Source: Philly.com

A serendipitous discovery led Wistar Institute biologists to create mice with enhanced healing powers simply by altering one gene.

The new mice not only heal wounds better and faster than ordinary ones but they heal differently, more like the regeneration process that allows salamanders to regrow limbs.

Biologist Ellen Heber-Katz said it all started in 1996, when she realized something had gone wrong in an experiment. An immunologist, she was working with mice that had been bred to develop symptoms of autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis.

Employing a standard lab technique, she asked a postdoctoral fellow to tag some mice by punching a 2-millimeter hole in one ear to distinguish treated mice from the untreated controls.

She thought the postdoc had forgotten to do her job. "I was horrified," she said, until she realized that the mice had been punched and somehow healed almost overnight.

After talking with specialists in wound healing, she decided to continue studying these Mighty Mice. Read more here.

Source: LFW March 2010

Automated alignemement keep Z machine on target, p.31-36, about Sandia National Lab

Ti:Sapphire laser crystals reach 200 mm diameter, p.37-43

Swept field confocal overcomes point-scanning microscopy limitations, p.5-59 By Kevin Eliceiri

Source:optics.org

Researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK and CNRS in Grenoble, France, have fabricated an ultrafast "mode-locked" graphene laser. The result - which comes as quite a surprise, given the absence of a band gap in graphene - paves the way to photonic devices based on the material.

Since its discovery in 2004, graphene has continued to amaze scientists thanks to its unique electronic and mechanical properties that make it useful for a host of device applications. The "wonder material", as it is called, might even replace silicon as the electronic material of choice in the future. Graphene consists of a planar single sheet of carbon arranged in a honeycombed lattice and electrons travel through the material at extremely high speeds thanks to the fact that they behave like relativistic, or "Dirac", particles with no rest mass.

Now, Andrea Ferrari and colleagues say that graphene might be used in optoelectronics applications too, by demonstrating an ultrafast laser made from the material. To read more, click here.

Seventeen researchers at New England universities have received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense for research instrumentation.

The Department of Defense is giving out $38.7 million in 166 awards to 96 academic institutions under the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP). The amounts of the specific awards were not disclosed, but awards ranged from $50,000 to $930,000, averaging $235,000, according to the DOD.
 
The DURIP grants are intended to support defense research in areas including chemistry and physics, scientific computing and networks, electronics and electro-optics, neuroscience, fluid dynamics and propulsion, and ocean science and engineering, by helping universities buy equipment costing more than $50,000.
Among them:

Federico Capasso, Harvard College: Semiconductor-based, plasmon-mediated, terahertz sources and detectors
cederico

Eric Mazur, Harvard College: Characterization and control of femtosecond laser pulses for nanofabrication of three-dimensional metamaterials

Source: MHT

Seventeen researchers at New England universities have received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense for research instrumentation.

The Department of Defense is giving out $38.7 million in 166 awards to 96 academic institutions under the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP). The amounts of the specific awards were not disclosed, but awards ranged from $50,000 to $930,000, averaging $235,000, according to the DOD.
 
The DURIP grants are intended to support defense research in areas including chemistry and physics, scientific computing and networks, electronics and electro-optics, neuroscience, fluid dynamics and propulsion, and ocean science and engineering, by helping universities buy equipment costing more than $50,000.

Among them:Federico Capasso, Harvard College: Semiconductor-based, plasmon-mediated, terahertz sources and detectors

Eric Mazur, Harvard College: Characterization and control of femtosecond laser pulses for nanofabrication of three-dimensional metamaterials

Source: MHT

Optical technology maker Boston Micromachines Corp. reports it has landed a Small Business Technology Transfer grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop communications sensors for the U.S. Army.

Under the grant, the Cambridge-based company partnered with Boston University to develop a modulating retro-reflector for asymmetric free space covert communication and remote sensor integration. The reflector is intended to allow for long range ground- and air-based communication, on the battlefield, from ship-to-ship, and from satellite to round station data transfer. Optical communications are used when traditional radio-frequency communications systems are disrupted or otherwise unavailable.
To read more, click here.

