Local companies boost math and science education

The BBJ has fortunately been committed to philanthropy and community involvement lately, and I have gotten to write these kinds of stories; in fact, my editor, Mark, has classified this kind of story a "Ryan Rose Weaver" story. Education? Check. Kids? Check. Mentoring? Check. Social change? Check. New ideas for teaching tomorrow's increasingly distracted and institutionalized youth? Check.

Check it out below.

From the 12/8/06 article:

BY RYAN ROSE WEAVER
SPECIAL TO THE JOURNAL
Problem: Studies have shown that there is a math and science crisis among America’s youth that will result in more technology jobs being shipped overseas or remaining unfilled at home in the future. Solution: The companies hardest hit by this crisis are often the best equipped to solve it — and they are increasingly directing philanthropic resources into math and science education.

Last year, Waltham-based Raytheon Co., concerned about the declining numbers of new engineering graduates in Massachusetts, commissioned a study on math and science education. Accord- ing to CIO Rebecca Rhodes, the results
indicted a “crisis” beginning in middle school, when U.S. students begin to lag well behind their counterparts in other countries.

Raytheon responded by creating Math Moves U, an initiative that drew heavily on suggestions from students and teachers about ways to make math “cool” for middle schoolers. Its Web site (www.mathmovesu.com) features games, online study group chats, prize giveaways and profiles of “guest teachers” such as Red Sox manager Terry Francona and soccer star Mia Hamm, who have visited classrooms to talk about the ways in which they use math in their everyday lives. Raytheon’s concern for the future extends to its staff: More than 2,000 employees are involved in mentoring and teaching math in schools. Among them is Tien Lang, a systems engineer who believes deeply in Raytheon’s mission to improve the state of math education.

As a Vietnamese refugee, Lang struggled with English in school, but found his place with the “international language” of mathematics. Today, he shares his story as a motivational tale for struggling math students.

“With the lack of math and science interest in the students, we face a big impact on the economy, our jobs and the security of our country,” said Lang. “This country is so important to me — I
cannot just stand on the sideline as we lose our lead. I want to be involved.”

Teachers say that real-life connections between learning and careers are crucial in keeping students interested in math.

Biogen Idec Inc.’s Cambridge Community Lab is another example of a company contributing its own staff and facilities.
Four years ago, CEO James C. Mullen built the lab on the site of Biogen’s Cambridge complex to bring scientists
and kids together, free of charge. Since 2002, more than 5,000 students and dozens of Biogen volunteers have come together to do experiments modeled on the ones taking place “upstairs.”

The lab’s director, Tracy Callahan, said that while the company does not expect to make a scientist out of every student, its aim is to show their visitors the wide range of careers available in the health sciences and to help create a “science-literate” citizenry.

Other corporations seek to supplement the efforts of teachers, sending human and financial resources into the classroom and hosting visits in their facilities. Raytheon awarded a $2,500 “Math Hero” grant to Denise Bowden, a teacher inMarblehead who had convinced local businesses to let her 12-year-old students act as “engineering consultants,” taking on some of their math problems and then presenting their solutions to company leaders. Massachusetts General Hospital has partnered with Timilty Middle School in Roxbury since 1989, organizing a schoolwide science fair and arranging for MGH mentors to help students with their projects. New grant funding has also allowed MGH to place a full-time staff member, Susan Berglund, in charge of managing these projects.

“Having the kids see that there’s this huge research facility that is there to support the school, and that they’re willing to give up their time, really shows them that there are people that care about them and want them to be successful,” said Berglund.

A top-down view of the architecture industry

This article centers on a survey, but the industry leaders in architecture are all people who share a distaste for numbers. Like many creative people, they'd rather live unfettered by profit ratios, contract complications, and market fluctuations. A building, after all, is really a large, functional, interactive sculpture, and most prefer to think of it that way.

So, needless to say, there is a kindred feeling between writers who are paid per word and sculptors who must contract with the government to get their art approved. This was an interesting article to write, and I enjoyed speaking with most of the presidents of architectual firms--these were men and women who, having reached the pinnacle of their careers, had finally come into their own as creative people, as leaders who would establish the vision and carry the torch for an entire team of sculptors. They knew the industry, but more importantly, they had finally been allowed to come to know themselves.

From the 11/7/06 article:

Profits, salaries and work backlogs were up at Boston-area architectural firms in 2005 amid a shortage of ar-
chitects, rising construction costs and a cutback in new building projects by state and local government, according to DiCicco Gulman and Co. LLP’s annual survey of 22 Boston-area architectural firms.

