The debate over commercialization of research in Alberta's post-secondary institutes continues.

The Edmonton Journal: Front page of print edition, Thursday, May 23, 2013. 
"Profit push worries campuses"  by staff writer Sheila Pratt
 

  Back about seven years ago, Shawn van Drecht and his former partners developed a measurement tool for oil wells,  a patented machine that accurately measured the length of rod heading down into an oil or natural gas well. It was a nice piece of machinery. Count-Rite currently leases the technology out to a 3rd party. But like all technologies, Count-Rite’s tool as it stood could be improved. “I needed to make Count-Rite’s G3 Wear Tool  more versatile,” says Shawn, who bought out his partners in the interim. “Continuous rod is inserted into a well through tubing. The rod is subject to wear and tear within the tubing as it spins. “When rig workers are removing the rod from a well, somebody has to hold a wrench along the rod as it passes. That’s the standard means at this point to measure the thickness of the rod when removed from a well.   If the rod is getting thinner, it reduces the amount of torque the rod can take. Eventually it wil ...

 

  (TEC Edmonton is passing on a reminder Re: 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. conference in Fort Saskatchewan on Friday, May 24, 2013: Full Circle - Advancing the Bio-Economic Opportunities in Alberta's Industrial Heartland.)   Just a reminder to register if you have not done so as yet.  We have over 100 registered to date.   Please feel free to forward to others that may benefit from this event.   FULL CIRCLE - ADVANCING THE BIO-ECONOMY OPPORTUNITIES in the HEARTLAND - Friday May 24, 2013, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Down Centennial Centre, Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta.    Registration and Agenda                         Deadline date: May 20th    Join us as we learn: ·        What a bio-cluster is; ·        How to get started ...

The Funding Roadshow, a joint presentation of TEC Edmonton and Fundica, arrives in Edmonton on May 30, 2013, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at TEC Edmonton, fourth floor, Enterprise Square, 10230 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton. The roadshow is an opportunity for up to 25 Canadian entrepreneurs with start up and small-to-medium companies to seek investment capital.  Those chosen will have five minutes to present their business pitch to a panel of private and public funders, followed by a 10 minute question and answer session. The day will conclude with networking at the nearby The Hat on Jasper pub. Accepted entrepreneurs will be notified of their time slots in advanace of the event.  To be eligible to present, the company must have a strong technology development component, be seeking strong revenue growth of 20% in the coming year.  The cost is $25 per entrepreneur team. Funders in attendance include  Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF), VA Angels, Enhanced Capital Recovery (SRE&a ...

The Centre for Drug Research and Development headquartered in Vancouver, B.C. has announced new partnerships with Quebec's Universite de Sherbrooke and Universite Laval. See press release:  CDRD Strengthens National Drug Development Bridge with New Quebec Partnerships. 

Good news for TEC Edmonton client Ceapro, signing a major agreement with German multinational provider of natural active ingredients, Symrise.

Ceapro will provide product from its inventory of oat and other plant extracts to Symrise.

Symrise will provide Ceapro with financial support with a "significant" line of credit for the next three years.

See Marketwired press release, "Ceapro signs a license and distribution agreement with Symrise."

Much discussion and debate in the newspapers today on federal government's National Research Council re-orientation to the application of science for commercial purposes,  as opposed to "pure" science. Weighing in from the National Post was Andrew Coyne's column casting a pox on both schools. "The redirection of public funds from basic to applied research may be bad science, but it is even worse economics. Whatever the distortion of the NRC’s raison d’etre is implied, it is nothing compared to the distortion of the economy. Far from a pragmatic matching of public research dollars to the real-word needs of industry, it reveals a basic confusion about the appropriate public and private roles in funding research." Columnist John Ivison suggests "The government has been spending billions to try to kick-start business R&D and been getting very little to show for its money. Pure research will continue in academia but the NRC will now be focused on being t ...

Greg O’Hare, co-founder of TEC Edmonton client GO Technologies, is one of those guys who enjoys thinking as he works. Having spent 17 years as a journeyman gasfitter, he has been around thousands of natural gas and oil wellheads out in the Lloydminster/Vermillion area of Alberta, Canada. He was seeing patterns. As formation pressure in certain fields dropped, subterranean natural gas was pushing into the reservoir, resulting in more natural gas being pumped to the surface. Which is not a bad thing in itself. But when the cost of gathering, storing, processing and moving that gas exceeds the value of the product, it’s a serious problem. In the past, excessive low-value gas was used on site. The remainder was flared, or vented off into the atmosphere. As environment standards and regulations improve, flaring has become less acceptable. Wells unable to dispose of excess natural gas in an environmentally responsible fashion can be shut down. O’Hare saw something else going on. High-pressure ...

  So much potential. So much work to do. On the verge of VibeDx’s  first clinical trials, to “build the playbook” as it were, VibeDx co-founder Dr. Greg Kawchuk offers this analogy to the current state of VibeDx’s revolutionary but still preliminary  back-pain testing technology. “Somewhere, at some time, a researcher stuck electrodes on somebody’s chest around his or her heart,” says Dr. Kawchuk. “That researcher discovered electrical activity emanating from the heart. Then came an understanding of the patterns created by that activity. Then came the interpretation and measurement of those patterns to detect heart problems. Today, we have electrocardiograms (ECGs) as a simple, fast, efficient measurement of heart health.” The winner of the 2011 TEC VenturePrize Fast Growth Award, and a tenant in the TEC Centre, VibeDx has developed non-invasive vibration analysis technology that could, one day, offer more accurate assessment of back pr ...