Virginia BioTechnology Research Park

October 2010

Biotech Park News

Governor McDonnell Announces 213 New Jobs in the City of Richmond
Governor Bob McDonnell announced that Health Diagnostic Laboratory, Inc. (HDL, Inc.) will invest $4.2 million in its operation in the City of Richmond. HDL, Inc., located in the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park, to expand its clinical laboratory, diagnostics and clinical trial services, as well as its physician/patient consulting. The project will create 213 new jobs.   “HDL, Inc. is a unique company and a great asset to the City of Richmond and Virginia,” said Governor McDonnell. “The company’s clinical lab and testing options enable physicians to work on an individual level with patients to understand chronic disease and treatment and each personal disease state. This kind of attention to detail truly can help to identify and reverse health risks, as well as provide education and support to the patient. HDL’s investment and expansion of its lab and services will continue to better the lives of those suffering from chronic disease.”
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Chinese Delegation Visits the Biotech Park
On Wednesday, October 13th 2010 the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park hosted a delegation from Yangzhou, China. The group came to the Park following a request by Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy, who hosted the delegation, covering topics including economic development and public investment in knowledge-based job creation. The participants were Vice Directors and Division Chiefs from 10 Economic Development Zones and Industrial Parks within Yangzhou, China. Collectively, they were in charge of construction, planning, and the promotion of investment in their zones and parks. Specific to their visit, they were interested in industry selection within the park, infrastructure construction, and finance related to park improvement. They were particularly interested in visiting the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park because it is one of the few successful urban biotechnology research parks in the United States.
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Richmond Company Provided Special Socks For Miners
WTVR-CBS6  One of the early needs of miners trapped for 69 days deep underground in a copper and gold mine in Copiapo, Chile, were socks. And not just any old socks, but high-tech, anti-microbial, copper impregnated socks being marketed and developed by a Richmond-based firm. That company, Cupron, has been in the news before for their products that fight facial wrinkles, as well as their copper-fibered sheets and pillowcases. But the publicity from the miraculous mine story, and the apparent fact that the miners feet were clean and free of fungus and other infections, may prove to be a gold mine for the investment and research firm. Paul Rocheleau, chairman of the company anchored in the Virginia Biotech Center on E. Leigh Street, said the main thing is the miners are alive and healthy. But there’s no doubt the fame of Cupron’s socks also rose significantly, he added. He and other executives have heard from news organizations around the world.
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Capitalism Saved the Miners
It needs to be said. The rescue of the Chilean miners is a smashing victory for free-market capitalism. Amid the boundless human joy of the miners’ liberation, it may seem churlish to make such a claim. It is churlish. These are churlish times, and the stakes are high.
If those miners had been trapped a half-mile down like this 25 years ago anywhere on earth, they would be dead. What happened over the past 25 years that meant the difference between life and death for those men?
Short Answer:
Jeffrey Gabbay, the founder of Cupron Inc. in Richmond, Va., supplied socks made with copper fiber that consumed foot bacteria, and minimized odor and infection. Chile’s health minister, Jaime Manalich, said, “I never realized that kind of thing actually existed.”
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Kidney Paired Donation Pilot Program to Begin Matching in October; Participating Programs Named
The national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), operated under federal contract by United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), will soon perform the first match run of a national pilot program to facilitate kidney paired donation (KPD) transplants. The match run is intended to identify medically compatible pairs of potential living kidney donors and candidates, in cases where the potential donor was not able to match with his or her original intended recipient.  A total of 77 living kidney donor transplant programs will participate in the initial pilot phase. Each program is affiliated with one of four coordinating centers, which will work directly with UNOS on administrative issues such as donor/recipient applications, logistical arrangements and data submission.
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VCU News and Research

International Research Team Uncovers How the Deaf Have Super Vision
Ever wonder how it is that people who are deaf or blind seem to have enhanced perceptual abilities in their remaining senses? A new study by an international team of researchers may have uncovered how the part of the brain used for hearing is reorganized to enhance vision in congenitally deaf cats. This phenomenon is known as cross-modal plasticity, which refers to the replacement of a damaged sensory system by one of the remaining systems. In this case, the sense of hearing is replaced with enhanced vision.
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Researchers Discover a New Class of Highly Electronegative Chemical Species
An international team of researchers has discovered a new class of highly electronegative chemical species called hyperhalogens, which use superhalogens as building blocks around a metal atom. The new chemical species may have application in many industries. Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University, McNeese State University in Lake Charles, La., and the University of Konstanz in Germany report their discovery in the Oct. 6 international chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. The journal designated the paper as “very important,” recognition granted to only 5 percent of papers it receives.
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School of Nursing Receives Grant for Research in Breast Cancer Patients
The Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing has received a five-year, $3.6 million grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research to study epigenetics and psychoneurologic symptoms in women with breast cancer. The grant, awarded to Debra Lyon, Ph.D., R.N., chair of the Department of Family and Community Health Nursing, and Colleen Jackson-Cook, Ph.D., professor in the VCU School of Medicine, is the largest to date for the School of Nursing.
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VCU Hosts Open House for Newly Renovated Center for Human Simulation and Patient Safety
The newly renovated Center for Human Simulation and Patient Safety opened its doors this fall to university officials, faculty, staff and students who had a chance to tour the new facility, participate in simulation demonstrations and meet the center’s new staff. The center, which is a collaboration between the VCU School of Medicine and the VCU Health System, provides simulation-based training for faculty and medical students of the School of Medicine as well as for trainees and staff of the VCU Health System.
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Key Leukemia Defense Mechanism Discovered by VCU Massey Cancer Center
Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center researcher Steven Grant, M.D., and a team of VCU Massey researchers have uncovered the mechanism by which leukemia cells trigger a protective response when exposed to a class of cancer-killing agents known as histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs). The findings, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, could lead to more effective treatments in patients with leukemia and other cancers of the blood.
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