Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University and the University of Virginia were among the top Washington-area universities making an appearance on U.S. News and World Report's 2017 Best Colleges edition released Tuesday.

$248 million in cash from Sanofi, and the same amount in a capital contribution by Verily (not in cash) have breathed life to a new company — Onduo — where the two equal partners will wage battle with a formidable enemy: diabetes.

Everyone likes to talk about innovation, but how can you stop simply talking about and start driving real innovation in biotech? We looked at some of the most ground-breaking, silo-busting movers and shakers around to bring you the "Top 5 Ways to Innovate in Biote

ExeGi Pharma, LLC announced the launch of the new probiotic formulation, Visbiome™ and Visbiome™ Extra Strength. Visbiome contains the pioneering probiotic blend developed by Professor Claudio De Simone, M.D., Ph.D. (the "De Simone Formulation"), and it has the same strains, in the same concentrations and proportions, and is therapeutically equivalent to the VSL#3®1 probiotic blend produced before January 31, 2016. Visbiome, a medical food, delivers anti-inflammatory probiotic bacteria in high concentrations, normalizing the gut flora and providing sustained relief from symptoms of multiple gastroenterological conditions including ulcerative colitis, chronic pouchitis and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Mandates for the provision of telemedicine have driven insurance companies and employers to jump into arrangements with pre-smartphone era companies like Teladoc, MD Live, and American Well.

Nope, this isn't a scene out of Free Willy.

It's actually taking place in the Army Bay, New Zealand, where a kayaker casually jumped out of his vessel to hang out with a curious orca on Monday. Tim Stewart is said daring kayaker, who told the NZ Herald he went down to the ocean after he heard of orca sightings in the area.

Smart money VCs are on pace to participate in fewer cybersecurity deals through the end of this year, compared to 2015. This year, through Q2’16, the top two dozen smart money VCs participated in nearly 30 cybersecurity funding rounds — deals that totaled $657M in aggregate.

Startups in the medical device industry are on pace for an uptick in financing, thanks to interest from private market investors, including corporates. We put together a periodic table of medical device companies to highlight promising startups, industry categories, exits, and active investors in the category.

The Georgetown-based Halcyon Incubator celebrated the commencement of a new cohort on Thursday with another announcement — two years ago, to the day, the incubator itself was launched. In that time, S&R Foundation COO Kate Goodall informed the gathered crowd, the incubator has served 32 ventures, which have raised a collective $10 million in funding and “impacted” 2 million lives around the world.

The Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) Program provides funding for university-based research projects that help Maryland companies develop technology-based products, combining the creative expertise of Maryland’s university faculty with the drive of the state’s entrepreneurs. Up to $100,000 per year is available for each project.

Upcoming Information Sessions

Date: Thursday, September 8
Time: Noon-1 p.m.
Location: Chesapeake Innovation Center, 2288 Blue Water Blvd., Building 300, Suite 310, Odenton, MD 21113

Date: Wednesday, September 14
Time: 3-5 p.m.
Location: Frostburg State University Sustainable Energy Research Facility (SERF), 5 Technology Drive, Frostburg, MD 21532

In opening a recent interview with Under Armour (NYSE:UA) founder and CEO Kevin Plank, the commentator described Plank as "next." 

As perhaps the most high-profile member of a cohort of younger CEOs, Plank's overwhelming success in starting and growing Under Armour has become the stuff of business lore. Here are a few of Plank's top quotes on a host of subjects including business, entrepreneurship, and leadership. 

Let’s face it, cells generally like having company, forming communities with other cell types to make complete tissues. However, quite often, researchers isolate cells from their 3-D environments, creating 2-D models that don’t always replicate complex biology.

BIO released the new report “Advancing the Biobased Economy: Renewable Chemical Biorefinery Commercialization, Progress, and Market Opportunities, 2016 and Beyond,” documenting substantial, ongoing growth in the renewable chemical industry and outlining federal and state policies that support the industry.

Gov. Larry Hogan will travel to Israel later this month in an effort to attract more overseas businesses to Maryland, particularly in the areas of biotechnology and cybersecurity.

The Biomedical Research Institute (BRI), founded in Rockville, MD in 1968, is a not-forprofit research institute that emphasizes basic research in schistosomiasis. BRI expanded its subsidiaries in 1985 to include the Association of Entrepreneurial Science (AES), an incubator for startup scientific companies that brings scientists and basic research findings into the realm of commercial markets. AES brings together all the accompanying business skills required for profit making entrepreneurs to bring scientific products and services to the marketplace.

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D.C.-based Danaher Corp. (NYSE: DHR) is buying California molecular diagnostics company Cepheid Inc. (NASDAQ: CPHD) for about $4 billion in cash.

The $53 per share price represents a 54 percent premium on its Friday closing price of $34.42 per share. The deal, expected to close in the fourth quarter, would constitute a sizable addition to Danaher’s $8.2 billion life sciences and medical testing and equipment business.

The Next Phase of the FLC Awards is Here - 2017 FLC Awards

The 2017 FLC Awards is now open for nominations. One of the most coveted honors in the technology transfer field, the FLC awards have been presented to over 200 federal laboratories since their inception in 1984. Many of our winning technology transfer efforts have gone on to become products and devices that are indispensable in our daily lives.

