The Bay Area Photovoltaic Consortium (BAPVC) unveiled its first research grants aimed at making utility-scale solar power cost-competitive by the end of the decade. The new funds from the consortium — an industry-backed venture led by Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley — total $7.5 million.
The grants will support 18 projects at BAPVC partner institutions: Stanford, UC-Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The three-year grants are expected to develop new technologies that aim to reduce the cost of photovoltaic modules and make large-scale solar technology cheaper for electric utilities by 2020.
BAPVC was formed in April 2011, funded by a $25 million grant from Department of Energy. The consortium says it finds and funds research in universities in the U.S. to advance photovoltaic manufacturing technologies, focusing on innovations that can be transferred to industry within three to five years.
The 18 BAPVC grant recipients are expected to develop new materials and processes that improve efficiency and drive down the manufacturing cost of solar module components. In a utility-scale photovoltaic system, says BAPVC, about half of the installed cost goes into permits, power electronics, mounting hardware and other on-site construction costs. The solar module itself accounts for about half of the cost.
One research team, led by Eli Yablonovitch, an electrical engineering and computer sciences professor at UC-Berkeley, is developing high-voltage solar cell absorbers with an efficiency of 34 percent. Several researchers are testing nanotechnologies that could improve the absorption and trapping of sunlight.
One of the nanotechnology projects, led by Mark Brongersma, a materials science and engineering professor at Stanford, involves new nano-fabrication techniques that would make metallic electrodes virtually invisible to incoming light, leading to thinner devices that would be less expensive to make. Researchers are also looking for ways to improve the encapsulation system on solar modules, the glass and polymer sheets that protect the solar cell from the environment.
Some 25 industry members and associates of BAPVC help establish the group’s overall research agenda, and review and recommend research proposals with the strongest technical merits and commercial potential. Eleven industry members have contributed more than $500,000 in annual fees to support the research.
The venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Menlo Park, California has closed a $525 million venture capital fund for equity investments in early-stage green technology and life sciences, as well as digital enterprise companies. The fund, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers XV LLC (KPCB 15) will be led by 10 of the company’s managing members.
KPCB’s green technology investments support solutions in the fields of clean water, renewable energy, next-generation transportation, and sustainable agriculture. Recent green tech investments include Aquion Energy Inc. in Pittsburgh, a developer of sodium ion batteries and energy storage systems. Aquion Energy, a spin-off of Carnegie Mellon University announced in February plans to build a manufacturing plant in southwest Pennsylvania that expects to create 400 high-tech jobs.
KPCB says it has funded over 100 life sciences companies developing new health care technologies covering therapeutic and medical devices, drugs, vaccines, personalized medicine, diagnostics, and health care IT and services. Foundation Medicine in Cambridge, Massachusetts is a recent early stage KPCB investment. Foundation Medicine was founded in 2010 to devise comprehensive diagnostic tests that analyze relevant tumor genomes and other molecular information in individual patients’ cancers and connect the results to a knowledge base of clinical data to help oncologists personalize treatment. Foundation Medicine’s founders include scientists from the Broad Institute, Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and MIT.
The company’s other funds provide financing for later-stage companies in digital and green technologies, mobile applications, and social media. KPCB says it provides support to its portfolio companies through recruitment and talent management, building strategic relationships, as well as expertise in operations, marketing, and communications.
Researchers at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, National Institutes of Health, Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, and Abt Associates in Bethesda, Maryland found patients who receive genetic tests for susceptibility to disease were no more likely to use medical services after receiving the results than before the tests. The study results appear online today in the journal Genetics in Medicine.
The study involves patients taking part in the Multiplex Initiative, a collaboration of Group Health, Henry Ford Hospital, and NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute and National Cancer Institute to evaluate multiplex genetic testing with patients who are members of a large managed care organization. Multiplex tests give individuals feedback on a range of genetic variants, and the number of these test services has proliferated.
In this study, 217 healthy people between the ages of 25 and 40 participated in genetic susceptibility testing for eight conditions, offered by their health plan. The researchers then analyzed health care usage by the participants in the 12 months before genetic testing and the 12 months following the testing, using electronic health care records rather than self-reported behavior. The team also compared the test group’s behavior with a group of about 400 similar plan members who declined the testing offer.
All of the participants in the multiplex test carried at least one at-risk genetic marker, with the majority carrying an average of nine at-risk variants. The tests performed for the Multiplex Initiative include a set of genetic variants reliably associated with an increase in disease risk and for which some corrective health behavior has been shown to prevent illness.
The researchers measured health care use by the number of physician visits and laboratory tests or procedures the people received, particularly those services associated with four of the eight conditions in the multiplex test array. Most of the procedures or screening tests counted are not among those recommended for people in this age group who don’t have symptoms. The researchers found that participants in genetic testing do not change their overall use of health care services compared with those not tested.
