GENERAL COMPANY NEWS

•  Xerox is to fund what it describes as green, nano, imaging fellowships at MIT's School of Engineering. The $1 million grant will link the best and brightest students at MIT with "top-notch" Xerox researchers to help the company in its quest to explore and incubate novel technologies.

Research areas include nanostructured materials, nanocomposites and nanomanufacturing as well as novel 3D polymers and a range of electronic, photonic and magnetic materials, all of which the firm considers to be exciting in terms of new devices and applications.

•  Nanotherapeutics has entered into a two year cooperative research and development agreement with the vaccine branch of the National Cancer Institute to produce HIV peptide oral vaccine nanoparticles. The collaboration will attempt to improve immune response by using the firm's drug delivery system to facilitate oral delivery in the GI tract.

In 2005, Nanotherapeutics received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to develop an oral nanoparticle medication to treat opiate addiction. The firm also received funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) as part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) research program on Medical Countermeasures against Radiological and Nuclear Threats, to improve the delivery of an injectable treatment, and from Project Bioshield.

•  AMAG Pharmaceuticals has appointed Lee F Allen to the position of chief medical officer and senior vice president of clinical development. AMAG is using nanoparticle technology to develop therapeutic iron compounds to treat anaemia, as well as novel imaging agents to aid in the diagnosis of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Allen joins the firm from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and brings over 20 years of medical and clinical development experience to the position.

"Lee's experience is important as we seek to file the New Drug Application for ferumoxytol as an IV iron replacement therapy in chronic kidney disease patients with the US Food and Drug Administration during the fourth quarter of this year," commented Brian J G Pereira, president and CEO of AMAG Pharmaceuticals.

•  Research and markets has turned its attention to the topic of nanotechnology and food. Temptations include the concept of a low-fat ice cream with the scrumptious flavour of a full-fat version, cooking oils that contain less harmful fats and encapsulated pills embedded in bread that yield extra vitamins. The full report is available from the company's website (see related links).

ELECTRONICS AND DISPLAYS

•  Fujitsu is claiming successful testing of its alumina nanohole patterned HDD media fabricated using nano-imprint lithography – a joint project with Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology, Japan.

"Fujitsu is the first company to demonstrate read/write signals in individual ideally ordered alumina nanohole [patterns] using a flying head for measurement," said David James, vice president, advanced product engineering, Fujitsu Computer Products of America. "With the growing demand for hard drives with high capacities, especially in small form factors, one Terabit/in2 would enable potential storage capacities of up to 1.2 TB on a 2-platter 2.5-inch drive."

•  Plextronics says that its organic photovoltaic technology gives a record conversion efficiency of 5.4% for single layer organic solar cells as certified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, US. Plextronics, a developer of conductive polymer nanowires, began its organic photovoltaic development program less than two years ago with the support of the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority.

"Today's performance demonstrates the rapid pace at which our technology is progressing," said Troy Hammond, vice president of products for Plextronics. "We look forward to continuing this advancement until we have enabled low-cost solar cell products with our Plexcore ink system."

•  Mitsui, Japan, has extended its exclusive option to offer royalty bearing licenses on behalf of Nano-Proprietary, US, relating to the use of carbon cold cathode intellectual property for the manufacture of lighting devices.

"Developing these strong relations with Mitsui and the quality of the companies they bring to us for technical evaluation has already resulted in improved CNT composites for field emission applications relating to lighting and backlit devices," revealed Zvi Yaniv, CEO of Applied Nanotech, a subsidiary of Nano-Proprietary.