SSTI Digest

Former Massachusetts House Majority Leader Salvatore DiMasi has replaced Thomas Finneran as Speaker of the House. Finneran recently resigned to run the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.

Eugene Huang will replace Virginia Secretary of Technology George Newstrom, who is resigning after two years in the position.

Jesse Jones is the new CEO of Ohio's IT Alliance. Jones formerly was chief technology officer of the City of Columbus.

Fred Kocher has been elected president of the New Hampshire High Technology Council, which advocates technology-based businesses in New Hampshire.

Laurie Lachance recently was named the next president of the Maine Development Foundation, Maine's economic development policy organization. Lachance is a former economist for the Maine State Planning Office.

Kenneth Lynn has been appointed president of KCCatalyst. Lynn formerly was a consultant to biotechnology companies assisting in technology acquisition, strategic planning, and commercial development.

Tino Mantella has been appointed president of the Technology Association of Georgia, a nonprofit organization that focuses on promotion and economic advancement of the state's technology industry.

Secretary Aris Melisssaratos of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development recently announced two new appointments. Leslie Sipes-Pachol will serve in the position of executive director for the Maryland Economic Development Commission, and Paul Mauritz has been promoted to become Assistant Secretary for Technology Strategy and Business Development.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco appointed state bond commisssion director Sharon Perez to serve as undersecretary for the Louisiana Department of Economic Development, and Secretary Michael Olivier named Dane Revette director of the agency's energy cluster.

While the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have voiced caution and funded efforts to understand the potential societal and environmental implications of nanotechnology deployment, both agencies announced much larger funding commitments - totaling $213 million - to expedite commercial applications for the explosive field. Nanotech Solutions for Cancer Carrying a federal five-year price tag of $144.3 million, the NIH's National Cancer Institute (NCI) is forming the NCI Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer, a comprehensive, integrated initiative encompassing researchers, clinicians, and public and private organizations that have joined forces to develop and translate cancer-related nanotechnology research into clinical practice. The new NCI Alliance is one of the first steps in implementing the Cancer Nanotechnology Plan, which was developed over the past 18 months with the input of a broad cross-section of the cancer research and clinical oncology communities. The NCI Alliance consists of four major program activities: Centers of Cancer…

During the states' fiscal crisis, a number of TBED programs were eliminated, while others survived. SSTI staff spent a fair amount of time analyzing what the survivors had in common, and we boiled the results down to three items that successful TBED programs have in common. While it may seem simplistic, the three commonalities are: They do a good job, They measure whether they're doing a good job, and They tell people they're doing a good job. Building Tech-based Economies: Preparing for Tomorrow's Challenges is designed around those three points. The conference sessions will help you create, implement and modify programs that will produce results. Two of the sessions are specifically focused on measuring whether you're doing a good job. And, one of the pre-conference sessions addresses the aspect of success that the TBED community tends to do poorly: telling people you're doing a good job. Marketing Success: Telling the TBED Story on Oct. 13 will offer advice on what to do and the pitfalls to avoid in all aspects of TBED marketing: defining your strategy, building support for…

In order to provide further incentives for crucial research and development (R&D) and to encourage more industries to carry out R&D in Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, the economic development agency for Scotland has launched a new funding scheme. R&D PLUS offers a tax credit of up to 25 percent of eligible program costs for large companies meeting specific criteria. The companies must be able to demonstrate the economic rationale for assistance includes long-term capacity building and sustainability to improve a company’s competitiveness through R&D, according to the Scottish Enterprise. The Enterprise cited figures from the Scottish government, which reported that expenditure on R&D in Scotland increased by 62 percent in real terms between 1995-2001. According to a recent report comparing Scottish R&D expenditure and employment to the United Kingdom (UK), Scotland’s expenditure in R&D has continued to grow, particularly in business R&D. The report, Business Enterprise Research and Development in Scotland 2002, shows that R&D spending has risen to 4.9…