MasterPeace Solutions Ltd., a cybersecurity contractor in Columbia, opened a new accelerator Thursday to support and grow startups founded internally by company employees.

Fri, December 9, 2016 - 8:30 AM – 1:00 PM EST

Montgomery Community Media in partnership with the Maryland/DC District Export Council, the US Commercial Service, the Maryland Department of Commerce, and the Small Business Administration present a three-hour program on the challenges and opportunities facing companies going global.    The program will feature 3 panels covering key aspects of international trade, including trade finance and local resources that facilitate trade. Speakers include government executives as well as CEOs who have successfully taken their companies international.

The most interesting aspect of Foundation Medicine (NASDAQ:FMI) is that, last year, cancer giant Roche (OTCQX:RHHBY) paid $50 per share to buy a 56% stake in the company. Bill Gates and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Ventures are also owners in this genomic testing company. However, right now, the stock is trading at $22.50, about half that Roche number.

Were all these smart people wrong? Did the M&A decision makers at Roche and the analysts working for Bill Gates and Google Ventures not do their homework? Or are we missing something here?

Will big data cure cancer?

While there's a lot of breathless talk about the potential of big data to do just that, Greg Simon, the Executive Director of the White House's Cancer Moonshot Taskforce, is a skeptic--at least for now.

The cofounders of healthcare cybersecurity startup Protenus are providing insight to a think tank that focuses on protecting critical infrastructure from attacks.

Robert Lord and Nick Culbertson, who launched the company through Dreamit Health Baltimore after meeting in medical school at Johns Hopkins, were named fellows with the D.C.-based Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology.

Israeli equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd has launched a new fund specifically focused on the digital health field, called OurCrowd Qure. They will work with Johns Hopkins University to provide validation of value, market access,  and on-going feedback on the startups.

"I think that crowdfunding for digital health makes a huge amount of sense," John Medved, CEO of OurCrowd, told MobiHealthNews. "We’re not just raising money in a different way. We’re helping to build the company in a different way. A crowdfunding platform is uniquely positioned to help digital health leaders."

CSSi LifeSciences™, a trusted partner from discovery to commercialization for drugs and medical devices, is excited to announce the establishment and launch of its fully integrated Medical Device CRO. CSSi LifeSciences™ Medical Device CRO aims to positively impact the timeline of regulatory clearance and increase profitability for medical device companies, in order to successfully launch its innovative research discoveries and product concepts into the market.

Back in February, Inova Health System announced it would create a $100 million venture fund. It offered few details at the time.

But as Inova officials celebrated another milestone Wednesday with an new University of Virginia partnership on multiple medical, research and business fronts, CEO Knox Singleton finally offered some details on Inova's investment plans.

Wednesday, December 14, 7 - 11 amFalls Church Marriott Fairview Park

Super Early Bird expires November 3rd for our CONNECTpreneur Winter Forum, headlined by Revolution Chairman & CEO, STEVE CASE, former AOL Time Warner Chair and New York Times bestselling author of The Third Wave.

The Big Idea CONNECTpreneur FORUM has been called "The Best Networking Event in DC." DCInno calls CONNECTpreneur a "NETWORKING JACKPOT" of the DC Region's TOP Entrepreneurs, Business Leaders, CXOs, Angels, and VCs.

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.”