I’m continually inspired by River’s posts about his career and experience at Goddard. I’ve been meaning to post for quite some time about the experience I’ve had within the Space Life Sciences Directorate at Johnson Space Center. We have some amazing leaders within the directorate who are definitely innovative, outside-of-the-box thinkers. I’d like to share with you a recent example of how NASA, particularly Space Life Sciences at Johnson Space Center in Texas, is using partnerships with academia to help with research and development related to spaceflight.

Recently, NASA teamed up with Rice University to sponsor a $20,000 cash prize for the 2008 Rice Business Plan Competition. The $20,000 cash prize was awarded last week to a team with the best business plan for a life sciences technology which has application to both the NASA space life science program and to Earth-based activities.

NASA was looking for technology innovations that addressed one or more of the following:

• Bone loss and osteoporosis
• Cardiovascular alterations and cardiac problems
• Sleep problems, human performance factors, and chronobiology (biorhythms)
• Radiation Effects
• Muscle Changes and muscular atrophy
• Neurobehavioral and psychosocial factors
• Nutrition, physical fitness, and rehabilitation
• Neurovestibular adaptation (inner ear and balance)
• Smart medical devices: remote medical care / telemedicine
• Technology development; transportable diagnostic devices, minimally or non-invasive tools, and low-power/self-powered device
• Biomedical and environmental health technologies
• Human factors engineering, habitability design, and human-robotics interaction technologies

The 2008 Rice Business Plan Competition is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and has grown to be one of the largest and richest intercollegiate MBA/graduate-level business plan competitions in the world. This year, it hosted 36 teams from around the world and 150 judges from the business community. In 2008, more than $600,000 in total cash and prizes was awarded at the Awards Banquet on Saturday night, April 5, 2008 at the Intercontinental Hotel. The team that won the “NASA Earth/Space Life Sciences Innovation Award” was a group of graduate students from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Their business plan and technology was a HeartSounds platform technology, which can determine heart sounds through a patch (operator independent) and wirelessly record, transmit, archive and perform diagnostic analyses. Their technology can also follow pressures such as pulmonary artery pressure and may be adaptable to many other pressure and heart rate analyses for monitoring of health parameters.

This is a great partnership between NASA and Rice, which leverages the talent of MBA graduate students and the innovation from academia. It’s a perfect example of how NASA is using partnerships to help address its mission needs. In this case, Space Life Sciences has stepped up to the plate to fund technology innovation that is relevant to the health and performance of astronauts on long-duration missions. NASA has a recent history of opening up more of its mission needs to the public, academia or industry such as the Centennial Challenges competitions and the COTS program. Its definitely something that resonates with me and will hopefully continue in the future!

If you are interested in finding more information on the Rice Business Plan Competition and Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, visit: http://www.alliance.rice.edu/

For information on the Space Life Sciences Directorate, visit: http://sa.jsc.nasa.gov/

For the NASA.gov press release about the competition and award, visit: http://www.nasa.gov