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Looking toward the future, Cummings adds. HEL researchers are seeking opportunities to use their knowledge of medical sciences, instrumentation, and mathematics to develop better indicators of human response, such as the electroencephalogram for measuring brain waves.

"There are many sites within the brain that can be monitored," he explains.

"We're hoping that the last five years of really rapid advances in nonlinear dynamic systems will provide the tools to explore such areas. We're looking for tech transfer to come both ways on that one."

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Ohio firm to market Lab-developed technology

Los Alamos has entered into an
agreement giving an Ohio firm exclu-
sive rights to market a more efficient
technique for measuring the quality
of new high-temperature supercon-
ductors.

The agreement with Lake Shore
Cryotronics Inc. is important because
it's the first license granted by the
Lab in the field of high-temperature
superconductivity.

It is doubly significant because it's
the first royalty-bearing license
granted by the Lab since Energy
Secretary John Herrington urged the
nation's research laboratories to
share new technology with private
industry last June.

Los Alamos in 1988 became one of
three national laboratories to house
pilot centers under President
Reagan's Superconductivity
Initiative. At that time, Herrington
said, "The centers will make the
resources of the federal government
available to U.S. industry in develop-
ing commercial products from high-
temperature superconductors."

The recent agreement gives Lake
Shore Cryotronics exclusive rights to
the pending patent on technology
invented at the Lab by James D.
Doss, an electrical engineer in
Engineering and Maintenance (MP.
8).

The company, now in its 21st year,
specializes in the development of pre-
cision temperature-control instru-
ments, associated sensors, thermom-
etry and test systems for materials
research in low-temperature physics.
Its headquarters are just outside of
Columbus, Ohio, in Westerville.

Lake Shore will incorporate Doss'
technique into a new product aimed
at firms involved in superconductor
research and development. The prod-
uct will be available for sale in May.

Potential markets include the United
States, Japan, Europe, Korea, India,
China, Taiwan and Australia.

Doss' "eddy-current superconduc-
tor characterization technique" relies
on the introduction of radio-frequen-
cy electromagnetic fields into untest-
ed materials. In this manner,
researchers can measure the relative
energy loss in superconductive
ceramics. The major advantage of a
superconductor over a normal con-

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LOS ALAPFO

NEWSBULLETIN

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Vol. 10 No. 6, February 16, 1990

License let on Lab-developed clean-up process Colorado firm to market rad waste treatment

A new chemical treatment process being evaluated for its ability to

remove certain radioactive elements from wastewater has been licensed to a Colorado company by Los Alamos. This process was developed by members of the Lab's Nuclear Materials Technology Division and could be used to support the Department of Energy's efforts to clean up the nation's nuclear weapons complex. Other potential applications within DOE and private industry include the removal of pollutant heavy metals from liquid waste

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The workstation was developed by
Tudor Buican, a biophysicist in the
Lab's Cell and Molecular Biology
Group (LS-4). It can be used in quan-
titative cell analysis and in the
human genome project, which aims
to map the basic elements of human
life.

A licensing agreement between
the Lab and Cell Robotics Inc. gives
the fledgling company exclusive
rights to develop, market and sell the
technology. The Los Alamos-based
company was co-founded by Buican
and Lab employee Ron Lohrding,
who is on a leave of absence from the
Lab.

The Cell Robotics licensing agree-
ment is in keeping with LANL's
efforts to encourage its researchers
to form spin-off companies, said Ron
Barks, director of the Lab's
Industrial Applications Office. It rep-
resents one of the many ways in

A company co-founded by Tudor Buican of Cell and Molecular Biology
(LS-4) has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with the Lab.
The company, Cell Robotics Inc. of Los Alamos, will manufacture and
sell a microrobotic cell-biology workstation using technology developed
by Buican and others at the Lab. Buican, shown here, won two presti-
gious R&D 100 Awards for various elements of this technology.

which technology developed with tax-
payer dollars can be transferred to
the private sector, he said.