Source: Xconomy

Count Nuance Communications among the Massachusetts-based providers of software for doctors that could benefit hugely from healthcare reforms and technology initiatives emerging from Washington.

Healthcare customers are the biggest market for the Burlington, MA-based company's (NASDAQ:NUAN) speech-recognition and phone-based products, accounting for about 40 percent of the firm's $950.4 million in revenue for fiscal 2009. To grow and protect its top market, the company is advocating for the government to adopt standards that would make its technology a key tool that doctors will need to use when they deal with electronic patient records and order diagnostic imaging tests like CT scans.

Nuance's foothold in the healthcare arena might be fueling rumors that it's a potential acquisition target, according to a recent Bloomberg News report. For example, the company says there are more than 100,000 physicians who use the company's speech-recognition software that enables them to dictate patient information directly into electronic health records, including records systems from most major providers such as Allscripts, eClinicalWorks, and General Electric, according to Nuance. Brent Thill, an analyst for UBS, told Bloomberg this month that Nuance is a good takeover target and the healthcare market will become more important as the government streamlines the healthcare system. Read more here.

Source: Burill & Company

When President Obama signed healthcare reform legislation it contained a provision that opens the doorway to biosimilars-copycat versions of biologics that are no longer protected by patents. The legislation was viewed as a big victory for the biotech industry because it provides for a 12-year period of protection from biosimilar competition for these expensive therapies, but big questions remain as to how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will construct a pathway for biosimilar approvals. We spoke to Erika Lietzan, a partner with Covington & Burling in the lawfirm's food and drug group and government affairs group. She discussed the significance of the legislation, the challenges ahead for the FDA, and what points of controversy remain to be resolved. Click here to read more. 

Source: Techdirt.com

When the startup visa was first put forth by Paul Graham, I was a big supporter. When Brad Feld took the idea and got political support for it, I was still a big supporter. But when the bill was actually introduced, I expressed some serious worries about it -- specifically over the fact that it was entirely focused on enterpreneurs who could raise a certain amount of money. As I noted, there were some potentially serious unintended consequences of requiring enterpreneurs to raise a specific amount of money just to stay in the country.  Read more here.  

Source: InformationWeek

If customer-centric innovation can be measured by sheer volume of acquisitions, then Oracle, Cisco, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard are the top innovators in the IT industry.

If. But is the level of an IT vendor's acquisition activity necessarily a direct indicator of its ability to deliver customer-centered innovation? No, it's certainly not. Read more here.

Source: The New York Times

Maples Investments, whose founder Mike Maples, Jr. has backed high-profile web startups like Twitter and Digg, announced today that it’s renaming itself Floodgate and transforming itself from an angel investment firm into a “Super Angel.”  Read more here. 

Source: Tonic.com

Better known for information technology, IBM teams up with Stanford University researchers to make huge strides in the development of better, greener plastics.  Read more here.

Source; MHT

Bill Aulet has been named managing director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. The MIT Sloan School of Management senior :ecturer previously was serving as acting managing director following the departure of Ken Morse from the position last August.

A serial entrepreneur, according to his biography posted on MIT's website, Aulet previously headed MIT spinouts Cambridge Decision Dynamics and SensAble Technologies Inc. Before being named acting managing director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, he held a four-year entrepreneur-in-residence position at the center.
To read more, click here.

Source: MHT

As part of each week's Startup Report, Mass High Tech highlights five startup companies, and their business goals, that are profiled in the New England Tech Directory. With each week's Startup Watch, Mass High Tech will choose the weekly featured companies by soliciting nominations through a poll of 10 companies, with links to their profiles in the New England Tech Directory. Please choose five startups that you would like to know more about for the March 30 edition of Mass High Tech's weekly Startup Report e-mail by visiting www.masshightech.com/startup-watch.

For guest access to today's directory listings, visit the following companies:

Eolian Renewable Energy LLC: Portsmouth, N.H.-based Eolian develops commercial-scale wind and solar power generation technology. The company was founded in 2009.

