Emerging Technology : Innovation + Job News

The University City Science Center  is now accepting applications for the sophomore class of its Digital Health Accelerator (DHA), a program that helps launch companies in the digital health or health IT sectors.

Need convincing? Consider UE Lifesciences, one of the startups in the inaugural DHA class that wrapped in July. UELS recently announced that it has raised $3 million in venture capital to commercialize its handheld breast health examination tool.

iBreastExam, a painless and radiation-free device, can be easily operated by nurses and social workers to provide standardized breast exams with instant results at the point of care. The product uses patented ceramic sensors invented at Drexel University to detect subtle variations in the stiffness of breast tissue that can point to tumors.

The implications for women in the developing world are enormous. Survival rates for women in the U.S. diagnosed with breast cancer are 80 to 90 percent compared to less than 50 percent for women in the developing world.

"iBreastExam may provide a fighting chance for them by enabling early detection on a large scale," explains Dr. Ari Brooks, director of the Integrated Breast Center at Pennsylvania Hospital.

According to the Science Center, UELS and the six other companies in the first DHA class went from prototype to commercialization, created 53 new jobs, generated $600,000 in sales and raised almost $4 million in follow-on investment.

For the next class, they're is looking for companies ready to establish operations in Greater Philadelphia with a product or concept ready to be sold -- or that will be ready with DHA support -- on the U.S. healthcare market. The six companies will each receive up to $50,000, office space at the Science Center, professional mentorship, access to investors and introductions to appropriate decision makers in their target markets.

The program will run for one year beginning in February 2016. Applications are due October 26.

Source: University City Science Center and UE Lifesciences
Writer: Elise Vider

WRITER IN RESIDENCE is a partnership between the University City Science Center and Flying Kite Media that embeds a reporter on-site at 3711 Market Street. The resulting coverage will provide an inside look at the most intriguing companies, discoveries and technological innovations coming out of this essential Philadelphia institution.
 

It should come as no surprise to readers of Flying Kite that a lot of innovation – and news of innovation – comes from the University City Science Center. 
 
Now Flying Kite and the Science Center have embarked on a new partnership, a way to keep up with the amazing output generated by this dynamic hub for innovation, entrepreneurship and technology commercialization.
 
For the next year as "Writer in Residence," I’ll be filing regular dispatches, offering an in-depth look at the West Philly institution's scientists, entrepreneurs, startups, and established companies, along with the work it does to move technology out of the lab and into the marketplace.
 
Founded in 1963, the Science Center is the oldest and largest urban research park in the United States. In service of its goal -- "to inspire a community of knowledge, spark the spirit of enterprise, and help expand and strengthen the Philadelphia’s region’s technology sector" – the campus offers an array of services including lab and office space, business incubation, support services and programming for entrepreneurs.
 
A few numbers reflect the magnitude of the Science Center’s impact on the region:

• The Science Center has 17 buildings – and is fast growing – at its 17-acre West Philadelphia campus.
• 8,000 people come to work at the Science Center every day.
• More than 350 companies have "graduated" since 1963.
• 93 graduate companies located in Greater Philadelphia employ 15,000 people.
• Graduate and current incubator companies generate $9.4 billion in annual regional economic impact.
• The Science Center’s 31 nonprofit shareholders include many of the region’s leading colleges, universities, hospitals and research institutions.

Over the next year, Flying Kite will report on many aspects of the Science Center’s programs and resources. For now, a quick primer:

• The Port Business Incubators flexibly accommodate the changing needs of emerging, fast-growth life sciences, physical sciences and digital technology companies. The Global Soft Landing Program fosters international business in the U.S. by helping global companies establish a foothold in local life sciences and IT markets. The Digital Health Accelerator (DHA) supports early-stage digital health companies with funding, office space, professional mentorship and introductions to key stakeholders in the region.
   
• The QED Proof-of-Concept Program supports proof-of-concept work in early-stage life science and health technologies with commercial potential. 
   
• Quorum unites the region’s entrepreneurial and innovation communities through a central gathering space on the Science Center campus.
   
• FirstHand adds art to the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and math) to create project-based STEAM programs and workshops that empower individuals and convene communities around creative applications of technology.
   
• The Innovation Center @3401 is a flexible workspace for startups.
   
