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Steve O'Connor Named One of the World's Top Young Innovators by Technology Review, MIT's Magazine of Innovation
Cambridge, MA May 23, 2002 Nanostream, a Pasadena, CA-based biotech tools startup, announced today that Dr. Steve O'Connor, founder and CEO, has been chosen as one of the world's 100 Top Young Innovators by Technology Review, MIT's Magazine of Innovation. The TR100, chosen by Technology Review, MIT's award-winning magazine of innovation, consists of 100 young individuals whose innovative work in business and technology has a profound impact on today's world. Nominees are recognized for their contributions in transforming the nature of technology in industries such as biotechnology, computing, energy, medicine, manufacturing, nanotechnology, telecommunications and transportation.
O'Connor founded Nanostream in 1999. Nanostream's revolutionary technology allows pharmaceutical companies to bring drugs to market faster. The company provides microfluidic products, or "chips" with miniaturized channels to push around nanoliters of fluids involved in biological and chemical reactions. Microfluidic components will become the plumbing infrastructure for pharmaceutical research and development, promising to accelerate the journey from compound to drug‹a process that currently takes over 14 years and costs over $800 million.
O'Connor founded or co-founded three other technology companies in Southern California, including Clinical Micro Sensors (CMS). As Chief Scientist at CMS, he helped develop the company until its acquisition by Motorola for $300M. O'Connor is named as inventor on 9 issued patents and has authored fifteen scientific articles on topics including molecular wires, hair morphology, and tooth decay. He completed his doctorate in Physical Chemistry at California Institute of Technology.
O'Connor is being honored today during a conference and awards ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The event, themed "The Innovation Economy: How Technology is Transforming Existing Businesses and Creating New Ones," includes a full day of conference sessions and panel discussions followed by an evening awards ceremony. Hosted by Technolgy Review's Editor-in-Chief John Benditt and CNBC's Consuelo Mack, conference speakers include international leaders such as Kenneth Starr Esq.; Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and author of The Innovators Dilemma; Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU; Rodney Brooks, Director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Co-director of Project Oxygen, MIT; Richard Rashid, Senior Vice President, Microsoft Research; and David Tennenhouse, Vice President and Corporate Technology Group Director, Intel Corporation.
TR100's unparalleled panel of judges includes:
- Dr. David Baltimore, President, California Institute of Technology
- Alfred Berkeley III, Vice Chairman, NASDAQ
- Richard Demillo, Vice President, IBM Academy of Technology
- Dr. Robert M. Metcalfe, Venture Partner, Polaris Venture Partners
- Dr. Cherry A. Murray, Senior Vice President of Physical Science
- Nicholas Negroponte, Director, MIT Media Laboratory
- Dr. Judith Rodin, President, University of Pennsylvania
About Nanostream
Nanostream provides microfluidic tools to overcome bottlenecks in drug discovery. As drug discovery moves to a factory floor, high-speed biology and chemistry must be performed in beakers, test tubes, and flasks one million times smaller than those used today. Nanostream furnishes the miniaturized plumbing critical to the future of pharmaceutical sciences. The company raised $10 million in its Series B round of financing in March 2001. Investors include Techno Venture Management (TVM), Applied Genome Technology Capital (AGTC) Funds, Shamrock Capital, and Series A investors. In November 2001, Nanostream celebrated its expansion to a 22,000 square foot facility in Pasadena, California.
About Technology Review Inc.
Technology Review, MIT¹s magazine of Innovation, is the world's oldest technology magazine. The magazine, as well as its signature events and Internet businesses, delivers essential information on emerging technologies on the verge of commercialization. Since 1998, Technology Review's paid circulation has more than tripled, from 92,000 to 310,000 (as of January 2002). Several hundred thousand current MIT alumni, faculty and students, senior technology thinkers and influencers‹venture capitalists, chief scientists, researchers, senior corporate executives investors, and innovators throughout the world‹constitute the Technology Review community.
Contact
For Steve O'Connor:
Surekha Vajjhala, Nanostream, 626 351-8200 x 6700
surekha@nanostream.com
For TR100 and Technology Review:
Kristen Collins, KMCpartners, 617 795-0800
Kristen@kmcpartners.com
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