Lattice Engines Inc.: Boston-based Lattice Engines makes predictive analytics software. The company was founded in 2006.

ThinkLite LLC: Wellesley-based Thinklite provides an energy efficiency service focused on lighting. The company was founded in 2009.

Virebo LLC: Cambridge-based Virebo makes software that tracks and analyzes office printing. The company was founded in 2009.

Zthere Corp.: Founded in 2009, Zthere is developing mobile communications applications for real-world environments. The company is based in Cambridge.

Source: UPI.comCOLUMBUS, Ohio, March 22 (UPI) -- Ohio State University scientists say an experimental oral drug has successfully lowered blood sugar levels and inflammation in mice with type 2 diabetes.

The scientists, led by Associate Professor Abhay Satoskar, said the drug consists of a synthetic molecule that stops the biological activity of a protein called macrophage migration inhibitory factor, or MIF.

The researchers said they first determined that mice genetically engineered not to carry the MIF protein are less likely to develop symptoms of type 2 diabetes. That, they said, suggests MIF has a role in at least two hallmarks of diabetes: impaired blood sugar control and the presence of other inflammatory proteins.

The scientists then treated diabetic mice with the investigational drug and found most animals showed lower blood sugar levels and reduced inflammatory proteins in their blood when compared to untreated mice with type 2 diabetes. Read more here.

Source: San Francisco Business TimesLooking for a couple of winners out of the House's historic passage of so-called health care reform - otherwise known as March Madness?

Consider the biotech industry and its venture capital backers.

The legislation gives brand-name biotech drug developers - like Genentech, Amgen and others in the Bay Area - 12 years of data exclusivity. That provides VCs and other investors in these companies a greater hope of recovering their investments - beyond patent protection -assuming their drugs are approved.

(The Obama Administration initially argued for seven years of data exclusivity, the period during which lower-cost biosimilars could rely on the original maker's safety and efficacy data. But legislators like Peninsula Democrat Rep. Anna Eshoo had pushed for the industry-backed 12 years.)
Read more here.

Source: FirstWordhe House of Representatives voted 219-212 on Sunday to approve legislation passed by the Senate in December that will bring changes to the US healthcare system. A total of 216 votes were required to pass the 10-year, $940-billion bill, which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will extend health coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans.

The House also voted 220-211 to approve a reconciliation bill that will make changes to the Senate legislation. The reconciliation bill builds on a Senate measure aiming to help close a "doughnut hole" in Medicare coverage for prescription drugs. Part of the funding would come from an $80-billion, decade-long agreement with the pharmaceutical industry reached in June 2009. Read more here.

Source: OptoIQCambridge, MA--Harvard University researchers have successfully combined a silicone rubber stick-on sheet containing dozens of miniature, powerful lenses with lab-on-a-chip devices--a marriage of high-performance micro-optics and microfluidics that could bring researchers one step closer to putting the capacity of a large laboratory into a micro-sized package.

Microfluidics, the ability to manipulate tiny volumes of liquid, is at the heart of many lab-on-a-chip devices. Such platforms can automatically mix and filter chemicals, making them ideal for disease detection and environmental sensing. The performance of these devices, however, is typically inferior to larger scale laboratory equipment. While lab-on-a-chip systems can deliver and manipulate millions of liquid drops, there is not an equally scalable and efficient way to detect the activity, such as biological reactions, within the drops.

The Harvard team's zone-plate array optical detection system, described in an article appearing in the journal Lab on a Chip, may offer a solution. The array, which integrates directly into a massively parallel microfluidic device, can analyze nearly 200,000 droplets per second; is scalable and reusable; and can be readily customized.

"In essence, we've integrated some high performance optics onto a chip that contains microfluidics as well. This allows us to be able to parallelize the optics in the same way that a microfluidic device parallelizes sample manipulation and delivery," says Ken Crozier, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), who directed the research. Read more here.

Source: OptoIQ

Precision glass molding of aspheric lenses allows a wide variety of optical designs with smaller size, reduced weight, and no post-polishing; these lenses can be made economically in medium to high production volumes.

