Source: Biotechniques, vol.44

Un article recapitulant l’historique de l’imagerie confocale pour ce numero anniversaire de Biotechniques. P.643 et suivantes.

Confocal microscopes have evolved over the past 25 years from the early stage scanning systems to a collection of sophisticated laser scanning systems designed for a range of biomedical applications. Major improvements to the photon efficiency of the instrumentation coupled with the development of novel fluorescent reporters have enabled multidimensional imaging of living cells and tissues.

Pour en savoir plus, il faut etre abonne! ou envoyer un email et je vous scannerai l’article…

Source: Laser Focus World

P.75

Pour la visualiser, cliquez ici.

Source: Laser Focus World, May 2008

Pourquoi on y parle pas d’Amplitude? Ca ne va pas se passer comme ca… to know more, click here.

p.85 et suivantes

Source: Laser Focus World, May 2008

The quest to see inside living cells is driving new optical microscopy. On y parle d’OCT, CARS, fluorescence microscopy,non linear microscopy, phase microscopy.

Cf p.73 et suivante: click here to know more.

Source:Laser Focus World May 2008

On y reparle des Phast Award.
Pourquoi c’est Coherent qui a gagne le premier prix!! Il doit y avoir erreur…

Mention honorable pour Amplitude Systemes.
Click here.

Source: optics.org

Choosing adaptive optics for precision applications Knowing how to decide between the various options is a daunting task for anyone considering adaptive optics. Jerome Ballesta and his colleagues from Imagine Optic take some of the mystery out of choosing adaptive optics products for precision applications.

Adaptive optics has become a hot topic and an industry buzzword over the past few years. What is it? How does it work? The goal of this article is to provide some general information about how to choose the right components for your application.

A typical adaptive optics system is composed of a wavefront measurement device, an active wavefront shaping element, and a command and control software package that processes and relays information between the other components. You will find varying degrees of quality and precision on the market, which is reflected in the range of prices. To know more, click here.

Source: optics.org

Continued softness in semiconductor capital spending adversely affected both the metrology and optics divisions of Zygo, which reported net sales of $38.5 million and break-even net earnings for Q3 2008, compared with sales of $48.7 million and net earnings of $4 million for the equivalent quarter of 2007. Results from the company’s display-related activities were stronger, including $6.6 million of orders for use in display fabs producing G7.5 and G8 products. The company acknowledged that its transition from an OEM to an in-line tool supplier to the semiconductor industry has taken longer than originally anticipated, but indicated that there were encouraging prospects for the future.

Google’s Enterprise Search Finds Life Sciences

By Kevin Davies

In a recent 60 Minutes broadcast about the cost of minting the penny, an MIT student named Jeff Glore calculated that Americans spend an average of 2.4 hours a year fumbling and searching for those annoying 1-cent coins.

Most biomedical researchers would be thrilled if that was all the time they spent on fruitless searches for data, protocols, clinical trial, legal, and regulatory documents. According Jim Golden, SAIC’s CTO Life Sciences, one pharma insider estimates that researchers spend 15 minutes per person per day tracking information. Says Golden, that’s the equivalent of 333 out of 10,000 employees doing nothing but search! The lost productivity and delays in drug development and regulatory submissions potentially tally tens of millions of dollars a year. Read more.

Courtesy BIO-IT World

Source: HS Daily Wire

Boeing’s Project 28 — showcasing advanced technologies to be used in making U.S. borders more secure — was hobbled from the start by technological glitches and delays; it delivered much less than what was promised, and DHS decides to scrap it

You had a sense ot would come to that: The U.S. government will replace its highly touted virtual fence on the Arizona-Mexico border with new towers, radars, cameras, and computer software, scrapping the new $20 million system because it does not work sufficiently, officials said. The move comes just two months after Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff officially accepted the completed fence from Boeing.

Mass. biotechs ripe for buyouts

Recently, GSK forked over $720 million for Sirtris Pharmaceuticals and Japan’s Takeda made an $8.8 billion bid for Millennium Pharmaceuticals. And the Boston Business Journal wonders which Massachusetts-based company is next on the buyout hit-list?

Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Epix Pharmaceuticals and Alynlam Pharmaceuticals, to name a few. Biogen Idec could be an acquisition target for a large biotech. According to MassBIO, 189 of the state’s companies have drugs in Phase II, and another 69 have Phase III drug in the works. As one investment banker observes, up to three dozen Massachusetts drug developers could be up for grabs.

- see the Boston Business Journal report

Source: Military and Aerospace

Cedip to supply long-range multisensor electro-optic surveillance to Lebanese Navy

The Lebanese National Defence Ministry has ordered six Pharos XLR3+ long-range multisensor surveillance platforms from Cedip Infrared Systems in Croissy-Beaubourg, France, to provide its naval forces with 24/7 long-range surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities in all weather conditions.

The Pharos XLR3+ is for applications including border and coastal surveillance, protection of sensitive sites, vessel traffic management, protection of fisheries exclusion zones, and law enforcement.

To know more, click here.

Source: optics.org

Fianium have extended their unrivalled supercontinuum product portfolio with the release of the new SC400-AOTF-PP laser Fianium have extended their unrivalled supercontinuum product portfolio sources, offering tunability of both wavelength and repetition rate.

The SC400-AOTF -PP range of supercontinuum fibre lasers is now available with integrated pulse-picker and multichannel AOTF for complete wavelength /repetition rate tunability and unprecedented spectral brightness. Covering the entire spectral range from 400nm to 2500 nm and with diffraction limited output at all wavelengths, the SC400 is a unique range of white light laser source.

With a footprint of only 300 * 250 mm, the SC400-AOTF-PP provides the spectral content of an incandescent lamp, with the power, brightness and efficiency of a fibre laser.

The SC400-AOTF-PP integrates an acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) with multi-channel RF driver and an internal pulse-picker to further expand the functionality of the supercontinuum fibre laser source.

The SC400-AOTF-PP enables fast selection of individual colours with variable intensity and spectral bandwidth. Utilising multi-channel AOTF technology, up to 8 individual wavelength bands can be simultaneously or sequentially selected, with channel bandwidths from 1nm to >15nm.

SC400-AOTF-PP from Fianium is a single-source solution for many biomedical systems that currently utilise multiple DPSS and gas laser sources at discrete wavelengths.

Source: optics.org

Aiming high-power pulses of laser light into a thunderstorm has helped a French–German collaboration to deliberately trigger electrical activity in thunderclouds.

Teramobile

Researchers could soon have a better understanding of lightning strikes thanks to a mobile terawatt laser that probes thunderclouds with femtosecond pulses. The team has developed a mobile terawatt laser known as “Teramobile”, which it claims has induced electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time. (Optics Express 16 5757).

“The Teramobile laser emits 400 TW peak power pulses with a duration of 100 fs and pulse energy of 400 mJ and is the first mobile laser of its class,” Jérôme Kasparian, a researcher from the University of Lyon, told optics.org.

To know more, click here.

Source: HS Daily Wire

Infrared camera, night vision, and thermal imaging systems developer Flir Systems has acquired the stock of Madrid-based Ifara Tecnologias, a software developer, for €7 million in cash. Ifara develops software, hardware, and development tools used for the creation and maintenance of sensor networks in security and surveillance applications. Ifara’s middleware sensor software, known as Nexus, is a turnkey product that allows its customers to connect and control a variety of different sensors, including thermal and CCTV cameras, fence and ground sensors, UAVs, and radars.

Source: Biophotonics.com

Laser maker Coherent Inc. announced it will outsource its optics manufacturing by selling certain assets of its Auburn, Calif.-based operation to Research Electro-Optics Inc., a privately held optics manufacturing and technology company located in Boulder, Colo.

Coherent sold the 80,000-sq-ft Auburn campus for approximately $9.8 million in September 2007 as part of a plan to consolidate facilities, resulting in a capital loss of approximately $12.6 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007, according to its 2007 annual report. The company leased back a portion of the property from the buyer, a real-estate investment company, through September 2008.

