Life Sciences

Regarding the Nov. 15 editorial " Montgomery County, losing its edge ": Montgomery County jobs (counting the self-employed, which are not included in the Bureau of Labor Statistics cited by The Post) increased by 44,000 — or 8 percent — between 2001 and 2010. That's 60 percent higher than the national job-growth average over the same period. Fairfax County did a little better — 12 percent. The editorial compared Montgomery to Fairfax. Fair enough, but the truth is that both counties are great places to live...

T.C. Tso, 95, a senior research scientist and tobacco expert with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, died April 9 of heart disease at his home in Silver Spring. The death was confirmed by his daughter, Betty Tso. Dr. Tso joined USDA's tobacco research laboratory in Beltsville in 1952 as a research scientist and became laboratory director in the late 1960s. During his tenure, he developed a method of removing harmful proteins from the tobacco leaf. He was the author of many scholarly articles and books.

Michelle Amaral wanted to be a brain scientist to help cure diseases. She planned a traditional academic science career: PhD, university professorship and, eventually, her own lab. But three years after earning a doctorate in neuroscience, she gave up trying to find a permanent job in her field. Dropping her dream, she took an administrative position at her university, experiencing firsthand an economic reality that, at first look, is counterintuitive: There are too many laboratory scientists for too few jobs.

Regarding Jeffrey A. Rosenfeld and Christopher E. Mason's April 7 Sunday Opinions commentary, " Who owns your DNA? Not who you think. ": The patents for which Mr. Rosenfeld and Mr. Mason criticized my company were essential to developing diagnostic tools that have been used by more than 1 million women to understand their hereditary risks of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. We did not patent human genes from anyone's body. Rather, our patents protect synthetic molecules created in the lab. This is no different than...

For the second time a team of scientists in Prince William County has delivered a promising life sciences company. This time the county hopes to keep it. The county recently agreed to spend $100,000 to develop space for the new company, Ceres Nanosciences, so it can test its drug for detecting human growth hormone. The start-up took form in the county's Innovation at Prince William business park, as a spinoff from work on George Mason University's campus there. If the tests are successful, the company would have...

Steve Dubin left Martek Biosciences last November, nearly a year after selling the Columbia firm for $1.1 billion to Royal DSM , but you might not know it from looking at his schedule last Wednesday. The former chief executive spent his entire day with the company, though now his title is consultant. Dubin and former Martek President David Abramson created SDA Ventures shortly after their departure from the nutrition firm to advise Royal DSM and other companies in the sector on everything from...

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett wants to create a $3 billion life sciences research center at a former sludge composting facility site north of White Oak, and on Friday he announced the private partner the county selected to build it. Percontee, a family real estate firm based in White Oak, won a county competition to develop a 115-acre, county-owned former Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission plant east of Route 29...

T.C. Tso, 95, a senior research scientist and tobacco expert with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, died April 9 of heart disease at his home in Silver Spring. The death was confirmed by his daughter, Betty Tso. Dr. Tso joined USDA's tobacco research laboratory in Beltsville in 1952 as a research scientist and became laboratory director in the late 1960s. During his tenure, he developed a method of removing harmful proteins from the tobacco leaf. He was the author of many scholarly articles and books.

Thursday -- NATO foreign ministers meet in Brussels. Expansion of the organization will be on the agenda. -- China's National People's Congress holds its annual session in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Sunday BioVision, a major life sciences forum, opens its biannual meeting in Lyon, France, on the theme of sustainable urban living.

The economic downturn made funding harder to come by for many capital-intensive biotechnology companies, prompting some to outsource drug development and other services they might otherwise have kept in house. The result has been a boost for a cottage industry of service providers that for years has made money by working through challenges that are largely unique to life sciences companies. Rockville-based Advanced Bioscience Laboratories, for example, unveiled a 72,000-square-foot facility Friday where its...

