Much enjoyed last week’s opening of the Koch Institute’s 2017 Image Awards Exhibition. The exhibit, dubbed “with/in/sight”  includes 10 scientific images chosen as best-in-class from among some 120 entries from MIT life scientists and their collaborators across the country–and one from Ireland.

The display, in the public galleries at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, is the Koch’s seventh in as many years. Its goal is to celebrate “the diversity of biomedical research at MIT and offers insight into the important role that science and engineering play in our complex and ever-changing world,” according to a Koch brochure.

The images are printed on t-shirt material stretched across frames back lit with LEDs. They are striking artwork in themselves– and showcase some of the most exciting work under way in the cancer research arena.

“Making Waves: Delivery for Ageless Skin.” Koch Institute, Harvard University, Mass General Hospital.

“Making Waves” conveys research on non-invasive sound waves that carry genetic material through protective layers of skin, transferring genes to cells whose genetic clocks have been turned back by the nucleic acids they have received– in order to reverse skin-aging. Credits go to Carl Schoellhammer, Denitsa Milanova, Hamberto Trevino, Cody Cleveland, Jeffrey Wyckoff, Anna Mandinova, Giovanni Traverso, Robert Langer, and George Church.

Whithead Institute: Snap Chat: A Flatworm Creates a New Profile

At the Whitehead Institute, Samuel LoCascio, Kutay Deniz Atabay and Peter Reddien are studying planarian flatworms to learn more about how they regerate. Each color in their image represents a different layer of neurons in the flatworm’s head.

Downstream Dreams: Investigating Melanoma in a Zebrafish: Koch Institute, MIT

Dahlia Perez and Jacqueline A. Lees are studying zebrafish to provide insight into melanoma. This image shows the organization of zebrafish cells in their normal state. Next, biologists will mutate a single gene known to initiate a certain melanoma in order to determine its “downstream” effects.

Center: “Minding the Gap: Studying the Tumor Extracellular Matrix,” Koch Institute

Tumor Penetrating Nanoparticles Infiltrate Cancer Cells, Koch Institute

Steffen RIckelt and Richard Hynes of the Koch Institute are studying not the clusters of brownish colon cancer metasteses shown in the image, screen, but, rather, the “seeming neutral” tissue matrix around them. The goal is determine how the matrix impacts the progression of tumor cells navigating a complex network of cells and proteins.

Langliang Hao, Srivatsan Raghavan, Emilia Pulver, Jeffrey Wyckoff and Sangeeta Bhatia of the Koch Institute are using  biocompatible nanoparticles (yellow) to target and penetrate clusters of cancer cells (pink) with the goal of delivering treatment.

Body of Knowledge: Self-Organized Brain Cells, MIT Department of Biological Engineering and Koch Institute at MIT.

Colin Edington, Iris Lee and Linda Griffith of MIT are involved in the Griffith lab’s “Human on a Chip,” project, in which many different”mini organs”, developed from stem cells in matrix, are linked together in a bioreactor platform. The researchers are studying interactions of multiple organs and the cross between them in order to develop new disease treatments. Shown here are neurons (green) and astrocytes (red).

Microfluidics for the Masses, Measuring Cell Growth Rates, Koch Institute

Selim Olcum, Nathan Cermak and Scott Manalis are using microfluidics to measure the response of cell masses to drugs. Their image shows fluid filled channels (bottom) connected to tiny mass sensors shaped like hollow diving boards (top); the sensors’ whose  vibrations precisely reveal the mass of individual cells passing through them. As treated cells flow across the array of sensors, each cell is weighed multiple times, thereby revealing how quickly the mass of individual cells is changing. Researchers are beginning to use this method to predict optimal treatment strategies for individual patients.

Hashtag No Filter,: Visualizing Breast Cancer Conversations. Royal COllege of Surgeons in Ireland and Wellcome Images.

My favorite image does not show cells, nor was it submitted by an MIT lab. Rather, it visualizes twitter conversations about breast cancer carried out by a network of connected cancer patients and their loved ones, patient advocates, health care professionals, and researchers. The image, by Erie Clarke, Richard Arnett and Jane Burns of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland,  represents 92, 915 tweets posted over an eight-week period. It is from the Wellcome Images collection.

