Research by faculty and graduate students at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) was published in the prestigious Nature family of scientific journals four times in October, including work in molecular biochemistry, earth science and quantum photonics. Overviews of the findings by UMBC researchers follow below, with links to further coverage.

Synchronize Quantum Watches
Nature, October 14
UMBC physics graduate students Alejandra Valencia and Giuliano Scarcelli teamed with UMBC physics professor and co-principal project investigator Yanhua Shih on a method for synchronizing distant clocks, an important function for telecommunications and global positioning satellite systems. Their experiment showed that quantum entanglement of photon pairs allowed the synchronization of two clocks three kilometers apart to within picoseconds of each other. The research was also featured in Applied Physics Letters and Science News.

As the World Turns, It Drags Space and Time
Nature, October 21
UMBC Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET) scientist Erricos Pavlis co-led a team that proved how shifts in satellite orbits are caused by the Earth warping space and time as it rotates, a phenomenon first predicted in 1918 by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. The international team of NASA and university researchers studied the orbits of two satellites over an 11 year span to arrive at the first direct proof of what is known as "frame dragging." "It's like a bowling ball spinning in molasses," said Pavlis. "As the Earth rotates, it pulls space-time in its vicinity around itself, which shifts the orbits of satellites near Earth." The findings were covered by newspapers and science websites across the globe.

Iraqi Fire Pollution Rivaled 1980 Mt. St. Helens Eruption
Nature News, October 25
JCET volcano expert Simon Carn led a group of earth scientists who used satellite monitoring to show how pollution caused by the ongoing war in Iraq has rivaled the output of one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recent history. Carn's group observed how a June, 2003 fire at a sulphur plant near Mosul, Iraq, probably started by arsonists, caused the largest man-made release of polluting sulphur dioxide ever recorded, which was similar in magnitude to the same type of pollution released by the 1980 Mount Saint Helens volcanic eruption. The story was covered by BBC News online and other national and international science media.

Why Retrovirus Replication Takes Two
Nature News & Views, October 28; Nature, Sept. 30
UMBC molecular biochemist and AIDS researcher Michael Summers, the only Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator at a Maryland public university, and UMBC HHMI research associate Victoria D'Souza discovered a potential answer to a question that has baffled scientists for 20 years, namely how and why retroviruses must make two copies of their RNA in order to successfully infect other cells. By studying MoMULV, a retrovirus commonly used in the lab to learn more about lethal viruses like HIV, the UMBC team discovered a potential "RNA switch" instrumental to this process that could lead to a next generation of antiretroviral drug therapies. The work originally appeared in Nature on Sept. 30 and was then reviewed in the Oct. 28 "News and Views" section of the journal.

About UMBC Research:
UMBC's research funding has quadrupled during the past decade to over $85 million and the campus ranks sixth nationally in inventions disclosed and ninth nationally in U.S. patent applications filed per million dollars spent on research. UMBC, which is ranked 16th nationally in NASA funding, is home to three major collaborative NASA research centers. Michael Summers, the only Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at a Maryland public university, has led student researchers in solving three of the seven protein structures which make up HIV. In 2000, Summers was one of only 10 recipients nationwide of the National Science Foundation's Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.

Light for All

 

The science of light – photonics – is as ubiquitous as oxygen in today’s technology driven world. Go to the grocery store, make a phone call, listen to a CD or watch a movie on DVD and odds are photonics made it possible.

Anthony Johnson , director of UMBC’s Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research (CASPR) is not only focused on pushing the boundaries of research in his field, but is also determined to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in the sciences.

CASPR, which began with a 2002 NASA grant, is an interdisciplinary center, partnering with UMBC’s Departments of Physics; Computer Science and Electrical Engineering; Mathematics and Statistics; and Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. A current CASPR goal is to partner with photonics faculty in Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry and Biological Sciences.

Johnson, one of the most respected researchers in his field and a past president of the Optical Society of America, has longtime connections to UMBC that helped bring him to campus. Johnson got his start at the famous Bell Laboratories, where he was in the same Cooperative Research Fellowship Program as UMBC Graduate School Associate Dean Janet Rutledge.

Soon after CASPR’s funding was announced, Rutledge, along with Curtis Menyuk and Gary Carter—UMBC photonics experts and longtime colleagues of Johnson—encouraged him to consider leading the new center.

