There’s an episode of Saved by the Bell where Zack Morris convinces Mr. Tuttle (the head of the teacher’s union) that Mr. Belding called him a “spineless jellyfish.” That’s a pretty big insult to someone who is in charge of negotiating against you. Our spines are both metaphorically and anatomically an essential part of our being. That’s why the thought of a spinal injury is absolutely terrifying for most people. Luckily, we as a society have made a ton of progress treating spinal issues. Whether it’s an injury, disease, or deformity, K2M is one of the companies leading the innovation. They are based in Leesburg, VA, and they “deliver and develop technological innovations which enable surgeons to more effectively treat the world’s most complex spinal disorders.”
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I’m torn on the topic of Quantified Self (a movement of people who collect as much data on their lives as possible). Part of me loves taking an analytical, data-based approach to self-improvement, but another part of me thinks that it’s easy to waste a lot of time measuring stuff that isn’t all that important. With that said, I dream of one day owning (or even creating) an analytic toilet that gives you all kinds of information on your overall wellbeing. Pixie Scientific has an interesting take on that idea. They realized that some of the people who have the most sensitive health don’t use toilets, they use diapers, and as a result, the New York, NY based startup is developing “smart diapers.” They look and work like regular disposable diapers, except they provide vital health information to parents and doctors.
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Have you ever had a nasty cut, scrape, or blister that didn’t quite need stitches but needed more than a band-aid? I’ve had plenty, and my go-to remedy is New-Skin. It’s super painful to put on, and it smells terrible, but it does the job. While New-Skin is a great at home solution, it’s not meant for surgical situations (at least as far as I know). There’s a whole class of surgical sealants, and Neomend is an Irvine, CA based company that is innovating in the space with their Progel technology platform. It’s “a resorbable hydrogel with a unique, accessible molecular structure that makes it ideal for development of novel medical devices like surgical sealants and adhesion barriers.” Hopefully you know what that means, because I don’t.
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“Yo I’m a Raptor doin’ what I can gonna eat everything till the appearance of man. Yo yo yo, see me, I’m living below the soil, I’ll be back but I’m comin’ as oil!” That has to be one of my favorite lines from Mrs. Doubtfire, a movie that I saw dozens of time as a kid. I thought it was funny even though I had no idea what it meant (probably because Robin Williams saying anything is funny). Mrs. Doubtfire was on tv recently, and I saw the scene for the first time in a long time and finally got it. Disappointingly, petroleum doesn’t actually come from dinosaurs, but from decomposed single-celled organisms that existed 10s or 100s of millions of years ago. That means that oil is a non-renewable resource… or at least it used to be. Solazyme is a San Francisco, CA based company that has “pioneered an industrial biotechnology platform that harnesses the prolific oil-producing ability of micro algae.” Yes, they are actually synthesizing real oil that can be refined and used to power things. They feed the algae sugar, so as long you can keep growing sugar (from a variety of sources), you can keep producing oil.
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Yesterday, I was watching a tv news segment on holiday etiquette, and a viewer e-mailed in a question about how to deal with throwing a party when nearly every guest has submitted “dietary restrictions.” The “expert” responded that the host should just serve what she wants to serve considering that none of her friends are likely at risk for starvation. My guess is that a lot of the guests don’t really have dietary restrictions but dietary preferences; however, there seems to be an increasing number of people whose health is significantly affected by eating certain things. A lot of these reactions are caused by autoimmune diseases, which are caused by “an overactive immune response of the body against substances and tissues normally present in the body.” I’m not sure if autoimmune diseases are becoming more prevalent or if they’re just getting more attention, but IMMCO Diagnostics based in Buffalo, NY has built its business on battling autoimmune diseases. They incorporate “innovative medical devices, diagnostic laboratory testing expertise and pioneering research for a comprehensive solution to autoimmune disease diagnostics.”
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When I was a kid, there were two kinds of visits to the doctor’s office: ones where I had to get a shot and ones where I didn’t. Children will never be able to understand how lucky they are to have the opportunity to get poked in the arm with a needle so that they can be vaccinated. Tomorrow’s kids will be even luckier to get poked if Liquidia Technologies keeps innovating. They’re a Research Triangle Park, NC based company that is “developing engineered particle-based vaccines and therapeutics that have the potential to dramatically improve the quality of human life.” Liquidia Technologies was founded in 2004 based on discoveries made by a Professor Joseph DeSimone of UNC, and since then they’ve raised a ton of financing.
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When I think of the energy industry, I think of big machines like oil drills, windmills, and coal elevators. Microbes and genetics just don’t come to mind. Synthetic Genomics is a company that is aiming to change that. Energy is just one of the industries that they are working to disrupt as they develop “breakthrough genomic-driven solutions for major global issues.” Right now Synthetic Genomics, which is based in La Jolla, CA, has put a heavy emphasis on working with the energy and chemical industries because there is so much potential for gain–especially in terms of the environment; however, they’re also working on things like food production, human health, and water availability. It’s all about “turning novel science into life-changing solutions.”