Other images not included here display pathways taken by metatastic lung cancer cells over time and  ovarian cancer cells as they break through the abdominal wall.

I’m the first to admit that these photos do not do justice to the real images–nor do they adequately convey the amazing convergent technologies –including imaging–used to carry out the research.

The gallery,  at street level in the Koch Institute, 500 Main Street, in Cambridge, is open to the public at no charge from 8-6 Monday-Thursday, and until 4 pm on Friday. The images are also visible from the sidewalk, outside.

Through March 2018.

Anita Harris is a writer, photographer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA.
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and market development firm located in Kendall Square, Cambridge.

Bernie and Phyl sofas

Riding on the MBTA this past weekend, I was struck  by the sexually (S&M)  suggestive “personal” ads for Bernie and Phyl’s furniture stores that pretty much dominated the car I was in.

One, for “one night stand” suggested going to the bedroom;  another, from “long, dark, and goodlooking–capable of satisfying ten people at one time;  into candlelight dinners and a little hot wax”, turned out to be a table.  Yet another read, “I’m really into the group thing….go both ways,  welcome blondes, brunettes and redheads, and “if you love leather,’ you’ll love me.'” It was for sectionals.

I believe in the first amendment, get the humor and enjoy double-entrendres as much as the next person. But as a female who has used dating apps and ads, my first thought was that these give the wrong idea about people looking to meet others-suggesting it’s all about kinky sex.

As someone who has done quite a lot of furniture shopping (even joked that I was “dating” sofas, because it took me so long to find the right one), I have to wonder who these ads are aimed at: millennials with loose morals? Desperate men with weird senses of humor?  I also wonder why Bernie and Phyl, whose TV ads used to show the two of them along with their grown children emphasizing that theirs is a family business, have changed their target market. (Their newer TV ads are also quite unappealing…in black and white, with unpleasant people,  sexual innuendos regarding headaches in the bedroom, family arguments and faked Brahmin accents).

Of greater concern is that the subway ads could offend people who are religious, concern those  travelling with children,  upset those who have been sexually abused, or suggest new behaviors to individuals with psychiatric disorders.

in fact,  other ads in the car encouraged riders to join a walk against sexual violence; offered help for autism spectrum disorder; or asked “Are you anxious?” (To which, I replied, “yes,” because of Bernie and Phyl’s ads). 

Clearly, the ads are provocative and will get lots of attention–after all, even I am writing about them.  Such attention might well bring new  customers to Bernie and Phyl’s stores. And it may well be true that “sex sells.”  But I’d bet that the ads will turn off their regular,  more traditional, customers.

I believe that people have a right to say what they wish and to do what they want  in the privacy of their  own homes and that most advertisers should be free to hype their stuff in  print,  radio, TV and on the Internet. But I also believe there should be limits to free speech in public places: (Hate speech, sex talk and some politics should not be inflicted).

It strikes me that the Bernie and Phyl  are walking a fine line with their sexually suggestive ads–in part because the subway is different from other advertising media. The signs are overhead whether you want to see them or not. Unlike ads you drive by on the highway or see in print or on TV or the internet, the subway posters remain in your face: you can’t drive past them or dismiss them by turning a page, changing a channel, or clicking to move on.

It is true that most subway riders can look away and focus on their smartphones. But at a time when mutual respect and consideration are so often sadly lacking,  I would much prefer to shop in stores promoting kindness, compassion and inclusion. As a communications consultant, I believe it would make good business sense for Bernie and Phyl to choose a more uplifting advertising strategy. In fact, I AM  looking for a new sofa. (And for a date!)

–Anita M. Harris
Anita Harris is a writer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA. She is the author of Broken Patterns: Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity, and of Ithaca Diaries, Coming of Age in the 1960’s.

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and content strategy firm based in Kendall Square, Cambridge. 