• Blackstone LaunchPad Philadelphia supports student entrepreneurship in the Greater Philadelphia region through a partnership between Philadelphia University, Temple University and the Science Center. 

So watch this space and stay abreast as the Science Center takes Philadelphia innovators "from idea to IPO."

WRITER IN RESIDENCE is a partnership between the University City Science Center and Flying Kite Media that embeds a reporter on-site at 3711 Market Street. The resulting coverage will provide an inside look at the most intriguing companies, discoveries and technological innovations coming out of this essential Philadelphia institution.
 

Dr. Michelle Johnson isn’t a Philadelphia native – she’s been heading up the new Rehabilitation Robotics Lab out of University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP (general robotics, automation, sensing & perception) laboratory for only about two years – so when she heard she’d been nominated for Scientist of the Year in the Philadelphia Geek Awards, she didn’t know what to think.

"Since I’m new to Philadelphia, I didn’t know what it meant," she explains. "I’m like, 'What? Is that a good thing?'"

In Philadelphia, also known as the "eds and meds" capital of the U.S., it definitely is. But in the truest geek fashion, Johnson wasn’t even able to make it to the August 15 ceremony at the Academy of Natural Sciences. She spoke to Flying Kite about her recent work from Singapore, where she and her Penn team were presenting at the International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, before jaunting to Botswana for some more research.

The Jamaican-born Johnson grew up in New York and received her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford with an emphasis in robotics, design and mechatronics. (Don’t know what mechatronics is? It’s a combination of mechanical engineering, computing and electronics to help us discover and develop new manufacturing techniques.)

In 2013, Johnson moved her lab from its original location in the medical college of Wisconsin’s Marquette University to the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, taking up a faculty position at Penn.

Johnson acknowledges that her focus -- robots that assist in rehabilitation and treatment for people dealing with things such as spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and other problems -- is a very narrow slice of a rapidly expanding field, one that has been around only for the last 25 years or so.

Engineers like Johnson and her team at Penn work closely with neuroscientists. Neuroplasticity is the name of the game: the brain’s ability to re-wire and reroute itself after an injury. It's crucial in fields such as prosthetics -- where patients’ brains learn to interact with robotic devices that restore the body’s function -- or to bolster limbs weakened from conditions like MS.

With cutting-edge technologies like EEGs and functional MRIs revealing our neurons’ "structural connectivity," they're working not just to understand the normal brain, but also to piece together what happens when the brain becomes damaged, and develop technology to pair with our bodies in ways that were unimaginable a few decades ago.

Things like Ekso Bionics, which help people with spinal cord injuries to walk again, get a lot of press, but Johnson also points to work like functional electrical stimulation and implanted electrodes as recent major advances in rehab, along with rehabilitative robotic devices that enable injured patients to continue crucial exercise regimens at home for a much longer time than is feasible in hospital settings. Wearable sensors, especially those invisibly embedded in textiles (with myriad applications for remote monitoring of patients), are also part of the next big wave of medical robotics, even if it’s not widely commercialized yet.

Though proud of her recent nomination, Johnson stresses that science is a team sport.

"Oftentimes when you get the accolade, you forget all the students and the support staff that really are critical to this process," she insists. "I want to really make clear that nothing can happen without that team…I want to congratulate my team for working hard and doing good research."

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Michelle Johnson, Ph.D., Rehabilitation Robotics Lab at Penn

Once upon a time, we humans were content to sail ships across oceans with nothing but the sun and stars to figure out where we were, but things are a little different today. Chet Dagit, founder and managing director of the Radnor-based RTP Holdings, says that nowadays, satellite GPS can help us locate ourselves on this round earth within three meters of a given spot, but for a lot of industries, even that’s not enough.

"Micro-location solutions" is what RTP has been working on since its genesis three years ago; the company now has one year of operations under its belt. The technology is also called "augmented GPS"  -- it works with the help of a radio tower on the ground. On a large outdoor site such as a golf-course, plugged-in users can locate themselves to within a single meter with the help of a map in the cloud.

This technology is crucial for the modern aviation and maritime industries, says Dagit, but RTP is also helping to develop the next wave of micro-location: GPS that works through a specialized app indoors, helping users navigate their way through large buildings and attractions such as college campuses or museums.