The findings show no statistically significant differences by either group in the prior use of any common medical tests or procedures associated with four common health conditions. When changes in physician and medical test or procedure use after the genetic tests were compared among the groups, no statistically significant differences are observed for any category of medical care use.
Colleen McBride, who heads the social and behavioral branch of NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute and one of the study authors, says the study can start answering questions about the use of genetic test results to guide people towards making positive lifestyle and health behavior changes. “This study goes a long way towards bringing data to these debates,” says McBride, “and shows that people are not likely to make inappropriate demands of health delivery systems if they are properly informed about the limitations of genetic tests.”
Steel coated with a graphene compound, in foreground, remains rust-free, while and the uncoated steel in the background accumulates rust. (University at Buffalo)
Chemistry researchers from University at Buffalo in New York are developing a process for rust-proofing steel using a graphene-based composite as a coating. The Indian steel manufacturer Tata Steel is participating in the research by chemistry professor Sarbajit Banerjee and doctoral candidate Robert Dennis.
In early experiments, Banerjee and Dennis were able to increase the amount of time pieces of steel coated with a graphene varnish remained rust-free from a few days to about a month, when the steel was left immersed in a harsh, salty brine solution. The chemists were able to achieve the longer rust-proofing duration by adjusting the concentration and dispersion of graphene in the varnish. The briny test solution is considered far more damaging to steel than day-to-day exposure to the environment.
Graphene is a material configured as a layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, with unusual qualities of strength and conductivity which make it a versatile ingredient for a range of electronics, communications, and industrial products. The material’s water-repellant and conductive properties may help prevent corrosion and slow the oxidation of steel known as rust.
A new form of steel coating would meet an industry need for a non-toxic alternative to coatings used with stainless steel and chrome plating that contain hexavalent chromium. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration says workers who breathe hexavalent chromium compounds at their jobs for many years may be at increased risk of developing lung cancer. Breathing high levels of hexavalent chromium can irritate or damage the nose, throat, lungs, eyes, and skin, particularly in high concentrations or for a prolonged period of time.
Banerjee and Dennis will next aim to enhance the graphene composite’s lasting power, as well as the quality of its finish, supported by a $50,000 grant from the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute. Tata Steel has helped the project with testing of various sizes of sample pieces.
Buffalo’s technology transfer office has filed a provisional patent for the coating. The university says Tata Steel also has some rights to the technology.
In the following video Dennis — a native of Western New York — tells how the project dovetails with Buffalo’s history as a center for steel manufacturing.
Researchers at the Yale University medical school have found that since 2001, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) generally approves drug therapies faster and earlier than its counterparts in Canada and Europe. The findings of medical student Nicholas Downing and colleagues appear online in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Downing’s team, under the direction of internal medicine professor Joseph Ross, reviewed drug approval decisions of the FDA, the Canadian drug regulator Health Canada, and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) between 2001 and 2010. The researchers chose the regulatory authorities in Canada and Europe for comparison because they face similar pressures to approve new drugs quickly while ensuring they do not put patients at risk.
“The perception that the FDA is too slow implies that sick patients are waiting unnecessarily for regulators to complete their review of new drug applications,” says Downing.
The research looked into each regulator’s database of drug approvals to identify new or different therapies as well as the timing of key regulatory events, which allowed the speed of regulatory reviews to be calculated. The team found that FDA takes a median total time to review of 322 days, while EMA’s median review time is 366 days, with 393 days for Health Canada.
In addition to the total time required for for review, the Yale researchers examined the agencies that approved drugs first, when companies sought approval in more than one jurisdiction. Among 289 unique new therapies, 190 were approved in both the United States and Europe — either by the EMA or through a process of mutual recognition — 154 in both the United States and Canada, and 137 in both Europe and Canada.
Among the 190 drugs approved in both the United States and Europe, nearly two-thirds (64%) were first approved in the United States, with the products available a median of 96 days earlier in the United States. The same pattern emerges for the 154 drugs approved in the United States and Canada, where an overwhelming majority (86%) were first approved in the United States, and available a median of 355 days earlier in the United States.
The authors caution that the study investigated only the speed of review, not their quality, nor decisions on drug safety or effectiveness. Also, the team focused on new molecular and biologic therapeutics, not reformulations of drugs, generics, or medical devices.
Venture capital investments in semiconductor companies worldwide rose significantly in April 2012, compared both to March and April 2011. The Global Semiconductor Alliance in London compiles and publishes these statistics each month.