David Wexler and David Sullivan, architecture and engineering consultants at DiCicco who began the annual survey in 2001, said the picture their data paints this year is a positive one: Profits are up and nonresidential construction promises to stay strong through 2007.

One DiCicco client, Jim Batchelor, president and CEO of Arrowstreet, said technology has been a major force behind increased profitability. Despite an initial learning curve, he said, programs such as AutoCAD and Revit have enabled architects to calculate construction costs more carefully, enabling teams of engineers and contractors to build realistic budgets around their designs.

The largest concern facing architectural firms today, said Wexler, is the dearth of experienced project managers, who ultimately drive this planning process. There is a direct correlation between an experienced manager and a high profit ratio, he said, but “everyone’s looking for the same good people.”

Peter Kuttner, president of Cambridge Seven Associates Inc., agrees. “That’s the lament at all architectural cocktail parties right now,” he said. Lenord Cubellis, founder and CEO of Cubellis Associates Inc., maintains inhouse training programs to groom new architectural grads in the firm’s specialties are the answer.

“It’s about having that experience be managed,” he said. “Otherwise, the experiences that young architects and engineers get are too varied. Our clients want more and more expertise in our market — not all markets.”

Industry leaders say that as small public contracts have given way to large-scale institutional and hospitality building as the most profitable jobs, firms with governmental specialties have had to reassess their niches.

“When we look at the industry, we’re torn between our core competency and where we see the industry going,” said Kuttner.

Batchelor said that while municipal line, their high visibility help cement a firm’s reputation. Most firms said they preferred to maintain a diverse portfolio of private and public work as cushion to soften the inevitable market fluctuations.

Cambridge Seven plans to expand to meet the demands of the new big-building trend, despite the tight labor market. The DiCicco Gulman and Co. survey shows that architectural firms are working harder than ever to retain experienced staff even as salaries and bonuses rise. Wexler said the survey showed “non-monetary” benefits play an ever-increasing more important role in retention.

“A challenging environment where people are treated well and respected, where there are opportunities for growth and advancement — those things have people staying on to help to build the firm, even in the down times,” Wexler said. “The amount of autonomy a person has, the more chance they have to design, is very important to them.”

Despite a climate of national expansion, leaders in the field who got their start here several decades ago still use words like "Mecca” and “think tank” to describe Boston. Kuttner pointed out that the Boston chapter of the American Institute of Architects remains the largest in the country.

“New York still has those firms that do the megamillion-dollar, 30-building development in Dubai,” he said. “But I think we’ve cornered the intelligent, nicely honed building that people come to Boston architects for.”

Radius: "Improving Life from the Inside Out"

This article was my first foray into biotech reporting.

I found the information fascinating. It was a complicated concept to present: four drugs, all different, which helped patients with incredibly difficult conditions that caused them pain, and improved upon drugs that could often make things worse before they got better.

Because biotech is not always as easily explained as, say, banking, I chose to make a multimedia project for my online publishing class that expanded upon what I wrote in the article. I created visuals to illustrate more complicated concepts such as hormonal treatments, and included a timeline that detailed the process that drugs must go through in order to be approved. That project is now online at www.ryanroseweaver.com/flashradius.html. (You can also click the link above.)

Because it was in a supplement, it is not available online through the regular BBJ subscription service; I have included the full article below.

From the 10/27 biotech supplement to the BBJ:

BY RYAN ROSE WEAVER
SPECIAL TO THE JOURNAL
Through a licensing agreement with the Norwegian company Karo Bio, Cambridge’s Radius Health Inc. has stepped
a little further into a leadership role in the development of the selective androgen receptor modulators — known as SARMs — into drug treatments.

Radius and Karo Bio announced the licensing deal last month, and Radius is working to develop the molecules into a compound that could be the first orally administered anabolic drug for osteoporosis and related conditions. SARMs activate androgen receptors in different tissues, increasing bone
mineral density and muscle mass.

Radius President and CEO C. Richard Lyttle, a former top-level scientist for Wyeth, said his the work on the SARM licensed from Karo Bio — now in the preclinical stage — is one of four compounds the 3-year-old Radius has in the “pipeline.”