The apps use WiFi and now Bluetooth Beacon for ground references, and RTP’s services to their clients come in two main parts: the positioning of these devices and the actual indoor mapping. They survey buildings to ensure the right number and location of WiFi access points, input those spots to a three-dimensional grid of the space, and then get the building’s floor-plan mapped into the app-accessed cloud.

To imagine an immediate and urgent application, picture calling 911 on your cell phone from inside a huge building and letting the app guide EMTs right to you. Or you can simply figure out what museum exhibit is a two-minute step from where you’re currently standing.

RTP recently held its first public demonstration of its trademarked Lokita Solution system for indoor micro-location mobile apps. It was a big success: Their new beta app, The @UPenn Xperience (now available in the Apple iTunes App store) took first place at the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT) Wayfinding App Challenge in late June, hosted by PACT and co-sponsored by Penn and Independence Blue Cross.

"The new app helps students and visitors to Penn’s campus navigate and discover the art-filled campus and surrounding city," said RTP in a statement about the win, which came with a $30,000 prize.

"It really makes our solution tangible, so [people] can see it in action," says Dagit of the presentation and the prize. The company put their competition team and demo together in less than a month.

"That really shows our prospective customers how quickly we can get things done, and the quality of our work on a certain timeline," he adds.

"Philly is one of the leading cities in the country for indoor mapping," he continues, expaining that we're second only to Las Vegas in the number of buildings using this type of technology. "I just think we’re progressive with technology, maybe a little bit more early adopters, and we’re all about these great public venues that we have."

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Chet Dagit: RTP Holdings

Fresh from its victory helping the Philadelphia Cultural Fund secure stable funding for 2016, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance is on the trail of innovations that spark deeper collaborations between the local arts and technology sectors.
 
2014 saw the launch of the organization’s TechniCulture Initiative, and president Maud Lyon says this year’s TechniCulture Innovation Residency Awards, announced in June, further that work.
 
Local cultural groups invited to apply for the residencies must have an annual operating budget of $1 million or less. The hard part isn’t necessarily finding the solution to a problem, but trying to frame what you need in the first place.

"One of the things that’s both fascinating and intimidating for technology is that you don’t even know what questions to ask," explains Lyon. 
 
That’s what these unique art/tech residencies, each seeded with $2,000, are going to help three local organizations accomplish. Winners will be paired with a technologist or a digital agency who will work in-depth with them for months to help them achieve something they don’t have the resources to develop on their own.
 
"What really is an issue for a lot of organizations is that they sort of have an idea that technology could help them with something, but they don’t know what that is," says Lyon. On the other hand, "the technology people can create an app for anything, but they need to understand what the organization’s really trying to accomplish."
  
What those projects will be is still an open question, but Lyon points to challenges such as better management of existing data, better audience and consumer services, new organizational capacities, new forms of art, or more efficient, effective business models.
 
A specific timeline is in place. On July 16, the Cultural Alliance is hosting a free orientation session for interested organizations (register online); August 21 is the deadline for applications. Three winning organizations will receive their new tech residency partner on September 30.
 
The first phase will include 80 hours of work from the participating tech professional or firm between October and December, developing an actionable concept. In early 2016, a "design challenge" will follow in which volunteering technologists, marketers, and communications and development experts create grant-ready road maps for implementation of the three residencies’ concepts, pinpointing the platform or medium and estimating costs. (The Alliance has an open call for TechniCulture design challenge partners; interested professionals or firms should contact grants and program manager Tracy Buchanan at [email protected].)
 
The TechniCulture Innovation Residency Awards will culminate in a public presentation on April 29 as part of Philly Tech Week 2016. An audience vote will award one of the concepts further dollars for implementation, but all three organizations will walk away with a concept ready for funding.
  
Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Maud Lyon, Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance

As Philadelphia's University City Science Center points out on its website, when it was founded in 1963, "the war on cancer had not been declared, the Apollo astronauts had yet to walk on the moon, and the first commercial microprocessor was eight years away."

Now the renowned urban research park -- already the oldest and largest in the U.S. -- has announced plans to double the size of its campus and accelerate the creation of a globally recognized innovation district for science and technology in West Philadelphia. 

