Technology and Discovery News

  • Helmet of sensors worn by a child
    College of Engineering and Applied Science—Svenja Knappe and her colleagues have developed a helmet that contains 128 sensors and is customizable for different sizes of the human head. Knappe founded the Boulder-based company FieldLine and has begun to bring these sensors to market. In the not-so-distant future, they could aid in the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of neurological conditions like epilepsy, autism and traumatic brain injuries.
  • A pile of plastic containers
    Boulder Today—Chemists at Boulder have developed a new way to recycle a common type of plastic found in soda bottles and other packaging and are working with Venture Partners at Boulder to bring it to real-world applications. The team’s method relies on electricity and some nifty chemical reactions, and it’s simple enough that you can watch the plastic break apart in front of your eyes.
  • Headshot of Sabrina Spencer
    Boulder Today—In 2016, Pfizer began collaborating with Sabrina Spencer, a global leader in time-lapse cell imaging and member of the Cancer Center, to study how cancer cells respond to their potent new drugs called CDK2 inhibitors.
  • Illustration of a red virus
    Boulder researchers have identified a surprising new player in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)—an ancient, virus-like protein. With funding from the ALS Association, the National Institutes of Health, and Venture Partners at Boulder, Alexandra Whiteley's lab is now working to understand the molecular pathways involved and to find a way of inhibiting the rogue protein.
  • Illustration of nanopillars used in a new design to efficiently convert heat energy into electricity
    NIST—Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Boulder have fabricated a novel device that could dramatically boost the conversion of heat into electricity. If perfected, the technology could help recoup some of
  • Robotic hand holds a butterfly
    Interesting Engineering—The primary goal of soft robotics is to achieve smooth and complex movement by mimicking the locomotion of soft bodies found in the environment. Researchers at Boulder and Boulder startup Artimus Robotics are leading innovation with a new type of "artificial muscle" to enable life-like movements.
  • HASEL actuators
    Say “hello” to the robots of the future: They’re soft and flexible enough to bounce off walls or squeeze into tight spaces. And when you’re done with them, you can toss these machines into a compost bin to decompose.
  • Woman using breathalyzer
    Scientists from Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) made an important leap forward in the quest to diagnose disease using exhaled breath, reporting that a new laser-based breathalyzer—born of Nobel Prize-winning technology from —powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can detect COVID-19 in real-time with excellent accuracy.
  • Scientist working in a laboratory
    Endpoints News—OnKure Therapeutics has lined up $60 million in a new private funding round, adding to the Boulder spinout’s bank account as it works through a Phase II trial. The startup is attempting to create an inhibitor of histone deacetylases, or HDACs, which are DNA-manipulating enzymes that alter how genes get expressed.
  • Jun Ye
    Wanted: entrepreneurs ready to launch startups based on innovations created in Boulder’s research labs. The Embark Deep Tech Startup Creator is a new program created by Venture Partners at Boulder, the commercialization arm of , to match business minds outside the university with breakthrough inventions created within its walls.
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