As part of the asset transaction, Research Electro-Optics (REO) has agreed to provide optical manufacturing capabilities for Coherent, including fabrication and coating of optical components. Details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Coherent said the transfer of assets from Auburn to Boulder will begin immediately and is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2009. The company said it will discuss the transaction further during the conference call it has scheduled for April 24 at 1:30 p.m. to talk about its second quarter 2008 financial results.

BioTechniques® February 2008
Volume 44, Number 2: pp 265-273

Construction and characterization of a normalized yeast two-hybrid library derived from a human protein-coding clone collection
Jorja Degrado-Warren, Max Dufford, Jian Chen, Paul L. Bartel, Donna Shattuck, and Georges C. Frech

Abstract
The nuclear yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) system is the most widely used technology for detecting interactions between proteins. A common approach is to screen specific test proteins (baits) against large compilations of randomly cloned proteins (prey libraries). For eukaryotic organisms, libraries have traditionally been generated using messenger RNA (mRNA) extracted from various tissues and cells. Here we present a library construction strategy made possible by ongoing public efforts to establish collections of full-length protein encoding clones. Our approach generates libraries that are essentially normalized and contain both randomly fragmented as well as full-length inserts. We refer to this type of protein-coding clone-derived library as random and full-length (RAFL) Y2H library. The library described here is based on clones from the Mammalian Gene Collection, but our strategy is compatible with the use of any protein-coding clone collection from any organism in any vector and does not require inserts to be devoid of untranslated regions. We tested our prototype human RAFL library against a set of baits that had previously been searched against multiple cDNA libraries. These Y2H searches yielded a combination of novel as well as expected interactions, indicating that the RAFL library constitutes a valuable complement to Y2H cDNA libraries.

San Diego research institutes to establish stem cell center
The University of California San Diego, Scripps Research Institute, the Salk Institute and the Burnham Institute for Medical Research will work together to establish a $115 million stem cell center in La Jolla, Calif., that is expected to become the core of the San Diego Consortium for Regenerative Medicine. The center will focus on exploring the regenerative qualities of stem cells and their potential role in major health concerns. San Diego Union-Tribune (4/20)

Merck looking to buy prime biotech firm
Merck & Co. seeks to purchase a biotech firm that has a midsize market cap, products on the market and a research program that complements its own initiatives, CEO Richard Clark said. Though Clark has looked over a list of potential targets, he said “there’s still plenty of opportunities that exist” and declined to specify company names. The Wall Street Journal (free content) (4/21)

Last Friday the House Republican Study Committee sent a letter to Nancy
Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, the Speaker of the House and Majority Leader,
respectively, requesting an increase in the current H1B visa quota of 65,000 per year to 115,000.More

Source: optics.org

The global market for imaging components was worth $40.4 billion in 2007, and is expected to grow at nearly 8% per year to reach $58.7 billion by 2012.

A new market report breaks down the imaging market into three sectors:

Image analysis will become the largest single sector, while demand for multimedia capabilities and high-definition displays continues to grow strongly.

imaging markets

The global market for imaging components was worth $40.4 billion in 2007, and is expected to grow at nearly 8% per year to reach $58.7 billion by 2012.

A new market report breaks down the imaging market into three sectors:

• Image analysis will become the largest sector by 2012, rising from $14.3 billion to $22.3 billion over the study period.
• Image display, which was the largest sector in 2007 valued at $15.2 billion, will grow to $19 billion by 2012 but be overtaken by image analysis applications.
• Image capture is currently a $10.8 billion segment and is predicted to grow to $17.4 billion, making it the fastest growing sector at 9.9% per year. It will remain the smallest of the three sectors, however.

Within these sectors, the top three individual markets over the study period will be printing inks, image sensors and imaging memory.

Imaging memory will grow at the fastest rate of the three, showing annual growth of 6.4% and increasing from $6.6 billion to $9 billion. The market for printing inks will grow from $15.2 billion in 2007 to $19 billion in 2012, while that for imaging sensors will grow from $7.9 billion to $10.5 billion.

Growth in the global imaging market is being driven by advances in several fields. Medical imaging techniques for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes are becoming steadily more advanced, while in the consumer space the drive towards mobility and integration of rich multimedia capabilities in wireless handsets and the acceptance of high definition TV are becoming increasingly significant.

To know more, click here.

