Executive Committee Members
Executive Committee Members will be responsible for the development and execution of the Alumni Network strategic initiatives. Areas of responsibility that will be taken up by Committee Members include but are not limited to:  Communication (Websites, outreach to members and program promotion), Career development, Community Development and Curriculum Development.

Nomination Guidelines:

• All Alumni and current students are eligible to serve on the ANEC.
• Candidates can be self-nominated or nominated by peers.
• Submit a Statement of Interest – Why do you want to join the ANEC? Let us know with a brief  statement indicating why you are the ideal candidate for the executive committee and what you hope to accomplish in your tenure.  This statement will be posted on the website during the voting process.
• Please submit the all of the following information to Kate Hutchinson , copying Heather Bielski via email Friday May 29, 2013
1. Name & Class year
2. Statement of Interest
3. If desired, optional endorsement course director

Questions? Contact Kate Hutchinson

Individuals with graduate Life Science degrees are leaving the academic lab behind and pursuing careers in all facets of the Life Sciences industry. The Pathways seminar series will showcase the many career paths open to life scientists by bringing together professionals currently working in those fields to help shed some light on how to navigate the roads in.

The latest edition of “The Pathways” seminar will be held on May 22, 2013 in New York City at NYU Langone Medical Center. Featured Alumni Panelists:

Veronica Dudu, PhD, Project Manager at Prescient Life Sciences | Sherry Kan, PhD, Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company | Xiao Meng, PhD,  Assistant Director at Bayer

May 22, 2013
6pm-8pm
NYU Langone Medical Ctr: Alumni Hall B
550 First Avenue, NY, NY

Please RSVP online here: http://www.acteva.com//booking.cfm?bevaid=236052
This event is free to attend. There is a suggested donation of $10 to support future events.

Individuals with graduate Life Science degrees are leaving the academic lab behind and pursuing careers in all facets of the Life Sciences industry. The Pathways seminar series will showcase the many career paths open to life scientists by bringing together professionals currently working in those fields to help shed some light on how to navigate the roads in.

The latest edition of “The Pathways” seminar will be held on April 11, 2013 in New York City at NYU Langone Medical Center. Featured Alumni Panelists:

Angelo Guainazzi, PhD
Senior Associate Technical Affairs at Helsinn Therapeutics

Adebanke Fagbemi, PhD
Senior Analyst at Prescient Life Sciences

April 11th, 2013
6pm-8pm
NYU Langone Medical Ctr: Alumni Hall B
550 First Avenue, NY, NY

Please RSVP online here: http://www.acteva.com//booking.cfm?bevaid=235549
This event is free to attend. There is a suggested donation of $10 to support future events.

Posted by Assaf Vestin

Go here to view both parts of the talk (click on the “media” tab).

Posted by Assaf Vestin

The New York State Center for Biotechnology (CFB) is seeking a highly motivated, ambitious and entrepreneurial candidate for a one-year full-time Technology Commercialization Fellowship. The Technology Commercialization Fellow will be primarily responsible for working with the Director of Operations, Assistant Director, and Business Development Associates at the CFB to develop and implement strategic consulting, business development and technology commercialization services on behalf of bioscience companies throughout Long Island and New York State. Responsibilities will include active participation in the management and implementation of the CFB’s BioVenture CATalyst program, with specific emphasis on the Innovation Boot-Camp, BioStrategy Sessions and Technology Commercialization Clinic (TCC) and Entrepreneur-In-Residence (EIR) Program.

In addition, the Technology Commercialization Fellow will help manage client projects and portfolios and serve as support for the Center’s outreach activities, including the identification of potential commercialization clients and companies interested in participating in events, such as the Life Sciences Summit, Fundamentals, and Boot-Camp. The Fellow will also help to identify and secure new funding sources for CFB activities, and will work with internal staff, interns and students in preparing market research and competitive analyses, assisting in the development of business models and technology commercialization strategies, producing financial projections and reports, and interacting with existing and prospective clients.

