Holding place for old articles.
The Johns Hopkins University edged closer to the top 10 of national universities on the U.S. News and World Report annual rankings, which were released Tuesday.
U.S. News moved Hopkins up one spot to No. 12, just behind Dartmouth University and tied with Northwestern University, in the most-often cited of numerous college rankings. It was the highest ranking for Hopkins in 14 years. As expected based on prior rankings, Princeton, Harvard and Yale remained in the top three spots, in that order.
Biotech venture capitalists, as a group, haven’t had much to cheer about the past few years. But this is shaping up to be the year the storyline changes, thanks to the ripple effect from the biotech IPO class of 2013.
The story of biotech venture capital over the past few years, as many readers know well, has been mostly about struggle. Many firms haven’t been able to scrape out returns, and they’ve reacted by grasping for new investment models, pushing partners out, veering into other sectors, or shutting their doors. The historic shift, which came about a decade after the genomics bubble, left only a few firms with the desire and capability to make the edgiest, riskiest, and potentially most innovative investments in life sciences.
I visited cardiologist Eric Topol at the Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California, one day this summer. He’d had a busy morning seeing patients and, by about noon, was claiming to have already saved the medical system tens of thousands of dollars using his iPhone and a pocket-sized ultrasound machine. Then he pointed to the stethoscope in his pocket and said he hasn’t used it in three years. “I should just throw it out,” he said. “This is basically a worthless icon of medicine.”
Topol is perhaps the most prominent advocate in the U.S. of how digital technology can lead to less expensive health care, and he invited me to see the savings in action. As we lope toward the exam room, Topol, slightly hunched and repeatedly turning to deal with questions flying at him from his staff, seems slightly rattled by the commotion and barrage of demands, but a calm sets in the moment he enters the exam room. He folds his arms across his chest as a young colleague updates him on the patient’s history. Topol introduces himself to the 85-year-old man, who has been tiring easily as of late, and then the doctor immediately pulls out his iPhone.
While U.S. job growth was less than economists expected in August – increasing by 169,000 – the healthcare sector remained a bright spot, adding 32,700 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs report issued Friday.
In the healthcare sector, ambulatory healthcare services had the most growth, with 26,600 added jobs. Hospitals saw the least growth, adding only 900 jobs in August. Home healthcare services and nursing and residential care facilities continued to be solid, adding 9,500 jobs and 5,200 respectively.
The Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) announced today it will host an event with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell launching the MACH37™ Cyber Accelerator on Thursday, September 12, 2013. The Accelerator is a program designed to facilitate the creation of the next generation of cybersecurity companies in Virginia. Supported by Governor McDonnell, the General Assembly appropriated $2.5 million to CIT to start and operate the Accelerator for two years, after which the Accelerator will secure private funding. MACH37 is the nation’s first public-private sector Cyber Accelerator program
Kicking off the fall semester, the University of Maryland is giving the thousands of innovative minds across campus new ways to share and explore their fearless ideas. Starting today, the university is expanding its popular “Innovation Fridays,” which give students the opportunity to meet with experienced innovators and entrepreneurs, get free and impartial advice, brainstorm strategies, and learn about available resources and funding.
“We are committed to cultivating a community of innovators on campus,” says Dean Chang, UMD’s associate vice president for innovation and entrepreneurship. “Similar to Google’s 20 percent time, which gave the world innovations like Gmail by encouraging employees to spend one day a week pursuing bold projects that were not necessarily related to their job description, we want to encourage students to take one day a week—Fridays—to pursue their own fearless ideas. The expansion of Innovation Fridays will allow more students across all disciplines to do just that.”
High Level Overview – Recapped
Challenge Phases
Stanford University is going to start directly investing in students’ companies. Stanford is also giving a $3.6 million grant to StartX, a non-profit startup accelerator for Stanford-affiliated entrepreneurs.
StartX founder and CEO Cameron Teitelman tells me Stanford will only invest in StartX companies and alumni companies.
University spokesperson Lisa Lapin tells me Stanford’s investment fund will have an uncapped size. Vice President for Business Affairs Randy Livingston and his office will oversee the school’s investments, and Stanford will not take a lead role in funding rounds.
There has been a sharp increase in venture capital funding of life sciences companies in the second quarter of 2013, according to a new report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
San Diego companies were the third-most invested in, following San Francisco and Boston.
Dr. Michael M. Gottesman has spent nearly four decades as a highly respected scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), conducting important studies on how cancer cells resist destruction by several widely used chemotherapy drugs.
As chief of the laboratory of cell biology at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Gottesman is the country’s premier researcher on the interaction of cancer and medications. He has developed molecular tools to define the drug-resistance genes found in individual cancers, information that is used to predict a patient’s response to therapy.
