Science & Technology

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is introducing a Bio Tech facility later today in Winston-Salem.

Jeff Tiberii: What used to be an RJ Reynolds tobacco manufacturing and storage facility will now serve as Wake Forest BioTech place. The 242-thousand square foot facility will house about 450 people by the end of this year. It’s part of the Piedmont triad Research Park. Medical Center V.P. Doug Edgeton says the new site will have research projects in bio-chemistry, pharmacology, physiology, biomedical engineering and micro-biology.

North Carolina continues to be one of the national hot-beds for the Life Sciences.  Entrepreneurs, scientists and venture capitalists in the field are gathering today and tomorrow in Raleigh.

Leoneda Inge:  The CED Life Science Conference is in its 21st year and is one of the biggest events of its type in the southeast.  The idea is to bring some of the best and brightest Life Science companies face-to-face with investors.  Bob Ingram, a General Partner with Hattaras Venture Partners is one of the events co-chairs.

Scientists are used to relying on grants for funding, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. But a recent trend called "crowd-sourcing" could help small projects get underway. It's basically a kick starter campaign where the general public gives online donations for scientists' research. North Carolina State chemistry professor Walter Weare was able to pay for new equipment for his solar energy research using the method.

Researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill are studying how doctors might use human genome sequencing in their private practices. The university is one of five institutions to receive a $6.4 million grant for the project. Scientists have spent the last two decades identifying and mapping each of the three billion groups of molecules that make up human DNA. UNC School of Medicine doctor Jim Evans says the next step is developing genomes as a reliable way to identify genetic diseases.