On 28 September 2009 Norfolk Southern introduced their new all-electric switcher engine, dubbed the NS 999, and it’s getting a lot of press. This engine, which is a joint venture between the U.S. Department of Energy, the Federal Railroad Administration, and Penn State University, could be the future of rail freight. However, in most of the articles available there is nothing mentioned of how this new engine differs from prior ones. We need to take a look at what this engine does and what it means before we can get excited about seeing it cruising down the track.

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The Chemical Heritage Foundation recently held the sixth annual Innovation Day on 14 and 15 September at its conference center and museum in Philadelphia. Jointly sponsored with the Society of Chemical Industry, the event brought together 120 young researchers from industrial research labs across the country to share ideas about critical issues at the intersection of technology and modern society. A highlight of the day occurred at lunch when the Gordon E. Moore Medal was  presented to Emma Parmee of Merck for her work in the discovery of Januvia, the first and only DPP-4 inhibitor approved for the treatment of type-2 diabetes. The program featured several plenary sessions, four breakout groups that allowed more focused presentations and open discussions on areas critical to today’s innovators, and poster sessions where researchers could share and discuss new work coming from their laboratories. Continue Reading »

Incrementally, the cost of real whole-genome sequencing is coming down. Recently, the New York Times reported that Stanford engineer Stephen Quake had fully sequenced his genome for about $50,000-not exactly peanuts and so still unaffordable for most of us. He adds his genome to the other seven individual human genomes fully sequenced to date, but his has the honor of being the cheapest. While we may not be getting our promised individualized genome chips from our doctor’s office yet, it should still be on our radar. Twenty years ago (even ten years ago) we might have said that the idea of widespread genome profiling was geneticists’ fantasy but (perhaps) not today.

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Swine-flu vaccine was in the news again. Researchers at Novartis have started testing the vaccine, a necessary step before the public offering. Though the seasonal flu vaccine is proceeding on schedule, the H1N1 vaccine will be delayed until after the regular vaccine is released. By 31 July worldwide fatalities exceeded 1,100, and perhaps the vaccine will prevent the surge expected this fall. As the threat of swine flu slips from the forefront, are public health officials doing enough to stress the importance of vaccinating against the seasonal flu and H1N1?

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Ralph Gomory, president emeritus of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, put out an article last week in the Huffington Post making a case for keeping large-scale manufacturing within American shores. Gomory was responding to the starry-eyed pundits who promised rosy futures of the Information Age, in which all Americans would become “knowledge workers,” while all blue-collar jobs were offshored to developing countries. This idea grew more potent as the rhetoric of the “New Economy” flourished during the Clinton-era optimism of the late 1990s: since labor is cheap in China, we can send all manufacturing jobs there. In the meantime the United States can focus on advanced research and development. An ideal case of international division of labor. Or is it?

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While it is true that there are many hybrid vehicles currently for sale (such as the Ford Fusion Hybrid, Toyota Prius, and Yukon Hybrid), the development of these models began years ago. What about new concepts that need to be in development right now in order to make it to the market (typical new-vehicle development cycle lasts 3 to 5 years)? Continue Reading »