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MEDIA ADVISORY: MU to Showcase Innovative Technologies at Tech Expo

Story Contact(s):
Christian Basi, BasiC@missouri.edu, 573-882-4430

By Fran Webber

WHAT: The University of Missouri will host the 2014 Missouri Tech Expo, which facilitates the transfer of technologies developed at the state’s top research institutions by providing a forum for researchers, entrepreneurs, investors and business professionals to interact.

Technology representatives will give short presentations on technology that is ready to be licensed and/or seeking investments. Past participants in the Expo have gone on to create businesses with entrepreneurs they have met during the day-long event.

WHO: Keynote presentations will be given by Dr. Nicholas Franano, CEO of Flow Forward Medical, Inc. and Metactive Medical, Inc.; and Jim Spencer, president and founder of Newsy.

Franano is a physician, scientist, entrepreneur, inventor and advisor. Currently, he is CEO of Flow Forward Medical, Inc. and Metactive Medical, Inc., which are developing medical devices to prepare veins for hemodialysis and close cerebral aneurysms faster than current treatments. Franano has received numerous research awards, grants and fellowships, and has published many abstracts and articles in peer-reviewed journals. In 2009,  he was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the Central Midwest and a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.

Spencer is the president and founder of Newsy, a multi-source video news service for the web that was acquired by E.W. Scripps Company in 2014. As vice president of Content and Answers at Ask Jeeves, Spencer helped the company become the 15th-most trafficked website. As general manager of News and Information Programming at AOL, Spencer advanced the content, business and partnership operations of one of the company’s major business units. Spencer holds a master’s degree from the MU School of Journalism.

Additionally, two scientists will talk about their startup companies:

Gabor Forgacs, chief scientific officer of Modern Meadow and the George H. Vineyard Professor of Theoretical Physics at MU, will discuss some of the technologies behind the 3-D printing of biological tissues developed by Modern Meadow.

Steve O’Connor, founder and CEO of ImpeDx Diagnostics, will discuss new technology licensed from MU that reduces the time for certain hospital lab tests, potentially reducing healthcare costs and improving patient outcomes.

WHEN: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday Oct. 16, 2014
For more information, please visit: http://motechexpo.missouri.edu/

WHERE: Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center, MU campus
Registration and all presentations will take place in the Monsanto Auditorium.

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