Source: optics.org

An imaging device combining a fluidic lens with a set of fixed glass lenses can operate as a camera and as a microscope.

wide focus

A highly versatile imager which is able to function as a regular camera with an ultrawide autofocusing range, and as a microscope with 3 µm resolution, has been developed by a US team. The device exploits the wide tuning range of a fluidic lens, as well as fixed lenses to correct optical aberrations (Optics Letters 33 291).

“We normally consider cameras and microscopes as two very different systems,” Frank Tsai from the University of California, San Diego, told optics.org. “Our approach using fluidic lenses can enable the same device to function as a camera and as a microscope. This has never been achieved before.”

To know more, click here.

EMD Serono plans $50M expansion in Massachusetts
EMD Serono said it plans to expand in Billerica, Mass., with a $50 million addition that will help consolidate its local research operations and allow space for continued growth. The Boston Globe (4/16)

Commentary: We need a science president
The three leading presidential candidates declined an invitation from a bipartisan group of Nobel laureates and other scholars for a televised debate on scientific issues, reflecting an apparent lack of understanding that research and technological innovation are key to securing the future of the U.S., write Nobel Prize winners David Baltimore and Ahmed Zewail. “We need a president who moves science back into the White House,” they write. The Wall Street Journal (free content) (4/17)

Courtesy: BioSmartBrief

Source:ISC365
The U.S. Navy is exploring the idea of 360-degree video, but it’s not looking to catch crooks or watch over protected assets. Rather, the Navy is looking at technology from Massachusetts firm RemoteReality for its submarine periscopes.

The RemoteReality technology is a single-lens, single camera solution that uses complex mirrors to provide a 360-degree view that can be processed by software to create a traditional view (also see RemoteReality website for technology overview). According to RemoteReality’s CEO Dennis McGinn, the Navy will be testing out one of their high-resolution 12 megapixel visible light omni cameras accompanied with a standard resolution (640×480 pixels) thermal infrared omni camera for use at night. The advantage, says McGinn, is that this omni-view type of technology gives an instant look in any direction for a submarine.

To know more, click here.

Source: government technology

he Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) launched a new Web site to better provide information to the public and media about its national security efforts. The new Web address is www.nnsa.energy.gov. http://nnsa.energy.gov/index.htm

NNSA’s missions include maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, materials and technology, and responding to potential nuclear or radiological emergencies.

“I encourage everyone to visit our new Web site,” said NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino. “This is an important resource for people to learn about the important national security work that we do. A top-notch organization needs a top-notch Web site, and with today’s launch of the new NNSA Web site, we have just that.”

Source: Government Technology news

The Department of Homeland Security announced its intent to issue two waivers of certain laws to expedite security improvements at the southwest border. Congress gave the Secretary of Homeland Security authority to waive all legal requirements necessary to expeditiously install additional physical barriers and roads at the border to deter illegal activity.

“Criminal activity at the border does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation,” said Secretary Chertoff. “Congress and the American public have been adamant that they want and expect border security. We’re serious about delivering it, and these waivers will enable important security projects to keep moving forward.”

To know more, click here.

Source: Optics.org

En lisant la newsletter de optics.org, que voyons-nous, avec nos yeux ebahis? Eric Mottay cite dans un des titres phares de la newsletter. Alors la, bravo! apres The Economist, on ne s’arrete plus!

Femtosecond pulses combat counterfeiting Product-related counterfeiting is a global problem that can have major social and economic consequences. Eric Mottay of Amplitude Systemes reviews current anti-counterfeiting technologies and the market opportunity for an ultrafast laser solution.

Product trademark recognition, traceability and a robust anti-counterfeiting solution are an essential combination in modern manufacturing methodologies. While industrial laser marking has been driven by the needs of the automotive, electronics, medical and packaging markets, one emerging opportunity lies in anti-counterfeiting technology.

To know more, click here.

Source: optics.org

Researchers have shown for the first time that coherent terahertz radiation can be produced from the interaction of a laser pulse with a high-energy electron beam.

