouldn’t you know — some of #dctech’s own were among the companies named.

The list is not meant to showcase only companies that are growing really fast (we see you, Inc.) — it’s more of a congratulations to companies “that keep all their parts growing in harmony.” As such, each company on the list has been evaluated according to the metrics of impact, innovation, growth and leadership.

Sight Machine is a manufacturing analytics company based in the Ann Arbor SPARK Central Innovation Center. It takes all the different resources available to manufacturing companies – quality, ERP systems, etc. – and integrates them into a digital twin of a factory to help stakeholders in the manufacturing process improve quality and efficiency.

The value Sight Machine provides its clients is illustrated in its work with a major global apparel company. For this Fortune 100 Company; it not only automates the process of data collection and analysis, Sight Machine works across a number of factories simultaneously. The intelligence it provides is helping this client resolve issues like debugging over several different locations, offer insight on what’s going on in individual plants, and how similar assets are performing in different locations.

Bing Yao, PhD, Head of Respiratory, Inflammation and Autoimmunity at MedImmune, spoke with Healio Rheumatology about MedImmune’s collaboration with the University of California at San Francisco, techniques to quantify biomarkers and MedImmune’s role in treating rheumatologic patients.

A great example of a local company giving back to the business community:  Montgomery County’s Immunomic Therapeutics, Inc. Founder Dr. Bill Hearl, recently announced the launch of the Immunomic Therapeutics Cancer Discovery Incubator.  According to the video announcement posted on YouTube, the incubator “will enable and accelerate ventures, with the capacity for measurable change in oncology health.  The goal is to empower the beneficiary to conduct proof-of-concept experiments and ultimately, attract funding partnerships, and fuel growth.”  Check out the complete video for further information.

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC) and the bwtech@UMBC Cyber Incubator announced today that two more cyber startups – one representing the first international company to participate – have graduated from the Northrop Grumman Cync program.  iWebGate of Perth, Australia and Light Point Security of Baltimore have completed the Cync scholarship program.

“Chemistry is the study of matter,” Walter White once opined on Breaking Bad. “But I prefer to see it as the study of change.”

If you take matter (in this case, brick and mortar real estate) and you factor in change (the rising price of this matter), what you’re left with are fewer places to study heady topics like chemistry.

Wed, November 9, 2016 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM EST

Join us for an evening of food, drink, and revelry as we celebrate moving into our new prototyping and manufacturing facility! Tour the new offices and check out the workshop. See what all the buzz is about.

We'll also have some entertainment for your inner geek. Get an introduction to some of the tools or test your robot driving skills with the "House Bots" from the Baltimore Robotics Center.

Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE: RNN) announced that it has been issued a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) covering RX-21101 for the targeted delivery of docetaxel directly into cancer tumor cells using a nano-polymer conjugate technology.

Johns Hopkins University has licensed a technology that tests for a marker of cancer’s susceptibility to immunotherapy to Personal Genome Diagnostics (PGDx), a leading provider of advanced cancer genome testing products and services.

The technology tests for microsatellite instability (MSI), which occurs when cells have a defect in the ability to repair the mistakes that naturally occur when cellular DNA is copied. Tumor cells with MSI typically have many more mutations than other tumor cells and are more often successfully treated with new immuno-oncology drugs such as PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors.

The outline of a Greater Washington rebranding campaign is beginning to take shape:

“Greater Washington: Where you come to make history happen.”

The goals for economic development have long focused on expanding opportunities for citizens. With greater pressure to demonstrate impact, states have embraced the collection and reporting of performance indicators. However, as the economy continues to change, economic development goals become more nuanced. Consequently, state economic development leaders seek to improve the indicators they use to measure the effectiveness of their incentive programs. This white paper describes common indicators in use, pros and cons of the two most common types of indictors: those representing jobs and investment. The white paper also offers guidance on the process for improving and expanding the slate of indicators states can deploy to evaluate their efforts.

Cori Bargmann's new job description includes "to help cure, prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century." That's quite a lofty goal.

Bargmann is a neuroscientist and president of science for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the joint venture of pediatrician Priscilla Chan and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. The couple pledged $3 billion to solve major medical problems by helping scientists and engineers collaborate long term, over 25, 50, even 80 years.

Altimmune, Inc., a clinical stage immunotherapeutic company, today announced that a poster detailing the design and preclinical evaluation of its HepTcell immunotherapeuticfor the treatment of chronic hepatitis B infection will be presented at the 2017 Keystone Symposia Conference taking place October 25 – 29, 2016 in London.

This table shows the "sticker prices" — published tuition and required fees — at more than 3,000 colleges and universities for the 2016-17 academic year. Click the institutions' names to see historical data back to 1998.

Amgen Europe GmbH, an affiliate of Amgen Inc, has invested in an Israel-based digital health incubator, eHealth Ventures, to serve patients by driving innovation and sustainable healthcare through technology discovery. 

“This addition will provide a new strategic element to our screening process and build significant value to our portfolio companies. Having Amgen on board will deliver invaluable assets and know-how in many of the digital health innovation aspects, including market input, commercialisation of R&D, business modeling, go-to-market strategies and more," said Talor Sax, chief executive officer, eHealth Ventures Incubator.

The Global Competitiveness Report assesses the competitiveness landscape of 138 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity. Switzerland, Singapore and the United States remain the three world’s most competitive economies.

Today in the Oval Office, Vice President Joe Biden delivered the Cancer Moonshot report to the President and the American public. The report summarizes the work of the Cancer Moonshot Task Force since its creation in January, and lays out the Vice President’s strategic plan for transforming cancer research and care. The report also includes the Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel’s identified areas of scientific opportunity.

Accompanying these findings and recommendations, today’s report includes the announcement of new commitments toward the goals of the Cancer Moonshot from both the public and private sectors. For example, today the National Cancer Institute, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft are announcing a collaboration to build a sustainable model for maintaining cancer genomic data in the cloud. The information stored there will be available to cancer researchers through the NCI’s Genomic Data Commons and Cancer Genomics Cloud programs.

A life sciences incubator formerly run by Montgomery County is now being managed by a public-private partnership that focuses on helping central Maryland scientists and bio-health startups bring their ideas to market.

Rockville-based BioHealth Innovation Inc. at the start of October began managing the Germantown Innovation Center, which is part of the Pinkey Innovation Complex for Science and Technology at Montgomery College’s Germantown campus.

GlaxoSmithKline has filed its shingles vaccine Shingrix for U.S. regulatory approval, the drugmaker said on Monday, bringing the potential $1 billion-a-year seller a step closer to market.

Shingrix is viewed by analysts as among the British company's most promising experimental products, since it has shown greater protection among older recipients than Merck's rival shot Zostavax.