In a joint venture with Wexford Science + Technology, a Baltimore-based biomed realty company, the Center is exploring joint development opportunities for nearly four million square feet of office, laboratory, residential, retail and parking space over the next 10 years. These opportunities include development of the former University City High School site adjacent to the Science Center and the three remaining open parcels on the existing campus: 3400, 3800 and 3850 Market Street.
 
Wexford has a wealth of experience in this area -- they have already developed 4.35 million square feet across 11 knowledge communities built upon a foundation of research, discovery and entrepreneurial activity. Their projects offer the programs, amenities and activities attractive to life science and technology companies and their employees.
 
To date, the Science Center and Wexford have successfully completed three development projects at 3701, 3711 and 3737 Market Street. These projects include multi-story buildings with lab, office and clinical spaces, structured parking and ground-floor retail spaces. 

"Our strong partnership with Wexford enables us to take a proactive and engaged approach to the changing landscape of Philadelphia’s fastest-growing innovation neighborhood," explained Science Center President & CEO Stephen S. Tang in a statement.

"Combining the vision and commercialization success of the Science Center, the development and programming expertise of Wexford and the intellectual capital and research strength of the institutions in University City, such as Drexel, Penn and Children’s Hospital, this partnership is primed to create a new environment of innovation and collaboration that will expand University City’s role as the fastest-growing economic engine and destination for innovation in Philadelphia and the region," added Jim Berens, president of Wexford.

Source: University City Science Center
Writer: Elise Vider
 

For the chronically ill, managing multiple medications can be an ongoing challenge. One-third to one-half of all U.S. patients do not take their meds as directed, jeopardizing their health and running up nearly $100 billion in annual hospital bills, according to Independence Blue Cross (IBX).

Hoping to solve that problem, TowerView Health, a Philadelphia startup, is testing its high-tech pillbox in a six-month study with Independence and Penn Medicine. 

"TowerView has two brilliant engineers that have developed the pillbox technology almost entirely in-house," explains company CEO Rahul Jain. "Our team has been working for over a year to provide patients with a pillbox that can sense when they miss a dose of their medication and send the patient and/or their caregiver an automated phone or text message reminder."

The company was established in 2014 when co-founder Nick Valilis was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia during his first week of medical school. Later that year, TowerView participated in the DreamIt Health program to fine-tune its business model and meet potential customers. 

Qualified individuals covered by IBX will be provided with pre-filled medication trays, each containing a week’s medication. The tray fits inside TowerView's Internet-enabled pillbox. For those without cell phones, the pillbox is equipped with lights and alarms. Penn Medicine researchers will use an integrated software platform to monitor members' compliance and call to offer additional assistance. 

"Each member will participate in the pilot for six months," says Ron Brooks, IBX senior medical director for clinical services. "The goal is to evaluate the efficacy of TowerView’s system in hopes of launching it to a larger patient population of [IBX] members next year."

Jain also invites individuals -- especially those managing five or more medications -- to email the company directly. 

Source: Rahul Jain, TowerView Health; Independence Blue Cross
Writer: Elise Vider

Ten early-stage companies in Greater Philadelphia are at work on innovative projects, and they're getting a boost from $2 million in new investments from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania. 

Atrin Pharmaceutical is a Bucks County biopharmaceutical firm that centers its research on the treatment of cancers lacking effective therapies. Its technology will advance drug development for the treatment of solid tumors including breast, pancreatic, lung, ovarian and colon cancers.

Decision Simulation in Chester County is the creator of DecisionSim, a simulation-based learning platform that enhances decision-making by allowing organizations to easily create assessment, education and training programs. Leveraging adult learning and gaming concepts, DecisionSim allows custom learning experiences to be developed while evaluating the decisions of learners, and collects valuable objective behavioral data to allow for a greater understanding of decision-making.

H2Odegree (H2O) in Bucks County is a manufacturer of wireless sensors and Software as a Service (SaaS) that provides solutions for measuring, controlling and billing utility costs in apartments, allowing landlords to improve their overall financial performance. The company’s target market is multi-family housing customers who use the company’s products and services for tenant billing and energy conservation related to water, electric, gas, btus and thermostat controls. H2O has over 38,000 sensors installed in 13,000 apartments in over 130 properties throughout North America.

MilkCrate in Philadelphia engages and rewards users who want to live their values by providing sponsored civic and commercial opportunities related to sustainably. Its app serves as a central digital hub for municipalities, businesses and organizations to reach conscientious consumers with relevant and tailored information.