“I really liked what I saw at UMBC,” said Johnson. “There was a strong photonics effort, plus the opportunity to do things I enjoy most—working with students and mentoring while doing industrial collaboration in an academic setting.”

He also liked UMBC’s track record of increasing the number of minorities and women in the sciences. “I wanted to translate the model of the Meyerhoff Program’s success in biomedical sciences to the physical sciences and engineering,” said Johnson. “In addition to world-class research, I really would like to foster that kind of environment in the physical sciences and engineering and spearhead it through CASPR.”

Johnson knows firsthand the uphill battle minorities in the sciences face. “In 1981 when I received my Ph.D. in physics, there were roughly 1,000 physics doctorates granted in the country,” he said. “Of those, only four went to African-Americans and I was one of the four.”

According to Johnson, those paltry numbers have not changed much in the decades since. Out of about 1,000 physics Ph.D.’s awarded annually in the U.S., an average of just 10 to 15 go to African Americans, and only about 20 to Hispanic Americans.

The numbers don’t improve at the faculty level. “Out of the nearly 5000 full-time physics faculty at 186 U.S. Ph.D. producing institutions, there are only about 38 African American physics faculty in the nation right now. I just couldn’t believe it was that low.” [Source: 2000 Physics Academic Workforce – American Institute of Physics]

Under Johnson’s leadership, CASPR is already becoming a magnet for talented women and minority researchers. Elaine Lalanne, Ph.D., an assistant research scientist at CASPR, received her doctorate in 2003 from NJIT and was very likely the only African American female to receive a physics PhD in the country that year.

Johnson is a firm believer in taking his dedication on the road and into the community. Each year he logs thousands of miles traveling cross country and across the globe to locations like Italy and Ghana to connect with fellow researchers, educators and most importantly, to demonstrate science to young people.

He is the principal investigator of “Hands-On Optics: Making an Impact with Light,” a K-12 educational outreach partnership that includes the Optical Society of America and the National Science Foundation. This past summer, he hosted an optics and laser demonstration for middle school girls from ESTEEM, a UMBC Center for Women and Information Technology-affiliated program.

Johnson is on the road a lot in his personal life as well, as he still lives in New Jersey and drives home for the weekends to be with his wife, Adrienne Johnson, Ph.D. The Johnsons have three children, one of whom, Brandon, is a sophomore mechanical engineering major and Meyerhoff Scholar at UMBC.

A portion of the NASA funds were used to build a CASPR Ultrafast Optics & Optoelectronics Research & Teaching Facility for Johnson’s research group. His group is doing research on a variety of future-looking technologies, including the interesting optical properties of carbon nanotubes, high-speed optical switching for telecommunications, improving quality control for fiber optic manufacturers and research in optical limiting for proposed experimental eyewear for the U.S. Department of Defense.

But the project that Johnson and CASPR are most eagerly awaiting news about is UMBC’s participation in Mid-Infrared Technology for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE). The $17 million NSF Engineering Research Center proposal teams CASPR and UMBC with co-investigators at Princeton University (lead institution), The Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, Texas A&M University and the City University of New York.

“Of 110 pre-proposals submitted to NSF, our team has made it to the final nine proposals and is a strong competitor to make the final cut to four funded proposals,” Johnson said. “This would be a major engineering center at UMBC if we are selected. We are incredibly excited about the future of CASPR.”

(11/1/05)

 

 

 

The science of light – photonics – is as ubiquitous as oxygen in today’s technology driven world. Go to the grocery store, make a phone call, listen to a CD or watch a movie on DVD and odds are photonics made it possible.

UMBC is fortunate to be at the forefront of the photonics field, thanks to the Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research (CASPR), where exciting advances in basic science and novel applications are being made.

CASPR unites the efforts of prominent photonics researchers throughout UMBC into a single interdisciplinary collaborative center of nearly 20 researchers drawn from UMBC's Departments of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering, Physics, Math & Statistics and Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, plus 20 graduate students. The center is supported under grants from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the National Science Foundation, Naval Research Laboratories, Army Research Laboratories and the Army Research Office.