ANDREAS KUNZ

While cost-conscious optical designers have traditionally avoided using aspherical optics in their designs, today they can incorporate glass aspheres into products manufactured in medium to large numbers. This is thanks to the advent of precision glass molding, which has allowed the cost-effective manufacture of aspheric glass lenses.

The use of aspheres

Typically, aberrations in optical systems are corrected by splitting the optics into several spherical lenses and designing each individual element to compensate for the aberrations caused by the others. This leads inevitably to optics with many surfaces, increasing weight and size.

Aspheres provide an additional means of aberration correction, resulting in smaller optical systems with fewer lenses and lower weight. The disadvantage of conventionally manufactured aspherical lenses in comparison with spherical lenses is the higher manufacturing costs. For components with modest optical or environmental requirements, inexpensive lenses can be made from plastic by injection molding. The disadvantages of plastic optical components however are their lower maximum power density, lower temperature resistance, greater dependency of optical properties on temperature, and less-resistant optical coatings. As a result, precision molding of glass is becoming increasingly predominant in the field of high-quality optical components. Considerable progress in the development of this process has been made in the European Union project "Production 4µ." Read more here.

Source: OptoIQCompared to the relatively slow acquisition speed and high phototoxicity of traditional confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM), a new technology called swept field confocal (SFC) uses optics to split the excitation laser into multiple beams for improved live cell imaging studies.

BILL VOGT, LONG YAN, MICHAEL SZULCZEWSKI, and KEVIN ELICEIRI

Significant advances in our understanding of human health and disease have relied on our ability to identify the location of individual molecules and to study their dynamics within living cells taken from human and animal models. With enhanced optical resolution and optical sectioning capability, confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) has become an essential biological imaging tool. With CLSM the cell biologist can, for instance, examine sub-cellular structures, and the neuroscientist can explore the connectivity among the neuron networks. However, despite its success, the conventional CLSM does have certain limitations in capturing dynamic events such as slow acquisition speed and relatively high phototoxicity. Read more here.

Source: Business Week March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Roche Holding AG Chief Executive Officer Severin Schwan said he seeks acquisitions that will bolster the company's research programs, rather than "mega- mergers" designed to add immediate revenue.

Roche, the world's biggest maker of cancer medicines, is interested in partnerships or acquisitions that would strengthen that position, and expand its work on Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, Schwan said in an interview today in New York. In the face of increased pricing pressure in the drug industry, Roche's strategy is to "constantly rejuvenate" its pipeline, he said.

Schwan and Pascal Soriot, head of the Basel, Switzerland- based company's pharmaceutical unit, will update investors and analysts in New York tomorrow on the company's drug-development pipeline. Schwan is expected to reassure investors of the potential of Avastin, Roche's top-selling cancer treatment, after slower sales growth and setbacks in clinical trials led some analysts to question whether the drug can achieve sales forecasts. Roche gained full control of Avastin when it bought U.S. partner Genentech last year for $46.8 billion. Read more here.

Source: WA TodayThe University of Western Australia is moving to commercialise a protein that early trials indicate performs as well as a leading drug in fighting cancer.

The so-called secreted frizzled-related protein 4 (sFRP4) is a naturally occurring protein that is known to play an important role in promoting cell death, such as in mammary cells when juvenile mammals are weaned, and in promoting cell differentiation.

Now an international team of scientists, including several researchers from UWA, have discovered it also blocks blood-vessel formation.

Results of trials published in The American Journal of Pathology show the naturally-occurring protein inhibits tumours as well as a very successful commercial drug Avastin.

Professor Arun Dharmarajan from UWA's School of Anatomy and Human Biology said the university and Anna University in Chenai hold patent applications on the use of sFRP4. Read more here.

Source: Chicago Tribune

So how and when does the Food and Drug Administration decide to pull a prescription from the market?

Should I be asking whether my doctor accepts gifts or sandwiches from drug companies? Why are drugmakers notified by the FDA when a device is harmful before the general public?

Questions like these from consumers can be posed to the FDA as part of an effort to make the agency more open and less arcane to the general public, as well as the health care providers and companies it regulates, the agency said.

