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Jim Hudson is the founder and president of the newly opened HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology located in Huntsville, Al.

Jim founded a company in 1987 known as Research Genetics where he served as its CEO until 2000. The company merged that year with Invitrogen in a deal valued at $138 million. Prior to the merger, Research Genetics had become the world’s leader in genetic linkage products and was a critical partner in the Human Genome Project coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. Jim has advised and incubated multiple companies in industries ranging from internet services to genetics research. In his role as President of the biotech institute he is focused on building groundbreaking research and companies that can apply it for the benefit of society.

Jim is very well known in the biotech community and is often quoted by national, state and local media. This podcast is your opportunity to hear Jim in his own words talk about his life’s work and his newest and greatest venture.

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Larry is a venture capitalist as the Sr. Managing Partner for Greer Capital Advisors. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of many of the Fund’s portfolio companies in addition to the Biotechnology Association of Alabama and several start-up companies.

He was an early contributor to the program design of the Alabama Launchpad competition and was a judge during the inaugural 2007 season. Listen to this podcast for a Venture Capitalist’s perspective on the competitors and the program.

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Lisa was an Alabama Launchpad judge this past season. The Launchpad competition looked at over 60 business plans from the state’s top universities. Lisa was a phase III judge which means she reviewed the 12 semi-finalist companies for merit being placed into the final group.

Lisa is qualified to be a Launchpad judge due to her experience as a founder and entrepreneur of a highly successful engineering services firm known as 3D Research. Also interesting in this podcast is Lisa’s perspective on the spirit of entrepreneurism in America. What you’ll learn is that she was an immigrant from Vietnam who loves this country and the opportunities it provides all of us. Listen to this great story!

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Dr. Stice is the co-founder and CEO of Aruna Biomedical. He is also a Professor at the University of Georgia and is the director of the University’s Bioscience Center. He is considered a pioneer in cloning and stem cell research

Steve’s resume is crowded with firsts: he was the first

• to clone a rabbit;
• to clone bovine embryos from embryonic stem cell lines;
• to clone a transgenic calf;
• to clone the first human embryonic stem cells derived from discarded embryos;
• to clone the first calf from a dead cow;
• to clone the first motor neurons derived from human embryonic stem cells; and
• to create the first human embryonic stem cell product to be commercialized.

In this podcast Steve talks to us about stem cell research and where it is going. We also learn about how his company has developed a toolkit which is designed to accelerate the pace of neurological research for scientists working on treatments for spinal cord injuries and neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s, and even depression.

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Aaron is part of a team sponsored by the University of Alabama in Huntsville that is focused creating technologies that enable breakthroughs in pharmaceutical and biotech research.

The team founded a private company in 2006 to create a solution for neurological researchers who needed better lab equipment for their experiments – initially its focus is in developing cell culture technology. Their first commercial product will be a revolutionary lab Petri dish that will dramatically shorten research and test time while lowering costs.

Listen to the IntelCell story here.

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Chris co-founded Halo Monitoring which won the $50,000 inaugural Alabama Launchpad competition’s second prize award. Halo is a startup developing products to improve the quality of care giving for the senior population. Using innovative technology, Chris and his team have developed a wearable device and monitoring applications that allow caregivers to remotely monitor key vital signs and detect serious events, such as an elderly person, falling real time.

Listen to this story if you or someone you know has an elderly parent living alone.

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Dr. Byrne is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of OcuMedic which won $100,000 for first place in the Alabama Launchpad business plan competition ending May 2008.

Incubated at Auburn University, the company has developed ground-breaking technology that allows for medicines to be taken via a person’s eye contacts instead of old-fashion eye drops. The medicines typically help with eye comfort, allergies, infections and inflammation.

This is an exciting development that could revolutionize eye care for humans and animals in the not too distant future.

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Jim is the President of EDPA, the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama. If you want to know more about how private and public groups in Alabama come together to grow jobs and the economy, this is your podcast.

The organization is 17 years old and hase been instrumental in bringing state and local governments, academia, Alabama’s greatest corporations and entrepreneurs together for the benefit of our citizens. It has been highly successful but oddly is still one-of-a-kind in our nation.

Listen to Jim’s perspective.

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“Alabama Launchpad strives to identify and support the best entrepreneurs and business ideas coming out of our state’s universities. In our first season, we provided seed capital to three startups that are poised to prosper right here in Alabama and add to the diversity of our state’s economy. Listeners to the ClearCast series now have the opportunity to hear directly from these entrepreneurs. This is a terrific resource for the ‘innovation community’ in Alabama, and we are very pleased to partner with ClearCast to bring it’s listeners this series.”

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“We have developed this very interesting group of podcasts to give our listeners insight into how Alabama’s universities are now collaborating to bring their research to the commercial market. The Alabama Launchpad program is unique and is emerging as a showcase opportunity for the incredible ideas and intellectual capital emerging from our very own state universities. ”

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This is another great incubator story. Susan Matlock is the CEO of Innovation Depot in Birmingham. Innovation Depot launches startups and early-stage companies in the high-technology, life sciences and business services industries. Susan has been in the business incubation business for more than 20 years. She was the chairman of the National Business Incubation Association in the 1993-1994 and as a leading authority on incubators she is a prominent speaker in the industry. Susan is also a contributing author to two books on the topic.