Calling all communities, it's time for Campus Conquest! 

Meet on Erickson Field,  Friday, September 25, 2015, 1:00pm to 5:00pm.  Whether you're competing in Super Smash Bros Tournament, the Inflatable Obstacle Course, or Bubble Soccer, be sure to come out, give your all and represent your community!

For additional information about Campus Conquest contact RSA at rsa.umbc@gmail.com.

Do you want your voice heard in your community?  Come out to the RSA General Body Meetings held every Monday at 6:00pm in the Harbor Multipurpose Room.  For more information contact RSA at rsa.umbc@gmail.com.

Professor Chris D. Geddes, Ph.D., FRSC, has been named a Daily Record  Innovator of the Year 2015.

Dr. Geddes, Director of UMBC's Institute of Fluorescence and a faculty member from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has just received the honor for his lab's recent work developing the Lyse-it™ technology, a technology that enables the rapid lysing of cells to collect their genetic material. This is the 4th time Professor Geddes has been honored by the Daily Record in the last 8 years for his lab's pioneering innovations.

Sample preparation (lysis) is key to the development of many clinical Point-of-Care (POC) and laboratory tests involving cellular genetic analysis. For example, sample preparation is a significant bottleneck in PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction)-based approaches, the gold standard in both pathogen and clinical (hospital setting) detection today, with available technologies taking many cumbersome, lengthy and costly steps. In addition, commercially available lysis kits today require different kits and protocols for different media (e.g. broth, urine, blood).

To address this bottleneck of speed, cost and complexity, and to address the fact that many laboratories employ multiple kits for routine testing, Dr. Geddes’ lab has developed Lyse-it™, a means to lyse virtually any cell, spore or virus rapidly (typically <20 seconds) in a single-step on a single platform, thereby enabling the genetic material (e.g. DNA) to be collected for downstream analysis on any platform.

Focused microwaves in small disposable sample chambers readily allow the Lyse-it™ user to lyse cellular samples with near-100% efficiency, within 20 seconds on a single platform at a cost less than other technologies available today. Importantly, this lysing approach is generic to a whole range of cells and viruses. This is because it is a single platform (one size fits all), unlike traditional lysing buffer approaches that all use multiple kits for different media.

Key members of Dr Geddes’ lab that participated in this innovation include: Johan Melendez (graduate student), Tonya Santaus (graduate student); Greg Brinsley (undergraduate); Jacob Roberts (undergraduate); Maraki Negesse (undergraduate) and Daniel Kiang (undergraduate).

The Lyse-it™ technology invented by Dr. Geddes is the technology behind his new company of the same name. Lyse-it™ is Dr. Geddes’ third company to date. Dr. Geddes currently has one patent issued and two patents pending on the Lyse-it™ technology.

Dr Geddes has recently received $100,000 from Maryland’s TEDCO and $20,000 from UMBC’s catalyst fund to push the technology forward towards commercialization. 

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If you are interested in cybersecurity, consider joining the CAE community.

UMBC is designated as a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance/Cyber Defense Education and Research by the NSA and DHS. The CAE Community site is a good place for information, ideas and events for students, faculty and staff who are interested in information assurance and cybersecurity.

For example, a recent news post has information on an online event on Thursday 17 September 2015 that will include two talks: one from 1-2pm on Digital Investigation and the Trojan Defense and another from 2:15-3:15 on the NSA Codebreaker Challenge.

See the post for more information on the talks and how to particiate online.