Excited to have been interviewed about Ithaca Diaries by radio personality  extraordinare Lisa Mullins.  A segment is slated to air nationally on NPR’s “Here and Now,”  on Memorial Day, May 25, 2015.  The  program airs live on WGBH Boston from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. Both in Boston and elsewhere you can  choose a live stream from WBUR or Click here for a searchable list of public radio stations that broadcast Here & Now.

According to the Here and Now Website, you can also:

Hear individual stories: Audio for stories in the first hour of Here & Now is typically posted by 2:30 p.m. EST. Audio for stories in the second hour is typically posted by 3:30 p.m. EST. You can listen to past shows by browsing or searching the archives.

Hear the whole show: You can stream each hour of Here & Now using the WBUR mobile app. A podcast of each hour is also available in the iTunes store, within hours of its air time (better time estimates coming soon). For more ways to download the podcast (not using iTunes), go here.

About Here and Now:
Here and Now is a live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with public radio stations across the country.  According to its Website, the program reflects the fluid world of news as it’s happening in the middle of the day, with timely, smart and in-depth news, interviews and conversation.

Co-hosted by award-winning journalists Robin Young and Jeremy Hobson, the show’s daily lineup includes interviews with NPR reporters, editors and bloggers, as well as leading newsmakers, innovators and artists from across the U.S. and around the globe.

Here & Now began at WBUR in 1997, and expanded to two hours in partnership with NPR in 2013. Today, the show reaches an estimated 3.6 million weekly listeners on over 383 stations across the country.

About Ithaca Diaries
Ithaca Diaries  is a coming of age memoir set at Cornell University in the tumultuous 1960s. The story is told in first person from the point of view of a smart, sassy, funny, scared, sophisticated yet naïve college student who can laugh at herself while she and the world around her are having a nervous breakdown. Based on Harris’ own journals and letters, interviews and other primary and secondary accounts of the time, Ithaca Diaries describes collegiate life as protests, politics, and violence increasingly engulf the student, her campus, and her nation. Her irreverent observations serve as a prism for understanding what it was like to live through those tumultuous  times.While often laugh-out-loud funny, they provide meaningful insight into the process of political and social change we are continuing to experience, today.

Ithaca DIaries is available from Amazon, Kindle and the Cornell Campus Store.

Anita M. Harris is an award-winning writer, blogger, and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA. A new edition of her  first book, Broken Patterns, Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity, was published in 2014. 

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

We are within days of the anniversary of the first revelations from Edward Snowden’s archive of NSA documents. The drum beat of new stories emerging from this trove continues even to this moment.¹ So, Glenn Greenwald’s book, No Place To Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Surveillance State might be greeted with a yawn, what could be new?

In fact, there is much that is new about how these stories have come to light and a very good overview of what we have learned about what Greenwald calls the US Surveillance State. This is a book in two parts. The first 89 pages read like a cross between a detective thriller and a spy story. There are hand offs of thumb drives at airport boarding gates, virgin computers, cell phones sealed off from the reach of the NSA by removing batteries or stuffed in freezers, meetings with a yet to be identified Snowden by an unsolved Rubik’s cube in hand. This part of the book also establishes who Snowden is and how he thinks and views the world and his place in it. This latter introduction of Snowden is completely consistent with the person we have already come to know through his video interviews broadcast a year ago.²

The second half (really it is 170 pages) is a well organized exploration of what has been revealed so far of the NSA’s goals and programs.

THE GIANT SUCKING SOUND – “COLLECT IT ALL”

It is chilling to understand that the internal ethos of the NSA is summed up by the phrase “collect it all” where “it” is all of the information flows in the telephone and internet in the world.  As expressed in the presentation slide “New Collection Posture” from 2010, this is implemented through six strategies: “Sniff It All”, “Know It All”, “Collect It All”, “Process It All, “Exploit It All, and “Partner It All”. Even if you have been following the revelations as published in the various news sources favored with direct access to the Snowden documents, it was hard to envision quite how comprehensive the vision of the NSA is.

