News Archive

Johns Hopkins University ranks 15th globally out of 400 research universities in the recently released 2013-2014 World University Rankings compiled by London’s Times Higher Education. The position marks a one-spot improvement over JHU’s ranking in the weekly publication’s 2012-2013 list.

The top 15 features 11 American universities—including the California Institute of Technology, which claimed the top spot for the third year in a row—and four foreign universities—Oxford (third), Cambridge (seventh), and Imperial College London (10th) in the U.K.; and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (14th) in Switzerland. Harvard, Stanford, and MIT joined Caltech and Oxford in the top five.

I am sure many of you have watched an episode of Shark Tank on ABC.  The show allows a startup entrepreneur to pitch their idea to a panel of five respected venture investors, who either like or don’t like the opportunity, and if they do, compete for the investment.  Many of the times I have watched the show, I end up cringing watching these poor entrepreneurs become the victims of undermarket valuations or a rushed decision which makes for “good TV watching” for the viewers at home, but bad business decisions for the company.  I wanted to compare Shark Tank to reality in the venture capital world, to confirm my assumption.

If Maryland is to meet the workforce demands of a growing cyber security industry, it’s going to have to offer students a hands-on experience in internships, one of the state’s top educators said on Tuesday.

“We need to start focusing on providing a significant amount of internships. It gives the students real-world experience,” said William “Brit” Kirwan said, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, to an audience at CyberMaryland 2013 in Baltimore.

The University of Maryland (UM) BioPark announced today that the Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) Center for Translational Research (CTR) has signed a lease to relocate from its current operational base at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center in Baltimore County to the BioPark in West Baltimore. The CTR, one of three entities within the CHI Institute for Research and Innovation (CIRI), collaborates with biomedical researchers to focus on the intersection of biomedical advances in omics-based diagnostics and precision medicine. Under the terms of the signed lease, half of the CTR’s overall anticipated 50-person work force will occupy more than 11,000 square feet of laboratory and office space within the BioPark.

“It’s exciting to add the CHI Center for Translational Research to our growing list of BioPark occupants,” said Jim Hughes, President, Research Park Corporation, University of Maryland, Baltimore. “This organization is national in scope – and yet we are able to offer them an ideal location that allows the Center to stay local – moving from Baltimore County to the UM BioPark. Here, they have access to the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Medical Center, as well as the opportunity to be part of a growing life sciences community.” 

A total of 87 applicants from more than 30 cities across Russia sought to land one of just three residency openings in the U.S.-Russia Innovation Corridor (USRIC), a collaborative innovation initiative led by American Councils for International Education. Of the 12 finalists selected for interviews, two startups and one university technology transfer office will take on a renewable three-month residency in USRIC.

Through USRIC, the residents will collaborate with U.S. partners and develop new markets, using the resources of the Maryland International Incubator (MI2) housed at the University of Maryland at College Park (UMD).

DC Innovation Corps (I-Corps), the new, National Science Foundation-backed program aimed at translating the region’s vibrant research community into successful startups and licensed technologies, kicks off its first cohort this week at the George Washington University with 20 teams of inventors and current and aspiring entrepreneurs.

The cohort launches with a diverse mix of teams from the Children’s National Medical Center, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, the George Washington University, Virginia Tech, George Mason University, and regional entrepreneurs from the Emerging Technology Center, Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech) and bwtech@UMBC.

Washington, D.C. has become one of the centers for high-tech innovation, spurring some of the biggest investments from venture capital firms in the country. In fact, according to The Atlantic Cities, D.C. ranks among the top 10 cities for venture capital funding.

With the influx of startups and entrepreneuers looking for funding, venture capitalists are beginning to leverage social media to brand their firm, position themselves as thought leaders, and attract the top talent in the city. With the help of Klout, an online-influence scoring site, we checked out which local VC firms are leveraging Twitter the best. Take a look at the factors involving Klout scoring here, and without furhter ado, here the highest ranking VC firms in D.C. 

The HIMSS Innovation Center opens today in Cleveland, a city, known around the world for the Cleveland Clinic and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and one that prides itself on being a city of firsts.

HIMSS leaders who describe their 50,000-plus member organization of health IT professionals as “cause-based,” make no bones about their intent to shake things up in healthcare – more than a little bit.

British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline will seek marketing approval for the world’s first malaria vaccine next year after trial data showed the shot significantly cut cases of the disease in African children.

The vaccine known as RTS,S was found, after 18 months of follow-up, to have almost halved the number of malaria cases in young children in the trial, and to have reduced by around a quarter the number of malaria cases in infants.

“Based on these data, GSK now intends to submit, in 2014, a regulatory application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA),” GSK, which has been developing the vaccine for three decades, said in a statement.

Kids today … are actually doing some amazing stuff. Take 15-year-old Jack Andraka, who recently won the grand prize of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for developing an early detection test for pancreatic cancer.  

Andraka came up with the idea for the test after a close family friend died of pancreatic cancer. Using free online science papers, he formed a basis for the test, which looks for increased levels of a biomarker for pancreatic cancer in blood and urine. He contacted 197 scientists, seeking help with his research, and was rejected by each one, before Dr. Anirban Maitra at Johns Hopkins University agreed to donate lab space and help him develop his research.

(Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)