It’s official: Michigan State University (MSU) beat out several top nuclear science locations around the country for the new, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science-funded, $550 million Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB).

FRIB will provide intense beams of rare isotopes—short-lived atomic nuclei not normally found on Earth—that will enable researchers to address leading-edge questions in nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics.

MSU’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) has been recognized as a world leader in rare isotope science and has produced research that has led to important breakthroughs in medicine, materials research, national security and physics.

"This is a great day for science,” says MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon. “We are grateful to the Department of Energy’s commitment to address this critical priority for the nation's physical sciences research infrastructure, and we are proud to have been selected as a partner. We are deeply dedicated to working with the Department of Energy’s Office of Science to develop an exceptional user facility serving the needs of national and international scientists."

Conceptual designs for the new facility will be created this year. Construction is expected to take up to 10 years. The facility will attract top researchers from around the world to conduct experiments in nuclear science, astrophysics and applications of isotopes to other fields.

The facility is expected to bring $1 billion in economic activity and 400 jobs to Michigan, according to an analysis by the Anderson Economic Group.

The NCSL facility will also get an upgrade, including a new, low-energy linear accelerator for nuclear astrophysics experiments and a 10,000-square-foot expansion of the experimental area. The upgrade should be complete by the summer of 2010.

For more information on the NCSL, click here.

Source: MSU

Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here. 

All Photographs © Dave Trumpie

A $2.2 million federal grant will help Michigan State University’s (MSU) College of Human Medicine engage students in the medical field before they reach college.

The federal Health Resources and Services Administration funded the three-year grant, which will pay for the creation of the Health Professions Achievement Pathway Alliance. The alliance will help engage elementary and high school students who are interested in medicine in health and science related activitiesbefore they decide to continue their education.

Specific programs will target middle and high school students, pre-health professions students enrolled in Michigan colleges and universities, post baccalaureate pre-medical students and disadvantaged students who are enrolled in MSU’s College of Human Medicine.

Alliance members include MSU’s colleges of Human Medicine and Natural Science, the Lansing School District, the Ingham Intermediate School District and three community-based organizations: the Black Child and Family Institute, the Cristo Rey Community Center and the Greater Lansing African American Health Institute.

Source: MSU

Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.

The Michigan National Resources Trust Fund (NRTF) approved a $1.98 million allocation for the acquisition of 120 acres of land that will expand Lake Lansing North Park.

The community’s played a huge role in getting funds for this expansion. The Meridian Township Land Preservation Advisory Board provided $675,000; Ingham County supplied $25,000 and the community raised $150,000. 

The Preserve Lake Lansing Trails Committee and the Friends of Ingham County Parks, raised more than $150,000 from more than 1,000 donors in five short months. Matching funds for the grant had to be raised before the grant could be awarded.

 “Kudos to the entire Preserve Lake Lansing Trails group for their tremendous commitment and determination,” says Ingham County Commissioner Deb Nolan.

The land will be jointly developed by Meridian Township and Ingham County.

“This property was overwhelmingly identified by Land Preservation Advisory Board members as the most unique in the county with the most exceptional natural features,” says Mary Helmbrecht, Meridian Township Clerk   The current property owner, HDI Builders, has allowed Ingham County Parks to use a portion of the property for the Lake Lansing Park North trail system at no cost since the 1980s.

Source: Deb Bavery, Ingham County Parks

Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here. 

Michigan State University (MSU) researchers are delving into the effect globalization has on remote communities.

The researchers are using a $1 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to conduct a five-year study of “globalization from the perspective of households,” says principal investigator Dan Kramer, an assistant professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and James Madison College.

The study focuses on a group of villages on the Caribbean Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua. It wasn’t until 2007 that a road was completed to connect the coast to Managua, Nicaragua’s capital. The group will study the road’s effects on household resource use, farming and fishing, through comparisons to baseline data collected before the road was built.

Kramer says other studies have focused on globalization’s effects on nations or regions, but have ignored the “really complex set of drivers,” such as market access, technological change and migration between communities that cause changes in households.

Kramer said the group has already observed changes in the villagers’ attitudes about development. Initially they were excited, but are now exhibiting some apprehension about spinoff developments.

Source: MSU

Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here. 

Employees of Web Ascenderin East Lansing are forever tinkering with new technologies, both onand off the job. In October, two of these employees sold one of theirideas to Whitepages.com.