Short takes on the week's announcements and deals. Acquisitions Gaithersburg-based Oil Price Information Service , which publishes spot prices for refined petroleum products, said it has acquired Brooklyn Park, Minn.-based GasBuddy, a Web site that lists gasoline prices. Terms were not disclosed. Sterling-based cloud computing storage company IceWeb said it will acquire Kansas City, Mo.-based data center and Internet service provider Computers and Tele-Comm. Terms were not disclosed.

LAST WEEK a group of technology titans announced the establishment of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences , a $3 million award for each scientist honored, more than twice the sum of the Nobel Prize. The award comes at a time when the life sciences are in the middle of a scientific revolution no less awe-inspiring than the splitting of the atom. The founders of the prize include Art Levinson, chairman of both Apple and Genentech; Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook; Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google; and Yuri Milner, a Russian...

There is a new law firm on the block. Cooley, the Silicon Valley-based law firm best known for technology and life sciences work, moved into the Warner Building in downtown D.C. last month — a space once occupied by Howrey, the esteemed Washington law firm that dissolved and filed for bankruptcy in 2011. The move is more than a little symbolic. If Howrey was the quintessential Washington law firm , building its roots around the federal government, Cooley represents a...

Learning CPR was the best part of Anne Selby's day on Oct. 26. For her classmate Daniel Aguilar, it was learning how to operate robotic limbs. Anne said when she grows up, she wants to be a nurse or a teacher. Daniel said he wants to be a mechanic. The seventh-graders at Forest Oak Middle School viewed Frontiers in Science and Medicine Day, which took place at the Universities at Shady Grove in Rockville, as an exciting learning experience outside the classroom. The adults who made it...

Steve Dubin left Martek Biosciences last November, nearly a year after selling the Columbia firm for $1.1 billion to Royal DSM , but you might not know it from looking at his schedule last Wednesday. The former chief executive spent his entire day with the company, though now his title is consultant. Dubin and former Martek President David Abramson created SDA Ventures shortly after their departure from the nutrition firm to advise Royal DSM and other companies in the sector on...

Michelle Amaral wanted to be a brain scientist to help cure diseases. She planned a traditional academic science career: PhD, university professorship and, eventually, her own lab. But three years after earning a doctorate in neuroscience, she gave up trying to find a permanent job in her field. Dropping her dream, she took an administrative position at her university, experiencing firsthand an economic reality that, at first look, is counterintuitive: There are too many laboratory scientists for...

Regarding Jeffrey A. Rosenfeld and Christopher E. Mason's April 7 Sunday Opinions commentary, " Who owns your DNA? Not who you think. ": The patents for which Mr. Rosenfeld and Mr. Mason criticized my company were essential to developing diagnostic tools that have been used by more than 1 million women to understand their hereditary risks of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. We did not patent human genes from anyone's body. Rather, our patents protect synthetic molecules created in the lab. This is no different than...

Danaher said Wednesday that it is accelerating a planned restructuring effort that will result in closing 30 facilities and eliminating about 3,300 jobs in an effort to save about $220 million annually. The retrenching came the same day the D.C. manufacturer announced it is acquiring two related life sciences testing businesses designed to deepen the company's presence in the environment, medical- and food-testing sectors. The conglomerate, which makes everything from dental-office instruments to Craftsman hand tools, said it will...

Mark Herzog will step down as executive director of the Virginia Biotechnology Association on June 1, departing after 12 years of building up a life sciences industry that's often overshadowed by its neighbors . The commonwealth's life sciences community has blossomed over the past decade, Herzog said. The organization added a record 46 members in the past fiscal year. The heavy concentration of life sciences companies along Maryland's Interstate 270 corridor and in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park...

It's a science fair on steroids. Eyes widened behind glasses, hair whipped around in hurricane simulators and nimble fingers mimicked arthroscopic knee surgery techniques Friday at the second USA Science & Engineering Festival . More than 13,000 kids got their geek on with Bill Nye "the Science Guy," storm chasers and astronauts at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center for the first day of a three-day event designed to...