The organization reports that semiconductor companies received $194.2 million in venture capital in April 2012, a 10-fold increase over March 2012, and more than five times the amount invested in April 2011. That investment covers integrated device manufacturers, “fabless” companies — those that design and develop semiconductors, but outsource the manufacturing — and semiconductor suppliers.
Global Semiconductor Alliance says eight companies received the $194.2 million in investments in April 2012, double the number of investments last April and a 60 percent increase over March. Of the eight companies, five were fabless developers and three were semiconductor suppliers.
The organization also reported on exits in April – company actions to become financially self-sufficient, thus exiting venture capital funding. In April, Audience Inc. announced the terms for its initial public offering (IPO). The Mountain View, California company is a fabless developer of voice and audio processors for mobile devices.
Global Semiconductor Alliance reported as well that seven mergers or acquisitions occurred in the semidonductor industry during April. The largest of these deals was the acquisition of PLX Technology by Integrated Device Technology (IDT) Inc., for $330 million. IDT, in San Jose, California, is a developer and manufacturer of semiconductor devices for communications, computing, and consumer systems.
Two stroke victims with tetraplegia — total loss of the use of limbs and torso — were able to control robotic arms with brain activity to reach, grasp, and use physical objects. The results of this study from the BrainGate project are reported today online in the journal Nature (paid subscription required).
The BrainGate project is a collaboration of researchers from Department of Veterans Affairs, Brown University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The results reported in Nature are part of a clinical trial of the BrainGate neural interface system, which implants a miniature electrode grid, about the size of a baby aspirin (pictured left), in the motor cortex — the part of the brain involved in voluntary movement — of the stroke victims.
The electrodes in the implant are close enough to individual neurons to record the neural activity associated with intended movement. An external computer translates the pattern of impulses from the population of neurons into commands to operate assistive devices. For the trial, those assistive devices are robotic arms developed by the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics and DEKA Research and Development Corp., to perform reaching and grasping tasks across a three-dimensional space.
Participants in the trial are a 58-year-old woman, known as S3, and a 66-year-old man, known as T2. Both individuals had been paralyzed by brainstem strokes years earlier which left them with no functional control of their limbs. Both S3 and T2 controlled the robotic arms to reach for and grasp foam targets that were placed in front of them using flexible supports.
S3 was also able to use the DLR arm to pick up a bottle of coffee, bring it to her mouth, issue a command to tip it, drink through a straw, and return the bottle to the table. Her BrainGate-enabled, robotic-arm control during the drinking task required a combination of two-dimensional movements across a table top plus a “grasp” command to either grasp and lift or tilt the robotic hand; see video below.
In the research, the robots acted as a substitute for each participant’s paralyzed arm. The robotic arms responded to the participants’ intent to move as they imagined reaching for each foam target. The robot hand, for example, grasped the target when the participants imagined a hand squeeze. Because the diameter of the targets was more than half the width of the robot hand openings, the task required the participants to exert precise control.
In 158 exercises using the DLR and DEKA robotic arms, both participants were able to touch the targets within the allotted times from just under half to more than two-thirds of the time. T2 touched the target with the DEKA arm 96 percent of the time.
T2, says Brown University, performed the session in this study on his fourth day of interacting with the DEKA arm. Using his eyes to indicate each letter, he later described his control of the arm: “I just imagined moving my own arm and the arm moved where I wanted it to go.”
The BrainGate neural interface system is being studied under an Investigational Device Exemption from the Food and Drug Administration. This exemption allows a device to be studied in a clinical trial to collect safety and effectiveness data required to support a Premarket Approval application or a Premarket Notification submission to FDA.
“This paper reports an important advance by rigorously demonstrating in more than one participant that precise three-dimensional neural control of robot arms is not only possible, but also repeatable,” says John Donoghue, who directs the Brown Institute for Brain Science, and senior author of the paper. “We’ve moved significantly closer to returning everyday functions, like serving yourself a sip of coffee, usually performed effortlessly by the arm and hand, for people who are unable to move their own limbs.”
The following video tells more about the project and clinical trial.
Agricultural researchers at University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a new kind of oat grain with greater amounts of a compound that can lower the amount of the harmful cholesterol in humans. BetaGene, as the new variety is called, is a product of a 14-year project in the Small Grains Breeding Program in UW-Madison’s agronomy department.
John Mochon, manager of the small grains program (pictured right), says BetaGene is “both a high yielding variety and high in beta glucan.” Beta glucan, Mochon adds, “is a heart-healthy chemical that is exclusive to oats.”
BetaGene has two percent more beta glucan on average than other oat varieties on the market. From a nutrition standpoint, a two percent increase of beta glucan in the grain results in a 20-percent boost in beta glucan levels in products made from that grain.