Jeff McWherter and Michael Pardo sold a feature to Whitepages.com for the Google Phone, allowing the phone user to get the caller’s name, phone number and address when they call. This allows users to identify callers that arenot in their contact list.

During the firsttwo weeks of the application’s release, it was downloaded more than100,000 times and was featured on Web sites such as Gizmodo and Lifehacker.

The application even allows the user to add the person to their contact list and pull up a map of where the call originated.

“Itis always amazing to see something that starts as just a simple officeconversation, and watch it turn into a viable product,” says WebAscender's president Ryan Doom.

Source: Ryan Doom, Web Ascender

Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.

Williamston-based Wendy Shaft Block Printed Images and Limner Press are celebrating a year of success with the national greeting card industry.

Wendy Shaft, owner of Wendy Shaft Block Printed Images and her husband, Don Bixler, own Limner Press and signed a contract with national Collage Greetings last September. They now produce letterpress cards for the company, a partnership that’s given Shaft and Bixler a national presence.

“They picked us up nationally last September and it’s still going pretty good,” Bixler says.

Limner press specializes in old-fashioned letterpress printing.

Block and Bixler first started their printing company in1984 in Alaska while Shaft worked on the Alaska pipeline. Family circumstances brought them back to Michigan so they moved the printing business to Williamston.

The move is working out well for Bixler who says he likes living in small town Michigan.

“I actually like it,” he says. “I’ve spent most of my adult life in bigger cities and I really like the close business community that’s out here. I like having the ability, if I want something, for the most part, being able to walk right up the street to get it.”

Source: Don Bixler, Limner Press

Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here. 

All Photographs © Dave Trumpie

Williamston-based AI Medical Devices, Inc. will close 2008 on a positive note. The medical device supplier recently got a $400,000 loan from the Michigan 21st Century Jobs fund and one of its founders, John Schwartz, was named innovator of the year by MichBio, Michigan’s biotechnology industry association.

AI Medical devices produces the Airway RIFL (Rigid Intubating Fiberoptic Laryngoscope), a device that facilitates placement of a flexible plastic tube into the trachea of patients to protect the airway and allow mechanical ventilation. The procedure, although common, is difficult, often traumatic and—if improperly done—can cause grave damage. It is especially difficult to perform on those suffering cervical spine injuries.

Schwartz, a Michigan State University (MSU) professor, and his brother ,Richard, an MSU graduate and Medical College of Georgia emergency room physician, created AI Medical Devices more than two years ago.

The brothers devised their innovation while on a sailboat in the Virgin Islands. Richard was in the military and was concerned about inserting medical tubes in people with spinal and facial injuries.

They started tinkering with pina colada straws in hopes of creating a device that might make the procedure less risky. When they got home, they fully developed their device and made plans to get it on the market.

They now have 11 patents pending. Two have been approved.

The two brothers recently completed a new scope that has a camera in the tip. It’s being tested in some markets, but should be in most markets in January.

“It’s completely electronic system,” Schwartz says. “We’ve done away with all the fiber optics.”

Now they need to find a CEO that can take them to the next level.

“We agreed with the 21st Century Fund, that we would hire a Michigan-based CEO for the company and that we would do most of the product development here,” he says. “We are also looking for some office space and warehousing space.”

Source: John Schwartz, AI Medical Devices, Inc.

Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.  

All Photographs © Dave Trumpie

The Lansing-based Prima Civitas Foundation (PCF) received a $200,000 grant that will allow the nonprofit to help universities commercialize innovations.

The C.S. Mott Foundation awarded the grant to Prima Civitas. The grant is a renewal of a 2007 Mott Foundation grant that provided funding for the “Moving Ideas to Market” initiative. The first round of the initiative created five action groups that will support efforts to commercialize university research and intellectual property.

These action groups focus on post-secondary entrepreneurship; high school entrepreneurship; developing a network to accelerate the relationship between entrepreneurs and angel investors; university and industry partnerships; and the WeToo Web feature that will link entrepreneurs and their service providers with regional resources.

“We know that we can’t change the culture in one year or grant period, but I am confident that a consistent tactical approach toward reinventing our entrepreneurship and commercialization strategies will pay off for the region,” says David Hollister, CEO and President of the Prima Civitas Foundation.

“Mott’s commitment, and the commitment of our partners and regional universities, moves us significantly forward.”

Source: Steven Bennett, Prima Civitas

Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here. 

All Photographs © Dave Trumpie