Our colleague Seth Taylor asked us to let you know that BioTechTuesday will be holding a $22K Life Science Innovation Competition and Pitch event on November 19; deadline to enter the competition is Tuesday, Nov. 12.

Here’s the scoop:

BiotechTuesday, a networking organization for life science professionals, will hold an innovation competition at which major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies will award $22K in funds and in-kind services.   The winners will be life-science startups and researchers judged to have the most innovative ideas and laboratory products.

The event will take place at District Hall, a new event space at 75 Northern Avenue in the Boston Seaport District, from 6-9, on Tuesday, November 19.

Awards include:

• Financial and in-kind prizes for the most promising startup concepts and early stage ventures. Innovators can submit their concept or venture online for consideration by November 12, 2013. The BiotechTuesday community will then vote online—contributing to the selection of five finalists who will pitch their concepts at the event. At the event, competition judges from Novartis, EMD Serono, Pharmatek and others, will choose the winners.  CLICK HERE TO ENTER[http://goo.gl/gBhiaq]

• Recognition for the most innovative recently-launched products or services. Companies can submit recently launched products or services online for consideration, by November 12, 2013.  Finalists will present their pitches one-on-one to attendees and judges at the event.  CLICK HERE TO ENTER [http://goo.gl/03Q7pG]

“This competition event is unique in that it relies on a true community from a top life-science super cluster to select and validate some of the most exciting new approaches in the field,” said Seth Taylor, BiotechTuesday co-founder and host. “It provides a tremendous opportunity for the community to engage with innovators launching the hot companies of the future, and products that may impact their work today.”

Peter Parker, co-founder and director of programming for LabCentral, an innovative, shared laboratory space designed as a launchpad for life-sciences startups, said: “We share in Biotech Tuesday’s mission to advance innovation in the life-sciences community. We are pleased to offer one month’s free membership and a bench space in LabCentral’s co-working lab and office facility ($4,000 value). LabCentral provides fully functional lab space, permits, waste handling, plus all reasonably common lab equipment for bioresearch. Access to conference rooms and event space,  kitchens, etc. is also included, as is participation in programming specific to the interests of life-sciences startups.”

In the words of Charles Wilson, Vice President and Head of Business at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Inc:  “We believe that the time and expertise of large companies can be of great value to startups.  For this reason, we have committed to offering resources and analysis to help a winning company reach investors and commercialize their therapeutics.”

Timothy Scott, President and Co-Founder, Pharmatek Inc., a contract research organization offering $3000 in reagents to the winning team, said:  “We are committed to supporting innovation with our products and services, and through our Pharmatek University educational programs,”

Event attendance is open to the public. Click here to register [http://goo.gl/fRUh1J].

BioTechTuesday is a networking organization offering monthly events and an online community for life science professionals.  Founded in 2002 in the Boston area, BiotechTuesday now has thousands of members. 

Contact: Seth Taylor 617-615-6152    staylor@biotechtuesday.com   Twitter: #pitchbio

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and market development firm specializing in strategic communication, media relations, social and digital media for health care, life science, biotech, tech and energy.  

On my way to the polls, today, I ran into a neighbor who had just voted. She is well-educated (has a PhD)  and is a responsible citizen. I asked her how she had handled having to rank 25 candidates for City Council…not to mention 9 for the School Committee… on the paper ballot.  “There were two names I recognized,” she said. “I voted for them; the rest I chose at random,” she said.

Great. I’d written down my choices–but the crush of candidates and their supporters in front of the school where I vote felt overwhelming.

The school committee candidate I’d planned to place fifth gave me a crushing handshake and said he hoped I’d put him first.

The self-proclaimed “best friend” of a city council candidate said she’d really appreciate my vote.

A  lackluster fellow had spoken to me at my doorstep weeks earlier–suggesting that the frontrunner did not need my number 1 so I should give it to him.

