Technology

For the past 45 years R&D Magazine has released its annual R&D 100 Awards, which “recognizes the best in innovation—on a global scale.” This year, Carlsbad-based Invitrogen won an award in the Life Sciences (.PDF link) for their Qubit Quantitation Platform.

The Qubit Quantitation Platform provides a new level of accuracy, speed, and sensitivity for the detection of these biologically important molecules. It provides an order of magnitude improvement in quantitation over conventional technologies, leading to fewer experiment failures, more efficient research programs, and more streamlined product development.

So the next time we’re doing some serious DNA, RNA, or protein counting we’ll know who to turn to: our friends at Invitrogen.

[Link: R&D Magazine via The Motley Fool]

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According to a post on Exportlawblog.com, the Carlsbad-based life sciences company Invitrogen has agreed to a settlement of $30,000 with the Bureau of Industry and Security for “three shipments and one attempted shipment of human leukocyte antigen tissue typing trays to Syria without a license.”

The shipments and attempted shipments had been made, and voluntarily disclosed, by Dynal Biotech, which Invitrogen acquired in 2005. The charging documents allege that these shipments and alleged shipments violate General Order No. 2 of Part 736 of the Export Administration Regulations which forbids exports of all items “except food and medicine” to Syria.

Exportlawblog.com goes on to say that by the letter of the law Dynal Biotech did nothing wrong, as tissue typing trays are clearly medical equipment that is included in the export exclusions. It was, however, cheaper to settle than to fight. . . and apparently much smarter from a business perspective.

[Link: Exportlawblog.com]

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And another story from the “Carlsbad science companies we don’t understand” file:

Invitrogen Corporation, a provider of essential life science technologies for research, production and diagnostics, announced today it has entered into a licensing agreement with Natural Selection, Inc. to make new microRNA sequences available to researchers. This agreement enables Invitrogen to provide the most comprehensive human and mouse microRNA arrays on the market.

Oddly, Natural Selection, Inc. (a sophisticated computational intelligence algorithms company) is heavily involved in the “defense” industry if you know what we mean. It’s all a mystery to us.

[Link: Bioresearch Online]

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Every once in a while we like to remind ourselves that Carlsbad is home to some really big-brain businesses. You know, companies with advisory boards that are chaired by infamous Nobel laureates and such. Check this one out:

Cambridge-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. reports it has teamed up with a fellow biotechnology firm to launch a jointly owned California startup to commercialize drugs made with microRNA, or miRNA. . . . Regulus Therapeutics LLC, based in Carlsbad, Calif., plans to combine technologies from Alnylam and Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc., also of Carlsbad. The joint venture also features a separate management team, board of directors and scientific advisory board, chaired by Nobel laureate David Baltimore, officials said.

Or this:

Patriot Scientific Corporation, a leading intellectual-property licensing company, today announced that DMP Electronics Inc. of Taiwan has purchased an implementation license to the company’s microprocessor patent portfolio for use in DMP’s semiconductor devices.

It’s like we’re living in Southern California’s hot bed of smart and we don’t mind it a bit.

[Links: Biz Journals and CNN/Money]

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