Current CASPR investigations involve a broad spectrum of future-looking technologies including:

• theoretical and experimental research in ultra-broadband optical telecommunications by Gary Carter, Yung J. Chen, Tulay Adali, Curtis Menyuk, John Zweck, Susan Minkoff, and Joel Morris;
• fabrication and studies of photonic semiconductor materials, optical devices, and electronic structures for new generations of spaceborne high-power/high-temperature lasers, terahertz radiation generation, high speed single photon detectors, and sensors by Fow-Sen Choa, Terry Worchesky, Michael Hayden, and Li Yan;
• studies of optical properties of nanostructures and other novel materials in an Ultrafast Optics Laboratory by Anthony Johnson and Elaine Lalanne;
• science of quantum photon entanglement and its applications, such as precision clock synchronization, remote spectroscopy, and remote lensless imaging by Yanhua Shih, Morton Rubin, and Arthur Pittenger.

For a full description of current and future CASPR projects please visit the CASPR web site to view or download the 2004 and 2005 CASPR Annual Reports.

CASPR director Anthony Johnson is not only focused on pushing the boundaries of research in his field, but is also determined to change the face of science in America.

Johnson, a past president of the Optical Society of America, was drawn to UMBC because of its strong photonics research foundation. He got his start at Bell Laboratories in the same Cooperative Research Fellowship Program as UMBC Graduate School Associate Dean Janet Rutledge. Rutledge and longtime photonics colleagues Menyuk and Carter encouraged him to apply to lead CASPR.

One project that Johnson and CASPR are eagerly awaiting news about is UMBC’s participation in Mid-Infrared Technology for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE). The $17 million NSF proposal teams CASPR and UMBC with lead institution Princeton University, the Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, Texas A&M University and the City University of New York.

“Our team has made it to the final nine from 110 pre-proposals and is a strong competitor to make the final cut to four funded proposals,” he said. “This would be a major engineering center at UMBC if we are selected. We are incredibly excited about the future of CASPR.”

Johnson’s optimism for the future of CASPR is tempered by concern about the big picture for American science. “We’re so used to being number one, but it’s not at all clear that we’re going to stay number one in science and technology,” he said. “We need to wake up and provide better support for our federally funded research, because that’s where our innovations come from.”

Helping Women Achieve Their Potential

 

UMBC’s array of programs that empower women to be both successful students and successful professionals has been recognized for the second year in a row by CosmoGIRL! magazine’s guide to the 50 best colleges for girls. Featured in the magazine’s October 2005 issue, the guide also includes such institutions as Amherst College; Brown University; Duke University; MIT; Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

“We’re confident that the girls who go [to UMBC] are given the opportunity to see other women being innovative thinkers and successful leaders, and that these students will, in turn, follow in their footsteps and become the powerhouses of tomorrow,” said CosmoGIRL!’s Editor-in-Chief, Susan Schulz.

In compiling the list for its readership of young women ages 12 through 17, editors at CosmoGIRL! consulted admissions officers and guidance counselors across the country to determine the kind of environment that gives girls the best chance of success in school and after graduation. These key factors include prominent female role models on campus, strong women’s sports programs, outstanding technology and entrepreneurship programs, excellence in internship and job placements and effective alumni networks.

UMBC impressed the magazine’s editors with a variety of programs that empower women. UMBC’s Women’s Studies Program, which emphasizes the importance of historical, cross-cultural and international perspectives, recently added certificate programs for undergraduate and graduate students. The Women’s Studies Coordinating Committee worked with the Office of Student Affairs to develop Women Involved in Learning and Leadership (WILL) , which engages the campus in a learning community that promotes academic excellence, leadership development, career exploration and civic engagement on women’s issues. The University’s Women’s Center provides programs that support women’s academic and intellectual growth, professional development and personal empowerment.

Other innovative programs that help women achieve their potential include the Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT), dedicated to achieving women’s full participation in all aspects of information technology (IT), while the Imaging Research Center (IRC), specializing in high-end computer animation and visualization, offers both undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to work on professional projects with clients such as the Baltimore Museum of Art, PBS and the Discovery Channel. Through UMBC’s Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, students can gain targeted expertise through internships, test their skills through competitions, accelerate a business concept through the Idea Lab, and attend courses and lectures tailored to spark their entrepreneurial spirit.

