Inventors in Search of Partners
New group aims to pair students and faculty for medical device designs

More than 200 would-be designers have already joined the Hopkins Medical Device Network, which will host a networking event in April. Above, board members Kelvin Liang, Tara Johnson, Tiffany Chen and Joe Xue in Clark Hall's machine shop.

In recent years, there has been a groundswell of interest among Johns Hopkins' biomedical engineering students to move straight into industry rather than pursue the traditional route of medical school or graduate-level research. Last year alone, more than 12 medical device companies came to the Homewood campus to recruit JHU students, according to Aditya Polsani, an industrial liaison associate for the Department of Biomedical Engineering. In contrast, only two such companies visited campus the year before.
Full story...

'Reds' Wolman receives prestigious Benjamin Franklin Award
The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia announced last week its prestigious 2006 Benjamin Franklin Awards to eight scientists studying a range of subjects from brain injury to earthquake engineering.
Full story...

Infectious intruder 'alarm' yields clues to immune system behavior
Drawing on lab experiments and computer studies, Johns Hopkins researchers have learned how a common protein delivers its warning message to cells when an infectious agent invades the body. The findings are important because this biological intruder alarm causes the body's immune system to leap into action to fight the infection. Learning more about how this process works, the researchers said, could lead to better treatments for diseases that occur when the immune system overreacts or pays too little attention to the infection alarm.
Full story...