|
 |
Montana BioScience Alliance Newsletter |  |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Our next roundtable will be October 18, in Missoula, in conjunction with the grand opening of the new GlaxoSmithKline facility. We'll send more details as they are finalized. 2007 directories are now available! The PDF version is online under the Resources tab. If you'd like multiple hard copies, contact Sharon. Please welcome our two new board members, Deborah Peters (Northwest Research and Education Institute) and Ron Zook (Swan Valley Medical). We are very excited about working with them both. Last but not least, we are pleased to announce our new intern, Clare Koppel. Clare is a senior at the University of Montana.
Montana Bioscience Alliance board member Gary Christianson recently resigned from GlaxoSmithKline to become COO of Biomira, a Washington State-based company which develops therapeutic products for cancer treatment. Although Gary will no longer be involved with the Alliance, his successor at GSK is expected to take his board position. Many thanks to Gary for his hard work and enthusiasm for bioscience under the big sky. We wish him much success in the future. The McLaughlin Research Institute recently announced $6 million in planned upgrades. Scheduled are improvements to their animal- research facility and recruiting two new scientists. McLaughlin hopes to receive the bulk of its funding from the state and various foundations. The direction of future research will be determined by the specialties of the scientists the institute recruits, but neurological disorders, possible psychiatric disorders such as autism and stem cell research are all possibilities. Montana Molecular recently received a one-year, $150,000 Phase 1 Small Business Technology Transfer grant from the National Science Foundation to develop new fluorescent probes that target specific components in living cells. Montana Molecular will develop these tools by producing a library of green fluorescent-labeled proteins using a high-throughput insertion strategy. Montana Molecular is generating and validating about 50 probes every month, which is about the time it typically takes one experienced molecular biologist to build a single end-labeled probe using traditional methods. The company's first goal is to develop these technologies for use as basic research tools by developing a library of genetically encoded fluorescent probes for studying protein localization and subcellular structures in living cells. The first collection of fluorescent probes will be available by early 2008. At the recent Rocky Mountain Valve Symposium, two leading heart surgeons demonstrated their inventions by performing heart valve surgeries. Carlos Duran, inventor of the Duran Ring, and Alain Carpentier, inventor of the Carpentier Ring, were the highlight of the "Shootout in the Rockies," the 17th annual Rocky Mountain Valve Symposium. This year's program, attended by 140 representing 32 states and eight countries, focused on the latest tools and techniques in heart valve surgery.
Ted Wilson (pictured on left), a 2006 graduate of MSU-Billings who works there in the department of biological and physical sciences, was recently recognized as the "Best Research Scientist" among students at the annual meeting of the Montana Academy of Sciences. Wilson works as a lab assistant for Dr. Kurt Toenjes, but will attend graduate school at the University of Iowa (molecular biology) starting this fall. For his work, which has focused on the relationship between a molecular compound and Candida albicans, a fungi and human pathogen, Wilson was given the Brumley Family College Scholarship for Best Research Scientist. The award, which carries a $500 cash prize, is awarded to an undergraduate or graduate student found most deserving based on their presentation at the Montana Academy of Sciences Annual meeting. Along with Toenjes, Wilson was assisted in his research by MSU Billings associate biology professor Dr. David Butler. Wilson co-authored a paper with Butler that was published in a national fungal genetics journal. Also at the Montana Academy of Sciences meeting, Jason Van Cleave won the MAS Best Undergraduate Oral Presentation Award. His presentation was on "Photosynthetic Carbon Dioxide Uptake, Stomatal Distribution and a Fluorescence Analysis of Photosystem II in Aquatic Leaves of Veronica.anagallis-aquatica." Additionally, Dr. Jim Barron was elected president of the Montana Academy of Sciences. Sarah Codd, a Montana State University professor, has won a prestigious $400,000 Career Award from the National Science Foundation for her work in magnetic resonance microscopy, a technique that allows researchers to see the inner workings of devices as small as one-tenth of a millimeter in size. The Career Award goes to a single person, and is the NSF's most prestigious award to support the early