Source: Medical Device Link

Source: Business Week

Corporate America's research spending shrank 4% overall, or $1.9 billion, from the fourth quarter of 2007 through the second quarter of this year, according to data compiled by Capital IQ on 961 U.S. companies. But many health-care companies have boosted their research outlays.

BusinessWeek sought out 25 companies that most aggressively increased their research budgets during the first six months of 2009. Thirteen members of the group, which collectively boosted its spending by $2 billion, were pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Only eight were high-tech outfits, such as Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT).(more)

Source: Mass High Tech

Long-time director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center - and tech startup scene stalwart Ken Morse - stepped down as head of the Entrepreneurship Center as of Monday. His replacement? Bill Aulet, a familiar face at MIT who was most recently CEO of SensAble Technologies Inc. of Woburn, a haptic feedback technology company spun out of MIT.

As first reported in Scott Kirsner's Innovation Economy blog, , Aulet has been a lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Business since 2005. He notes that Aulet's role is acting director, and that, although MIT isn't actively looking for a permanent director, Aulet isn't a shoe-in for the spot, according to Ed Roberts, who is quoted in the blog post. SensAble first gained recognition when it used its technology to help the Museum of Science Boston get a good look at one of its mummies.

Morse started at the Entrepreneurship Center in 1996 and two years later was named a Mass High Tech All Star.  As recently as June, Morse was serving as an adviser to the newly established, state-backed MassChallenge Venture Funds Competition, a business plan competition for entrepreneurs.

According to Kirsner, Morse plans to write a book on global entrepreneurship in his new free time.

Source: R&D Magazine

Univ. of Central Florida researchers have shown for the first time that light energy can gently guide and change the orientation of living cells within lab cultures. That ability to optically steer cells could be a major step in harnessing the healing power of stem cells and guiding them to areas of the body that need help.

The results, presented at the 2009 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics/International Quantum Electronics Conference, were discovered by a research team led by Aristide Dogariu, an optical scientist at the College of Optics and Photonics, and Kiminobu Sugaya, a stem cell researcher at the College of Medicine's Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences. To read more, click here.

Source:OSA newsletter

(Applications Due: October 9, 2009)

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is soliciting proposals for its Plasma Physics program. The program "funds research in the fundamental physics of plasmas. Research areas include plasma turbulence and shocks, turbulent and nonlocal, collisional transport with and without strong magnetic fields, non-neutral plasmas, cold plasmas, strongly-coupled and dusty plasmas, laser-plasma interactions, ultra-short pulse and/or ultra-intense laser plasma interactions, high-energy-density plasmas, and low temperature plasmas." Applications are due by October 9, 2009.

From "Plasma Physics"
National Science Foundation (07/13/09). To read more, click here.

Source: Mass High Tech

A handful of local life sciences companies have sprung to life over the past several months, in spite of a venture capital landscape that has sometimes looked windswept and barren.

"The pace of deals is slower, but investors still have to put their money somewhere," said Harry Glorikian, managing partner at Scientia Advisors LLC in Cambridge. Glorikian said firms have been creative in rounding up funds.

to read more, click here.

Source: Boston.com

Back in post-bubble 2002, France Telecom opened a swanky new research lab in Cambridge for its Orange wireless service. Orange Labs intended to look at how the mobile web, speech recognition, and data services would change the way we use mobile phones -- and also explore the potential for other connected devices like intelligent alarm clocks or tables. The lab was headed by Rich Miner, who later went on to help develop the Android mobile operating system for Google, and now runs Google Ventures from Cambridge. Orange Labs was a haven for many ex-MIT Media Lab folks, and lots of smart techies who'd been rendered jobless by the dot-com bust. (Here's a 2002 Globe piece that talks about the lab.)

Seven years later, France Telecom is shutting down the Cambridge facility, which employs 52 people and is supervised by CEO Frank Bowman. The lab's last day is October 30th.