Beta glucan is believed to act like a sponge that traps cholesterol-rich acids in the bloodstream. The university cites a USDA/Agricultural Research Service report that says consuming 3 grams daily of this soluble fiber — combined with a healthy diet — may lower the blood’s level of low density lipoprotein (LDL), the so-called bad cholesterol, lessening the risk of coronary heart disease.
BetaGene was developed through standard crop breeding methods, not genetic engineering, which took 14 years to develop the variety. Wisconsin agronomists performed the original cross-breeding in 1998. Mochon says it takes 12 to 15 years to prove an experimental crop variety can yield well, fend off disease, and have a track record for success before being considered for release.
The growing of oats in the U.S. and Wisconsin has fallen in recent years due to better returns from other crops and other market forces that have made oats less attractive to farmers. “That’s why I’m trying to add value to oats,” says Mochon. “Things like increased beta glucan, developing forage lines, developing lines that are rust resistant, and developing lines that have a high groat percentage are all part of this effort.”
Researchers at University of Southampton in the U.K. have discovered a method to more accurately measure gas bubbles that develop in pipelines. The team led by Tim Leighton of Southampton’s Institute of Sound and Vibration Research describe their findings online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A (paid subscription required).
Pipelines are used to deliver liquid or gas raw materials in many industries, but when bubbles appear in the pipeline they need to be spotted and understood quickly. Bubbles are a particular issue in extracting oil with off-shore oil rigs. When these bubbles are brought up from the seabed, where pressure is very high, to the rig at the surface, the reduction in pressure causes these bubbles to expand and in turn cause a blow out — a sudden release of oil and/or gas from a well. The failure of the blow out preventer was a key factor in the extensive damage caused by the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
Current methods for estimating bubble size distribution involve sending sound waves through the bubble liquid and comparing the measured attenuation or loss of amplitude of the sound wave as it propagates. The calculations are based on a theory that assumes the bubbles exist in an infinite body of liquid, when in this case, they reside in a constricted volume inside the pipe. With theoretical assumptions not matching real-life conditions, erroneous measurements of bubble distribution can happen.
The Southampton team devised a new measurement method, which takes into account that bubbles are residing in a pipe. To develop and test the new method, Leighton and colleagues made use of the mercury-filled steel pipelines in the test facility at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. SNS is an accelerator that provides intense pulsed neutron beams for scientific research and industrial development.
Oak Ridge Lab is interested in measuring bubble size and distribution because of SNS’s use of helium bubbles in the mercury to absorb shock waves from bombardments of proton beams. Without the bubbles to absorb the force of the beams, the steel in the pipelines could erode faster than anticipated.
Leighton’s team devised and tested new calculations for measuring bubble size distribution, which they reported in the Royal Society paper. Oak Ridge Lab commissioned the team to build instruments to check that their bubble generators can deliver the correct number and size of bubbles to the location where they will protect the pipelines from erosion.
Leighton notes, however, that just after his team designed the calculation methods, “the 2008 global financial crash occurred, and funds were no longer available to build the device into the mercury pipelines of ORNL. A more affordable solution had to be found, which is what we are now working on.” Leighton adds, “The original design has been put on hold for when the world is in a healthier financial state.”
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded yesterday a patent covering biocatalysts and biocatalytic processes used to make intermediate products in the synthesis of hepatitis C drugs. Patent number 8,178,333 was awarded to 13 inventors and assigned to Codexis Inc. in Redwood City, California.
Codexis is a biotechnology company that develops and markets engineered enzymes and intermediate products for the pharmaceutical industry. These tailored enzymes, says Codexis, enable pharma companies to streamline their manufacturing processes, saving them money, and improving profitability.
The new patent covers the company’s catalytic enzymes used to produce protease inhibitors such as boceprevir, marketed as Victrelis by Merck & Co. to treat hepatitis C. In addition, the patent applies to the processes to manufacture those synthetic enzymes. The patent remains in force until 2029.
Researchers from Codexis and Merck published an article that appeared last month in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (paid subscription required), describing an enzyme-based production process for boceprevir. The article says the process was developed while the drug was undergoing clinical trials.
Hepatitis C is a viral disease that causes inflammation of the liver that can lead to diminished liver function or liver failure. Most people with hepatitis C have no symptoms of the disease until liver damage occurs, which may take several years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates between 2.7 and 3.9 Americans are living with hepatitis C, which causes some 12,000 deaths per year.
The Food and Drug Administration approved boceprevir earlier this week, as a treatment for chronic hepatitis C, with patients who still have some liver function, and who either have not been previously treated with drug therapy for their hepatitis C or who have failed such treatment. The drug’s approval applies when used in combination with peginterferon alfa and ribavirin.
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