Microscopy

 I took up a new hobby. I bought microscopes from ShopGoodwill.com and some prepared slides from Amazon. I was happy to be able to take some pictures with my cellphone using my Celestron NexYZ adapter. The first foray was easier and more rewarding than my attempts at astrophotography. In both fields, my primary interest is in verifying for myself what I read in books. I also benefit from the discovery or revelation of facts not perceived in daily life.

Based on my experience in astronomy, I sought to avoid early mistakes by finding a discussion board that I could rely on and participate in. The astronomy board Cloudy Nights has a forum for microscopy, "Cloudy Days." There, I found a recommendation for Oliver Kim's Microbe Hunter website (here), YouTube videos, and discussion board (forum). 

Kim has an MSc in microbiology and teaches high school biology. I found his narratives interesting, informative, and objective. Some others have complained that he is salesman for his favorite brands. I have not found that so. He does insist that quality and price are on curves and that the average person can find a good-enough microscope for a few hundred dollars or less. I found these two for under $75 each with shipping and handling. (I searched for 1-cent shipping and Buy Now versus bidding.) I still hold to my longterm goal of buying a Zeiss university classroom instrument for about $1000 when the time comes for me to upgrade. That will depend on my learning curve.

I also bought books, of course. I have an instructor's edition for a survey class in microbiology, a couple of lab manuals, and two handbooks on microscopes. 

Onion rind

Picking up where I left off 60 years ago, I found vegetables a lot easier to work with. The sets of prepared slides were not expensive and for that reason were also not carefully prepared. I am not big on bugs, but I could do (and have done) a better job. The specimens are mashed and tangled. So, the next step will be to buy slides, slips, and mounting fluid. (I confess to being a little shakier now than I was at 12 years of age and I think that I can focus past the intentional tremor.) 

Ultimately, I will be exploring histology for anatomy and physiology. As attractive as plants are, they do not tell me much about myself. 

I do appreciate the unity of life. One of the prepared slides is "Lily Ovary." Miss Lily's ovary speaks to the astounding multifarious expressions in complicated matter since the invention of sexual dimorphism. A science fiction story could consider a watery world in which all of the single cells share communication and thereby constitute a self-aware intelligence. The extent to which the cloned daughters would vary could be a plot element if not the story line. How is difference perceived--and is it accepted--when just about everyone is almost exactly alike? 

BAMBOO

Be that as it may, in the mean time, my new toys need cleaning. I have Zeiss fluid and other tools. However, I hesitate to disassemble the oculars and objectives. When I started in astronomy, I had a Celestron 130-mm (4.25-inch) Newtonian reflector. It came with a 20-mm and a 10-mm oculars. A little later, I bought the Celestron Lens-and-Filter Kit that I saw several others with at my first star party. I could not get a filter to screw into the bottom of the 20-mm, so I unscrewed the top--and was rewarded with a handful of small glass lenses. Fortunately, it is a known problem and Celestron has a page on their website on how to put it back together. But it was never the same. I got the faces right, but the axial rotation was off. They are supposed to be circles, of course, but at that level, they are not perfect circles and a little bit makes a difference. So, I have to decide whether and to what extend I want to pay for the lessons being presented here. 

That also impacts another toy, truly a toy, an Educsope. It cost less than $15 from Goodwill and came with a kit of tools and slides. But the stage will not stay up. From an old Tasco microscope set that a neighbor gave me some years ago, I already know this to be a problem with cheap microscopes that kids use. I can take it apart easily. Whether I can clean and tighten the rack and pinion is another question entirely. I actually did that with the Tasco. It works better now. The Eduscope is all plastic and does not hold much promise.

Previously on Necessary Facts

Epigenetics

Bob Swanson and Genentech

Biohackers

Biobash: Chamber Replicates Success

Evolution vs. God

The premise is that Darwinian evolution is unproved and unprovable. It is accepted on faith, passed to students on the authority of professors.   Darwinian evolution has its problems, but this video does not address any of them.  It is a religious tract.

I got the video on the UT campus where they were being handed out.  Packaged as a bait and switch,  Evolution vs. God is a one-sided argument with an assortment of college students and professors. They are neatly boxed in by their own ignorance of Darwinian evolution and their personal failings as moral philosophers.  And, of course, we never see the ones who were not defeated.

