Seattle Genetics hides its big ambitions in a modest-looking set of beige Bothell office-park buildings, while some of its cousins in the local biotech world crowd together in the brainy-hood of Seattle’s South Lake Union. But there is nothing modest about this 18-year-old company, which is plowing forward patiently and aims to make a major splash in the cancer-drug market in 2017.Investors have driven SGEN stock up more than 50 percent this year, largely on the strength of its flagship drug known as Adcetris, which treats Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system that can spread to the lungs, liver or bone marrow. The company employs around 900 full-time staff and will add perhaps 200 next year, said CEO Clay Siegall, who co-founded Seattle Genetics in 1998. For original story https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/seattle-genetics-aims-to-put-drug-on-the-front-line-of-battling-cancer/
Category: articles
Man makes his microbes into research study
Richard Sprague keeps samples of his own feces, in the family freezer, so he can send them to a Stanford University laboratory. Some days he tries to improve his sleep by swallowing potato starch to feed a certain population of microbes in his gut. Lately, he’s been studying his brain acuity every morning to see if changes in his diet can influence it.
A 52-year-old father of three and an ex-Microsoft manager who lives on Mercer Island, Sprague is a volunteer, among thousands of others, in a movement called “citizen science.” Read more at Seattle Magazine.
Citizen science – Many hands make research work
Read the full story in August issue of Alaska Beyond magazine.
Seattle area resident Laura James spends many hours each year piloting an underwater exploration robot beneath Puget Sound waves to count sea stars, many of which are experiencing “sea-star wasting syndrome.” The syndrome, which has caused extensive die-offs from Alaska to Mexico, may start with a deflated appearance, unnatural twisting and lesions and rapidly progress to loss of arms, softening of tissue and death.