A team of French and Japanese researchers has shown that coherent, narrowband terahertz radiation can be produced by firing a laser pulse at an electron beam produced in a synchrotron ring. The brilliance of the terahertz pulses produced in this feasibility study was 10,000 times greater than the usual terahertz emission from synchrotrons, and in the future the team believes that the scheme could yield more energetic terahertz pulses than is possible with other terahertz sources.

(…)

In the new scheme, a pulse from an 800 nm Ti:Sapphire laser is first sinusoidally modulated with a period in the picosecond range. This modulated pulse is then made to interact with an electron bunch produced by the UVSOR-II storage ring in Okazaki, Japan, which operates at 600 MeV and has a circumference of 53 m.

To know more click here.

Academic entrepreneurs benefit venture capital
Partnerships between venture capitalists and inventors from academia may be an effective way to commercialize drug and medical-device research. This approach is exemplified by the success of Polaris Venture Partners, whose collaboration with Robert Langer, an expert affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has produced 13 companies over the past 15 years. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) (4/14)

Courtesy: BioSmartBrief

Novartis CEO sees more acquisitions ahead
Novartis AG may make more acquisitions after its purchase of shares in eye-care company Alcon as it faces growing generic competition, CEO Daniel Vasella told Swiss newspaper Sonntag. The drugmaker may make midsize buys and expand in diagnostics, vaccines and generics, Vasella said. Reuters (4/13)

Courtesy: BioSmartBrief

By DAVID ARMSTRONG and ANDREW MORSE
April 11, 2008

Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. agreed to buy U.S. biotech company Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. for $8.8 billion, giving Takeda a major presence in the lucrative cancer-drug market while also adding a number of promising drug candidates to its pipeline.

Takeda, Japan’s biggest drug maker by revenue, will buy Millennium, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., for $25 a share. The price represents a 53% premium to Wednesday’s $16.35 closing price for Millennium shares. The deal, the largest acquisition by Takeda, is structured as a tender offer and is conditional upon a majority of shareholders accepting the terms.ncer and multiple sclerosis.

To read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120780958090604441.html

Dans The Economist date du 29 mars au 4 avril, on trouve un article sur les lasers ultrafast et surprise…surprise…. la seule societe citee dans l’article n’est autre qu’Amplitude Systemes!

QUELLE CLASSE!

Hubtech21 va vous envoyer l’article scanne.

Source: Boston Business Journal

The Federal Aviation Administration has chosen Boston’s Logan International Airport as one of the first airports in the country to receive a new runway lighting system intended to increase airfield safety, it was announced Tuesday.

The Runway Status Lights, currently being tested at San Diego and Dallas/Fort Worth international airports, combine ground detection systems as well as red lights embedded in runways and taxiways to let pilots know when it is safe to cross runways, taxiways and take off. Pilots still must receive clearance from air traffic controllers.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory has been involved in the design of the runway lighting system, and will demonstrate the new technology when it is introduced Wednesday at the airport by state and federal officials.

To know more, click here.

L’edition 2008 de la conference a laquelle Hubtech avait assiste l’an dernier aura lieu les 12 et 13 mai. Les speakers seront:

• Dr. John Marburger, Director, U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, Science Advisor to the President
• Mr. Robert Hooks, Director of Transition, DHS, Science & Technology Directorate
• Dr. Starnes Walker, Director of Research, DHS, Science & Technology Directorate
• Dr. Thomas Cellucci, Chief Technology Commercialization Officer, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science & Technology Directorate
• Patrick Ciganer, Executive Vice President, IC Support, In-Q-Tel
• Kevin M. Burke, Secretary of Public Safety and Security, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
• Arthur Robert, Industry Director, Defense & Renewable Energy Technologies, Massachusetts Office of Business Development, Massachusetts Economic Development Agency
• Dennis Treece, Colonel, US Army (Retired), Director of Corporate Security, Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), Boston, MA; Director, Massport Transportation Security Center of Excellence

Pour plus d’information, cliquer ici.

Source: Laser Focus World April

“Otical Imaging resolves beyond the diffraction limit” pp.97 a 100

To know more, click here.

Source: Laser Focus World April

“Few cycle laser amplifiers bridge the gap between femto- and attosecond ranges”, pp.75 a 78.

Pour en savoir plus, cliquer ici.

