Space Product Development Weekly Highlights – June 17, 2002

American Society for Bone and Mineral Research Young Investigator Award: BioServe Space Technologies is proud to announce that the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) has selected Dr. Ted Bateman to receive a Young Investigator Award for his abstract submitted to the ASBMR annual conference to be held in San Antonio, Texas this September. This prestigious award is given to the first author, within five years of his/her Ph.D. or M.D., of the highest-ranking abstracts in each submission category. Dr. Bateman will present results from the commercial research BioServe Space Technologies conducted in the Commercial Biomedical Testing Module (CBTM) payload on STS-108 in collaboration with Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company. CBTM examined the ability of osteoprotegerin (OPG) to prevent the bone loss associated with spaceflight in mice. Dr. Paul Kostenuik, Amgen Sr. Scientist, was a CBTM PI and a co-author on the paper. The research abstract entitled "Osteoprotegerin mitigates spaceflight-induced changes in mouse bone mass, density and mineral composition" is the culmination of 5 years of ground and space based research completed by BioServe and Amgen scientists and sponsored and supported by Amgen. Dr. Kostenuik is also presenting an abstract entitled “OPG prevents relative osteopenia and deficits in skeletal strength in mice during a 12-day spaceflight” at the ASBMR conference. OPG is an Amgen discovered protein being developed to treat osteoporosis and metastatic bone cancer. OPG is in FDA Phase II clinical trials.

Solidification Design Center’s (SDC) Groundbreaking Ceremony: Stahlschmidt and Maiworm USA Inc., a unit of the ATS Group of Germany broke ground on a new state-of-the-art aluminum wheel manufacturing plant in Auburn, Alabama. The $40M and 300 plus employee plant is the first in the U.S. for the company and was located in Auburn, Alabama for a number of economic reasons including the facilitation of technical interchange between the company’s engineers and technical staff at the Auburn University Solidification Design Center. Discussions are underway regarding joint development programs between Dr. Tony Overfelt, Director of the SDC and Greg Socks, COO of Stahlschmidt and Maiworm USA, Inc.