Philadelphia’s Pico is a real-time engagement tool for brands, allowing them to engage with fans during events through the fans' pictures. All fans' pictures are automatically uploaded to the brand’s Facebook Page. Using Pico’s auto-tagging abilities, a real bond between the fan and brand is created.

In Bucks County, PrescribeWell is a new Platform-as-a-Service that enables physicians, healthcare providers and integrated health systems to seamlessly implement a turnkey, self-branded prevention, wellness and obesity intervention business in their existing practice. Customers license the company’s "white label" solution as their own, enabling them to generate significant new revenue streams that leverage the changes in healthcare reimbursement policy for physicians in preventive medicine.

In Philadelphia, RistCall helps hospitals and skilled nursing facilities improve patient safety and satisfaction scores by updating traditional wall-mounted nurse-call buttons with wearable technology devices. RistCall currently focuses on reducing patient falls and improving hospital/patient satisfaction.

Philadelphia’s Textizen provides mobile technologies for public engagement. The company makes it easy for government, organizations and companies to connect with people on the device they use most -- their mobile phone. The platform sends, receives and analyzes text messages. Administrators can click one button instead of making 10 or 10,000 phone calls, and use real-time dashboards to inform policy changes or deliver better customer service.

TowerView Health in Philadelphia helps chronically ill patients manage complex medication regimens. Patients using TowerView’s service receive pre-filled medication trays that insert into a connected pillbox, facilitating complex regimens with preformed ease -- its akin to a single-serve coffee machine. The connected pillbox senses when patients forget medication doses and sends automated text message or phone reminders to patients and their loved ones.

Viridity Energy in Philadelphia, a software technology company focused on total energy management, has a software and technology platform that allows commercial and industrial users to identify inherent load flexibility in their operations and monetize it. The company says its"“software turns energy profiles into financial returns"” transforming how energy customers interact proactively and productively with the electric grid.

Source: BFTP/SEP
Writer: Elise Vider

When we think of the human element in medicine, we might think of the doctor who interacts with the patient in need of treatment. But thanks to a burgeoning revolution in the biopharmaceutical industry, there are thousands of other face-to-face meetings that need to happen long before any drug even reaches a trial, let alone the market.

In the biotech industry, these connections are called "partnering," and it’s a vital piece of the Biotechnology Industry Organization's (BIO) 2015 BIO International Convention, coming to the Pennsylvania Convention Center June 15-18. The Washington, D.C.-based BIO is the world’s largest trade association for biotech companies, academic institutions and government science centers, and organizers say the convention will draw about 15,000 people from 30 countries (about one third of attendees will come from outside the U.S.).

"The 2015 BIO International Convention is where the global biotech community meets," explains BIO Director of Partnering Sougato Das.

Das calls Partnering "biotech-pharma speed-dating," and this year, it’s happening thanks to BIO’s new propriety software system, One-on-One Partnering, developed by BIO and INOVA.

The BIO convention will be packed with CEOs and other executives from biotech companies all over the world, working to advance everything from medicine and human health to industrial, environmental and agricultural technology, as well as biomanufacturing, genomics, nanotechnology and more. Picture an area the size of a football field, outfitted with hundreds of cubicles for face-to-face meetings. 

That's where the One-on-One platform comes in. Companies or institutions that want to pitch their promising biotech advances can use the software to connect with companies looking to invest in and/or develop and market their innovations. The system allows participants to enter their companies' details, their individual conference schedules, and invitations to the people they need to meet. The software automates the rest, generating a schedule for everyone that maximizes the crucial face-to-face time that powers the modern industry.

During the June conference, organizers estimate that over 29,000 meetings will take place among the 6,000 or so attendees who will participate on the Partnering platform. That means over 1,100 different meetings per hour at the conference’s peak times.  

Why are these meetings important? According to Das, to understand that you have to understand how the biotech and biopharmaceutical industries have changed since the 1950s and 60s. Back then, the massive companies of today like Merck and Pfizer were getting started, employing tens of thousands of in-house scientists and researchers who developed relatively simple drugs with mass-market applications.