Source: Mass High Tech

Phase Forward (Nasdaq: PFWD), the Waltham-based provider of data management solutions for clinical trials and drug safety, is expanding its partnership with Rutherford, N.J.-based SGS Life Sciences Services.

The new agreement is reportedly worth millions of dollars, but terms of the deal were not released. Phase Forward officials said that the agreement reinforces the companies' close working relationship and expands the product offerings available to SGS. A Phase Forward customer since 2002, SGS is a contract research organization, managing nearly 100 clinical trials each year.
To read more, click here.

Source: Optics.org

The National Ignition Facility in the US is pursuing one of the grand challenges of science: controlled thermonuclear fusion in the laboratory. Our American correspondent Breck Hitz talks big science with Edward Moses, the director of NIF's multibillion-dollar research programme.

As hero experiments go, the US Department of Energy's $4 bn (€3.1 bn) National Ignition Facility (NIF) is right up there with the biggest and best of them. When it's operating at full belt, the world's largest optical instrument - it's roughly the size of three football pitches - will combine 192 laser beams to generate a peak power of 500 trillion watts - 1000 times the electrical generating power of the US - and a pulse energy of 1.8 MJ of UV light.

To read more, click here.

Source: OptoIQ

The super-giant telescopes are coming. Three massive ground-based telescopes are being designed with primary mirrors 24 to 42 m in diameter, a huge step beyond today's biggest instruments. They differ in detail, but share important features, including segmented mirrors, sophisticated control systems, and adaptive optic systems promising resolution better than the Hubble Space Telescope. All aim at beginning observations in 2018, to work with the James Webb Space Telescope.

Why stay on the ground when no telescope on Earth can match Hubble's most spectacular panoramas of distant galaxies and the jet-black sky of deep space? We can't afford not to. The least of the giants can collect 100 times more light than Hubble at a fraction of the cost. New technology helps us see more clearly through the atmosphere than ever before. And it doesn't take years of planning, a space walk, and hundreds of millions of dollars to replace a faulty circuit board.

For most of the past 60 years, the 200 in. (5.1 m) Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory (Palomar Mountain, CA) was the world's premier telescope. That changed in 1993 after the first Hubble repair mission and completion of the segmented-mirror 10 m Keck-1 telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. Completion of a duplicate, Keck-2, in 1996 allowed optical interferometry.

Source: Intersolar Website

Intersolar North America, the most diverse global business-to-business exhibition in the United States dedicated to the transformation of the solar marketplace, showed continued growth with 2009's exhibition and conference. The co-located Intersolar North America and SEMICON West events, which took place last week in San Francisco, presented more than 560 solar exhibitors to approximately 17,000 trade visitors, exceeding organizers expectations for the second straight year. Intersolar North America alone featured 444 exhibitors, up from 210 exhibitors a year before - a 111 percent increase.

Source: Mass High Tech

Maine Gov. John Baldacci and a group of clean energy business officials are heading to Europe next month to showcase the state's wind and ocean energy capabilities to the world's leading renewable energy developers.

The six-day trip has developers, construction company executives, consultants, manufacturers and other clean tech industry leaders travelling to Germany and Spain, two countries known as leaders in the finance, development and manufacturing aspects of various alternative energies, including wind power. Members of the Maine delegation say the trip is meant to showcase the state as an attractive place for foreign investment, as well as for local developers to make key contacts with their European suppliers and bankers.

To read more, click here.

Source: Mass High Tech

After spending several years on the business side of selling parts for solar energy systems, Tom Hunton realized there was a need in the industry for more than just panels.

Hunton had been director of marketing and sales at RWE Solar GmbH's plant in Billerica as it entered into a joint venture with Schott Solar in 2002. He was interacting with companies that were building solar facilities and had learned a great deal about the design and installation process. "Integration was a sleepy industry at the time, and we felt that with the right dynamics, the right sales force and the right type of organization, that the needs were there and we could meet those needs," he said.