BUREAUCRATS DRESSED UP AS JUDGES

Greenwald reiterates the well-known fact that so-called court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, set up by congress to oversee activities of the NSA, FBI and others engaged in intercepting communications is not even an effective administrative element. He notes that in 2012 the “court” did not deny a single on of the 1789 applications. As i have argued earlier³ this so-called court lacks most of the important features that our tradition requires of a court – openness, representation of the plaintiff by a lawyer, and ability to confront accusers. The FISC is just a bunch of bureaucrats dressed up as judges.

BENIGN META DATA

Another issue that Greenwald deals with is the claim by the government and its apologists in the media and academia that the collection of meta data is not really an intrusion on privacy – the NSA is not collecting the content of the communications.(( earlier I have twice commented on this issue: “NSA Vacuuming, Meta Data, Mistaken Misleading Metaphors” and “The Uses of Metadata – an experiment you can conduct with your own life’s metadata“)) In a very telling note Greenwald repeats other privacy activists challenge to those claiming that meta data is benign that they release the meta data for all of their phone calls, emails, and other electronic communications. None have thus far taken up this challenge.

Greenwald touches on many other topics: the role of corporations, surveillance of US allies, many NSA software tools to exploit their data warehouses, privacy in human identity, and more.

In closing, Greenwald’s book is an excellent overview of the issues presented to date by the work done to understand the Snowden documents. And, it is actually a great read with its detective/spy thriller opening that engages the reader so effectively in the drama of the early days of the Snowden whistle blowing.

1. NSA Collecting Millions of Faces from Web Images http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/nsa-collecting-millions-of-faces-from-web-images.html accessed 06012014 [↩]
2.  http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-videoand http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jul/08/edward-snowden-video-interview both accessed 06012014 [↩]
3. “FISA Court – Not a Court – an Administrative Rubber Stamp – Bureaucrats Dressed Up as Judges” http://currentmatters.markorton.com/2013/07/fisa-court-not-a-court-an-administrative-rubber-stamp-bureaucrats-dressed-up-as-judges/ [↩]

–Mark Orton

This review was originally posted at

Current Matters

thoughts on the passing scene from Mr. Wonderful’s World

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

The 2014 Whitney Biennial was  excoriated as “BS” by the Huffington Post, Even the BBC called the show “confounding and exasperating.”  It points out that the  the 77th edition of the Whitney Biennial begins with a question, asked at the very start of the text that greets visitors: “What is contemporary art in the United States now?” After seeing the work of 103 artists and groups on display here, a BBC critic suggests, “you might not be any closer to answering that enquiry.”

Because I had only a few hours to spare,   friends told me not to bother with anything but the exhibits on the fourth floor. But when I arrived at the museum, a tour of the third floor was about to start so I hopped on board. I’m glad I did.

Docent Janice Lieberman explained that the third floor exhibit, curated by Stuart Comer, Chief Curator of Media and Performance Art at the Museum of Modern Art, was meant to show transitions, the blurring of boundaries, changing concepts of internal and external, of gender and sexuality, of political and geographical economy and environment, and the interplay of images and text embodied in art. “What’s an artist, what is art is up for grabs,” she said. “We’re living in a strange time–the disappearing plane off Maylasia, for example, and the shipwreck off Korea.”  She pointed out that it’s a time of transition for the Whitney itself, because the current Breuer Building, built in 1966, will close this summer, and the museum will move to a new highrise at the tip of Manhattan,”

Lieberman explained all of the above in the hallway off the elevator of the 3rd floor, where work by Ken Okiishi is displayed on screens resembling large ipods–on which the artist superimposed digital images on old video,then smeared the screen with what looked to me like finger paint. As Okiishi explained to Interview Magazine:  “I had already been making straight video works, and then I asked, ‘What if I move even further outside of the screen and work on top of the screen?” According to Lieberman, museum visitors often take photos of this work. thus further blurring boundaries by becoming a part of the work. I dutifully took a photo (top left) but to be honest, was not blown away by these. .   The New England Puritan in me was boggled by photos of Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst, a man and a woman who “fell for each other,” as they each switched gender.  Disconcerting and meant to be. I could have lived without the photo of their bare behinds, each with a band aid covering the site of a hormone injection. 

