Heart device succeeds on second Arizona infant

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Two Arizona children have unexpectedly recovered from life-threatening heart failure without surgery.

Doctors at Tucson’s University Medical Center say the kids’ miraculous recovery will dramatically change the way children are treated in Tucson and perhaps worldwide.

The children, 16-month-old Tiana Lopez and 9-month-old Itxair Rodriguez, each survived several weeks with the help of a mechanical heart-assist device, the Berlin Heart.

Their recent, back-to-back recoveries – from heart damage that put them near death – have astonished their doctors, who fully expected both children to need donor hearts.

“This could be a paradigm shift,” said Dr. Jack G. Copeland, head of the University of Arizona’s heart transplant team. Copeland implanted the Berlin Hearts in Tiana and Itxair and has pioneered the use of this device in children in the United States since 2000.

By Philip S. Moore, Inside Tucson Business

Expert from Ireland to drive bioresearch

Kerry Fehr-Snyder

The Arizona Republic

Mar. 24, 2006 12:00 AM

Arizona has snared one of the leading players in Ireland’s storied economic revival to head a new Valley foundation designed to boost and attract scientific research and talent.

William C. Harris, a chemist turned founding director of Science Foundation Ireland, has agreed to become president and chief executive officer of Science Foundation Arizona. The foundation was formed recently to promote the state’s medical, biotech and engineering endeavors to allow it to compete in the global economy.

Harris, 61, will take over the job in July or August. “I want to find the right season to move here,” he joked.

He turned down several other U.S.-based job offers, including one as president of a California technical university.

Web session here to feature Google exec

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

A senior executive of Google Inc. will headline an Internet technologies conference in Tucson next month.

Douglas C. Merrill, senior director of information systems for Google, will be the luncheon keynote speaker for the April 13 Web Technologies for Business Conference & Exhibition at the Holiday Inn Palo Verde, 4550 S. Palo Verde Road.

Merrill, a leader of Google’s technology efforts and a central figure in the company’s initial public offering, is expected to discuss the history and growth of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company, Web-searching software and hardware technologies and the company’s plans for establishing an engineering center in the Phoenix area.

A doctor of psychology and a former researcher on information security at the Rand Corp., Merrill is responsible for all internal engineering and support at Google.

C-Path forms drug-testing pact

Effort will speed development, FDA approval

By Joseph Barrios

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

The Tucson-based Critical Path Institute on Thursday announced an unprecedented agreement with eight major pharmaceutical companies to share drug-testing methods in an effort to improve drug safety.

The agreement was announced in Washington, D.C., by the FDA along with a long-awaited list of research initiatives aimed at speeding drug development and approvals.

The agreement gives Tucson a chance to be seen as a place for innovation and medical product development, said Dr. Raymond Woosley, C-Path’s president and CEO and former chief of health sciences at the University of Arizona.

“I’ve never seen the federal government and the industry come together like this. It’s always been the regulators and the regulated,” he said. “If you want to work in the drug-development industry, you should go to Philadelphia or San Francisco. If you want to see how drug development should be in the future, that discussion and that planning is taking place in Tucson.”

Brown Foundation to fund $1 million endowment for UA

DAVID PITTMAN

dpittman@tucsoncitizen.com

Adding to the legacy of a legendary Tucson entrepreneur who built a garage-based business into an international semiconductor success story, the Thomas R. Brown Foundation has agreed to fund a $1 million endowment at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management.

The purpose of the endowment is to provide scholarships to MBA students who are pursuing a career path in technology and management. Preference will be given to students with an engineering or science undergraduate degree. The first awards will be presented to graduate students entering UA in the fall of 2006.

“The endowment ensures the continued legacy of my father,” said Sarah Brown Smallhouse, foundation trustee, daughter of the late benefactor, and graduate of the Eller MBA program. “He had a desire to encourage young people and supported education and training to enhance the ability of individuals to reach their potential,”

UA lays out plans for S. Side bio park

OK sought to create management setup

By Thomas Stauffer

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

The University of Arizona wants to create a nonprofit corporation to mastermind a “technology district” aimed at advancing Tucson’s and the University of Arizona’s position in the biotech industry.

The Arizona Board of Regents will vote today in Tucson on the proposed Research Development Corp., which would manage the development of the planned Arizona Biosciences Park at South Kino Parkway and East 36th Street.

The nonprofit corporation also would oversee the planned expansion of the UA’s Science and Technology Park at 9000 S. Rita Road.

The Arizona Biosciences Park is envisioned as a 65-acre campus of high-tech research labs, offices, and a hotel and conference center. The park will lease the secured, state-of-the-art labs, research buildings and office space to private companies, as the UA does at its Science and Technology Park.