The Technology Commercialization Fellow will be directly supervised by the Director of Operations and the Assistant Director for Science & Technology Commercialization at the CFB, and should be familiar with concepts pertaining to technology development, intellectual property and financial modeling (i.e. valuation, cash flow analysis), especially as they relate to the bioscience industry. Exceedingly strong interpersonal and communication skills (written, oral) are required, as well as proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer, and some database management.

The successful candidate must be a goal-oriented self-starter with a BS in a life sciences related field, or a BA/BS in business along with significant life sciences coursework. Candidates with advanced legal, life science or business degrees (J.D., MBA, Ph.D.) with an interest in business are preferred and encouraged to apply. Although not required, experience working with start-up companies and an understanding of the private equity community, technology management and due diligence expertise, is desired. Preferred qualifications also include project management experience and direct experience with the bioscience industries, and/or completion of the Fundamentals of the Bioscience Industry Certificate Program or equivalent.

Interested candidates should email their CV/resume and cover letter to Karin Bengtsson at the Center for Biotechnology: Karin.Bengtsson@stonybrook.edu.

This 8.2% cut would result in $3.78 billion in lost federal R&D dollars across multiple agencies critical to not just the biotechnology industry, but also academia and all research institutions. These cuts would stand to permanently dent American research initiatives. To put things in perspective, here is breakdown of what each agency stands to lose:

National Institutes of Health (NIH) – $2,516,580,000

Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – $467,400,000

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (ARHQ) – $30,504,000

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – $200,900,000

National Science Foundation (NSF) – $565,800,000

These numbers are for 2013 alone.

Looking closer at the numbers and what they mean, one finds that the amount of money that NIH stands to lose is equal to roughly half of the budget of the National Cancer Institute, the largest of the 27 institutes and centers comprising the agency.

Worse still, all grant funding success rates from the NIH and NSF will be at all time lows stunting the careers and projects of thousands of researchers, further putting a strain on the academic pipeline and trapping many young investigators. Less than 14% and 16% of NIH and NSF grants will be awarded, respectively. That constitutes over 6500 less projects being funded across the two agencies compared to 2010.

For the CDC, the cuts are greater than the total dollar amount that goes into the immunization grant program that is used for the purchase of vaccines and the infrastructure needed to deliver them.

For FY11, the popular Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs cost $1.43 billion. Sponsoring agencies taking massive cuts fund all of these grants.

No matter the outcome of this most recent fiscal crisis, if nothing is done, years of damage could be done to America’s research portfolio resulting in innumerable missed opportunities and rising healthcare costs. 

Posted by: Tomasz Bakowski

Photo credit: UPI/Kevin Dietsch

Notes

Numbers were culled from Congressional Budget Office estimates and respective agency budget outlines from FY11 and requests for FY13. Figures are put together by Research!America Leadership group.

http://www.researchamerica.org/uploads/RASequestrationReport.pdf

Additional Articles

1. President Obama attempting to recruit the nation’s governors in the fight to eliminate sequestration. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/02/25/obama-biden-national-governors-association-sequester/1946023/
2. A general overview of all of the sectors and industries that will be affected by sequestration, ranging from defense to air travel to education to business. Between 750,000 and 1,000,000 jobs are expected to be cut. http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/ad-lib/2013/feb/25/sequester-cuts-your-life-about-get-worse/
3. Laurie Leshin, dean of the School of Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and former deputy associate administrator at NASA, explains how sequestration would affect her field and other ongoing research at Rensselaer. Dr. Larry Corey, president of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, discusses how the spending cuts would impact cancer research and his own work, developing an HIV vaccine. http://www.thetakeaway.org/2013/feb/25/sequestration-could-have-devastating-impact-scientific-research/?utm_source=local&utm_media=treatment&utm_campaign=daMost&utm_content=damostlistened

Numbers by Agency 

NIH 

1. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of Research Information Systems (ORIS), NIH Research Grants Table: http://report.nih.gov/FileLink.aspx?rid=544 
2. National Institutes of Health (NIH), RePORT, NIH Awards by Location & Organization: http://report.nih.gov/award/index.cfm?ot=&fy=2011&state=&ic=&fm=&orgid= 
3. National Institutes of Health (NIH), RePORT, Funding Facts: http://report.nih.gov/fundingfacts/index.cfm 
4. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Almanac, Appropriations (Section 1): www.nih.gov/about/almanac/appropriations/index.htm 
5. National Institutes of Health (NIH), RePORT, Research, Estimates of Funding for Various Research,Condition, and DiseaseCategories (RCDC): http://report.nih.gov/categorical_spending.aspx 