A trio of sophisticated technologi-
cal capabilities made the micro-
robotics workstation possible. The
first component enables researchers
to trap individual living cells or chro-
mosomes and propel them through a
liquid along a laser beam.

Research and Development
Magazine included Buican's use of
this capability in its annual roundup
of the nation's most significant tech-

nical achievements in 1988.

The second element was a co
rative effort between Buican an
physicist John Martin, also of L
The researchers utilized an adv.
method for rapidly identifying li
particles already marked with f
rescent tags. Known as high-sp
Fourier transform spectral anal
this capability won Buican his
second "R&D 100 Award" earlie
year.

The final component, invente
Buican and Bryan Upham, invo

the design and construction of the
fully enclosed, multicompartmental
chamber that allows for automated
image analysis and manipulation of
individual cells. Upham was a gradu-
ate research assistant in LS-4.

The Cell Robotics workstation will
analyze, sort and manipulate living
cells and chromosomes to one micron
accuracy. A micron is roughly 100 to
150 times smaller than the width of
a single hair.

The commercial prototype, which
will be available in 1990, will allow
researchers to create new biological
products-drugs, for example - one
cell at a time. It can be used in
biomedical research, clinical testing
and biotechnology. It also has poten-
tial applications in chemistry and
materials science research.

Lohrding said the workstations
will be marketed to federal and
national laboratories, pharmaceuti-
cal and biotechnology companies,
research universities and research
hospitals throughout the United
States.

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-Kathy Haq

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Los Alamos National Laboratory

Vol. 10 No. 8, March 2, 1990

Lab-developed security system goes to market Albuquerque firm to make, sell OS-8 software

Software for a computerized
security program developed at Los
Alamos soon will be manufactured
and sold by an Albuquerque, N.M.,
company.

A license agreement between
the Laboratory and Lujan Software
Services Inc. authorizes the compa-
ny to further develop, manufacture
and sell the licensed software.

The Laboratory software and
related hardware form a compre-
hensive remote monitoring and
control system that can be used to
secure buildings or sites where
access is restricted.

This technology, known as the
Controlled Access Security
Software System, was developed
about nine years ago by members
of Security and Safeguards
Support (OS-8). They are Group
Leader Paul Brown Jr.; Benny
Martinez, leader of the alarms and
sensors section; staff member Jim
Koch; and technician Gerald
Pomeroy.

Celso Lujan, president of Lujan
Software Services, said the license
agreement, which took about six
months to negotiate, "went like
clockwork."

The agreement was negotiated
by Jan Haerer, a staff member in
the Lab's Industrial Applications
Office; Brown and Martinez of the
Security and OS-8; and Sam
Freund, a staff attorney.

Lujan said more small business-
es could benefit by exploring the
types of transferable technologies
available at Los Alamos. "Once we
identified the possibility, the Lab
was willing to help," he said.

Lujan and his wife, Vivian-
both lifelong residents of
Albuquerque-founded the com-
pany in 1980. Lujan said the com-
pany employs about 20 people
and grosses about $1 million a
year.

He said the company hopes to
sell security systems incorporating
the Los Alamos technology to com-
mercial nuclear power plants, as
well as the departments of energy
and defense.

Technology transfer is intended
to place technologies developed at
federal laboratories into the pri-
vate sector where they can be com-
mercialized. This was the sixth
license negotiated by the Lab since
January 1989.

Benny Martinez and Paul Brown Jr. of Security and Safeguards Support (OS-8) helped develop the software for a comprehensive securi ty system soon to be marketed by an Albuquerque company. They are shown here in the communications room at the central guard facility TA-46. The screens in the background are part of the Lab's security system and are used to monitor and control access to restricted areas throughout the Lab, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Inset: Rick Wood, a staff member in Engineering (CTR-4), uses a three-dimensional hand "reader" to activate a turnstile in SM 43. The automatic entry station is part of the system developed by the OS-8 team. Photos by Fred Rick.

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