The titans of technology are dabbling in life sciences. The founders of Facebook, Google, and other tech companies have already given $33 million in “breakthrough prizes” to biology superstars, including MIT’s Eric Lander and Robert Weinberg.
Now Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is giving a total of $7.5 million to a group of lesser-known scientists, including MIT biophysicist Jeff Gore.
It’s hard to know what the impact will be down the road, but getting more of the world’s attention on biomedical research is probably not a bad idea.
In other innovation news…
A new MIT report details the forces pushing U.S. hardware and materials companies to move their manufacturing operations overseas. The full study on 150 companies over the past decade is due out later this year.
Our deal of the week is a $120 million partnership between Lexington’s Concert Pharmaceuticals and Dublin-based Jazz Pharmaceuticals. The companies are working together on a drug for narcolepsy.
And lastly, a new tech internship program is expanding to Boston this year. SummerQAmp is training at-risk youth in quality assurance for software companies, with support from Jon Bon Jovi and a number of tech founders. A little celebrity, it seems, never hurts.