The agency is seeking public comment on how it can increase transparency with the industry it regulates. The FDA said it formed the "Transparency Task Force" in response to the Obama administration's overarching effort to "achieve an unprecedented level of openness in government."

The FDA has come under increasing criticism over the lack of transparency in its oversight of drugs, most notably the arthritis pain pill Vioxx. The drug was on the market for several years before a study showed it was linked to an increased risk of stroke and heart attack, forcing Merck & Co. in 2004 to withdraw the product used by millions of Americans.

"The task force is developing recommendations for making information about FDA activities and decisions more useful, understandable and readily available, while appropriately protecting confidential information," the agency said in a statement. Read more here.

Source: Venturebeat.com

Performance monitoring service Gomez has released its annual list of major websites with the best overall responsiveness as measured by Gomez over the entire year 2009. Surprise winner: IRS.gov, a site that uses images sparingly and pushes off large documents to PDF format for downloading, rather than trying to serve them as Web pages. Read more here.

Source:Nature Photonics

This month the focus of Nature Photonics is ultrafast photonics. A few articles can be mentioned:

Ultrafact lasers yield X-Rays, by Iain McKinnie and Henry Kapteyn

Table-top sources that generate both extreme ultraviolet light and soft X-rays through high-harmonic generation of ultrafast infrared laser pulses look set to perform tasks previously accessible using only large-scale synchrotrons.For more than 30 years, laser frequency conversion based on nonlinear optical crystals has dramatically enhanced the accessible wavelength range of laser sources, extending their reach from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared. These laser-driven nonlinear sources are now found everywhere from research laboratories and hospitals, to hand-held laser pointers and flight-hardened weapons systems.

Shaping Up. by Nicolas Forget of Fastlite

The use of pulse-shaping technology to optimize the temporal and spectral properties of ultrashort light pulses can enhance their utility in many applications.Since the advent of pulsed laser sources in the 1960s, scientists have strived to create ever-shorter optical pulses. Although this drive towards shorter and shorter pulses may be motivated primarily by scientific curiosity, it also has some important benefits for technical and industrial applications, and the remarkable properties of ultrashort optical pulses are indeed numerous.

Source: Xconomy

There was a lot of turmoil in the Bay State last month: tumultuous weather, seasonal lethargy, and school vacations, not to mention the ongoing discussion/celebration/lamentation surrounding newly elected senator Scott Brown, who arrived in Washington to create even more confusion around health care reform. But investors sure kept their focus, as the venture deals kept coming at a reasonably strong pace.

In total, investors put up $203 million across 26 equity deals in what's perhaps the most dreary month of the year for Bay Staters. The deal figures (not the weather analysis) come thanks to data provided by our partner, private company intelligence platform CB Insights. The Feb funding tally was well down from the $355.2 million and 28 equity deals in January. But it falls flatly in the middle of the pack since we began tracking monthly deals last June. Four months have been higher and four have been lower. And the February totals aren't too far below September ($228 million, 25 deals), which was the second-best month in terms of dollars invested since our tracking began. With all the VCs fleeing to Maui and similar locales for their spring breaks, for them to say aloha to that much money speaks pretty well for local entrepreneurs. To read more, click here.

Source: MHT

Angel investment needs to become much more active in seeding startups in the Boston area. That was one of the strong conclusions to come out of an occasionally heated panel discussion at the MIT Stata Center last night.

CEO and founder of Oneforty Inc. Laura Fitton was one of the CEOs presenting who had received help in launching a company from angel investors or incubators. Fitton indicted the Boston angel community, stating she had to go to the West Coast just to raise her seed funding.

"I literally moved to California for three months to raise my angel money," Fitton told the sold-out crowd. "Only $15,000 of that $150,000 came from Boston and everything else was California. So Boston's got to wake up and start putting its money where its mouth is. And I had introductions from, like Dan Hessen, Bill Warner and Dan Bricklin, and they couldn't get me a single interview out here." To know more, click here.