In researching the school committee field, I’d been unimpressed with the school candidate who had put his kid in private school…Had decided to give my number 1 vote to a recent business school grad who attended the Cambridge public schools–after several of his uncles–all of whom worked in m– had been killed in the candidate’s native African homeland…

Anyway, I’d written down my choices but with so many names on the ballot, in the voting booth,  I somehow skipped a school committee candidate I favored and had to request a new ballot…Goofed again on my city council ballot….When I returned, again, for a new one, a  poll watcher asked if I understood how to vote and did I need help. On my second city council ballot try, I found myself voting for incumbents, figuring they, at least,  knew what they were doing.

When I went to check out, the voting machine refused my school committee ballot–the tip of the pen had touched one of the boxes when I was considering whom to mark as number 5.  I requested yet another school committee ballot. The poll watcher remarked,  “Luckily this doesn’t happen often.”

I asked if she meant that most people don’t goof up like I had or that there aren’t usually so many candidates.

“I meant it’s lucky we only vote once a year,” she said.

On my third school committee ballot I somehow missed giving the young African my number one vote. I was too embarrassed to ask for a fourth ballot so gave him number three–and a couple of others–mostly incumbents, the rest of my votes–pretty much at random.

The ballot went through. I remarked to another poll watcher that I’d goofed, yet again and that perhaps the system should be changed. “It’s historically correct,” she assured me. “It dates from the 1700s.”

I do wonder if, in the 1700s, voters had to rank 25 people for the same office–or if the system was designed –or remains– to ensure that incumbents remain  in office. I also wonder if, as a British colleague remarked when I told him about our ranking system,  there is such a thing as “too much democracy.”

—Anita M. Harris

Anita Harris is a writer and consultant living in Cambridge, MA.

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a PR and market development firm based in Kendall Square.

Felt very cool in joining 500 of my closest friends at the all-CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center) Party held at Brooklyn Boulder indoor climbing center, in Somerville, on Friday night.  During the day, CIC is a vibrant workplace for 500 companies and 1700 people on nine floors of two high-rise buildings in Kendall Square, Cambridge.  At the party,  all of that energy 

and many of those people were unleashed in one huge horizontal space–literally climbing the walls, doing yoga, taking photos, who knows what else. We were given the choice of drinking or climbing…

Friends Tom, R, Michael, Kathryn….heck, almost everyone I knew–  chose the former, making us, perhaps, a bit less cool?

—Anita Harris

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning public relations and marketing agency located in Cambridge, MA.

Queen Elizabeth II and Philip Ramirez of the Harris Communications Group

Went to the British Consulate Tuesday morning  (June 4, 2013) expecting to hear the Right Hon. Jeremy Hunt, MP, the UK Secretary of State, speak about recent changes in the British health care system–but at the start of the session, Vice Consul Anne Avidon explained that Hunt had been called to Downing Street and that she’d done her best to replace him with someone of equal or higher rank. Avidon then pulled out a life-sized cardboard photo of the Queen–commenting that “she listens a lot but doesn’t say much.”

UK Boston HM Consul General Susie Kitchens and Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information, National Health Service Commissioning Board.

The levity continued as the Consulate team collected the results of a networking game, in which attendees had been handed scrabble letters to add to those of others at the event in order to form words related to health care. The winning word–Edata–brought five people Cadbury chocolate bars from England.

In a Q& A session with Consul General Susie Kitchens, the real speaker, Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information of  the UK’s National Health Service Commissioning Board,   outlined several components of what a Consulate publication describes as  “the most widespread changes in England’s National Health Service since its inception in 1948.”

One key change, effective since April 1, is that 80 percent of the UK healthcare budget (approximately $120B), has been “devolved” from the Department of Health to frontline clinicians. These clinicians form new Clinical Commissioning Groups and are responsible for designing, delivering, and paying for local health services.

Some other changes involve requiring doctors at various level to share treatment and mortality outcomes, increased patient participation in assessing their own care, and the digitization of all health care records by 2018.

The event was sponsored by UK Trade and Investment and the British American Business Council of New England.

–Anita M. Harris

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning public relations and digital marketing firm based in Cambridge, MA.

Much appreciated Katie Johnson’s insightful May 27 Boston Globe article “Many Women With Top Degrees Stay Home.” It’s about a Vanderbilt University study showing that married women with degrees from the most elite colleges and universities are likelier to opt out of professional careers than are women who attended the least selective schools–and that this differential has little to do with family income.