Scientists have bombarded fruit flies with radiation for over 100 years, and never created a new species.  However the monsters turn out, they remain fruit flies, apparently still able to breed with others of their kind.  (Institute for Creation Research.)  On the other hand, the Archaeopteryx of the late Jurassic remains factually among several transitional animals between reptiles and birds. Gratefully, we can go swimming without meeting any of the creatures of the Devonian.  What survived is fearsome enough. 

William Smith’s geological map of England was possible only because he relied on the facts of evolution. Simpler forms of the same kind never appear in rock strata higher than more complex forms.  Smith died 20 years before Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species.  

None of that is discussed in this video.  Nor did anyone ask the interviewer what happened to the dinosaurs.  And why do we not find fossil dogs and cats in rocks 150 million years old?

In the nineteenth century, geologists debated catastrophism versus uniformitarianism, and volcanism versus neptunism.  In other words, did the world we know now come about by sudden changes or gradual processes?  Were the primary forces violent explosions or accreting deposits?  Today, we regard those as false dichotomies. 

The debate between Darwinian evolution and Lamarckism may be another false dichotomy.  Epigenetics is the relatively new study of how the environment affects heredity.  The evidence seems compelling – and it seems unlikely that the environment would have no affect, leaving all evolutionary processes at the level of quantum physics.  The easy answer is: “I don’t know.” 

In science we live with our limits.  Science is self-correcting as we work to discover more about the world around us, and put that knowledge into an order that allows predictions.  Religion has no such limits.  They all claim absolute knowledge and – obviously and tragically – disagree about what that absolute truth may be.  Several times near the end, the interviewer (Ray Comfort, the producer) quoted an English translation of the Bible.  Which translation is right?  What happens when they disagree?  And, for that matter, the Qu’ran mentions Jesus about 25 times calling him Messiah and the Son of God.  And the Qu’ran acknowledges Mary as the Virgin and Mother of God.  Yet, somehow Muslims and Christians seem not to get along well. 

Evolution vs. God offers a second thesis: Darwinian evolution allows (even encourages and advocates) immorality.  According to this video, survival of the fittest excuses the harms, crimes, and horrors we perpetrate.  People embrace evolution to avoid following God’s Commandments.  “Are you a good person?” the interviewer asks.  Of course the subjects think well of themselves.  “Have you ever told a lie?”  “Have you ever stolen anything?” "Have you ever had lust in  your heart?" “Have you ever taken God’s name in vain?”  If you stop and think about it, the interviewer is also a sinner, but having accepted Christ’s sacrifice, he does not need to worry about that – or even mention it.  That being as it may, it is not a divine revelation that a selected handful of university undergraduates and professors have no idea what morality is.

All in all, the presentation was no better or worse than Reason TV productions where university students who say they voted for President Obama are happy to sign a petition based on the 1931 Nazi Party election platform. 

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Map that Changed the World

The Origin of What?

Epigenetics and Evolution

God is Not Great

Cell Repair and Tissue Sales

Back in the 1980s, the "cyberpunk" science fiction genre touted personal technologies in the early 21st century.  Here we are.   In the stories of William Gibson, in particular, but also Pat Cadigan, Lewis Shiner, John Shirley, and others, biotech takes the down-front stage position, even as computering of all kinds provides a rich array of characters (maybe even the chorus).  After I took the picture here - and I am sure that it meant cellular telephone repair - I saw a sign at a Walgreen that said " $$ Tissue Sale $$".  Soon… soon…

Previously on Necessary Facts

Epigenetics

Four Books about Bad Science

Observable Genius

Redshirts

Fossils and Behaviors

Sub-adult American alligator 

in Pearl River Delta, Mississippi. 

Photo by Kristine Gingras 

from the journal artlcle.

Crocodiles can climb trees.  "If crocodiles were extinct and you only knew them from fossils, you wouldn't be able to guess they climb trees because they don't have any physical adaptations," University of Tennessee researcher Vladimir Dinets told Reuters. "Assumptions based on fossils," he said, "can be far less correct than people think."
The article "Climbing behaviour in extant crocodilians" by Vladimir Dinets, Adam Britton, and Matthew Shirley appeared in Herpetology Notes (Vol 7:3-7; 2013), an online journal of Societas Europaea Herpetologica. 