“Meh” to Canopy Canopy Canopy: .com–the work of a collaborative group interested in the history of objects and collections: showing original wooden stand, a reproduction, though others in my tour group were quite impressed by the 3-d printed version o the same.

At one point, when we were standing in front of a workbench amidst sand, tools and other objects, Lieberman said, frankly, “I don’t get this,” I’m not sure if it was she or someone in our group who suggested it was a reference to environmental change. Soon after that, Lieberman warned us that the exhibit gets “stranger and stranger.”

“The American Dream,”  for example, is a collection of paintings by Keith Mayerson, who, Lieberman explained, is a psychoanalyst’s son whose dreams were  to show his work in the Whitney–and  to come out as gay. As described on the Whitney Website, “The salon-style installation includes images of Annie Oakley, Sitting Bull, Abraham Lincoln, and others, and links these stories to those of the nation and of Mayerson.  Paintings of Superman and popular musicians such as Marvin Gaye and the Beatles are juxtaposed with depictions of the artist as a child with his family…and of Mayerson with his husband, Andrew Madrid.”  The beautifully composed paintings, with striking brush strokes, hang close together on walls from floor to ceiling. More power to Meyerson and his dream, I say. I  also say that it was not MY dream to look up and see a large painting of  actor James  Dean, in the nude, masturbating.

Less vibrant, less provocative, are hats, placed on the floor as islands on a piece of cloth, meant,  to show that New York City is no longer the center of the art world–and that the US is now part of the Pacific Rim. .Another set of three attached hats  is used in performance art to show, when worn by  three people, what it’s like to try to move anything politically, Lieberman explained.

I found the painting, drawing and tapestry of 89-year-old Lebanese poet Etel Adnan quite inspiring. Adnan, who now lives in California,”  makes “accordion-fold books, or leporellos, that meld visual and verbal observation, fusing the artist’s parallel practices in painting and writing as she transcribes poems and records unfolding landscapes and urban spaces,” .according to the Whitney writeup.

Before we entered the last room in the 3rd floor exhibit, Lieberman said that, at first, she’d found its contents shocking. ” I couldn’t believe I’d ever actually show it to people,”  filled as it was, with images conveying violence and sex.  In fact, she added, the museum  considered putting a warning sign in front of the doorway. Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard, “goes to the extreme to show the extreme.It’s an example of an artist going to the top to jolt you.” Then, she shrugged. “People love it,” she said. And in we went. The large room  was crowded with museum visitors and mannequins standing or sprawled on couches and chairs, amidst mobiles, hanging art, and stuff strewn all over the place–so chaotically that I couldn’t focus.  When I heard someone exclaim to a friend,  “Look at this,”  I did so. She was holding up a pair of stuffed, beachball sized gonads hanging at either end of a long string.

I decided it was time to leave, thanked Lieberman for her frankness and humor, and asked if I could quote her in this piece. “Yes,” she replied. Then she  suggested mentioning that, in “real life”, she’s a psychoanalyst –clearly the perfect qualification for guiding people through this show.

Incidentally, I did also visit the fourth floor, curated by Michelle Grabner, an artist and Professor in the Painting and Drawing Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Grabner’s stated goal was to “develop a curriculum that presents identifiable themes… that are currently established in the textures of contemporary aesthetic, political, and economic realities.” She prioritized “contemporary abstract painting by women; materiality and affect theory; and art as strategy—in other words, conceptual practices oriented toward criticality.”

I found the work she chose more accessible and understandable but far less provocative than the work shown on the third floor. I liked Sheila Hicks “Pillar of Inquiry.” The work of the 80-year-old Nebraska artist melds the weaver’s craft and fine art. (Photo, left,by Bill Orcut)t. Was also struck by Sterling Ruby’s large, colorful ceramic vessels filled with remnants of earlier works that he had deemed failures or which had accidentally blown up during firing” As explained on the Whitney Website, the finished works contain notions of archaeological excavation, reanimating his own objects exhumed from the past into new, living forms.  I did wonder if the docent leading the fourth-floor tour I was kidding when she told us Grabner wanted to award “best-in-how” to a “12×12″or so z-shaped- sculpture coated to look like foam rubber– on a pedastal, with a string pulled through it.