Today, what Das dubs the "low-hanging fruit" of new drug development is gone and researchers are working on more complicated molecules, compounds and drugs for more targeted consumer audiences. Instead of discovering and developing new drugs or other biotech innovations in-house, throngs of scientists, researchers, academics, investors and businesses participate in a much broader-based search for the next big breakthrough. But that takes meetings -- lots of meetings.

"There’s more variety out there," says Das. "All they have to do is meet with these people who have these new biotechnology innovations out there and say, show me what you got -- let’s see if it’s a fit for my company."

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Sougato Das, Biotechnology Industry Organization

Being chosen to present at this year's Wharton Business Plan Competition Venture Finals was a surprise to at least one of the eight teams participating in the April 30 event: The founders of ThirdEye are not even Wharton students (yet) -- they’re freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania. But their technology, an app joined with a wearable Google Glass-type device, has major potential for helping those with visual impairments live more independent lives.
 
ThirdEye co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Rajat Bhageria (author of What High School Didn’t Teach Me) isn’t wasting any time in the quest to build world-changing technology. He teamed up with Ben Sandler (ThirdEye founding head engineer and a computer and cognitive science major), Philippines native David Ongchoco (founding head marketer and media maven), and founding engineer Joe Cappadona (an "athlete, musician, and computer programmer") to develop the technology and business plan almost as soon as they arrived at Penn.
 
"I want to leave a dent in the universe by creating things that people want," explains Bhageria, a Cincinnati native and computer science engineering major. "We believe in empowering visually impaired individuals."

There are a lot of people who could use their technology -- there are about 300 million visually impaired people in the world; they generate over $41 billion in spending on assistive technologies annually.
 
The ThirdEye glasses and app work by verbally identifying common objects for wearers who can pick them up, but can’t see them. For example, its camera and voice can tell blind people what denomination of money they’re handed or what kind of pill bottle or household item they’re holding. (Check out the ThirdEye website for a video demo.)

Other uses include identifying street signs and even being able to read books, menus and newspapers. Bhageria says future updates could incorporate facial recognition software, language translation for travelers, and recognition of individual medications and foods.

They’re already partnering with the National Federation of the Blind to bring the product to market.

Though the young men aren’t enrolled in grad school yet, "we have been leveraging every opportunity at Wharton we can get our hands on," enthuses Bhageria. The team talks to professors weekly, joined Wharton’s Venture Initiation Program startup incubator, participates in Wharton events and competitions, and takes Wharton classes.
 
All that learning and networking -- and the intense time put into current competition -- is already paying off. The company began building their product last September and are already in beta testing with visually impaired individuals. They’re heading for a clinical study this summer with up to 20 participants, with a national beta launch in view for later in the year.
 
As for the April 30 pitch-fest itself, initially the team "had no expectation of doing well considering that most of the participants -- MBA students -- have years of industry experience over us," says Bhageria, but their confidence has been growing.
 
"Now we’re not just in it for the experience," he insists. "We’re in it to win it."

There’s $128,500 in cash and in-kind awards at stake, including the $30,000 Perlman Grand Prize. That would be a great boost to the team as they head into clinical trials, and "could be fundamental in opening doors for insurance to cover our product."
 
The Wharton Business Plan Competition Venture Finals featuring 20-minute presentations from the "Great Eight" finalists is happening 1 - 6 p.m. Thursday, April 30 at the Wharton School.
 
Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Rajat Bhageria, Third Eye

A Penn State team has launched a crowdfunding campaign to support its promising research on brain repair.

"Our revolutionary technology holds promise as a potential treatment for many brain injuries and disorders," explains Gong Chen, a biology professor and the Verne M. Willaman Chair in Life Sciences, who heads the research. "We recently discovered a way to transform one type of a patient's own brain cells -- called glial cells -- into healthy, functioning nerve cells that can replace those damaged by Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, brain trauma, spinal-cord trauma or stroke. For the first time in history, our revolutionary technology now can reverse glial scars back into functional neural tissue inside the brain."

According to an article written by Penn State spokeswoman Barbara Kennedy and originally published in the Centre Daily Times, Chen’s team has published research describing its success: "Even in very old mice with Alzheimer’s disease, [they were] able to regenerate many functional neurons from the internal glial cells of these mice and to replenish the lost neurons in the brains of the mice. This research raises the hope that neural-replacement therapy might someday help human patients."