To read more, click here.

Source: Mass High Tech

The state, local governments and private entities in Massachusetts have received $4.44 billion and spent more than $2.02 billion, 45 percent, through the federal stimulus law, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

That percentage of spending puts Massachusetts seventh among states in the rate of putting stimulus funds into the economy, according to Executive Office of Administration and Finance officials. By the end of the life of the stimulus in fiscal 2011, the state expects to receive $9.22 billion for spending out of $514 billion doled out nationally, as well as $4.28 billion in tax benefits, compared to $272.52 billion nationally.
To read more, click here.

Source: Boston Business Journal

Source: Mass Hi Tech

Source: ModernHealthcaer.com

Source: Fierce Biotech

Source: Mass High Tech

Electronic medical record and health care practice management software developer eClinicalWorks LLC in Westborough hired 70 new employees in the first quarter of this year, and another 30 or so in the second quarter. CEO and co-founder Girish Kumar Navani has been paying close attention to the government's health IT and electronic medical records initiatives. Navani spoke recently with staff writer Julie M. Donnelly.

How do you like government money?
Indifferent. We would have grown with or without the stimulus. I think the way we built the company, we were going to do well in this market. We believe the product has a clear value proposition. We wouldn't have gone from zero to $100 million otherwise. To read more, click here.

Source: Mass High Tech

While June may have seen a deluge of rain in New England, July was witness to the start of early-stage venture funding raining down on area technology firms, in what experts describe as a good sign for an improving economy.

Typical of the companies collecting cash at the start of the third quarter was Fluidnet Corp. of Portsmouth, N.H. But the medical devices startup was not alone - 14 other tech companies brought in a reported $97.45 million in Series B or earlier rounds last month. To read more, click here.

Source: Mass High Tech

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores is in Boston this weekend with an expected gathering of 2,500 people for its Pharmacy & Technology Conference at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

Key themes for the conference include health care reform, with a keynote address by former U.S. Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, approval for generic biopharmaceuticals, innovative practices in medication adherence, trends affecting the pharmacist work force, and Web 2.0. (...) The event runs Aug. 8-11

Also kicking off this weekend is GovEnergy 2009, which bills itself as the federal government's "premier energy training workshop and trade show." The event runs Aug. 9-12 at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence. Exhibit hall space is sold out, and online registration is closed, but onsite registration is available. (...)

Cleantech Forum XXIII will focus on the latest clean tech investment boom, one that is driven by an emphasis on capital efficiency and an engagement with government, which the organizers say is the single largest investor in clean tech. The forum, scheduled for Sept. 8-10 at the Boston Convention Center is themed "The Second Cleantech Investment Boom: Aligning Enterpreneurship with Government Stimulation." (...)

Electronic health records deployment will be the focus for Health Mart 2009: A Stimulus for EHR Deployment on Oct. 6 at the DCU Center in Worcester. The one-day trade show and conference brings together physicians, practice administrators, office managers and other professionals with companies working in the electronic health records space and other healthcare product vendors.

To read more, click here.

Source: Mass High Tech

In mid-July, I was asked by U.K. Trade & Investment to join a clean energy trade mission touring England and Wales. During the weeklong program, we met with a variety of organizations and companies, including the Carbon Trust, the Crown Estate, SolarCentury, the Building Research Establishment, the Bath Ventures Innovation Centre and several others. I came away from the trip with some specific impressions about clean tech in the United Kingdom and thought I'd share a few of them here.

Perhaps the first and most vivid observation is that the U.K.'s official commitment to clean tech is strong and growing. While the U.S. is still in the process of mustering the political will necessary to set binding national targets, the U.K. appears to have fully acknowledged the urgency of the fight that looms ahead. In its official Renewable Energy Strategy, released on the Wednesday of our weeklong tour, the U.K. set a target of 15 percent of energy from renewables by 2020 (That's total energy - renewable electricity will likely be in the range of 30 percent. Compare that to the Waxman-Markey target of 20 percent by 2020). The U.K. plan includes 33 gigawatts of offshore wind, the development of new tidal technologies, and aggressive goals for decarbonizing transportation.
To read more, click here.

