Bioscience

The University of Arizona is creating a nonprofit corporation that will help move innovations created at the University into the marketplace as well as develop new companies, create jobs and keep them in Arizona. Meredith Hay, UA executive vice president and provost, made the announcement Thursday at the IdeaFunding conference in Tucson.

The initiative will combine technology transfer and new business development with improved and coordinated support for businesses, colleges, faculty and others. Hay described it as building an "innovation ecosystem" at the UA.

The tentatively named University of Arizona Research Corporation, or UARC, will, over the next six months, include the functions of the existing Office of Technology Transfer, add new functions for new venture formation and will run under the auspices of the UA Foundation.

Bioscience

A new Phoenix-area lab aims to establish standards for new medical tests used to fight diseases such as lung cancer, kidney disease and neurological disorders.

Science Foundation Arizona will provide a $2.2 million grant for the newly created Arizona Biosignature Laboratory. The grant, along with matching pharmaceutical-industry funding, is expected to sustain the lab for one year and help create or retain 22 jobs.

The new lab, led by Critical Path Institute (C-Path), aims to create standards for testing biological samples that are used to research diseases. The idea is to create standards that pass muster with the Food and Drug Administration and hasten development of new drugs and tests.

Bioscience

A Phoenix-based nonprofit and a London-based technology investor have formed a new company that seeks to provide funding and technical expertise to startup technology companies.

The new company, Henislie Corp., was created by BioAccel, of Phoenix, and Imprimatur Capital, of London. Henislie, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., seeks to raise $50 million to invest in clean energy, information technology, life science and telecommunications companies. It will initially focus on companies in Arizona, Southern California and Texas.

Bioscience

Recognizing Arizona’s strides in building a thriving biosciences sector, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has issued an official proclamation to declare Wednesday, October 27, 2010, as Arizona Bioscience Day. The designated day coincides with one of Arizona’s major annual bioscience events, BioFest 2010, hosted by the Arizona BioIndustry Association on October 27 at the Camelback Inn in Scottsdale.

Bioscience

Joshua Lopez gently peels transparent covering from a metal tray in his lab. His actions are fluid, like he's undoing gift-wrap he plans to reuse. He has good reason to be careful: Inside the plastic bundle is a human head.

Lopez works at the University of Arizona's Plastination Lab, where body parts take on second lives for education. But these aren't average cadavers: Plastination - the same process used in exhibits such as Body Worlds - permanently preserves them, piece by piece.

Bioscience

Television shows like CSI  make it look so simple: a positive match or identification in just a matter of minutes.  But DNA testing isn't nearly as simple or as quick as you might think.

Once a sample makes it to the lab, it usually takes about 14 days to process and get the results.

That is, until now.

Bioscience

It's a dangerous byproduct of aging you can't feel or see: your bones getting thinner and more fragile. But it may be possible to stem bone loss before full-fledged osteoporosis sets in with certain types of exercise.

While adequate intake of calcium and vitamin D are considered important for bone health, a growing number of studies show a strong association between exercise and improvements in bone mineral density—the amount of calcium in the bone. Because bone is living tissue, it responds to exercise by becoming stronger and denser.

Bioscience

Vegetation plays an unexpectedly large role in cleansing the atmosphere, a new study finds.

The research, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., uses observations, gene expression studies, and computer modeling to show that deciduous plants absorb about a third more of a common class of air-polluting chemicals than previously thought.

The new study, results of which are being published in Science Express, was conducted with co-authors from the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Arizona. It was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's sponsor.

Bioscience

Scientists at Barrow Neurological Institute have recently made discoveries about a type of cell that may limit inflammation in the central nervous system (CNS) -- a finding that could have important implications in the treatment of brain disorders such as multiple sclerosis.

The research, led by Barrow's Fu-Dong Shi, MD, PhD, was published in the August 2010 issue of The Journal of Experimental Medicine, and simultaneously highlighted in Nature.

Bioscience

Two University of Arizona graduate students have each earned a highly competitive and prestigious fellowships awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Henry Adams and Daniel Griffin, both UA doctoral candidates, are among 121 master's and doctoral students across the nation to be named EPA STAR fellows, which which supports some of the nation's top students in environmental studies.