Source: Laser Focus World

An interdisciplinary team from Purdue University has shown that a combination of laser technology and nanotechnology that it originally developed for medical imaging also has therapeutic potential. The method causes tumor cells in laboratory cultures to self-destruct.

The procedure relies on tiny particles of gold, known as nanorods, and near-infrared (IR) light, which easily penetrates tissue. Researchers first use a pulsed IR laser to guide nanorods to the sites of tumor cells in vitro. They then switch the laser to continuous mode. When the nanorods absorb its light, they heat up (see figure). That increase in temperature sets off a sequence of reactions that kills the tumor cells.

(…)

To guarantee high contrast and ultrabright images, the researchers adapted a two-photon fluorescence process in which a pair of photons hits a nanorod simultaneously. They injected nanorods into mice, and used a Mira 900 Ti:sapphire femtosecond pulse laser from Coherent (Santa Clara, CA) to produce images as the particles flowed through blood vessels in the ears of the mice. The result: images almost 60 times brighter than those produced by conventional fluorescent dyes.

To know more, click here.

Source: optics.org

Supertex, a developer of high voltage analogue and mixed signal integrated circuits, will partner with Varioptic to produce a driver and liquid lens designed to add auto-focus capability to ultracompact cameras and scanners. The partnership is said by Varioptic to be part of its ongoing development of small and low cost auto-focus systems, and will further promote the advantages of cost, size and power consumption offered by its liquid lens solutions.

April 8, 2008

Novartis entered into a two-step deal to acquire Nestlé’s 77-percent stake in eye-care company Alcon for up to $39 billion. “This acquisition furthers our strategy of accessing high-growth segments of the healthcare market while balancing inherent risks,” commented Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella. Full story

WSJ Free content Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120754795364694423.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_marketplace

China prepares facility for first mAb drugs
China’s Shanghai CP Guojian Pharmaceutical Company has enlisted U.S.-based engineering services firm Emerson to digitally automate a new facility that will produce the country’s first monoclonal antibody drugs. The company expects to produce its first mAb drugs by August. In-PharmaTechnologist.com

Courtesy: BioSmartBrief

Monday, April 7, 2008 - 7:37 AM EDT

PerkinElmer Inc. said Monday it has inked a supply and co-marketing agreement with Cerep SA to deliver custom drug discovery services.

Waltham, Mass.-based PerkinElmer (NYSE: PKI) said it will exclusively market Cerep’s target screening and profiling services to its customers, and the companies will jointly promote PerkinElmer’s assay technologies and Cerep services to the drug discovery market.

Cerep SA, a provider of drug candidate screening and profiling technologies, is headquarterd in Paris.

“This agreement represents the latest step in our strategy to build the most comprehensive offering in biochemical and cellular screening for drug discovery,” said Robert F. Friel, president and chief executive officer of PerkinElmer, in a statement.

PerkinElmer officials said the agreement provides its customers with an option to work with a single vendor throughout the entire drug discovery process.

Read more: http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2008/04/07/daily1.html?f=et54&ana=e_du

Mass.-based biotech firms tap nonprofit groups for funds
Massachusetts-based biotech companies are seeking funding from nonprofit foundations for early-stage drug trials. Epix Pharmaceuticals is expected to get as much as $37.7 million from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, while Biogen Idec and Genzyme Corp. were among the recipients of $25 million in grants from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The Boston Globe

Over the past few days at the Next Web conference in Amsterdam, I had the opportunity to hang out with about 700 Internet entrepreneurs from all over Europe. The startup scene in Europe reminds me of Silicon Valley four or five years ago—hungry startups building Web companies on the cheap and products that scratch a personal itch.

Swedish startup Twingly, for instance, wants to come up with spam-free blog search by starting with the best 450,000 blogs and letting users share blog posts with each other. ParisBrussels-based Zilok is creating an eBay for renting things such as drills and digital projectors. London’s Fav.or.it makes a feed reader with extra powers—you can leave comments on blogs within the reader, it ranks posts based on how much they are actually read, and it lets you filter posts by tag, rank, or category. In Munich, andUnite has created a service that allows you to collect your search terms and share them with others.