I was sorry to miss Grabner’s selections of women’s abstract expressionists–and also the second exhibit floor, chosen  by Anthony Elms, Associate Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.

Donna De Salvo, Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Programs at the Whitney, noted: “Together, the 103 participants offer one of the broadest and most diverse takes on art in the United States that the Whitney has offered in many years.”

While many critics dumped on the show as a whole, I  thought it was fun.

The Biennial runs through May 25, 2014.

–Anita M. Harris

Anita Harris is a writer, photographer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA. New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, an award-winning PR and marketing firm in Kendall Square. Cambridge.

Boston area  startups Cocoon Biotech, Riparian Pharmaceuticals, Cellanyx Diagnostics, and DavosPharma  were awarded$22K in funds and in-kind services at an innovation competition held by Biotech Tuesday, a Cambridge-based networking organization for life science professionals.

left-to-right : Execs from EMD Serono, Novartis and Lab Central

At an event on November 19th event, executives from EMD Serono, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research and LabCentral chose the winning startup pitches from among five finalists’ presentations. The finalists were selected from an initial field of thirteen online entries based, in part, on online feedback from BiotechTuesday members. The three winners were all therapeutics and diagnostics startups proposing solutions to challenging medical problems.

Cocoon Biotech, Inc., led by CEO and founder Ailis Tweed-Kent, a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital won the $5000 EMD Serono Innovation Award.  Cocoon Biotech is developing a silk-based gel for injection into the joint to provide long lasting joint support and lubrication in patients with osteoarthritis.  EMD Serono is the biopharmaceutical subsidiary of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a global pharmaceutical and chemical group.

Riparian Pharmaceuticals, led by Will Adam, Chief Scientific Officer and President, won both the $10,000 in-kind Novartis Innovation Award and the $3000 in-kind Pharmatek Innovation Award. Riparian Pharmaceuticals is focused on therapeutics that induce an anti-inflammatory response in cells to address diseases such as atherosclerosis.  Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc. discovers and develops new and innovative medicines. Pharmatek Laboratories, Inc. is a premier pharmaceutical chemistry development and manufacturing organization supporting the pharmaceutical & biotechnology industries.

Cellanyx Diagnostics, led by Co-Founder and CEO Ashok Chander, won the $4000 in-kind LabCentral Innovation Award.  Cellanyx is developing a prostate cancer diagnostic based on culturing tumor biopsy cells that promises to be much more accurate than current diagnostics.  LabCentral provides fully functional lab space, permits, waste handling, plus all reasonably common lab equipment for bioresearch.

In addition to awarding startups, the event also acknowledged the contribution of life science products and services in enabling cutting edge research for new therapeutics.  DavosPharma won the Most Innovative Product or Service Award in recognition of its Anthem-GenTox product. This product offers scientists a high throughput genotoxicity assay based on human cells with greatly improved accuracy over conventional methods.

“This was Biotech Tuesday’s first innovation competition–but by no means its last, “said BioTechTuesday Co-Founder Seth Taylor, who organizes BiotechTuesday and served as master of ceremonies for the event.” The feedback from attendees was overwhelmingly in favor of the competition,” Taylor said.  “We look forward to continuing our efforts to engage our broad community of life science professionals in supporting innovators.”

The competition took place at District Hall, a new event space at 75 Northern Avenue in the Boston Seaport District.

–Anita Harris

Anita Harris is a writer and content expert based in Cambridge, MA. 

New Cambridge Observer is published by the Harris Communications Group,  a PR and marketing firm based at the Cambridge Innovation Center, in Kendall Square. HarrisCom offers writing and content services for clients in healthcare, life sciences, biotech, energy and the environment.  Full disclosure:  HarrisCom handled media outreach for the event as a probono sponsor. 

Will play at West End Johnnie, Boston, on Wednesday, November 20 Limited tickets now available through Eventbrite.com

James Montgomery to lead at acoustic blues benefit Nov. 20

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.