In addition, UMBC is one of only 16 schools in the country chosen by the National Science Foundation to sponsor an ADVANCE program designed to support the recruitment and advancement of women faculty in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

Programs that help women prepare for success after graduation include the UMBC Alumni Association’s popular “Backpack to Briefcase” program, which offers students the opportunity to network with the University’s alumni. UMBC’s Career Services Center and Shriver Center offer internship and coop placement, as well as other programs that help students make a successful transition from UMBC to the workforce.

(10/24/05)

 

 

 

John Cannizzo, an associate research scientist with UMBC’s Joint Center for Astrophysics was part of a global team who recently unveiled some secrets of a little understood, powerful cosmic explosion in the prestigious journal Nature.

Cannizzo was one of an international team of nearly 80 astrophysicists who co-authored a paper entitled “A short γ-ray burst apparently associated with an elliptical galaxy at redshift z=0.225” published in the Oct. 6, 2005 issue of Nature. The lead of the paper’s 77 authors was N.Gehrels of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The paper looked at the lesser-understood of the two types of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), known as ‘short and hard’ GRBs. Longer duration GRBs are less powerful but have an easier to study afterglow. They have been extensively studied and are known to be caused by explosions of massive stars in faraway galaxies.

Short GRBs don’t have a long afterglow and are thus more elusive. With the help of NASA’s Swift satellite, launched last November, a short burst, GRB 050509B, was viewed, precisely measured and studied. Over 20 years after short GRBs were first recognized, their likely origin was revealed as a merger between neutron stars of a binary system and the instantaneous production of a black hole.

Links to more information:
NASA Press Release

There are miniature, sci-fi movie monsters buzzing around the bucolic fields of Maryland’s wineries and orchards, but you have to know where to look.

Grab a magnifying glass, kneel down near the fallen grapes and peaches and soon you’ll see tiny fruit flies flitting from meal to meal and laying their eggs. Look closer and you may see a stealthy intruder injecting the unsuspecting fruit fly larva with its own eggs that will soon make the flies the surprise special of the day.

For UMBC senior Kate Laskowski, this shape-shifting horror show worthy of a David Cronenberg or Alien movie is just another day in the field. The biological sciences major with a chemistry minor from Easton, Md., has spent nearly three years studying parasitoid wasps, a fascinating insect that could someday help us better understand human aging.

Laskowski, a UMBC Presidential Fellow with a 3.93 GPA, has studied the wasps at Boordy Winery in northeastern Maryland, a peach orchard in Severn, Md. and in the lab of her mentor, UMBC biological sciences professor Jeff Leips. She recently traveled to Cardiff, Wales, where she turned heads as the only undergraduate student at a research conference on the wasps.

“The poster that she presented on her research won first prize, beating out all other presenters that included graduate students and post docs,” said Leips.

According to Leips, the wasps’ creepy means of reproduction was the inspiration for the Alien series of science fiction thriller films. The wasps literally rob the cradle of other insect species, injecting their eggs into living fruit fly larvae. The tiny time bomb lies dormant for four to five days until the larva pupates, or spins a cocoon around itself. Only then does the baby wasp hatch, killing its host and simultaneously providing itself with a food supply and comfy, secure home in which to grow.

More importantly to Laskowski, is the wasps’ interaction with fruit flies or Drosophila, the standard studied life system for geneticists. A particular fruit fly gene, known as Ddc, seems to be an enzymatic tradeoff between how long the fly lives and how well they can avoid a parasitoid attack. Long-living flies are more likely to get hit, while those better resistant to wasp attacks seem to be shorter-lived.

“Ddc accounts for a 15 percent variation in longevity in the fruit flies,” said Laskowski, “So myself and many other researchers in the Leips Lab and across the world are very curious about what else Ddc could teach us about human aging.”

Celebrating an Innovative Environment for Learning & Research

 

The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Chemistry Building dedication will take place at 2 p.m. on Friday, October 21. The entire campus community is invited to the event, which will begin in the University Center Plaza and includes a ribbon-cutting, plaque dedication and reception.

When UMBC renames its newly renovated chemistry and biochemistry building as the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Chemistry Building on October 21, the campus will celebrate both a transforming philanthropy and an innovative training center for the next generation of chemists and biochemists.