One analyst suggests that women with degrees from elite schools feel freer than others to opt out because they think their prestigious degrees will allow them to easily transition back into the workforce.

Mebbe so–although this implies that, given the choice, all women would rather leave their jobs to stay at home with children–which I don’t for two seconds believe is true.
Based on my research for Broken Patterns, Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity, I’ll bet the explanation for opting out is a lot more complicated than that.

In my interviews, many women told me they chose male-dominated professions because they didn’t want to live the sorts of lives their homemaker mothers led–but many had grandmothers who worked outside the home in the early 20th century. This–and the historical record– led me to posit a push=pull process in which, going back to the industrial revolution in the US, the more women left the home for paying work in one generation, the greater the pull to domesticity, in the next. That push-pull process–driven by social, technological, generational and psychological forces–is also reflected in women’s personal development along their life cycles. I believe it helps account for some of the choices–such as schools, spouses, and careers– that women make.

I’m not saying Johnson and her interviewees are wrong…Only that that women make life choices for a multitude of reasons. The Vanderbilt study points out that women who graduate from elite schools tend to marry men from similar schools. It strikes me that if both spouses pursue highly competitive careers that allow little time for family life, something’s got to give when children come along. Most often, it’s the woman.

Like Sheryl Sandberg, the Facebook COO and author of Lean-In, I am troubled by the conundrum this creates: talented women who opt out of careers, even for just a few years, may lose the opportunity to attain positions in which they can influence workplace culture–and enhance the lives of women and men of the future. On the other hand, perhaps it is not the privileged who are likeliest to push for equality–but, rather, those who have struggled to overcome barriers.
–Anita M. Harris

Anita Harris is the author of Broken Patterns, Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity (Wayne State University Press, 1995), A new edition will soon be published; please comment below if you’d like to reserve a copy.

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning public relations and digital marketing firm based in Cambridge, MA.

Our friend Robert Gracey sends the following:

Massachusetts acupuncturists in affiliation with the New England School of Acupuncture (NESA), Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine Society of Massachusetts (AOMSM) and Acupuncture Without Borders (AWB) are joining together through Boston Acupuncture Trauma Relief (BATR) to provide treatment and healing for those affected by the tragic Boston Marathon bombings and related events. Participating acupuncturists are offering free acupuncture treatments to those in need.

The development of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a possible result of both man-made and natural disasters. Acupuncture has been used by AWB in tragic situations like the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, and most recently in Newtown, Connecticut. The Department of Defense has also been working with acupuncture to help veterans returning from foreign wars alleviate trauma symptoms that may linger after deployment.

It is common for those who have undergone trauma to experience “triggers” that will set off a response, like a car backfire, the sounds of heavy equipment, or news updates as the case unfolds. It is also common for sufferers to experience physical symptoms like sweating, labored breathing, increased heart rate, and nausea. The most important thing to know is everyone reacts to traumatic exposure differently and there is no right or wrong way to feel or act. It is perfectly normal to have a reaction; it’s a natural part of the healing process.

Common Symptoms Following Exposure to Trauma:

• Restlessness/anxiety/lack of focus
• Difficulty sleeping/nightmares
• Reactions to loud noises or sudden movements
• Feeling a sense of danger or extreme alertness
• Upsetting images coming up at unwanted times
• Reliving/re-experiencing the event in your mind
• Feelings of numbness, guilt, or depression
• Loss of interest in daily activities

While acupuncturists are not first responders, we understand, because we feel it ourselves, the feelings of angst and confusion that simmer in the aftermath. The use of acupuncture for trauma is a vital bridge between first intervention and the healing process that allows those affected to move through the experience and heal. In addition, acupuncture can also help those recover from their physical injuries.

As one of many acupuncturists offering free trauma relief, Gracey and others are offering free services to those in need. For more information please contact Robert Gracy 617-549-1196 or rgracey@graceyhealth.com  ( Gracey Holistic Health),   the New England School of Acupuncture clinic at 617-558-6372, or chose from a list of acupuncturists via the following NESA landing page: http://traumarelief.nesa.edu/.

-Anita M. Harris

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and marketing firm in Cambridge, MA.