Source: Photonics Spectra August

The devil is in the detail: careful control of fabrication steps is key to superior performance from the ubiquitous ultrafast laser material, titanium:sapphire p.39

Fiber lasers steal the show: at Laser Munich this year, fiber lasers emerged as real contenders, p.E10

East Asia Photonics Industry: rising to opportunity, p.65

An advertising from Imagine Optic for SL Sysneo in p.82: bravo!

To read the magazine online, click here.

Source: Air Force office of scientific research

AFOSR-funded researchers at the University of Rochester are using laser light technology that will help the military create new forms of metal that may guide, attract and repel liquids and cool small electronic devices.

Dr. Chunlei Guo and his team of researchers for the project discovered a way to transform a shiny piece of metal into one that is pitch black, not by paint, but by using incredibly intense bursts of laser light. The black metal created, absorbs all radiation that shines upon it.

"With the creation of the black metal, an entirely new class of material becomes available to us, which may open up a whole new horizon for various applications," said Guo.

"To do this, we looked at the reverse process of light absorption or light radiation and transformed the incandescent lamp into a bulb that glows twice as brightly as a regular light source, while consuming the same amount of energy," he said.

The key to creating this super-filament is an ultra-brief, ultra-intense beam of light called a femtosecond laser pulse. The laser burst lasts only a few quadrillionths of a second. That intense blast forces the surface of the metal to form nano-structures and micro-structures that dramatically alter how efficiently light can radiate from the filament. To read more, click here.

Source: Laser focus World August

Editor's desk: Ultrafst grows as lasers shrink, p. 7

Femtosecond treatment makes tungstene lamp filament more efficient, p.11

Laser pulses regenerates faded plasma filaments, p15

Imaging lets optical tweezers feel the force, p.17

Black silicon sees further into the IR, p.39

CARS ultrafst light source is hand free, p.47 High Q laser and Sunney Xie Group - Fortunately we see Amplitude Systemes's advertising on p.48 :-)

Custom filtersimprove image quality of multiphoton microscopy, p.55

Beautiful full page ad for Amplitude Systemes on p.65

To read the magazine online, click here.

Source: Laser Focus World, recommended by Federico

Following collaborative work with Ford Motor Company (Dearborn, MI) and GSI Group (Rugby, England), engineers at The University of Liverpool (England) have reported encouraging results in their quest for laser ignition (LI) in automobile engines. The approach offers the potential to address both increased fuel efficiency and reduced levels of harmful emissions. This month the team is embarking on the next phase of the research to develop LI systems for next-generation car engines based on efficient, downsized gasoline direct injection (GDI) technologies. The work is funded by the Carbon Trust, an independent company established by the UK government to accelerate the move to a low carbon economy.

GDI, a method for injecting fuel into the combustion chamber of each engine cylinder, enabled superior fuel efficiency--but GDI won't realize its full potential until there's an alternative to spark plugs, the 90-year old technology we still rely on to ignite the fuel, the researchers say.

To read more, click here.

Source: DOR

SALES TAX

Effective August 1, 2009, the tax rate on sales and use of tangible personal property and telecommunications services will change from 5% to 6.25% and the exemption from sales and use tax for alcoholic beverages, including beer, wine, and liquor, sold at retail has been repealed.

MEALS TAX

Effective August 1, 2009, the tax rate on sales of meals, prepared food and all beverages will change from 5% to 6.25%.

ROOM OCCUPANCY TAX

The maximum rate of the local option room occupancy excise, has been increased from 4% to up to 6%, (from 4.5% to up to 6.5% in the City of Boston) provided that each city or town votes to accept the increased rate in accordance with the provisions of G.L. c. 64G, sec. 3A. A city or town must vote to adopt this increase not later than August 31, 2009 in order to impose the additional excise starting on October 1, 2009

Source: optics.org

Clinical study to evaluate optical imaging for pre-operative diagnosis of early forms of skin cancer.