Source: Mass High TechStealthy startup Digital Lumens Inc. has decided to shine a light on itself, revealing its technology - a combination of LED lighting, wireless mesh networking and management software that the company says can reduce the electrical cost of lighting an industrial facility by as much as 90 percent.

Since it was founded in February of 2009, Boston-based Digital Lumens has taken in $11.3 million in funding through two rounds, and piloted its technology in a handful of facilities. The key to the way the company can cut power costs for its customers is that the individual LED-based lighting modules - which replace a large overhead incandescent of fluorescent light - can be each controlled to run on or off only at specific times or in response to specific cues, such as a person coming into its lighting zone. The idea is to stop warehouses or other large buildings from having to light up areas all day or night, when there isn't anyone there needing the light.

"It's about a $15 billion marketplace we are addressing initially," said Tom Pincince, president and CEO of Digital Lumens. "The company has about 60 trial installations to demonstrate those savings to customers." Read more here.

Source: New York TimesMice that developed the condition by being exposed to pollen were protected against attacks after the cells obtained from bone marrow were injected into them.

Stem cells hold great promise for new treatments for many conditions as they have the ability to grow into many different types of cells and organs.They have a great healing effect when applied to damaged areas of the body.The researchers believe the bone marrow stem cells reduce inflammation in the airways, the immune system's normal response to severe cases of asthma.

These particular stem cells are already used to suppress inflammatory response after bone marrow transplants in humans. So Dr Eva Mezey, of the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, and colleagues injected the asthmatic mice with the cells and found they stopped symptoms.

Asthma affects more than 300 million people worldwide and although asthma-related deaths are currently uncommon they are increasing. The researchers whose findings are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences say about 5,000 people a year die from asthma in the US alone with 100,000 fatalities throughout the world.

Treatments for severe cases are largely inadequate at resolving the sufferer's conditions so new ones are needed for therapy-resistant ones.

They say the stem cells are already used to treat autoimmune diseases and the same approach could provide help treat asthma and other severe allergic conditions. Read more here.

Source: Burrill & Company

The convergence of technologies such as mobile phones, wireless monitors, and the Internet, are forever changing healthcare. Coupled with the increasing ability to identify people who carry genes that put them at risk for certain conditions, we are witnessing the start of a consumer digital health revolution that promises to change the way doctor diagnose, treat, and interact with patients. We spoke to Eric Topol, chief medical officer of the West Wireless Health Institute, about how the convergence of techologies is empowering patients, attacking the high cost of chronic diseases by allowing doctors to intervene before problems become serious, and making the long-sought promise of personalized medicine a reality.
Read more here. 

Source: Mass High TechMIT unveiled research this weekend in advance of its annual Energy Conference that outlined a new discovery in generating electricity directly from carbon nanotubes.

Researcher Michael Strano told press gathered at the MIT Energy Initiative about how he and his research team discovered that they can generate intense bursts of electricity by burning fuel on the outside of a carbon nanotube. While he admitted that the discovery was so new he hadn't worked out the math or physics behind the reaction, Strano did say he had demonstrated that it could potentially generate more electricity than other recent advances such as micro-fuel cells or advanced lithium-ion batteries.

While commercial applications would still be years away from a discovery that happened just last year, Strano did speculate that a power source could be made for something like a remote sensor or communication system that could stay dormant for years and, when triggered, could send out a powerful signal driven by the electricity generated from the nanotube systems. Read more here.

Source: Mass High TechBoston is the top U.S. medium-sized or large city for telecommuting, according to a new survey of 3,600 workers in 36 markets.

The survey, commissioned by Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) but performed by an outside market research company, examined urban areas based on factors including: the percentage of workers who say their jobs can be done from outside the office; the percentage of companies with formal work-from-home policies; the extent of support from bosses for working from home, as gauged by workers; and the extent of technological support provided by employers to enable working from home.

Among the report's findings:

* Most respondents said they were more productive when working from home.
* The top complaint listed was the lack of face-to-face interaction with colleagues.
* Fewer than half of the companies surveyed had telecommuting policies.
* Within those companies that did have such policies, a little more than a third of workers took advantage of the opportunity. Those workers listed achieving work/home balance, saving on gasoline and avoiding long commutes as their top reasons for telecommuting. Read more here.