The new month-long crowdfunding campaign has a $50,000 goal and ends at the end of April. The money will allow the lab to purchase critical equipment and materials, and to proceed more quickly to clinical trials. 

"It will take at least an estimated $1 million per year to hire highly skilled people and to carry out vital tests on several specific disorders," says Chen. "With [funding] we can move our lab research to human clinical trials much faster, perhaps shortening the delivery of drug therapy to patients from 10 years to five years."

Source: Barbara Kennedy, Penn State University
Writer: Elise Vider

In the sounds-like-science-fiction department comes BioBots, a Philadelphia startup developing high-resolution, desktop 3D printers that generate living tissue.

"BioBots is like a 3D printer, but instead of using plastic filament to create 3D structures, it uses mixtures of biocompatible materials (like collagen) and living cells to create 3D tissues," explains CEO Danny Cabrera. "The finished product that comes out of the BioBot is alive."

The first-generation BioBots 1 printer can generate a dozen different cell types. 
  
With over 120,000 patients in the United States on organ-transfer waiting lists, building replacement organs is a long-term goal for the company. For now, the printers are primarily used for research.

"Biofabrication technology is definitely becoming more and more accessible in functionality, ease of use and cost, and that is going to greatly accelerate the pace of development," says Cabrera. "We are currently focusing on making the best research tool for our customers, taking structures out of lab note books and onto lab benches. It’s only a matter of time before those same structures start leaking out of the lab and into the clinic." 

Co-founder Ricardo Solorzano started working on printing 3D tissues -- and built the first prototype -- in his University of Pennsylvania dorm room. In August, he and Penn classmates Cabrera and Sohaib Hashmi launched the company. The startup initially grew at the DreamIt Health incubator and recently received funding from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania. 

BiotBots is also opening a seed round of funding; actively promoting its beta program; offering testers a bioprinter and support for $5,000; and recruiting for its R&D team.

"The BioBot 1 is exciting, but it’s definitely not all we have up our sleeves," insists Cabrera. "Look out for a radical change in a few healthcare-related industries and new industries being created by our technology."

Source: Danny Cabrera, BioBots
Writer: Elise Vider
 

The University of Pennsylvania's new Penn Center for Innovation, described as "a dedicated, one-stop shop for commercial partnering with Penn," has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to foster entrepreneurship and commercialization.

Under the three-year grant, Penn is launching the Penn I-Corps Site, a new business accelerator, in collaboration with Wharton's Mack Institute for Innovation Management, Penn Medicine’s Center for Healthcare Innovation, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/SEP) and the City of Philadelphia.

In its grant announcement, Penn said the Penn I-Corps Site will "support translation of research areas into the marketplace by providing educational programming, financial advice and strategic guidance."

The accelerator gets underway this summer with 30 faculty-student interdisciplinary teams creating commercialization plans for their early-stage technology. The goal is to help the teams launch new ventures by the end of 2015 with well-developed business models that position them to apply for further NSF funding.

The Summer Accelerator Program is open to Penn faculty and students as well as local entrepreneurs. An organizational meeting is set for 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, February 24 at the World Café Live (3025 Walnut St., Philadelphia).

A committee comprised of investors, experienced entrepreneurs and industry experts will select the participants; the program will launch in May. The teams will have access to lectures and hands-on activities, guidance on developing and testing their business models, up to $2,500 in NSF funding for prototyping and other expenses, and connections to an extensive entrepreneurial network.

"We’re excited to work together to build a network of mentors and advisors to help the teams gain real-world experience in bringing technology from the lab to the market," explains RoseAnn Rosenthal, president and CEO of BFTP/SEP, "and to build a pipeline of investable enterprises that can creative economic value in our region."

Source: The Penn Center for Innovation
Writer: Elise Vider

 

Last week, we took a look at how the graphene technology developed at the University of Pennsylvania is shaping the global marketplace, and now, a pair of Penn students has won the annual Y-Prize contest for applying this rapidly-growing field to the problems of fracking.

Winners Ashwin Amurthur and Teddy Guenin are both fourth-year students of dual-degree programs at Penn Engineering and the Wharton School. Guenin, a Lancaster native, is doing his undergrad work in bioengineering, marketing and management, with a master’s in mechanical engineering on deck after that, and Amurthur, from Princeton Junction, N.J., is majoring in bioengineering and finance.