Michelson Diagnostics, the UK manufacturer and developer of optical-coherence-tomography (OCT) imaging systems, has initiated an in vivo trial of its VivoSight multibeam OCT probe. At least 100 patients will be scanned as part of the initial early-stage study.

The trial is a collaboration between researchers at Michelson and Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. Together they're working to evaluate VivoSight's ability to differentiate premalignant and early malignant lesions, as well as to demarcate non-melanoma skin cancers before planned surgical excision.

OCT is a non-invasive, interferometric optical imaging technique that "could play an important role in the pre-operative diagnostics of early carcinomas in the skin", according to Gordon McKenzie, Michelson Diagnostics' medical applications director. To read more, click here.

Source: Worcester Business journal online

Money for startup biotechs sure is hard to come by in this economy. And that means more companies are being forced to consider being acquired in order to survive and bring their products to market. 

"Fairly new companies, particularly those in early stage development, are stuck in the position of having to be more resourceful," said Imran Nasrullah, the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council's chief business officer.

"Increasingly, everybody is conserving cash and deciding whether to cut back on programs."

Tight Market

In biotech, medical device and life sciences companies, that is problematic. Their programs are research into drugs or medical devices and are the only things these companies have, he said. If they cut back on them, the chances of them succeeding are greatly reduced.

"It's not a sustainable strategy to put things on hold," Nasrullah said.  To read more, click here.

Source: CIC Blog

(...) 

First off, I'm pleased to announce that, coming this fall, the UK Consulate will be moving to One Broadway!  We lobbied UK Consul General Phil Budden hard for the privilege to share our modest office tower with him and his crew, and while we likely had little to do with the final decision, we are very pleased that he made such an excellent choice.  Phil has a science background, and, like erstwhile CIC client The Consulate of Switzerland, he has a mission to connect his country with the innovation community here in the Boston area.  The UK Consulate has been a prolific host of entrepreneurship, science, and innovation-related events for the area, and they plan on continuing the tradition here at One Broadway.  We look forward to a long and productive collaboration with them. (...) To read more, click here.

Source: Boston.com

Every Friday, I serve up a list of five things worth knowing about.

This week, it's the most popular hang-outs for techies and entrepreneurs.

One of the more interesting local projects underway right now is the effort to create a Venture Cafe in Kendall Square. Tim Rowe, founder of the Cambridge Innovation Center, is leading a group of people who want to create a place where entrepreneurs, inventors, and investors can eat, drink, get online, and perhaps fire up an LCD projector for an impromptu PowerPoint presentation.

But until that's open, what are the places where people starting, building, and investing in new companies get together?

1. The Newton Marriott. The go-to spot for breakfast meetings, lo these many decades. The lobby is also a decent spot for quick conversations and laptop demos over a Starbucks coffee.

2. Henrietta's Table in the Charles Hotel. You'll likely spot a partner from the venture capital firm General Catalyst (their offices are in the same complex), a Harvard faculty member like Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, or PR guru Larry Weber ensconced in his corner booth.

To know more, click here.

Source: Mass High Tech

Medical robotics
The robotics industry in Massachusetts is nearly a $1 billion business, encompassing software, hardware, component-makers and other related companies, according to a report on the state's robotics industry by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council released earlier this year.

One promising segment of that industry is medical robotics, where robots are being developed to assist with rehabilitation, surgery and home health care, said Kathleen Hagan, president of Hagan & Co., a consultancy based in Boston that was involved in preparing the report. Robotics can help to improve the quality of care and drive down costs, Hagan said. Robotic-assisted surgery, for instance, can help doctors be more accurate and less invasive, which would help lower costs by speeding up recovery for patients, she said.
To read more, click here.