Source:Xconomy

We're at the end of one of the most challenging years in recent memory for life sciences companies. However, a broad transformation is under way in the industry, and profitable new opportunities are on the near-term horizon. From my perspective, there are three major trends worth considering and focusing on as the new year unfolds.

-Big Pharma Reaches Out to Biotech for Pipeline-and Deals

For strategic reasons, large pharmaceuticals continue to look outside their walls for much-needed new pipelines-largely because their own are drying up and generics are making increasing inroads. I noted this trend last spring, but now it's really playing out, with serious and significant ramifications.

In an effort to expand product portfolios, bring new products to market sooner, and hasten a return on investment, big pharma is aggressively looking to collaborate with biotech on a number of levels in the hope that this will provide them access to innovative technologies. Eli Lilly, for example, recently joined with technology companies and universities and opened up a large R&D center in San Diego to identify and capture innovative biologics that have commercial promise. To read more, click here.

Source: Xconomy

Phase Forward has been one of the success stories in the Route 128 tech cluster during the past decade, and has grown to be one of the largest health IT companies in Massachusetts. But a big question about the firm on Wall Street is how-or whether-its growth spurt will continue.

The Waltham, MA-based firm (NASDAQ:PFWD) has been a pioneer in getting drug companies to switch from paper records to software for collecting and managing data in clinical trials. After several years of rapid adoption of the technology, the majority of drug studies now use such software, prompting Phase Forward to seek new ways of making money in the field of clinical development.

Bob Weiler, the company's chairman and CEO, says his company's strategy to keep growing has been to build up a host of software products to automate all manner of data-related activities-from the very early stages of clinical development to the safety studies that drug companies conduct after the FDA approves their products. Pharmaceutical firms typically use many pieces of software from different companies to manage the various aspects of clinical research, and Phase Forward aims to provide these companies with one-stop shopping and what it calls an integrated clinical research suite. This will save pharmas money on system upkeep and integration, the CEO says. To read more, click here.

Source: Biophotonics.com

The University of California, San Francisco, has given Carl Zeiss MicroImaging GmbH a license to commercialize a superresolution microscopy technique developed by scientists at the university. Called structured illumination microscopy, the method combines a special illumination pattern with state-of-the-art computational image analysis to produce images with up to double the resolution in all three spatial directions in comparison to those taken with conventional microscopes. The agreement grants the company the right to integrate the technique into its microscope systems

Source:photonics.com

II-VI Inc. announced today it is withdrawing its proposal to acquire optical metrology instruments maker Zygo Corp. for $10 per share, three weeks after Zygo's board unanimously rejected the offer.

Laser-optics materials maker II-VI presented the acquisition offer to Zygo on Jan. 5. At the time, it represented a 46 percent premium over the 30-day trading average of Zygo's shares, II-VI said. On Feb. 16 Zygo's board rejected the offer, saying it had only begun to see the benefits of recent initiatives to refocus on its core optical and metrology markets, and that its new CEO, Dr. Chris L. Koliopoulos, had only started on the job in January. (See Zygo Board Rejects II-VI Offer)

"We were surprised and disappointed that, despite the fact that our offer was at a substantial premium and that we were willing to permit each shareholder to opt for either cash or II-VI stock, it was dismissed without giving us the opportunity to discuss its merits directly with Zygo's board of directors," said II-VI President and CEO Francis J. Kramer. "We feel Zygo is a strong fit with II-VI's strategic plans and growth initiatives and strongly believe that the Zygo shareholders, customers and employees could have benefited from a combination with II-VI. Given the reluctance of Zygo's board of directors to share with us the prospects of their strategic plan for creating shareholder value and their unwillingness to even enter into discussions with us regarding our proposal, we have decided to withdraw our offer for Zygo and instead focus on our existing businesses and other strategic opportunities available to II-VI."

Source: XconomyHIV has taught the pharmaceutical industry that the best way to fight an infectious virus that resists a single drug is to make a cocktail that attacks the virus in more than one way. Vertex Pharmaceuticals and its competitors are now following a similar formula with new therapies for hepatitis C.