This year, the Y-Prize contest invited students to develop a new application for existing Penn nanotechnology, and drew a record 19 entries. Four finalists presented their concepts to a panel of judges on January 28, and Guenin and Amurthur nabbed the $5,000 first prize. The funds aren't the only reward: they also receive the framework for a non-exclusive license to the Penn technology, an important first step in commercializing their proposal.

Guenin says the controversy of natural gas drilling's environmental effects loomed large as he grew up in central Pennsylvania. Together, the young men have applied Penn’s graphene field-effect transistor (GFET) technology to the detection of benzene in groundwater.

Currently, drilling companies who suspect leaks in the underground casings of their equipment -- and local governments and consumers worried about water contamination -- don’t have a reliable way to confirm and pinpoint those leaks. Groundwater can be tested for levels of various chemical ions and compounds like chlorides, but since these can occur naturally in some water samples regardless of the side-effects of fracking, the tests don’t offer conclusive answers.

"The oil companies want to know for sure, do we have a leak or not?" Amurthur explains.

The Y-Prize team’s answer is GFETs for detecting benzene, a carcinogenic compound used in fracking fluid that usually does not occur in groundwater naturally.

If the team can develop their benzene GFETs and bring them to market, "you could more conclusively say that you do have a leak," Amurthur continues. It’s vital information for municipalities, drilling companies and consumers alike, and could ensure more rapid and accurate repair of leaking casings, enhanced safety, increased profits and a protected environment.

Though there’s a lot of work yet to be done to bring this concept to market, Guenin is excited about the opportunities for networking and the support the Y-Prize win will bring.

"It’s awesome that we were able to get this," he says. "And we’re really really excited to move forward with it."

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Sources: Ashwin Amurthur and Teddy Guenin, GFET-Frack Technologies
 

When you need to give your loved one an ETA or figure out the quickest way to your next meeting, there are many ways to do it: A peek at the clock, your calendar and maybe Google maps, a bit of mental math, and opening up a messenger app to tap out a quick note.

Wait. Too many steps? 20-year-old Ari Weinstein thought so, and decided to give a new meaning to the word "workflow."

In his new app, released last December with partner Conrad Kramer (an 18-year-old Cherry Hill native), workflow has become a singular, individualized concept. For example, here’s a workflow for you: I have a picture on my phone that I want to share on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all at once. I want a button on my home screen that’ll do all that automatically. Or, I'm viewing a website, and I want to make, save and send an instant PDF of it. Thanks to the Workflow app, there’s "a workflow" for that -- in other words, a way to customize and automate multi-step digital tasks you need throughout the day -- and pretty much anything else you want to do on your smartphone.

"One way to describe it would be that Workflow lets you automate different things that you do every day, so you can do them just with a push of a button," explains Weinstein. "You can sort of make these really personalized experiences that automate things that only you do.

You can get creative and make your own workflows or you can engage with an online community sharing the workflows they’ve invented.

Weinstein (son of Philly Office Retail president Ken Weinstein) is a West Mt. Airy native who graduated from Germantown Friends School, took a "gap year" before college to work in California, and then started at MIT in 2013. But in December of that year, he and Kramer applied for a Thiel Fellowship, granted every year to 20 college students under the age of 20 nationwide. The fellowship offers the winners $100,000 over two years to pursue a passion outside of the classroom. (Workflow is Weinstein’s second app launch; he also developed DeskConnect.)

Weinstein and Kramer, now based in San Francisco, found out they’d been selected for the fellowship in May 2014.

Since then, things have moved quickly.

"The launch went incredibly well," recalls Weinstein. Apple selected Workflow as an editor’s choice in the app store, showing it on a banner to everyone who visited the site.  

"It was the no. 1 most downloaded app on the [paid] app store for four days," he continues. "We’ve just been thrilled with the way people have taken advantage of it. People have made hundreds of thousands of workflows, some of which are really cool that we never would have thought of."

There are now three guys on the startup's team: 18-year-old Nick Frey, from Iowa, has joined Weinstein and Kramer.

And this is still just the earliest version of the app -- Weinstein hints at "a big update" they hope to launch by February.

So does he want to go back to school?

"That’s a hard question," he muses. "I’m not sure I can make that call right now."

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Ari Weinstein, Workflow