Sponsoring Organizations: American Chemical Society, Minnesota chapter (ACS):
Tina Ovitt American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Upper Midwest Section (AIChE):
Ryan O'Connor, Mark Arlinghaus
American Society for Materials, Minnesota chapter (ASM): Larry Hanke, John
Warinsky American Vacuum Society, Minnesota Chapter (AVS): Anna Belu, Gary Korba
Minnesota Microscopy Society (MMS): Mike Coscio, Dwight Erickson, Jason
Heffelfinger, Mary Swierczek, Bede Willenbring Society for Applied Spectroscopy,
Minnesota chapter (SAS): Becky Dittmar SEMI-MN: Terry Burke, Tom Whalen, Kevin
Seguin Society for Information Display, Midwest chapter (SID): Vic Holec,
Birendra Bahadur
Join us Thursday March 17th in the Medtronic state-of-the-art auditorium for dinner, cross-functional networking, and two outstanding technical talks:
*****
Tours of the Medtronic facilities will be available!
Tours will be available at specific times between 4:30 and 5:30pm only.
DATE: Thursday, March 17, 2005 TIME: 4:30-9 PM
LOCATION: Medtronic, 694 & Hwy 65 Fridley, MN
RESERVATIONS: to Bede Willenbring no later than Friday, March 11th
RSVP must include: name, company, email address, phone number, affiliation (ACS, AlChE, ASM, AVS, MMS, SAS, SEMI, SID, or none)*
*MinnTS will not share your personal information outside your affiliated
organization.
Bede.Willenbring@hbfuller.com 651-236-5470 COST: $25
Menu:
-Garden salad with assorted dressings
- entree 1: Herb crusted chicken with pan glaze
- entree 2: Salmon with lemon and dill
- entree 3: Wild mushroom strudel
-Rice or potatoes
-Steamed carrots
-Bakery fresh rolls and butter
-Asst Desserts (mini tarts, chocolate dipped fruits, mini cakes and pies)
-Assorted soda and water -Coffee service with hot tea
The development of modern materials such as structural polymers and metal alloys enabled the implementation of many medical therapeutic devices and drug delivery systems over the past half century. These biomaterials - based products, which often served to replace the function of organs, included devices such as prosthetic joints, teeth, lens, valves, breasts, pacemakers and bones. In the present era, the focus of medicine has shifted and the knowledge we have gained in physiology, cellular and molecular biology provides the potential for supplanting many mechanical, chemical and electronics based therapies by inducing the body to heal and regenerate its structures and functions. As with many disruptive technologies, regenerative medicine approaches such as those found in tissue engineering, gene therapy and growth factor implementation have experienced early resistance and setbacks. But the concepts are valid, major successes are unfolding and the era of regenerative medicine is arriving with only the timing in question. To achieve these breakthroughs, advanced materials technologies will be required to deliver, augment or enable the cellular and molecular components of regenerative medicine.
Abstract:
Optobionics is a medical technology company, based in Naperville, IL that is
developing treatments for patients who have previous untreatable, debilitating
blindness due to retinitis pigmentosa (RP) using some very innovative computer
chip technology. This disease afflicts 1.6 million people worldwide with
~100,000 in the U.S. Their first anticipated product, the ASR™ silicon chip
device, is presently undergoing FDA clinical trials and has been implanted into
the retinas of 10 patients and followed for a period of 24-51 months.
Presentation will cover the basic design of the ASR™ silicon chip, engineering
challenges, surgical methods and patient results to date.
Speaker:
Vincent Y. Chow, co-founder and Vice President of Research and Development of
Optobionics Corporation, is an electrical engineer with 25 years experience in
the semiconductor industry. He coordinates the efforts of the company’s growing
engineering staff at two locations. From 1994 to the present Mr. Chow has been
President of Vega Technology and Systems, an engineering consulting firm for
optical sensing products and ASIC applications. From 1989 to 1994, Mr. Chow was
Director of Research and Development at MDA Scientific, where he designed and
developed optical gas sensing equipment for the semiconductor industry. . From
1985 to 1989, he served as Director of Technical Operations at Autotech
Corporation where he developed a line of high-speed programmable logic
controllers. Mr. Chow has also been Director of Operations at Telco Systems and
Manager of Reliability Development at AT&T Bell Labs/Teletype. Mr. Chow is a
named inventor on 11 patents, and in 1996 received the Chicago Inventor of the
Year Award with his brother Alan for their work in developing the Artificial
Silicon Retina Microchip. In 2002, he and his brother also received RP
International’s Vision Award, and in 2003, an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the
Year Award in the Chicago area. Mr. Chow received his B.S. in Electrical
Engineering for the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1971.