"Extant crocodilians are generally considered to be predominantly or semi-aquatic. And, although the role of terrestrial activity in their natural history is increasingly recognized (see, for example, an overview of terrestrial hunting in crocodilians in Dinets, 2011), they are virtually never thought of as animals capable of climbing. Their non-arboreality is often taken for granted in various analyses of tetrapod limb evolution and behaviour of extinct Archosauria (see Birn, Jeffery et al., 2012, for a discussion of the subject and a bibliography)."

Reuters news story here.  

Original journal article here.

The article and the news story both state that this is not a discovery.  Crocodiles have been reported in trees by locals as well as by scientists in the field. The authors gleaned much of their data by convenience, surfing the Web for pictures. The climbers are overwhelmingly juveniles because they have high ratios of strength to body weight: strong claws and limbs; not much to lift. Fearsome as they appear and can be - death by crocodile is a reality for rural women in Africa - like most animals, they avoid conflict, dropping into the water to escape humans in boats who come within ten feet (three meters) or so.  The thesis of the article is that we admit some ignorance before speculating on the behaviors of dinosaurs.

  

Note that the primary investigator, Vladimir Dinets, has a broad range of interests (Wikipedia here; his own blog here).  He completed his doctorate at the University of Miami in 2011 studying crocodile behaviors, including coordinated hunting, and the use of tools. His publication in an online journal (with an essentially non-academic co-worker) also marks a kind of evolution.  The traditional peer review process of print journals has always been a trade-off between the screening out of crackpots and the exclusion of originality. Also, the long lead times were acceptable in the steam age.  Cyberspace is a new environment. We can share more, faster.  Of course, survival of the fittest in science still depends on empirical validation and falsifiable testing of rationally consistent claims. More subtly, we may well be living in a Renaissance time of broad personal achievements.  Scientists take cameo roles on television shows; and Hollywood actors have degrees in science. The co-authors of the article cited here footnote their marketing interests beyond the university. 

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Epigenetics and Evolution

The Origin of What?

Epigenetics

Biohackers

Epigenetics and Evolution

The mechanism of evolution has not been discovered.  No consistent theory exists. Random mutations adapting to changing environments was the first suggestion.  When subatomic radiation was discovered, that became a proposal.  Now, epigenetics may indicate another, more powerful, model.  

Darwinian evolution does not explain the lack of intermediate forms. Scientists have bombarded fruit flies and mice with every radiation known and produced no new species.

Jason Head, assistant professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences,
at the University of Nebraska Lincoln
holds a fossil and fossil cast from the jawbone of
Barbaturex morrisoni, a large ((2 meters; 30 kgs) lizard
that coexisted with mammals in southeast Asia
40 million years ago. (Press release here.)

Epigenetics is the study of how environmental factors affect the expressions of genes.  We know that we share something like 90% of our DNA with yeasts - and yet we are very different from them. We know that strawberries have not a double helix, but a quadruple helix - yet they are not "superior" to us double helix lifeforms.  
  

A series of prehistoric creature illustrations demonstrates
the evolution of mammals through the ages.
More fact than fiction, these wild characters followed transitional Jurassic period animals
that sported mammalian skull traits and reptilian teeth.
A more familiar design, humans, mark the present.
- National Geographic, "The Rise of Mammals"

Random mutations adapting to changing environments is a (partial) explanation. Radiation seems to create such mutations, also. Epigenetics offers another aspect of understanding. It seems that the mechanisms of process are inherent in all life, but the millions of components are active or inactive according to causes we may now be coming to understand -- given that in 50 or 100 years some other engine will be discovered. 

Also on Necessary Facts
Epigenetics 
The Origin of What?
Biohackers 
Bob Swanson and Genentech 

Bob Swanson and Genentech

Money is a culture medium for growing viable enterprises into self-sustaining engines of creation. 

Bob Swanson was 29 when he provided the money for Prof. Herbert Boyer to start Genentech.  Like all overnight successes, the real story is more complicated, with deep roots.  Bright, accomplished, and motivated, Swanson had obvious potential – and a string of failures to show for it.  In the documentary, Something Ventured (see below), Thomas J. Perkins said that his firm, Kleiner Perkins Venture Capital, brought on Bob Swanson, but “there was not much for him to do.”  Swanson said that he would look into biotechnology.  Perkins replied that if something was there, they would be interested, otherwise… And at that point, Perkins trailed off into a gesture and face.  Clues are always little things.

