Corvallis
Landis Kannberg, a program manager at Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory, became the new director of the Microproducts Breakthrough
Institute (MBI) in November when former director Kevin
Drost retired. The institution is a collaboration between
Oregon State University and PNNL. MBI is a partner with the
Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI). MBI
is involved in more than $10 million worth of research and
development, including recent work on a micro-scale blood
filter for future use in a portable kidney dialysis machine.
Researchers at Siga
Technologies are one step closer to a new drug that
would prevent the spread of smallpox. Smallpox was eradicated
in 1977, but many countries have retained small amounts of the
virus for research, turning an old disease into a new
bio-terror threat. “In the case of smallpox, there is no
approved drug [for treatment or protection] available,”
says Dennis Hruby, Siga’s chief scientific officer and a
professor of microbiology at Oregon State University. Siga has
stepped into the business of bio-terror prevention with the
help of a three-year, $16.5 million contract with the National
Institutes of Health to develop the smallpox drug. The U.S.
Food and Drug Administration is likely to approve the drug in
2009. Since 2001, Siga’s staff has grown to 50 and Hruby
says they look to hire 12 more within the next several months.
The results of a 10-year study on ranching in the West could
explain the changing of the guard seen on some Oregon ranches.
The study, conducted by researchers from Oregon State University, the
University of Colorado and the University of Otago in New
Zealand, found that only 26% of large ranches were sold to
traditional ranchers. The rest went to a combination of
investors, developers and a new breed: the “amenity
buyer.” These affluent ranch buyers are more interested
in a back-to-nature retreat than a working ranch. According to
Hannah Gosnell at Oregon State, this shift has a limited effect
on Oregon ranches, although the results of amenity buyers can
still be seen, especially around the Klamath River basin.