CDC 

1. Centers for DiseaseControl (CDC), Financial Management Office, Fiscal Year 2011 Operating Plan: www.cdc.gov/fmo/topic/Budget%20Information/appropriations_budget_form_pdf/CDC_FY_2011_Operating_Plan_Table.pdf 
2. Centers for DiseaseControl (CDC), Financial Management Office, Fiscal Year 2013 Budget RequestSummary: www.cdc.gov/fmo/topic/Budget%20Information/appropriations_budget_form_pdf/FY2013_Budget_Request_Summary.pdf 

AHRQ 

In this day and age a majority of seeds sold in the US to farmers have some sort of genetic modification, which is patented. One specific modification makes crops resistant to Roundup, a popular herbicide. With this gene, the crops are able to survive while weeds removed. The tradeoff with using these roundup resistant and most other genetically modified seeds is that as a farmer, one cannot legally save seeds from year to year. One has to purchase new seeds from Monsanto every year. This makes even the use of seeds from grain elevators tricky as most crops/seeds contain some sort of genetic modification thanks to cross-pollination.

The case stems from Mr. Bowman purchasing seeds for a late second crop from a grain elevator rather than Monsanto directly. Late-season crops are risky as the yield is smaller, so it made no financial sense to buy directly from Monsanto. Grain elevators don’t sell it as seed, but rather “outbound grain.” Generally it is all of lower quality; however, the probability is that even these contain the Roundup resistance gene since that’s what a majority of farmer’s plant.

Mr. Bowman’s defense is relying on the claim of patent exhaustion – “the concept that once a patented object is sold, the patent holder loses control over how it is used.” The Supreme Court affirmed this principle in 2008 when it ruled that once Intel sold computer chips containing patented technology from LG to computer manufacturers, LG no longer had any right to how those manufacturers used those chips in computers. Analogously, the defense argues that once the beans are sold to the grain elevator, Monsanto has no more right to their patents.

Monsanto and it’s allies argue that exhaustion only applies to the particular item sold and that Bowman was making illegal copies. The argument hinges on whether the exhaustion principle extends to an item that is self-replicating – a big sticking point for many biotechnology patents.

The decision will be an important one to monitor as it could possibly affect the patents of not just Monsanto, but all types of biotechnology companies, software companies, and others. Many companies have filed briefs in favor or against the defense.

More details about the case can be found at the following links:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/02/18/171896311/farmers-fight-with-monsanto-reaches-the-supreme-court
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/business/supreme-court-to-hear-monsanto-seed-patent-case.html
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/bowman-v-monsanto-co/

Posted by: Tomasz Bakowski
Photo credit: U.S. NPS

Please fell free to visit NYAS on March 4th, 2013 and attend the conference on Reducing the Risk of Pathogens in the Blood Supply. You can find details of this event here: Reducing the Risk of Pathogens in the Blood Supply Conference, NYAS.

Image Credit: NYAS and New York Blood Center

The Pre-Seed Workshop is a 2.5 days event where you would participate on a team of the industry experts, IP attorney, business advisers to create the outline of the business plan and develop a 15 minutes presentation that the team will deliver before a panel of experts (usually VC and/or Angel Investors) for a selected technology.
Please refer to the following website for details and structure of the event: http://www.psw-ny.org

This year’s Boot Camp will take place on:
March 6 (evening – Garden City Hotel, along with the Long Island Technology Hall of Fame)
March 7 (all day – CEWIT at Stony Brook University Campus)
March 19 (all day – CEWIT at Stony Brook University Campus)

If you are interested in participating – the deadline for this application is Febuary 10.
Please write a 250 word paragraph outlining your interest in participating in this event.
Please send to lidia.sobkow@stonybrook.edu using “FOBI Bootcamp 2013” in the subject.