University of Buffalo CAT Announces $1M Annual Program to Support Industry Collaboration …
The University of Buffalo Center for Advanced Biomedical and Bioengineering Technology last week said that it will fund UB researchers working with 13 life sciences companies and organizations in the greater Buffalo-Niagara region.
The program, designed to spur academic-industry collaboration in the region, is part of $1 million in annual support to be provided by the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology, and Innovation.
UB CAT, located in the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, is one of 15 CAT sites at New York State-based universities that receive annual funding from NYSTAR.
The UB CAT is one of three sites that focus specifically on life sciences.
Receiving UB CAT support are UB researchers James Mohler, James Atwood, Steven Gill, Peer Nickerson, David Hangauer, Donald Henderson, Vipin Chaudhary, Alan Hutson, Bradley Fuhrman, Joan Dorn, Jian Feng, Frederick Sachs, and Norma Nowak.
The funding will support research conducted in collaboration with local companies Androbiosys, Dirhodium Technologies, Empire Genomics, Harvest Precision Components, Kinex Pharmaceuticals, Medcotek, Medical Acoustics, Medical Conservation Devices, Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, NutriCyte, Reichert, SmartPill, and Synergena.
… and Spurs Partnership Between UB and Reichert for Cell Volume Cytometry Tech
The University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York system, last week said that the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer, and Economic Outreach has completed a licensing and research agreement with Reichert to develop and market a cell volume cytometer.
The project between UB and Reichert, of Depew, NY, was funded by a $750,000 grant from the New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research and matching funds from Reichert.
As part of the deal, Reichert licensed technology related to the cell volume cytometer from UB.
Further financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
The cell volume cytometer detects changes in cell volume and can be used to detect cell/drug interactions, bacterial sensitivity to antibiotics, and cancer cell susceptibility to chemotherapeutics.
Rosetta Genomics Licenses microRNAs From Rockefeller University
Rosetta Genomics has struck an agreement to use some of Rockefeller University’s viral and human microRNAs for therapeutic uses, Rosetta said last week.
Rosetta Genomics President and CEO Amir Avniel said the microRNAs offer the company access to more potential drug targets, and is in line with the its strategy to supplement its own research through licensing agreements with key academic centers.
The company said it now has the rights to more than 500 microRNA targets.
Financial terms of the agreement were not released.
Rosetta Genomics did not specify if this license is an extension of an agreement it signed with Rockefeller a year ago for 180 microRNAs, or if it covers different IP.
That agreement granted Rosetta Genomics rights to use the microRNAs for multiple R&D programs, and called for the company to pay Rockefeller University an initiation fee, maintenance fees, and royalties.
Rosetta Genomics is conducting a liver cancer program through a collaboration with Isis Pharmaceuticals that aims to identify microRNA targets that may be used as therapeutics for the cancer.
The company’s liver cancer program is funded partly by the Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation.
Max Planck Co-Exclusively Licenses Microscopy Tech to Leica, Zeiss
Max Planck Innovation, the technology transfer arm of the Max Planck Society, last week said that it has signed a co-exclusive license agreement with Leica Microsystems and Carl Zeiss Microimaging for a molecular-scale-resolution microscopy technology.
The licensees will now seek to develop commercial microscopes based on the technology, called reversible saturable optical fluorescent transitions, or RESOLFT, which provides nanometer-scale resolution with visible light and regular lenses.
In addition, Max Planck said in a statement that a third co-exclusive license to the technology will be made available, in particular for application in the field of creating permanent structures with high three-dimensional resolution.
Danish University Licenses CLC Bio's Workbench Software
CLC Bio today said earlier this month that it has licensed its Combined Workbench software and its Educational Package to the University of Aarhus in Denmark.
CLC said terms of the five-year deal call for the school’s department of molecular biology to use the Workbench and educational software in “several hundred seats.”
The Combined Workbench is used in DNA, RNA, and protein analysis and contains features found in CLC’s free Workbench, Protein Workbench, and Gene Workbench, the company said.
Kim Mortensen, vice chairman of the Aarhus molecular biology department, said the CLC Workbench will replace “the whole range of outdated and expensive tools we have been using previously.”
Financial terms of the agreement were not released.
TomoTherapy, LLNL to Co-Develop Compact Proton Therapy System
TomoTherapy is collaborating with scientists at California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to develop a system for low-cost proton therapy based on dielectric wall accelerator technology.
LLNL developed the technology with the University of California, Davis Cancer Center, which helped finance the early development of the DWA as a proton accelerator for cancer treatment.
TomoTherapy has now agreed to fund continued development of the accelerator with the goal of producing DWA-based proton therapy systems for less than $20 million.
Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.