Funding and Research Opportunities

The following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest:

Notices:

• Notice of NCCIH's Participation in PA-16-414 "Innovation Corps (I-Corps) at NIH Program for NIH and CDC Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Grantees (Admin Supp)"
• (NOT-AT-16-003)
• National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
• Notice of Clarification to NHLBI's Policy Regarding Total Years of Support for K24 Funding 
• (NOT-HL-16-442)
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
• Notice of Technical Assistance Webinars for Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) FOAs: RFA-RM-011, RFA-RM-012, RFA-RM-013, RFA-RM-014, RFA-RM-16-015, RFA-RM-016, and RFA-RM-017
• (NOT-RM-16-028)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives
• Notice of New Expiration Date for RFA-RM-16-013 "Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues (ELSI) Research Program (U01)"
• (NOT-RM-16-029)
• NIH Roadmap Initiatives

Requests for Applications: 

• Maximizing the Scientific Value of the NHLBI Biorepository: Scientific Opportunities for Exploratory Research (R21)
• (RFA-HL-17-022)
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Creating a tech invention with global potential is an ambition that many of us harbor but only relatively few are able to actually achieve.

So for the co-creators of a device that monitors newborn baby vital signs and improves their chances of survival in parts of the developing world, the sense of achievement in getting their startup idea off the ground is bolstered further by a feeling of real pride in doing work that could save thousands of lives.

It’s time once again to pick the members of the tech community who should win a coveted Baltimore Innovation Award.

This is a chance to recognize organizations and individuals who are innovating and growing Baltimore’s tech community. See all of last year’s award winners here.

One of the great scientific challenges is to understand the human brain. Research teams around the world are gathering data at breakneck speed on everything from the brain’s connectome and the way it computes to the nature of brain disease and how it can be better diagnosed and treated.

Bertin launches the first digital Night Vision Device providing smart fusion for accurate threat and target. Developed in partnership with Photonis Technologies, FusionSight® is a world- first compact monocular that combines a low light full color image sensor with a thermal image sensor.

In addition to exploring existing drugs for multiple indications, United Therapeutics (UTHR) has been actively investing in research and development (or R&D) programs involving novel technologies. These are targeted toward pulmonary arterial hypertension (or PAH), cancer, and the orphan disease bronchopulmonary dysplasia (or BPD).

A day in the life at Startup Village is hectic with the University of Maryland students and alumni working on business projects from 8 a.m. to as late as midnight. It's not uncommon for collaborators to crash on the couch, said David Engle, co-founder and executive director of Startup Village and a 2015 spring graduate of this university.

Submit your proposal today for the “Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!” competition. Up to six prizes totaling $250,000 will be awarded to the winning presentations at the 4th Annual Pediatric Surgical Innovation Symposium in Washington, DC hosted by the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National Health System.

RegeneRx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB: RGRX) ("the Company" or "RegeneRx"), a clinical-stage drug development company focused on tissue protection, repair and regeneration, today announced that it has received notice of Intent to Grant a patent from the European Patent Office for the treatment of patients with MS. The patent covers use of the Company's proprietary molecule Thymosin beta 4 (Tβ4) in a composition for treating or reducing deterioration of, injury or damage to tissue due to MS. The patent expiry is January 13, 2026.

Maryland is a leader in National Institutes of Health funding for biomedical research and in venture capital investment for bioscience-related companies, according to a recent study from the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.

The bioscience industry employs more than 34,000 people in Maryland, and the average annual wage for a bioscience worker in the United States reached $94,543 in 2014, according to the report.

The National Creativity Network (NCN) is pleased to announce the winner of the 2016 USA Creative Business Cup – Kitchology of Germantown, MD. Kitchology (www.kitchology.com) is the first company to create an integrated social cooking platform for the estimated 160 million people dealing with special diets and the suppliers who sell to them. It allows consumers to overcome the limitations imposed by food restrictions, and makes it easy for like-minded cooks to find each other. Kitchology applies machine learning to nutrition science, profiling and social curation to help the home cook match and modify recipes to satisfy the challenges of food allergies, intolerances, and special diets.  Kitchology enables meal planning based on ingredients previously used and explored, personalized ingredient substitutions, purchasing with intelligent shopping lists, step-by-step cooking, and fosters influencer relationships.

Eli Lilly ($LLY) has been doubling down on its efforts to invent new animal vaccines--opening a 48,000-square-foot research facility near its Indianapolis headquarters, for example, that its animal health division, Elanco, will use for R&D. On the production-animal side of the business, Elanco’s bread and butter until now has been cattle and swine products, but the company is looking to expand into a rapidly growing corner of food production where it has had virtually no presence: aquaculture.

With concerns over a continued Zika outbreak growing, the Food and Drug Administration has given Roche Holdings emergency approval to use one of its Zika blood testing kits.

The approval, which lasts as long as the emergency is ongoing, will allow for testing of the virus through Roche's LightMix Zika rRT-PCR test, which has not been approved by the FDA yet.

Summer is a good time to review investment activity for pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the year so far and a new report shows that there’s still life for life science IPOs.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday issued emergency authorization for a Zika diagnostics test from Swiss drugmaker Roche, skirting normal approval channels as the regulator moves to fight the disease's spread.

Thomas Luginbill knows what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. He spearheaded the founding of a campus organization when he was an undergraduate, helped start a family-run contracting business and co-created a start-up technology venture while studying for an MBA. This self-described "serial entrepreneur" has been named as director of the College of Southern Maryland's newly formed Entrepreneur and Innovation Institute (EII).

AstraZeneca announced it will sell the full commercialization and development rights of its late-stage small molecule antibiotics business to Pfizer, while AstraZeneca focuses on developing therapies for other main areas, according to a press release.

Johns Hopkins Medicine has launched the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Zika Center, where medical professionals focus on caring for patients with the Zika virus. The center is touted as the first multidisciplinary Zika center in the world.