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The idea of having my genome sequenced kind of freaks me out. I’m certainly warming to it, but I don’t like the idea of finding out about a deep, dark family secret or the fact that I’m predisposed to some kind of cancer from a DNA test. I know it’s irrational, and I know that I’ll overcome it eventually. I fully expect that within 20 years every child born in the U.S. will have his or her genome sequenced at birth. So maybe I should just the bite the bullet and get my genome sequenced. But if I’m going to do that, I need your help. The other day I came across a post about Palo Alto, CA based DNAnexus on Hacker News (an awesome site for programmers and people interested in startups). The post was focused on the company’s referral program that offers $20,000 and a full genome sequencing to anyone who refers a software engineer that they hire. That clearly caught my attention (I am trying to run a business here), but, more importantly, it introduced me to what DNAnexus is doing. A single genome contains over 100 gigabytes of data. Storing and analyzing this data requires some serious hardware, especially if you want to do it on a large scale. DNAnexus is an “early-stage software technology company that aims to become the data platform of the genome era.”
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Everything that I learned about DNA I learned from the O.J. Simpson trial and Jurassic Park. That’s not entirely true, but it’s scarily close. DNA analysis seemed so futuristic back then, but now it’s an everyday type thing. Still, there continues to be a ton of innovation in the world of molecular DNA diagnostics, and one of the leaders is OpGen, which used to be headquartered in Madison, WI, but is now located in Gaithersburg, MD. OpGen’s business is based on “a unique and powerful Optical Mapping Technology that rapidly generates high-resolution, ordered, whole genome restriction maps from single DNA molecules.” I’d explain that to you if I could, but I think you’re better off reading OpGen’s explanation of Optical Mapping.
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In just the past year and a half, I’ve lost two important people in my life to cancer. Chances are that you’ve been similarly affected by the disease considering that 1 in 4 deaths in this country are caused by cancer and that there were more than 1.5 million new cancer cases last year. The numbers sound grim, but every year we’re getting better and better at treating cancer. One of the major trends that I keep hearing about is that doctors are starting to see cancers as individual diseases instead of as one disease that affects many areas of the body. Precision Therapeutics is a Pittsburgh, PA based company that is taking this idea once step further. They believe that cancer should be treated at an individual level. In other words, they see every single case of cancer as potentially unique, and they want to help doctors and patients find the best way to treat it.
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Ten days ago we took a look at Rodale Institute, a non-profit that is “dedicated to pioneering organic farming through research and outreach.” We talked about how industrial farming has led to amazing boosts in productivity, but it’s also created a lot of problems. Marrone Bio Innovations is a Davis, CA based company that is taking a natural approach to one specific area of agriculture: pest control. They’re aiming to be “the world leader in natural product innovation” by making “natural, effective, safe, environmentally friendly products the mainstream future of pest management.” Usually you don’t hear organic and pesticide in the same sentence, but Marrone Bio Innovations’ business is predicated on bringing the two together.
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If you’re anything like me, you’ve run into this problem before. You’re sitting around the house, and your lab mice are frolicking around. One of them starts misbehaving and you need to scold it, but you can’t because you don’t know it’s name. They all look the same, and you are completely clueless as to who the troublemaker is. Ok, I actually don’t have mice in my house, and I hope that you don’t either, but if you’ve ever worked with lab mice you probably know that identifying them is kind of important.Somark Innovation is a San Diego, CA based company that makes that a lot easier. They’ve developed technology called Labstamp that “applies automated tail tattoos for mouse identification.” The tattoos are human readable, permanent, and available with 46,656 unique alpha-numeric IDs.
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As humans we must have some innate level of genetics knowledge. We know to look for favorable traits when we search for a reproductive partner, and once we make that choice, we know that our children are supposed to look at least a little bit like us and share some of our traits. That’s why genetic research is so mystifying. It offers the opportunity to know why we are the way we are. Yet, some think that genetic research hasn’t lived up to its billing. I have to agree that it’s extremely disappointing that with all of the genetic knowledge that we’ve gained in the past 20 or so years, it hasn’t helped us cure any major diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or any form of cancer. However, it still seems that plenty of good has come out of genetics research, and there is reason to hope that a lot more is on the way. Genetic Alliance would agree. They’re based in Washington, DC, and they’re “the world’s leading nonprofit health advocacy organization committed to transforming health through genetics and promoting an environment of openness centered on the health of individuals, families, and communities.”
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It’s not big surprise that jobs are constantly in the news these days. That’s part of the reason Jason Seiden and I launched our course. People need help finding and landing jobs. People in the news have picked up on the need, and now it’s newsworthy if a company is hiring. Take this article from mlive.com’s Michigan Business Innovation Blog – it’s about who’s hiring in Ann Arbor. That’s obviously of interest to me, since so many of you are at both University of Michigan and Michigan State (as well as other great Michigan schools). There were some pretty interesting names on that list, and one that stood out to me was Compendia Bioscience. They’re Biotech meets Software, they’re also part of the future of Michigan, and they’re offering internships
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