“So we hired Bob Swanson, whom Eugene Kleiner had known through venture capital circles. Bob had worked for Citibank in their venture capital operation and he and Eugene had been involved in a failed deal. Eugene had been impressed with Swanson's ability to think straight and get things done. So when Bob was looking for a new position, we hired him. That would have been about late 1974. We were in Embarcadero Center Two then, on the top floor.[…]  Bob worked on various deals for us. And, I have to say, not very successfully. Eugene, in particular, was increasingly unhappy with Bob. He didn't think much was going to be happening.” – Thomas Perkins [Source 5]

Robert A. Swanson was born in Brooklyn, New York, November 29 1947.  When he was still an infant, his family moved to Florida where his father worked for Eastern Airlines.  He attended MIT and completed his bachelor’s in chemistry in 1969 and followed that in 1970 with an MBA at the Sloan School of Management.  [Source 1] (Wikipedia gives 1970 as the year of both degrees.) 

Immediately after completing his MBA, he was hired by Citicorp Venture Capital.  Within three years, they were impressed enough with him that he was sent to San Francisco to open a Citicorp Venture Capital Office there.  In 1975, he joined Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.  (Perkins recalled that as “late 1974.”) [Source 5]

Swanson had read about the research in recombinant DNA and gene splicing.  He sought out Dr. Boyer and asked for 10 minutes.  The two men spent three hours in a tavern.  Swanson’s knowledge of chemistry served him well, as he could understand the nuances in the different techniques being pursued by different researchers.  Swanson saw the market for Boyer’s work.  They launched Genentech on April 7, 1976. [Source 2]

In 1977, Genentech started with human growth hormone by contracting for production with City of Hope Hospital in Los Angeles and with the University of California at San Francisco. That allowed Genentech to move up to cloned human insulin in 1978.  They followed that with other successes: alpha interferon, gamma interferon, a hepatitis B vaccine, and thrombolytic (clot-producing) agents for hemophiliacs, and then tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) to dissolve blood clots associated with heart attacks.

America’s bilateral East Coast / West Coast dichotomies are easy to cite, especially in technology.  (In Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Steven Levy pointed out that the Spacewars video game came from MIT, whereas Stanford gave us Adventure, based on Lord of the Rings.)  But Robert Swanson understood the importance of social capital, built with strong employee bonds.   His scientists could publish their work, something most big drug companies were reluctant to allow.  Also typical of the West Coast, Genentech held Friday parties known as ho-hos.  As Genentech researchers remembered it: 

“The Ho-Ho tradition began simply with refreshments for employees every Friday afternoon. At the end of one particularly hectic work week, a manufacturing VP said, "Oh, another Friday afternoon, ho, ho, ho, ho." And the name stuck. …
The Ho-Ho was an occasion for play and absurdity. One time Swanson and Boyer came dressed up as Tweedledee and Tweedledum… But from the start, Ho-Hos were more than just fun. To Swanson, the Ho-Ho was “a wonderful idea, because you need a place where people at all levels of the organization, from the president on down, can get together in their shirtsleeves and talk about the issues, as equals... One of the things you worry about, as you get higher in an organization, is whether people are comfortable telling you the truth about the way they see the needs of the company - where are we screwing up as a company?” 

The firm posted a profit in 1979 and went public in 1980. That public offering came at some human cost for the venture capitalists.  Perkins and Swanson disagreed on the timing, with Swanson being opposed to going public.  Eventually, Swanson saw Perkins’s point, but their strained relationship was worse off for it.  Still, Bob Swanson worked as CEO of Genentech through its steepest growth curve through 1990.  Tom Perkins was chairman of the board.  Then, from 1990-96 Swanson served as chairman.  In 1990, Genentech and Roche Holding Ltd. completed a $2.1 billion merger. Initially Hoffman-LaRoche bought a majority interest in Genentech. Then in 2009, LaRoche bought the rest of the stock, but turned around and sold off blocks of it in to the public.

After leaving Genentech Bob Swanson formed a private investment management firm (K & E Management), and served as chairman of Tularik, Inc., a firm researching gene expressions that can be harnessed to produced therapeutics. He also volunteered his time to civic organizations and to his daughters’ soccer teams.

In the book, 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium, (New York :, Kodansha International, 1998) the authors ranked Bob Swanson number 612 for launching the biotechnology revolution.

After a year of battling brain cancer via surgery and chemotherapy Bob Swanson passed away on Monday, December 6, 1999, at his home in Hillsborough, California. (The Guardian gave it as November 30.)  He was 52.

