What's happening in and around the Park? Here is an update from the team at the Illinois Science + Technology Park. |
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Carbon Emissions: First Sustainable Packaging |
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Through their innovative partnership, LanzaTech, Total and L’Oréal have premiered the world’s first sustainable packaging made from captured and recycled carbon emissions. The successful conversion process takes place in three steps:
• LanzaTech captures industrial carbon emissions and converts them into ethanol using a unique biological process.
• Total, thanks to an innovative dehydration process jointly developed with IFP Axens, converts the ethanol into ethylene before polymerizing it into polyethylene that has the same technical characteristics as its fossil counterpart.
• L’Oréal uses this polyethylene to produce packaging with the same quality and properties as conventional polyethylene.
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LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren said: “This partnership is based on a shared goal of creating a cleaner planet for everyone. We are grateful to both L’Oréal and Total for their commitment to reducing the carbon intensity of their activities. Together, we can reduce the carbon footprint of packaging by converting carbon emissions into useful products, making single-use carbon a thing of the past.”
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Nanotechnology Helps Drive Record Research |
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A global pandemic has not blunted Northwestern University’s remarkable research enterprise, which has grown to $886 million for fiscal year 2020, closing Aug. 31. The new figure represents an 11% increase over last year’s record-setting total of $797.8 million and makes Northwestern the largest academic research site in the state of Illinois.
While biomedical research continues to be Northwestern’s most active area, other research areas, including nanotechnology, energy and sustainability, and quantum science have also advanced. “Northwestern continues its spectacular research ascent,” said Vice President for Research Milan Mrksich. “This year’s funding success — the latest in a consistently strong, decade-plus rise — helps drive our transformative investigations across all fields, in STEM and the social sciences domain, and underscores why we are ranked in the nation’s top 10 universities.” Mrksich noted that Northwestern’s strong culture for collaborative research has played an important role in “making our research enterprise the largest in the state.” For more information, click here.
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Vetter: Long Term Investment Strategy |
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Vetter has moved into its new headquarters in Ravensburg, Germany. The opening of the new building, known as Ravensburg Vetter Kammerbruehl, represents a clear signal from the family-owned company: stability and progress will continue – even during globally difficult times. While the situation regarding the coronavirus continues to shift, Vetter is doing what is necessary to continue being a stable and reliable partner for its customers and suppliers. As a CDMO, the company works together with its clients to continue enabling the supply of oftentimes life-saving drugs to patients worldwide.
The CDMO has set also high goals for its other sites. Most recently, a new combination building for manual visual inspection and secondary packaging started operations at the Ravensburg Vetter Sued / Vetter Secondary Packaging site. Meanwhile, the recently purchased clinical manufacturing site in Rankweil, Austria, is designed to be ready for the first drug products in development in the second half of 2021.
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“Part of the 360-degree approach includes investments in the expansion of our development capacities,” says Peter Soelkner. “We have observed a steady increase in demand from our customers as well as ever-more complex requirements for modern compounds.” The company has responded to these needs at both its Schuetzenstrasse site as well as at the company’s dedicated US clinical manufacturing site.
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Space Now Available @ISTP |
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There is laboratory and office space available in 8045 Lamon. Suites, ranging from approximately 10,000 sq. ft. to over 50,000 sq. ft., will be ready between now and the Spring of 2021. Options appropriately address your access and security concerns. Interested? Click here!
8045 Lamon (Research to Commercialization)
- 4 story, 163,000 square feet
- Gold LEED rated “green” facility
- Conference Center and Auditorium
- Areas for meetings, collaboration and socialization
Design your customized lab & office facilities at 8030 Lamon. (Flexible Options for Development)
- Flexible build to suit options
- Up to 200,000 square feet of office and development space
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“The Illinois Science + Technology Park is a significant contributor to Skokie’s employment base and economic growth,” said Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen. “The park continues to grow and contribute to Skokie’s economy while also providing economic stimulus for the state and Midwest region.” |
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Cyclopure: DEXSORB Adsorbents Outperform |
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Cyclopure, Inc. is pleased to announce that its cyclodextrin-based adsorbents, DEXSORB® and DEXSORB+®, outperformed the leading cation and anion exchange resins in the removal of PFAS from water in a new head-to-head study. The superior performance of the company’s polymer formulation was reported on September 14, 2020 in Environmental Science & Technology.
Concern over PFAS in drinking water and their associated health effects are widespread and well-known. Most attention has been focused on PFOA, PFOS and other anionic (negatively charged) PFAS compounds. Nearly 20 States have adopted or are adopting their own maximum contaminant levels, some as low as 8ppt for PFOA and 10ppt for PFOS, and others with limits of 20ppt for combinations of up to six PFAS compounds. But, many of the industrial processes and products that contain PFOA and PFOS also include a variety of other PFAS classes made up of cationic, zwitterionic and nonionic compounds, which are also finding their way into drinking water
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"Removing cationic and zwitterionic compounds extends DEXSORB®’s value proposition to treat PFAS in drinking water, making DEXSORB® an adsorbent that can meet changing requirements in the future.”— Frank Cassou .
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SelectChicago Visits ISTP
SelectChicago® is a curated program helping foreign investors and international businesses tap into regional Chicago area economic development programs. The US market has an immediate need for just-in-time and just-in-case local manufacturers and suppliers.
The SelectChicago team works with overseas investors, municipalities, international trade commissioners, economic development organizations — and Chicagoland businesses to assist global investors in investing at the municipal level and local companies establish US subsidiaries abroad.
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Flexterra: A "Most Innovative Company" |
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The key to fulfilling the promise of wearable electronics is to make them flexible.
The Ninth edition of the Most Innovative Companies list, was compiled in partnership with Ocean Tomo, an intellectual property advisory, investment-banking and consulting firm, which evaluates the patents produced each year by Chicago-area companies and ranks them based on quality
Flexterra, a Skokie-based startup, earned patents last year for bendable displays, flexible circuitry and other materials that can be used in wearables. Some devices are flexible, but their electronics aren't, making them less durable. Flexterra solved the problem with chemistry, coming up with a way for new, more flexible materials to carry an electrical charge.
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"Wearables and smartwatches is one of the key areas of application of our technology, but we are also collaborating on multiple industrial applications where flexible and/or highly robust displays are required, such as integration of displays into tracking items and inexpensive circuits for sensors," says Antonio Facchetti, Flexterra's chief technology officer and an adjunct professor of chemistry at Northwestern. |
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Surging Demand for Chicago Lab Space |
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More life sciences companies are hunting for locations to do research in the area, a good sign for developers betting big on the sector's local future.
Life sciences companies are looking for more than three times as much lab space in Chicago than they were at the beginning of last year as COVID-19 fuels demand for places to do biotech and pharmaceutical research.
At the end of the second quarter, bioscience companies were seeking 658,000 square feet of lab space in the Chicago area, up from 175,000 square feet at the beginning of 2019. That growth, is driven primarily by early-stage life sciences companies winning funding to develop treatments and other technologies,
The COVID-19 crisis has boosted funding for companies searching for a vaccine but also driven more money into the biotech and pharmaceutical sectors overall. Venture-capital investment in U.S. life sciences companies during the 12 months ended June 30 was $17.8 billion, an all-time record for any yearlong stretch. For more insights from ChicagoBusiness.com, click here.
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Check out Skokie and ISTP |
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Learn about LanzaTech and CarbonSmart |
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