Radius was founded in 2003 with first round financing of $24 million as a company named Nuvios, a collaboration between four Boston science leaders and three major institutional investors: HealthCare Ventures, MPM Capital, and Oxford Bioscience Partners. Radius’ strategy is to improve upon existing drugs on the market that aggressively treat problems such as menopause, endometriosis, and bone loss — all linked to the modulation of hormones in the body such as estrogen and testosterone — without the often painful side-effect current drugs cause.

The SARM drug furthest along in testing is a parathyroid hormone known as BA058, which, when injected daily, can actually rebuild bone and muscle in patients whose muscles have atrophied.

“You’re not going to stop the aging process, but you’re going to have a better quality of life,” said Lyttle.

Radius is developing in conjunction with Esai Co. Ltd., a Japanese company, to develop selective estrogen receptor modulators to treat both osteoporosis and hot flashes in menopausal women. Radius is also working on an estrogen receptor beta molecule that will target infl ammatory diseases such rheumatoid arthritis and endometriosis, a painful condition found
in younger women.

Dr. John Potts, director of research at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Jackson Distinguished Professor of Clinical
Medicine at Harvard Medical School, is a founder and a member of the scientifi c advisory board at Radius. To fund further drug development, he said, Radius is seeking $50 million in a second round of funding. Twenty venture companies have ex-
pressed interest, Potts said. “Biotechs are nimble, but they’re always half-starved, so it’s nice when Radius finds lots of people to help us fill that second, bigger war chest,” Potts said.

Radius: "Improving Life from the Inside Out"

This article was my first foray into biotech reporting.

I found the information fascinating. It was a complicated concept to present: four drugs, all different, which helped patients with incredibly difficult conditions that caused them pain, and improved upon drugs that could often make things worse before they got better.

Because biotech is not always as easily explained as, say, banking, I chose to make a multimedia project for my online publishign class that expanded upon what I wrote in the article, and had visual aides to describe concepts such as hormonal treatments and included a timeline that detailed the process that drugs must go through in order to be approved. That project is now online at www.ryanroseweaver.com/flashradius.html. (You can also click the link above.)

Because it was in a supplement, it is not available online through the regular BBJ subscription service; I have included the full article below.

From the 10/27 biotech supplement to the BBJ:

BY RYAN ROSE WEAVER
SPECIAL TO THE JOURNAL
Through a licensing agreement with the Norwegian company Karo Bio, Cambridge’s Radius Health Inc. has stepped
a little further into a leadership role in the development of the selective androgen receptor modulators — known as SARMs — into drug treatments.

Radius and Karo Bio announced the licensing deal last month, and Radius is working to develop the molecules into a compound that could be the first orally administered anabolic drug for osteoporosis and related conditions. SARMs activate androgen receptors in different tissues, increasing bone
mineral density and muscle mass.

Radius President and CEO C. Richard Lyttle, a former top-level scientist for Wyeth, said his the work on the SARM licensed from Karo Bio — now in the preclinical stage — is one of four compounds the 3-year-old Radius has in the “pipeline.”

Radius was founded in 2003 with first round financing of $24 million as a company named Nuvios, a collaboration between four Boston science leaders and three major institutional investors: HealthCare Ventures, MPM Capital, and Oxford Bioscience Partners. Radius’ strategy is to improve upon existing drugs on the market that aggressively treat problems such as menopause, endometriosis, and bone loss — all linked to the modulation of hormones in the body such as estrogen and testosterone — without the often painful side-effect current drugs cause.

The SARM drug furthest along in testing is a parathyroid hormone known as BA058, which, when injected daily, can actually rebuild bone and muscle in patients whose muscles have atrophied.

“You’re not going to stop the aging process, but you’re going to have a better quality of life,” said Lyttle.

Radius is developing in conjunction with Esai Co. Ltd., a Japanese company, to develop selective estrogen receptor modulators to treat both osteoporosis and hot flashes in menopausal women. Radius is also working on an estrogen receptor beta molecule that will target infl ammatory diseases such rheumatoid arthritis and endometriosis, a painful condition found
in younger women.

Dr. John Potts, director of research at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Jackson Distinguished Professor of Clinical
Medicine at Harvard Medical School, is a founder and a member of the scientifi c advisory board at Radius. To fund further drug development, he said, Radius is seeking $50 million in a second round of funding. Twenty venture companies have ex-
pressed interest, Potts said. “Biotechs are nimble, but they’re always half-starved, so it’s nice when Radius finds lots of people to help us fill that second, bigger war chest,” Potts said.