career development of teacher-scholars. Codd will use the funds - paid out over five years - to advance her research, teaching and public education of how magnetic resonance microscopy can be used to help solve a variety of pressing engineering problems. MRM technology lets researchers see movies of fluids and gases moving through objects honeycombed with tiny channels. The Magnetic Resonance Microscopy Laboratory is housed within the College of Engineering, but collaborations reach across campus, the nation and world. This is the second major NSF award Codd has garnered in the past three years. She was awarded a $387,000 NSF Advance Fellowship in 2004. Originally from New Zealand, she came to MSU in 2002. Montana State University's Center for Biofilm Engineering - the oldest, largest and best-known biofilm research center in the world - recently hosted its annual industrial conference on biofilms. This conference was its largest ever. Last year, the center won a $2.9 million grant from the NIH to investigate the role biofilms play in slow-healing wounds, the largest single medical research project at the center. During 2006-2007, the center had 47 graduate students and 33 undergraduate students from 12 different academic departments performing research, many of which were funded through dollars from industrial partners. The Center also recently licensed research by professors Andreas Nocker and Anne Camper that is a new method for distinguishing between live and dead bacteria in molecular assays. This technology could help with everything from monitoring the safety of food and water, to bioterrorism analysis. MSU recently licensed the technology to QIAGEN, a leading world provider for sample & assay technologies for life sciences, applied testing and molecular diagnostics. QIAGEN sells its products in more than 40 countries and has more than 2,000 employees worldwide.
The Montana Department of Commerce has $2 million dollars in grant funding available for Montana- based, private, non-profit research institutions involved in bio-medical research that has the potential to significantly and positively impact the State of Montana. Proposals should be for projects that: improve the health of Montana citizens and/or livestock, create educational opportunities for A partnership between Spectrum Lab and Bridger Photonics received a grant from the National Science Foundation Small Business Technology Transfer program to develop sensitive, portable, low-cost, laser- based remote sensing devices to detect chemical byproducts of illicit methamphetamine production from a distance. The Phase I research objective will be to develop an innovative laser source that is ideally
Sharon Peterson represented the Montana BioScience Alliance at the BIO Legislative Fly-In on April 17th and 18th in Washington, DC. It was a great opportunity to meet with Congressmen and Senators and tell the Montana Bio story. At the Montana breakfast, Sharon and representatives from BIO presented Senator Baucus with the Legislator of the Year Award for his support for BioScience research. At the Montana Economic Development Summit in Butte on April 30th, sponsored by Senator Max Baucus, the Montana BioScience Alliance participated in a very successful standing-room only breakout group with representatives from Pfizer, Amgen, GlaxoSmithKline, BIO, Forward Ventures and our own Rob Bargatze. Many thanks go to Catherine Dratz from the Senate Finance Committee for her hard work on the event. Rob Bargatze, Sharon Peterson, and Pam Langley represented Montana and the Montana BioScience Alliance at the BIO International Convention in Boston from May 5-9. The Governor's Office of Economic Development provided a booth for the Exhibition and we distributed the Montana BioScience Alliance directories and member information. Rob, Sharon and Pam attended a meeting of the Council of State BioScience Associations and a reception with the Governor of Massachusetts. Our annual meeting was held this year in conjunction with the McLaughlin Research Institute's annual workshop on biomedical science on July 2nd in Great Falls. The day-long conference featured speakers discussing developments in immunology, viruses, stem stells and one presentation from a Nobel Prize winning physiologist, followed by a reception hosted by MontanaBio. The annual board meeting was held the next morning. It was a great opportunity to hear from and mingle with scientists like Irv Weissman, and Dr. David Baltimore among many. Thank you to our members who took time out of their holiday to attend the meeting.
August 23-24, 2007 · Big Sky, Montana
September 24-26 · Milwaukee,
Wisconsin
October 18 · Missoula/Hamilton,
Montana
November 1-2, 2007· Billings, Montana
November 12-14 · Honolulu, Hawaii
December 6-7 · Denver, Colorado
June 17-20, 2008 · San Diego, California
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
