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Montana BioScience Alliance Newsletter |  |
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Greetings! We're a few weeks away from the first Montana BioScience Alliance Annual Meeting! The meeting is on June 14, from 8:30am to 5:00 pm, at the Montana State University Foundation and Alumni Center in Bozeman. The meeting will feature speakers on a range of exciting topics focusing on the future of BioScience in Montana and the entire nation. Panels and speakers include:
There will also be a welcome reception on the 13th at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital from 5:30 - 7:00 pm, open to both members and non- members. I hope you'll join us at both events. For more information and to register, please go to the Alliance's website. Please welcome our newest members: Benefis Healthcare Great Falls, Montana 59405 Contact: Kathie Avis aviskatb@benefis.org
Pfizer Neurosciences Specialty Representative Billings, Montana 59101 Susan.bailey@pfizer.com
LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals announced that Donald Beeman has joined the company as Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Beeman has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, most recently as the President and Co-Founder of Topaz Pharmaceuticals LLC. Prior to founding Topaz, he was the Vice President of U.S. Commercial Operations for Merck's Vaccine Division. Bacterin International was awarded the National Business Incubation Association’s 2006 Outstanding Incubator Graduate award. Bacterin graduated from Bozeman-based TechRanch at the end of 2003 with two employees, and moved its operations to Belgrade, where it now has 40 employees. Bacterin is no stranger to accomplishment: in 2005, it was named a “top breakout company” by Fortune Magazine, and has several patents and patents pending. GlaxoSmithKline recently broke ground for a $100 million capital investment in new buildings at its Hamilton plant. The new buildings include administrative, research and development and production facilities. As the campus expands, an estimated 130 employees will be hired. McLaughlin Research Institute's Dr. Ranjit Giri has discovered a new way to study prions. This discovery could lead to improved testing methods for brain disease and faster results. Both universities have received a number of accolades recently. MSU was named among the top 96 research universities in the US, and had a recent graduate present his research on groundwater treatment on Capitol Hill. Chuck Leonard, a professor from the University of Montana's school of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science recently took two graduate students to the Johnson Space Center to complete testing on a device. The myotonometer - which Leonard helped develop - measures changes muscle tone. The experiments were used to determine whether the device could be used during space flights. According to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the University of Montana ranks No. 4 out of 92 pharmacy schools nationally for garnering research funding when number of faculty members is considered. When total research dollars are considered without regard to the number of faculty members, UM ranks No. 7 nationally.
Lonnie Bookbinder has joined SpeciGen, Inc. as CEO and Board Member. SpeciGen is an early stage developmental biotechnology company with a focus on drug delivery using nanotechnology. Its first products will focus on unmet medical needs in the treatment of cancer, cardiovascular and infectious diseases. SpeciGen also recently signed an exclusive license agreement with Montana State University for intellectual property covering novel protein cage based nanotechnologies. For more information, please email lbookbinder@specigen.com. The Ravalli County Economic Development Authority is planning to build a biotech/biomed enterprise center, including incubator space and wet and clean labs.
“Sensory neuroscience is about to undergo a revolution, and there is no question that mouse models will be pivotal in our ability to understand how hearing works and can be repaired,” Director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Dr. James Battey told an audience at McLaughlin Research Institute in April. For that reason, Dr. Battey said, “it is appropriate that we would hold a meeting on hearing research here at McLaughlin,” which is known for its mouse models. Dr. Battey was a keynote speaker at a three-day symposium on the genetics of the inner ear, which was organized by McLaughlin’s Dr. Pin Xian-Xu. During the last ten years, he said, scientists have found the location of 80 genes where a mutation has caused hearing loss, and there is now evidence that gene therapy can restore hearing in deafened guinea pigs. “Research is producing results I never thought I would see in my lifetime,” he said. Another keynote speaker, stem cell research leader Dr. Irving Weissman, drew a connection between the genetic research being done on hearing and stem cell research, which could potentially overlap to produce exciting possibilities for regenerating hearing. Dr. Weissman is Director of the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and also serves as Chair of McLaughlin Research Institute’s Scientific Advisory Committee. He said that the McLaughlin has become “one of the world settings for work with mouse models for human disease” and that its mouse models cost one third of the cost of those at larger institutions. Dr. Weissman also introduced Senator Max Baucus, recognizing his steadfast support of “this tiny, private, independent research institute.” “I’m a big fan” of McLaughlin’s and of science, Senator Baucus said. Hearing research has taken a strong enough foothold in Montana to draw some of the country’s top scientists in the field to the symposium. Participants came from Harvard University, the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles, Cal Tech, Creighton University, and the Universities of Montana, Virginia, and Washington. Representing a variety of disciplines, the researchers brought different perspectives on the genetic nature and development of the inner ear and its sensory hair cells and on the possibilities for restoring hearing. They presented their research results, explored new research directions, and considered the feasibility of building a program on auditory research in Montana. Currently Montana has four strong hearing-related programs, McLaughlin Research Institute Director George Carlson told the group in his welcome address, “and we would like to have more.” Two programs are based at McLaughlin – Dr. Pin Xu’s study of inner ear development and Dr. John Mercer’s use of unconventional myosins to study signal transduction in hair cells. The other two programs are based at the University of Montana, with which McLaughlin is a partner in its Center for Structural and Functional Neuroscience (CSFN). Dr. David Poulsen studies gene therapy to restore hearing through hair cell regeneration, and Dr. Diana Lurie studies how the auditory system processes sound. Dr. Rich Bridges, Director of the University of Montana’s CSFN, was enthusiastic about the meeting. “Our COBRE grant from the National Institutes of Health has supported these programs as seed projects, bringing them up to a more competitive level, and this meeting is the next level – bringing in outside experts and developing a wider program. . . . It’s amazing that we’re doing all of this in Montana!” he said. “We hope to attract new students and faculty and to build more collaborations and a critical mass of researchers in Montana.” Organizer Dr. Pin Xu was hopeful that the meeting could help to attract new researchers to Montana. “The scientists who attended the meeting would like to build on the research they discussed at future meetings, perhaps next fall at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine,” she said.
On a chilly Bozeman spring day and in the shadow of the Gallatin Range, Computer Compliance Inc. (CCI) broke ground on its new company headquarters. The construction comes at a particularly special time for CCI, which is celebrating over ten years of service to the biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device industries. Specializing in computer systems validation in accordance with FDA mandates, the company has opened satellite offices in other regions of the country but has chosen to remain headquartered in Bozeman. On this decision Lance Tinseth said, “Since the very beginning of the company we’ve always said we want to grow but only if we can stay based out of Montana. While we’ve had options of relocating the company, it came down to the quality of life and it’s tough to beat the opportunities here in the Gallatin Valley.” In 1995, Tinseth and a fellow Montana State University alum founded CCI out of a spare bedroom. Today, the company has in its ranks a variety of engineers and associates, the majority of which have graduated from Montana universities. The draw of Montana and Bozeman in particular, have proven to be key assets as many students who originally come for school fall in love with the area and want to stay. Despite what many say about the “brain drain” plaguing Montana’s economy, CCI has been able to capture and retain some of the state’s best talent. When asked what the future holds for a Montana company in the biotech industry Tinseth said, “I’m excited about the opportunities. We’re seeing a growing commitment in government funding at the state and federal for research. The nice thing is biotech is a clean industry that has minimal impact on the natural resources. Which is a big reason why we love Montana.”
June 13 at 5:30 pm June 14, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm June 22 July 18-19 July 20-21 August 23-24 August 24-25 October 5
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