The chemistry building renovations benefit all UMBC chemistry and biochemistry students and faculty. “The renovations bring world class, state-of-the-art instructional and research laboratories to undergraduate and graduate students,” said Ralph Pollack, chair and professor of UMBC’s chemistry and biochemistry department. “We’re especially pleased that the new laboratories’ layouts allow for improved safety and increased interaction between students and faculty.”

The building design encourages communication, mentoring and shared research through flexible, interconnected laboratory spaces for research, clustered faculty offices, a tutorial center, space for small discussion and problem solving groups and a bridge connecting students and faculty with life sciences colleagues in the Department of Biological Sciences. The facility houses state-of-the-art teaching laboratories and outstanding research and teaching instrumentation, such as a new mass spectrometry facility, a laser laboratory and a suite of nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers.

With the renaming of the chemistry building, the University honors the Meyerhoffs for founding the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program at UMBC in 1988 to address the under-representation of African American men in the sciences and engineering.

Since then the program has produced nearly 600 graduates who are minorities or are dedicated to advancing representation of minorities in the sciences, literally changing the face of science in America. Program graduates go on in large numbers to the country’s most prestigious graduate and professional schools, placing UMBC among the top predominantly white institutions nationally in producing minority bachelor’s degree recipients who go on to earn a Ph.D.

Similar achievements have been made among chemistry and biochemistry students and alumni broadly. The department has been ranked among the top 25 producers of chemistry undergraduates of all backgrounds. Paula Grabowski ’76, now a biology professor at University of Pittsburgh, is a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator, and her husband, Joe Grabowski ‘78, heads Pitt’s National Science Foundation Research Program for Undergraduates. More than 50 of UMBC’s chemistry and biochemistry graduates and postdocs have gone onto faculty positions at institutions including Harvard, Yale, Penn, UC-Davis, Virginia Tech and the Universities of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts and Tennessee.

These achievements would not be possible without the University’s outstanding chemistry and biochemistry faculty, who are devoted to both teaching and research. Their scientific and scholarly achievements attract almost $5 million in funding per year, resulting in many opportunities for students to participate in undergraduate research in their labs and to gain exposure to cutting-edge science in their classrooms.

The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Chemistry Building dedication will take place at 2 p.m. on Friday, October 21. The entire campus community is invited to the event, which will begin in the University Center Plaza and includes a ribbon-cutting, plaque dedication and reception.

 

 

In the past decade, UMBC Associate Professor of Political Science Devin T. Hagerty’s region of expertise, South Asia, has gone from being an understudied corner of the globe to one of the most closely watched. In 1998, India and Pakistan added nuclear weapon capability to what was already one of the tensest borders in the world. Then 9-11 focused U.S. public opinion and foreign policy on Afghanistan, the Taliban, stopping the spread of Al Qaeda and the continuing search for Osama Bin Laden.

Hagerty recently completed two books: Fearful Symmetry: Indo-Pakistani Crises in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons, co-authored with Sumit Ganguly (July 2005, Oxford University Press and the University of Washington Press), and South Asia in World Politics, of which he is editor(May 2005, Rowman and Littlefield). He is also the editor of Asian Security, a pioneering academic journal that takes a global, interdisciplinary look at security issues in the region.

After Oct. 7’s devastating earthquake--adding humanitarian disaster to the already volatile sociopolitical mix in this global flashpoint--UMBC Research News caught up with Hagerty and the region he studies.

Help us understand Pakistan better – compare it to Iran, India or Saudi Arabia.

Economically it’s still a very depressed country; it’s extremely poor. Literacy is very low, only about 20 to 30 percent for all the population, and for women it’s more like five to 10 percent. The society has cut off almost all opportunity for women. Health care is non-existent or shoddy. There’s also a big drug addiction problem due to all the opiate production in the region–an estimated 1 to 1.5 million heroin addicts. There are many ethnic divisions–Punjabis, Sindhis, Muhajirs, etc., along with the ongoing internal rifts amongst Islam today.

What is the role of Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf in the “global war on terror” and the stakes for him in the hunt for Bin Laden?

