VIC Client Receives Research Award

by Talk Business & Politics ([email protected]) 76 views 

OmniPak LLC, a Fayetteville client of Virtual Incubation Corp., has received a $100,000 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research award from the National Science Foundation.

OmniPak designs “packaging” to shield delicate microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) while also allowing input to and output from the instrument.

MEMS are tiny instruments, not quiet nano scale, that have many commercial applications in communications, biotechnology and other industries.

Speaking of VIC clients, the company may pick up a new one called GeneFab LLC.

GeneFab is a planned spin-off company headed by University of Arkansas’ computer science and computer engineering professor Russell Deaton and Jin-Woo Kim, an assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering.

Observant Business Journal readers will recall Deaton and Kim are involved in DNA research at UA that may one day lead to a “DNA computer,” which could conceivably store the entire contents of the Internet in a drop of water.

GeneFab, Deaton said, will be a “bio-nano” company, which means using biological materials to build nano-scaled products.

No word yet on what some of those products or their commercial applications might be.