Published: 07.29.2007

Was there life on Mars?

Prestigious UA mission launches this week to seek answer

One hundred years ago, a pioneering astronomer at the University of Arizona posed space exploration’s fundamental question: “Is Mars inhabited?” Andrew Ellicott Douglass asked in a scientific paper published in 1907. “Shall we not someday have an instrument capable of answering this?”

Someday could begin Friday, when a spacecraft loaded with UA-designed equipment roars toward the red planet looking for evidence of life. The flight marks the first time a public university has led a NASA mission, and is a pinnacle for the UA’s space-science programs.

UA scientists peering at distant worlds and into the universe’s darkest ages come from the fields of astronomy, geology, optics, biology, chemistry, physics, atmospheric science and engineering.

UA scientist leads mission to Mars

Anne Ryman
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 29, 2007 12:00 AM

TUCSON – Nearly eight years later, the bitter feeling still lingers.

It was Dec. 3, 1999, and University of Arizona scientist Peter Smith was standing in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The news was slowly sinking in that one of the biggest projects of his career, the Mars Polar Lander, had failed.

Smith was supposed to receive color photos that day from a camera he developed for the spacecraft. But the $165 million Polar Lander had vanished, losing contact with NASA as it descended toward the Red Planet.

“It’s like losing a family member,” he recalls. “You just can’t quite believe that was it.”

Out of that debacle now rises an even larger and more sophisticated mission that could put Smith and UA in the history books.

The Phoenix Mars Mission, which is scheduled to launch early Friday from Cape Canaveral, Fla., could go a long way toward redeeming the earlier Mars failures and answer some age-old questions: Is Mars suitable for life? And if it’s not now, was it ever?

Published: 07.26.2007

Tucson biotech firm is being bought out

By Tim Steller

A Seattle-based cancer-drug company spotted promise in a firm born in Arizona’s developing biotech industry, and is snapping it up.

Tucson- and Scottsdale-based Systems Medicine Inc. will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Cell Therapeutics Inc. when the buyout is complete, the companies announced Wednesday.

The deal is a stock-for-stock merger valued at $20 million, the companies said in a press release.

Systems Medicine Inc. CEO Jeff Jacob said the company had been seeking venture-capital funding but received two offers from potential buyers and went with Cell Therapeutics, in part because it would keep Systems Medicine’s offices in Arizona.

Jacob is a Tucson native and University of Arizona graduate. His office is at St. Philip’s Plaza. The other founders of Systems Medicine are Dr. Daniel Von Hoff, Richard Love and Timothy Williamson.

Published: 07.24.2007

Misys sells Tucson unit to S.F. firm

By Shelley Shelton ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Misys Healthcare Systems — which earlier this year moved into a new, 122,000-square-foot facility at Williams Centre — has sold its Tucson business.

Vista Equity Partners, a private investment firm, is paying $381.5 million for Misys’ diagnostic information business, which has offices in Bangalore, India, and Raleigh, N.C., as well as Tucson.

Misys, 250 S. Williams Blvd., ranked 113th on this year’s Star 200 list of the largest employers in Southern Arizona, with 452 full-time-equivalent positions. In January, the company laid off an undisclosed number of Tucson workers. Misys Healthcare Systems is based in Raleigh and is part of Misys PLC, based in London. Vista Equity Partners is based in San Francisco.

The company decided recently that its strength is in helping health-care providers outside hospitals manage information about patients, Misys spokesman Mike Holsinger said.

Texas company acquires Tucson tech firm for $42 million

by Cathy Luebke

 A public company out of Texas is acquiring Apex Microtechnology of Tucson for $42 million.

Cirrus Logic Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS), a designer of high-precision analog, mixed-signal and embedded integrated circuits, made the announcement Thursday. Apex Microtechnology, founded in 1980, specializes in precision high-power analog amplifier products and has 90 employees. Sales have been running at about $4 million to $5 million per quarter, according to the release.

A spokesman said the Apex operation will remain in Tucson with employees joining Cirrus Logic.

“Apex Microtechnology’s proven success and diversified customer base gives Cirrus Logic the expertise to expand into high-power industrial markets,” said Jason Rhode, Cirrus president and chief executive officer.

Scientists pick landing spot for Mars mission

Anne Ryman
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 10, 2007 12:00 AM

After searching for months, scientists have picked a relatively rock-free, icy spot in Mars’ arctic to set down the spacecraft for the Phoenix Mars Mission.

The mission, being run entirely by the University of Arizona, is scheduled to launch Aug. 3 and touch down in May.

NASA and UA scientists announced Monday that they had selected a place on Mars that is equivalent to where northern Siberia is on Earth.

4 companies in Tucson race to build a self-driving vehicle

A.S. Berman
Special for bizAZ
Jul. 8, 2007 12:00 AM

The 10 men gathered on an empty street in Playas, N.M., in May might have looked a little out of place to anyone watching in the tiny, nearly deserted town in the state’s “boot heel.” Most of the group – a mix of engineers, businessmen and an academic – were hot and tired after a three-hour drive from Tucson. But that wasn’t what made them stand out. Instead, it was the hulking, off-road behemoth that towered over them, its chrome finish and bright blue body gleaming in the sun, that would have been impossible to ignore.

For the past year, these men have led an effort to perfect a technology once deemed impossible: a vehicle that can actually drive itself. If successful, they stand to reap millions in government contracts and a significant footnote in the history books.

But many of them insist that money is not the only goal.

Published: 07.03.2007

3 at UA get grants for tech potential

By Christie Smythe ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Three researchers from the University of Arizona are among seven recipients of grants awarded by Science Foundation Arizona, the organization announced Monday.

The nonprofit economic-development organization awarded $2 million in grants to researchers with projects that show potential to develop into high-technology businesses.

“These projects will bring new patents to Arizona researchers with the ultimate goal of forming spin-off companies that create new jobs for Arizonans,” Science Foundation Arizona President and CEO William Harris said in a news release.

University of Arizona researchers receiving grants are:

-Nasser Peyghambarian, a professor in the UA College of Optical Sciences who will receive $411,000 to commercialize a new broadband technology and a fiber-optic sensor for monitoring brain activity.

Published: 07.03.2007

New plant to make solar units on S. Side

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Solon AG, one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of solar energy systems, has launched a new subsidiary in Tucson to make and install commercial solar-electric equipment.

Solon America Corp. will begin making solar energy components at a South Side plant by late this year and is expected to ramp up to full production by early 2008, Berlin-based Solon AG said.

The company expects to hire 40 employees by the end of the year and an additional 100 employees next year, said Jon Sams, executive assistant to the president and CEO.

The company said it is completing deals to acquire a 100,000-square-foot facility at 2700 E. Executive Drive, Suite 130, off South Tucson Boulevard south of East Valencia Road.