It’s hard to think of a leader in a more precarious position. He’s got his own domestic pressures, plus he’s survived at least three assassination attempts in recent years.

He gets a lot of criticism from the West for not being perceived as doing enough to fight terror or find Bin Laden. But it’s important to realize that he did something never done before since Pakistan was founded in 1947. He has sent regular Pakistan Army forces to the lawless border region in an effort to fight Al Qaeda and other violent fundamentalist groups there. I tend to have more sympathy for him than most Western observers.

How would Pakistan react if Abu Zarqawi is successful in his goal of sparking a Shiite-Sunni civil war in Iraq that could spread throughout the Middle East?

Pakistan has a heavily Sunni majority, but probably would try to avoid choosing sides in that scenario.

Actually, there is as much of an ideological civil war going on within Islam today. They are really working out what it means to be a Muslim in the 21st century. On one end of the spectrum are the Wahhabis who want to turn back the clock several centuries with a strict fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran, and on the other are progressive Sunnis who believe the Koran is open to interpretation. In the same sense, a very similar debate is going on within Christianity today.

What’s the current status of India-Pakistan relations?

Well, let’s just say relations are not warm (laughs). But they’re not particularly bad right now either. It’s sort of a stand off, but there is a “peace process” which is making progress.

Kashmir is the big elephant in the room. The region is not just a flashpoint, it’s part of each country’s self-identity. Pakistan views itself as the political homeland for Muslims of South Asia. India sees itself as a secular society that is tolerant of all faiths, although it’s predominantly Hindu. There is a really deep ideological dimension to the Kashmir conflict beyond simple lines on a map.

It’s hard to be optimistic about a Kashmir solution in the near future, it really is. It would take a huge act of joint political courage to resolve the situation.

Many people have a hard time squaring current U.S. administration “you’re either with us or with the terrorists” rhetoric vs. reality in Pakistan. Some would argue that from Bin Laden to A.Q. Khan, Pakistan leans more to sympathy with or support for terror. Why are we still allies with these folks?

We need them. I get this type of question in my classes.

It’s similar to the Cold War in that our allies were often very thuggish. National security calculations always look at the overriding thereat. We need the Pakistanis’ information and access--something only they can give us right now in the Muslim world.

If there were a rupture in our relationship with Pakistan, we would lose our ability to be effective on the ground in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban is reconstituting itself, for example.

From the end of the Cold War to 9-11, we pulled back from the South Asian region and forgot about it, obviously in hindsight a terrible foreign policy mistake. In my opinion, the Bush administration feels it has no choice right now but to ally with Pakistan.

It’s a tough question. I always tell my students that if you like your answers nice and neat and consistent, then maybe international relations isn’t the field for you.

What about the recent Afghanistan elections? What is the hope for that country and where does it fit in the global picture now?

The big thing to remember is that if you had Googled “elections” and “Afghanistan” in the year 2000, you wouldn’t have gotten a lot of hits. Afghanistan is one of the most politically regressive countries in the world; it’s seen literally constant warfare since 1978. Two million people killed, about six million refugees to Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere.

The Soviet occupation tried to depopulate the countryside and push everyone into the cities, then the Mujahideen power struggle obliterated the cities. It’s a country in really bad shape.

Now a lot of progress is being made. Elections are a very hopeful sign. There’s now a true, multilateral presence there of international peacekeeping troops and NGO’s. NATO is leading aid efforts and organization in the countryside. In some ways it’s a more hopeful situation than Pakistan right now.

As someone who lived and worked in Australia for many years, what are your thoughts on how it is increasingly becoming a target of South Asian based terror groups? It seems like US allies have been systematically targeted. What do Australians think of the “war on terror” and their role in it?

Australia is a vital U.S. ally. Globally, they are one of our two or three closest allies along with the UK. They have an extremely close security and international relationship with the U.S.

Australians are very proud of the fact that in every war the U.S. has fought, they have supported us with boots on the ground, not just sending a hospital ship or moral support. I have a lot of respect for the Australian people.

I’ve been a bit surprised that there has yet to be a successful terror attack on Australia. It’s as big as the lower 48 United States, with 20 million people. They have excellent coastal defenses; the Royal Australian Navy is damned good.