Sources:

1. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/swanson-1208.html (Obituary)

2. http://www.gene.com/about-us/leadership/our-founders (Tribute)

3. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/07/business/robert-a-swanson-52-co-founder-of-genentech.html (Obituary)

4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/1999/dec/10/obituaries.genetics (Biography)

5. http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt1p3010dc (Program in the History of the Biological Sciences and Biotechnology: Kleiner Perkins, Venture Capital, and the Chairmanship of Genentech, 1976-1995; interviews conducted by Glenn E. Bugos, Ph.D.)

6. "The Origins of Biotechnology: A Genentech Perspective"

http://blog.zymergi.com/2013/01/origins-biotech-genentech.html

(Personal recollections and images of artifacts including company newsletters.)

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Venture Capital

Disruptive Diagnostics and the Business of Science
Epigenetics

Austin Biobash November 2012

Austin Biobash February 2013

Biohackers

Disruptive Diagnostics and the Business of Science

Former UT professor Tom Kodadek returned to address the postdoctoral student association of the School of Biological Sciences on April 25. He met a full house of about 250. The title of his talk was “The Ups and Downs of Moving ‘Disruptive’ Diagnostic and Therapeutic Technology from the Lab to the Real World.”  Dr. Kodadek is now with the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida.  Originally funded by the NIH, his work is now marketed by OPKO Health, Inc., which found the angel funding he needed to bring his theories to realization.

He first identified the standard approach to any drug therapy:

1. Perform basic research on the disease mechanism,.

2. Identify molecules in the blood that are unique to that disease, or whose levels change drastically.

3. Develop a specific method to measure the level of that molecule in the blood.

4. Commercialize.

This fits our standard model for diagnosis.  The patient feels bad and goes to a doctor for treatment.  Tests are run.  A cause is hypothesized and treatments begin while the patient’s course is monitored.  The shortcomings with the standard approach begin with the fact that we have to wait until we feel bad to get a diagnosis.  Also, tests are heterogeneous: any symptom suggests many tests.

Dr. Thomas Kodadek (left) at the Reception.

 Kodadek then offered a better approach.  His theory is that antigens must exist before symptoms reach perceptible levels: you are sick before you have a fever. With pre-symptomatic screening we could monitor for any active disease in its early stage, before the symptoms appear.  His recommended course is to routinely monitor the levels of dozens of disease-specific antibodies as part of any periodic medical check-up.  

To achieve that, we need to develop a large, broad, and deep array of synthetic artificial molecules that act as antigen surrogates. This is possible through combinatorial chemistry.

He then rapidly outlined the some of the details of his methodology for the audience of post-doctoral biologists at the School of Biological Sciences before re-aligning his presentation to the business community. 

Having left the University of Texas, he thought that he was about to go to San Francisco to present his ideas to venture capitalists.  However, he first was invited to speak to a group at  the Scripps Research Institute.  Feeling somewhat challenged to be sharing the stage with six Nobel laureates, he thought that he handled it well.  After the talks, the president of Scripps, Dr. Richard Lerner, came up to him and graphically explained that he was about to get screwed. Dr. Lerner introduced him to Phil Frost of OPKO Health, Inc.

Opko had just suffered a failed third-stage test of a major product initiative.  Phil Frost had a company in need of new work.  Opko also acquired Cytochroma, Inc., a company with “a suite of products for treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism and hyperphosphatemia in chronic kidney disease patients.”  Another Cytochroma product screens for vitamin D deficiency.  In fact, said Kodadek, we may find that we are in the midst of an epidemic and not know it because we only now are coming to understand the many functions of that essential nutrient.  

Opko is also pursuing a screen for neuromyelitis optica (NMO). NMO is marked by the presence of AQP4 (aquaporin 4) and anti-AQP4 antibodies. With Bindu L. Raveendra, Hao Wu, and others, Kodadek published “Discovery of Peptoid Ligands for Anti-Aquaporin 4 Antibodies,”in Chemistry and Biology, (vol 20:3; 21 March 2013, pp 351-359).  In the same issue, working with Yu Gao, Kodadek published “Synthesis and Screening of Stereochemically Diverse Combinatorial Libraries of Peptide Tertiary Amides,” (Pages 360-369). 