Vertex, the Cambridge, MA-based company with operations in San Diego, offered a glimpse last week into its strategy for a two-drug combo that could significantly change hepatitis C treatment. If the company has mapped this out correctly, it could rid people of the virus while letting them ditch the detested standard therapies that force them to endure months of flu-like symptoms. I followed up last Friday to learn more from a conversation with Vertex's chief medical officer, Bob Kauffman.

The big story from the past couple years at Vertex (NASDAQ: VRTX) is the development of its first-in-class protease inhibitor drug called telaprevir. This oral pill, taken two or three times a day, must be combined with the pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin. It has excited researchers because it has been able to double the cure rate while shortening the course of therapy by half. That means that many more of 170 million people worldwide with chronic hepatitis C liver infections will be likely to seek out treatment, and be able to stand up to the side effects of standard therapy over a shorter period of time. If the ongoing clinical trials to test this idea are successful this year, Vertex could bring telaprevir to the market in 2011. U.S. sales alone could amount to more than $2 billion after a couple years, researchers say. Read more here

Source: The Wall Street Journal.

For start-ups that harness the energy of the sun, 2010 looks to be a promising year.

In The Wall Street Journal's first survey of venture-backed clean technology companies, three makers of solar cells came out on top: Solyndra Inc. of Fremont, Calif.; Suniva Inc. of Norcross, Ga.; and eSolar Inc. of Pasadena, Calif. The rankings, announced Thursday at the Journal's ECO:Nomics Executive Conference in Santa Barbara, Calif., seek to identify those green companies that have the capital, executive experience and investor know-how to succeed in an increasingly crowded field. Read more here.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Just when it seemed America was emerging from the recession, Wall Street swooned again as January segued into February. But Silicon Valley's startup economy shifted into a higher gear. Read more here. 

Source: Reuters.com

The Federal Communications Commission's plan to boost Americans' access to the Internet will propose up to $25 billion in new federal spending, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. Read more here.

Source: Information WeekNovell and the Cloud Security Alliance have announced a vendor-neutral "Trusted Cloud Initiative" for developing standards and certification of cloud security, compliance, identity management and other best practices.

While cloud computing is a popular topic, it lacks a set of well-defined terms and standards that tell prospective users concrete information about the environment they're about to adopt.

Businesses considering adopting cloud computing lack assurances they will be able to continue to control their data, enforce best practices and guarantee security, said Jim Reavis, executive director of the Cloud Security Alliance Monday.

The Cloud Security Alliance is a group of consultants, vendors, and cloud users that formed a non-profit group at the end of 2008 to address the lack of standards for cloud computing.

If a prospective cloud user and a vendor talk about level three security in the cloud, one may have a completely different idea of what the other is saying. There are no defined levels of security in cloud computing, and it's difficult to get a discussion going when one party can't be sure of the terms that the other is using. The Trusted Cloud Initiative is aimed in part at creating a shared set of standards that can be verified by neutral third parties.

"By building a consensus security reference guide and certification roadmap, we are creating common ground for both enterprises and cloud providers, and expect to accelerate cloud adoption," said Alan Boehme, senior VP IT strategy and enterprise architecture at ING Americas, a branch of the Dutch insurance conglomerate, in Monday's announcement. Boehme is a member of the board of directors of the Cloud Security Alliance. Read more here

Source: UPI.comMELBOURNE, March 1 (UPI) -- Australian biomedical scientists report they have identified a new way to treat prostate cancer.

Researchers at the Monash University in Melbourne used a drug compound to selectively activate the prostate's beta estrogen receptor cells. Study co-author Gail Risbridger says this has the effect of targeting for cell death a small but important population of cells in the prostate cancer tumor that are often resistant to conventional therapy and can lead to recurrent incurable disease.

"It is a significant piece of the puzzle that will help medical research in this field -- an achievement that could eventually enhance treatment options for patients around the world with advanced prostate cancer," Risbridger said in a statement. Read more here