That said, the alliance with the U.S. isn’t always popular in Australian society. It’s a real generational difference – folks in their fifties and sixties recognize the role the U.S. played in the WWII Pacific theatre. When Japan overwhelmed Singapore in 1942, the UK was out of the game. The US got in and has stayed in ever since.

The US relationship hasn’t been cost-free for the Australian government--John Howard and George W. Bush are very close and it has cost Howard some domestic political support, especially among younger people.

bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park

Athena Environmental Sciences, Inc. Announces Line of Environmentally Friendly Products
AthenaES has announced the launch of a new line of environmentally friendly products. The first of these is MagiGlue, a superior multipurpose glue with the unique property of being reversible with water, which makes MagiGlue perfect for temporary applications as well as standard glue uses. The glue is superior to standard multipurpose glues because it can be used in a greater range of applications-- MagiGlue adheres to not only paper, wood, fabric and most plastics, but also to metal and glass. It is also safe to use on photographs.

MagiGlue's bond can be reversed with water, which is excellent for temporary home projects such as holiday displays, dorm decorations, dashboard figures and many more. MagiGlue is also ideal for temporary manufacturing applications including labeling of products, appliance stickers, temporary signage, parts assembly operations and positioning and holding during micromachining operations. The glue is also suitable for wound dressings and other medical adhesive applications.

MagiGlue is made from all natural polymers. It contains no animal by-products, is petroleum-free, and is completely non-toxic.

RWD Technologies and BPT Partners Align Forces to Revolutionize Return on Investment in the CRM Industry
RWD Technologies, Inc. (RWD), a company that develops, implements, and supports products and services in the areas of training, consulting, and organizational performance, and BPT Partners, LLC, a leading customer relationship management (CRM) training and research company, announced today a strategic alliance expected to offer a number of unique services in the CRM industry, including expertise that will give companies a more successful capability to achieve their return on investment (ROI) as well as the means and tools to identify and deliver it. Read more.

SPI USA, Inc. and Omnia Biologics, Inc. Sign Collaboration Agreement
SPI USA, Inc. has announced an agreement to provide biotechnology and pharmaceutical consulting services for Rockville-based Omnia Biologics, Inc., which specializes in customized manufacturing for the development of vaccines, gene therapeutics and biodefense products. Read More.

techcenter@UMBC

Aurora Analytics, LLC Launches New Product Line
Aurora Analytics, LLC has launched a new product line known as G-MARK. The featured products are glucuronide diagnostic standards. Glucuronides are biomarkers to determine if alcohol consumption has occurred in humans for both clinical and forensics purposes. The Web-based launch in July was followed by U.S. and international sales in August, including the largest U.S. commercial testing laboratory.

AVIcode Hires New Sales VPAVIcode, Inc. recruited an executive from BMC Software--a major player in software circles--to drive sales of the smaller, local company's own lines. Mark Davis, who will serve as AVIcode's vice president of sales, comes from BMC Software (NYSE: BMC) a Houston-based software giant with offices worldwide and fiscal 2005 revenues of more than $1.46 billion. At BMC, Davis managed all aspects of sales operations for its mid-market product line, while overseeing field channel activities for all BMC enterprise and emerging growth customers.

"Mark is widely recognized in the field for his ability to dramatically influence both top- and bottom-line corporate performance, while building and managing sales teams that consistently deliver the big wins," said AVIcode CEO Mike Curreri.

Cognate's new CEO is biopharmaceutical veteran
A longtime executive of the biopharmaceutical industry has become the CEO of Cognate Therapeutics. Brandon Price, who most recently was vice president of biotechnology services for Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH), one of the country's largest companies, has been named CEO and a member of the board for Baltimore-based Cognate, a privately held company attempting to develop drugs using adult-stem cells for cardiac, peripheral vascular and orthopedic indications. Read more.

InVitro Technologies, Inc. Forms Partnership with SOVLO Biotechnologies, Inc.InVitro Technologies, Inc. (IVT) and Budapest-based SOLVO Biotechnologies, Inc. have formed a strategic partnership to distribute SOLVO's leading in vitro ABC Membrane Transporter Assay Product line in the United States and Canada. InVitro Technologies is a leader in the development, production, sale and trade of in vitro testing products and services for studying chemical-biological interactions in vitro. Read More.