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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