Campus Talk: UA Affiliated Company Leader Named Finalist For Cartier Award
by June 30, 2015 9:18 am 126 views
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UA AFFILIATED COMPANY NAMED FINALIST FOR CARTIER AWARD
Ellen Brune, who started a manufacturing company that makes pharmaceutical proteins using a method she helped develop at the University of Arkansas, is one of 18 women in the world who have been selected as finalists for the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards.
The Cartier Women’s Initiative is an international business plan competition that identifies, supports and encourage projects by women entrepreneurs. Brune, 28, is one of two women from the United States who will compete in France in October for a prize package that includes $20,000 and a year of coaching in business development and marketing.
Brune, who holds a doctorate in chemical engineering, founded Boston Mountain Biotech after helping develop a patented method to simplify the production of pharmaceutical proteins used in drugs that treat a variety of diseases and health conditions. Read more here. Brune’s Boston Mountain Biotech – a Genesis Technology Incubator client at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park – holds the exclusive license to market the trademarked Lotus purification platform.
ASU PROFESSOR RECEIVES $1.7 MILLION NATIONAL HEALTH RESEARCH GRANT
A program at Arkansas State University made history last week as researchers will now study the development of autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis.
Dr. Shiguang Yu, assistant professor of immunology in the Arkansas Biosciences Institute at Arkansas State University, has been awarded a $1.7 million research grant from the National Institutes of Health, university officials said. The research project grant program (R01) is the original and oldest grant mechanism used by NIH.
The grant, which will be distributed over a five-year period, is designated for Yu to continue studying mechanisms leading to development of autoimmune diseases. Yu’s research is focused upon understanding how dysfunctional immune cells mediate autoimmune inflammation. The long-term goal of his research is to find novel therapeutic targets for intervention on autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis.
HUTCHINSON TOUTS COMPUTER CODING, JOBS AT CNBC
Gov. Asa Hutchinson leveraged an appearance and op-ed at CNBC last week to tout Arkansas’ business climate and to discuss his computer coding initiative. Check out the guest commentary at this link.
GOVERNOR: PARCC DESTINED TO GO AWAY
Gov. Asa Hutchinson said last week that Arkansas is destined to stop using the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exam, so it needs to move away from it as soon as possible.
Speaking to Little Rock Rotary Club 99, Hutchinson explained his decision to direct the Department of Education to drop the exam by saying, “Clearly we’re going to move away from PARCC, whether it’s this year or the next year, and to me, you make that judgment, you ought to do it now so we can have more long-term stability and begin our comparability and our measurability under the new testing regime.” The PARCC is an end-of-year student exam aligned with the controversial Common Core.