For immediate
release
Contacts:
Debra Covey, Office of Industrial Outreach
& Technology Administration, (515) 294-1048
Saren Johnston, Public Affairs, (515) 294-3474, sarenj@ameslab.gov
AMES LABORATORY WINS REGIONAL
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AWARDS
Federal Laboratory Consortium to
Honor Ames Lab for Tech-transfer Excellence
AMES, IA - The U. S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory
will be presented two technology-transfer awards at the Federal
Laboratory Consortium Mid-Continent and Far-West Regional Meeting,
Sept. 7-10, in South Padre, Texas. The FLC awards recognize Ames
Lab for superb efforts in linking its mission and expertise with
potential users of government-developed technologies and services.
The FLC is a nationwide network of federal laboratories
that promotes and facilitates the rapid movement of federal
laboratory research results and technologies into the mainstream
of the U. S. economy. Ames Laboratory is a member of the
FLC Mid-Continent Region, which consists of an area that
covers 14 states with over 100 federal laboratories.
“
The Ames Laboratory is indeed honored to be a winner of
two awards from this outstanding organization that does
so much to promote technology transfer from the national
labs,” said Ames Laboratory Director Tom Barton. “The
winning technologies are excellent examples of translating
the fundamental research conducted in the Lab into useful
applications for the public.”
The FLC Mid-Continent Region honored Edward Yeung, director
of Ames Laboratory’s Chemical and Biological Sciences
Program, with its “Outstanding Service Award.” The
award is given to an individual who has made notable contributions
to the federal technology-transfer program in the Mid-Continent
Region.
Yeung, who is also an Iowa State University distinguished
professor of chemistry, has an impressive volume of research
in the area of chemical separations. In his 30 years at Ames
Laboratory, he has received 20 patents and currently has
four pending. He has licensed eight of his patents or patent
applications, several to a spin-off company based in Ames,
Iowa. Yeung has enhanced the basic understanding of analytical
chemistry, chromatography and how separation science is practiced
today.
Yeung is also a four-time winner of the prestigious R&D
100 Award, which is given annually by R&D Magazine to
recognize the top 100 products of technological significance
that were marketed or licensed during the previous calendar
year. His most recent R&D 100 award-winning technology,
Absorption Detection System in Multiple Capillaries, was
named “Most Promising New Technology” by the
editors of R&D Magazine in 2001, receiving an Editor's
Choice Award. The technology uses multiple capillaries to
rapidly separate samples of complex chemical or biochemical
mixtures. It can decipher an individual’s entire genetic
code at 96 times higher speed, and with more accuracy and
less expense than conventional instrumentation. CombiSep
Inc., an Ames-based start-up company co-founded by Yeung,
has turned the technology into a commercial instrument, the
MCE 2000, that has unparalleled power for fast-evolving applications
in pharmaceutical, genetics, medical and forensics laboratories.
“
Having received his first of three FLC awards in 1989, Ed
Yeung continues to win the respect of the technology-transfer
world," said Debra Covey, manager of Ames Laboratory’s
Office of Industrial Outreach and Technology Administration,
who nominated Yeung for the Outstanding Service Award.
A second FLC award, the “Notable Technology Development
Award,” went to Ames Laboratory's Midwest Forensics
Resource Center, a specialized resource initiative that works
to ease the casework burdens and facilitate the numerous
tasks facing crime laboratories throughout the Midwest. In
this remarkable technology-transfer support effort, the MFRC
partners with 25 crime laboratories in 11 states and teams
with Iowa State University, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco
and Firearms, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the National Institutes of Justice,
and 13 Midwestern colleges and universities with forensic
science programs.
“The MFRC should be a model to other regional federal
laboratories on how to successfully work with various regional
entities to identify and transfer needed technologies and
knowledge to a diverse customer base,” said Covey,
who recommended the MFRC for the Notable Technology Development
Award.
MFRC partners work together to determine the various goals
that will help them realize the Center’s five-part
mission that focuses on casework assistance, forensic training,
university education in the forensic sciences, forensic science
research and development, and technical innovations in management
and infrastructure.
One of the first MFRC projects was a latent fingerprint-development
chamber that emerged from a collaborative effort involving
Ames Laboratory personnel, ISU researchers and fingerprint
experts at the Iowa Criminalistics Laboratory. The chamber
represents a unique conversion of a laboratory glove box
that allows for easy introduction of evidence into the chamber,
observation of the fingerprint-development process, and control
of both temperature and humidity. The ICL has been using
the glove box for a year, and its examiners report they now
develop 200 percent to 300 percent more fingerprints than
when they were using their previous system.
“
The selection by the FLC Mid-Continent Region of Ed Yeung
for an Outstanding Service Award and the MFRC for the Notable
Technology Development Award is indicative of the research
excellence of Ames Laboratory scientists and of the Laboratory’s
success in transferring technologies and methodologies
that continue to benefit our nation and its citizens,” said
Covey.
Ames Laboratory is
operated for the Department
of Energy by Iowa State
University. The Lab conducts research into various areas
of national concern, including energy resources, high-speed
computer design, environmental cleanup and restoration, and
the synthesis and study of new materials.
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