And a handful of companies are even gaining substantial traction. I was surprised to learn that the social network Netlog claims 30 million unique visitors and four billion page views per month (comScore counts 11 million visitors, but five billion page views). Netlog operates in 15 different languages, and 20 countries. Then there is eBuddy, the Meebo of Europe, which boasts 12 million Web users and 1.6 million mobile users of its Web-based instant-messaging service.

More

Sanofi-Aventis taps into China’s R&D talent
Sanofi-Aventis SA wants to work with six Chinese universities and state-funded facilities to research diseases like cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, Marc Cluzel, head of R&D, said in an interview Thursday. Cluzel said Sanofi intends to capitalize on the existing innovation in Chinese laboratories and share profits with its partners should any of the collaborations produce marketable treatments. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) (4/4)

JPMorgan has positive outlook on biotech
JPMorgan is betting the health care sector, particularly the biotech industry, will withstand a U.S. recession and fare better than the broader market in the next six to 12 months. The brokerage firm projects that revenues at three major biotech companies — Genentech, Celgene Corp. and Gilead Sciences — will increase by more than 5% this year. It also expects Truvada and Atripla, HIV drugs from Gilead, and Revlimid, a Celgene cancer treatment, will exceed market estimates. Reuters (4/3)

Fierce Biotech - 3/4/2008

CNET’s Jim Kerstetter takes a look at biotech’s anemic performance in the latest round of M&A deals and concludes that the investment crowd just loves the Internet more. There were 41 M&A deals in the first quarter for IT companies compared to just five in the life sciences. The reason? Kerstetter is betting that investors just feel a lot more comfortable now when they can look to an Internet play to pay off in two or three years. That kind of return is just about unheard of in the biotech space, where years of labor and high risk are a common feature of the industry. Of course, the life sciences industry as a whole attracted $9.1 billion in 862 deals last year, according to Thomson Financial and the NVCA. That’s almost a third of all venture investing last year and a big increase over 2006’s $7.6 billion. But that’s long-term investment money, says Kerstetter. And VCs see the Web as the safer call these days.

- check out the opinions at CNET

Related Articles:
Rocky market puts freeze on biotech deal-making. Report
Dealmaking stays big even as the markets tremble. Report
Billion-dollar baby: Biotech still on a roll with VC funds. Report
Deal-making hits a faster pace in ‘07. Report
Top 20 VC deals of 2007. Report

Source: optics.org

There are several common misconceptions surrounding high-precision manufacturing. Jacqueline Hewett speaks to John Stack and David Erickson of Zygo to get a clear picture of what is involved and the benefits of adopting this approach.

Deciding whether your application requires high-precision manufacturing is a daunting task and raises a number of questions. What exactly is high-precision manufacturing and what are the advantages of this approach? How much will it cost? Will it save time? What levels of performance can I expect from the final optical assembly?

Head-mounted displays

These are questions that John Stack, the president of Zygo’s Optical Systems Division, and David Erickson, a senior scientist in that division, have heard before. Both believe that many people are not aware that they need to move to high-precision manufacturing and the added value that making this jump can bring.

To know more, click here.

Source: Laser Focus World

Engineers at the University of Missouri are working to demonstrate how femtosecond lasers will one day change cancer treatments, dentistry procedures, precision metal cutting, and joint implant surgeries.

Associate Professor Yuwen Zhang and Professor Jinn-Kuen Chen recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation to use the laser to “sinter” metal powders?turn them into a solid, yet porous, mass using heat but without massive liquefaction?a process which can help improve the bond between joint implants and bone.

“The femtosecond laser has now entered the era of applications. It used to be a novelty, a fantasy,” said University of Missouri researcher Robert Tzou, the James C. Dowell professor and chairman of the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. “We are currently targeting the areas of life-science and bio-medicine.”

To know more, click here.

SBA to give federal research grants a boost
The U.S. Small Business Administration intends to increase the size limits of federal research contracts in the Small Business Innovative Research program. The Biotechnology Industry Organization and the National Venture Capital Association support the proposal, which would also expand elegibility for the SBIR awards to small companies that are majority-owned by venture capital firms. American City Business Journals/Dallas (3/31)