Tom Kodadek with his friends at the Reception

Dr. Thomas Kodadek closed by  summarizing his experiences. “Work on important projects, not widgets. Incubate for as long as possible in the university before taking your work to the market.  Angel investors are better than venture capitalists.  Focus early on the people you bring in to start the organization.”

Following the talk the School of Biological Sciences hosted a reception.  About 50 people attended.  I met old friends Maggie Bishop of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, Benjamin Grosse-Siestrup of Antimicrobial Test Laboratories and Ken Russell of Metabolic Therapy, as well as new acquaintances Dr. Gregory Daniel Frank of XBiotech, and Dr. Priya Sridharan of the UT department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and neurobiologist Dr. Sangeetha Iyer. (Dr. Iyer and I actually crossed paths in 2012 during South by Southwest. I was flattered that she remembered me.)

  

Previously on Necessary Facts

BioBash: Chamber Replicates Success

Austin Winter 2012 BioBash
BioPunks: DIY Scientists Hack the Code of Life
Bob Swanson and Genentech
Epigenetics
Mayim Bialik

Biobash: Chamber Replicates Success

Kyle Cox of Health 2.0 and Austin Health Technology was the featured speaker as about 50 Austin life science professionals gathered at The Front Page in the penthouse of the Chase Tower, on February 27, sponsored by the Austin Chamber of Commerce. 

Kyle outlined the path to success for biotech in Austin. 

Maggie Bishop welcomes guests
and introduces Kyle Cox

“Be the best you you can be,” he said.  In other words, do not attempt to copy Silicon Valley, but capitalize on Austin’s own unique blend of strengths.  “Stress the roots,” he said, making an analogy to vinology.  Do not give out too many government subsidies; make firms earn their success.

• To build an ecosystem requires a state of permanent revolution.
• Favor the high potentials. Put resources into products that will pay back the most.
• Get a big win on the board.  “Get some pelts on the wall,” he said.
• Do not over-engineer the clusters but rather let them find their own paths to success. 
• Reform the regulation.  Nora Belcher underscored this, saying that the growth of leading-edge biotech in Texas struggles against well-meaning legislation from 1978.  She also pointed out that Texas state regulations on privacy are stricter than HIPAA. 

Cox praised the meetups and online communities for life sciences here in Austin, touting the Austin Health Tech group on Meetup.com.  (Also on Meetup we have Austin Life Science Professionals, run by Benjamin Grosse-Siestrup.  They get together at the Renaissance Hotel in Arboretum.  Benjamin and I met at the previous Biobash, after I restarted the Austin Biotech group on LinkedIn.  Also on LinkedIn is a new Austin group for Drug Delivery technology, a spin-off of UT’s life science incubator.) 

Kyle Cox

Kyle Cox then called for a speaker series, hackathons, national events, and a local presence at trade shows.  The American Telemedicine Association is holding its annual convention in Austin, May 5-7.   On the subject of hackathons, Cox said that Humana is willing to give a copy of some of its databases to creative programmers who can show them new ways to understand their information; and a code-athon will be held at SXSW Interactive on March 8.  He identified three venture capital firms – Dream IT, Live Oak, and Corsa Ventures – with $100 million to invest.

The Office of the National Health Coordinator of Health and Human Services gave the University of Texas $2.77 million for their Health IT program which grants certificates and diplomas to people who learn how to use computers to track patients.  This was part of the federal economic stimulus package.

Before and after the presentation, Austin life science professionals enjoyed hors d’oeuvres - courtesy of the Chamber of Commerce - and the opportunity to sit and talk with each other about their interests.  Maggie Bishop of the Chamber made sure that I met Dr. Tim Meehan of Saber Astronautics.  (Tim and I actually met at Benjamin’s Meetup last month.)  I also met Samantha Fechtel, executive administrator of the Texas Medical Accelerator, Joe Smith director of technology innovation for Globiox, Jim and Sabine Accuntius whose Research Equipment Alliance is selling femto-second lasers for histology and similar research. (Calling them microtomes is three orders of magnitude too large.) Sharon Manley just joined Growth Acceleration Partners/Mobius as their new business development specialist.  Although we talk a lot about “cloud computing” most of our work is done on the ground, and so, Christopher L. Marchbanks from Cresa Austin (“The Tenants Advantage”) was also at the Biobash.

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life
Disruptive Diagnostics and the Business of Science
Austin Biobash November 2012
Bob Swanson and Genentech
Mayim Bialik
The Origin of ... What?