SUNDAY APRIL 15 2012
That doesn’t mean 718 Cyclery sells upsidedown or backwards bikes, rather the whole bicycle creation process has been ‘inverted’.
Instead of a customer going in to browse a range of factory-made and standardised cycles and then picking out the one that is the closest match for their needs, Nocella and his team create from scratch custom bikes that correspond exactly to the client’s requirements.
“We sit down with customers and ask them ‘what do you see yourself doing with this bike?’,” says Nocella.“We sit down with customers and ask them ‘what do you see yourself doing with this bike?’,” “We sit down with customers and ask them ‘what do you see yourself doing with this bike?’”
Following that chat, 718 Cyclery put together a parts list that will satisfy the customer’s needs, email it out to them and then the client can make changes online together with 718 Cyclery.
“It’s a very fluid process,” says Nocella.
Once all the parts are ordered and ready, the client will come in and can actually build the bike with Nocella and his team.
“Some people want to do all the assembling themselves, while at the other end of the spectrum some people just want to watch and take photos,” he says.
“This whole business is based around building bikes with people. Building your own bike is about being empowered to know more about the machine you’re on, to feel more confident about using it and fixing it.”
And focusing on what the customers wants and providing it is good business. In just a few years founder Joe Nocella has gone from working part time from his garage to opening a small shop, to quickly expanding to much larger premises.
For a fantastic insight into 718 Cyclery, watch this short video entitled ‘The Inverted Bike Shop’ created by Peter Crosby and Chauncey Zalkin from Show Love storytelling services and featuring some excellent ethereal music by The Album Leaf.
For more information on 718 Cyclery, please visit: www.718c.com/
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 12 2012
The rise of Swiss medical engineering firm Labseed is one such success story.
Co-founders Hicham Majd and Dr Giorgio Pietramaggiore met when the former was researching cells responsible for wound repair for his thesis at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) while Pietramaggiore, from Italy, was training to be a surgeon at the University Hospital of Geneva.
“Our research projects were complementary,” says Majd, who has Swiss-Moroccan nationality. “By putting them together, they brought about an interesting technology.”
Contemporary medicine wouldn’t exist without implantable medical devices such as orthopedic, dental and breast implants or pacemakers, for example.
More than a quarter of all breast implants must be removed within four years, because neighboring tissues develop a rigid envelope of fibrous tissue to protect themselves from the foreign body.
On the left is an example of an implant that has contracted due to fibrous tissue growth, on the right is a Mycoat treated implant.
Labseed has developed a protective covering made up of a nanostructured surface and a layer of collagen that will prevent the body from rejecting the implant. Our bodies treat all medical or plastic surgery devices- things like breast implants, knee and hip replacements, pacemakers and insulin pumps - as foreign invaders. We are equipped with a complex surveillance system for recognizing and then eliminating them.
In the empty intracellular space between the device and neighboring tissues, special cells that are in charge of this reaction, called fibroblasts, assemble to deal with the intruder. In certain cases, sometimes even several years after the implant is placed, they surround it and cover it in a very hard capsule. In addition to its unattractive appearance, particularly in breast implants, this reaction can also prevent the implant from functioning properly, such that in a quarter of patients, implants must be removed within four years after implantation.
Labseed's Mycoat combines nano/microtechnology and biochemistry to render foreign bodies virtually "invisible" to cells that are watching out for invaders. Mycoat structures the surface of a medical device or implant at a nanometer-level precision. The implant is then coated with collagen. In this way, neighboring cells are no longer in direct contact with the foreign body but with the nanometer-structured, collagen-coated surface.
To the cells, this protective coating looks like just a new extracellular matrix, which they see as normal tissue. The fibroblasts will thus adhere quite naturally to the object, as if it was an integral part of the patient's body.
“We have developed a particular surface treatment, for which a patent has been registered, that can make implants more biocompatible, enhancing their acceptance and increasing their lifespan,” says Majd. “We wanted to transfer this technology to manufacturers of medical implants and creating a start-up was the best solution to lead our technology to the market.”
Heart pacemakers could also be coated making them less likely to be attacked by the boy's own defences.
To move from the world of research to that of entrepreneurship, Majd went to Boston in 2010 as part of the Venture Leaders Prize and Venture Challenge course, both organised by venturelab.
Financed by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation, venturelab offers individual training for start-ups, including the know-how and contacts required to successfully launch your own company.
Priority is given to start-ups in high-tech fields such as computer science, life sciences and bio- or nanotechnologies and the courses offered are free of charge for anyone demonstrating an innovative and persuasive business idea.
For more information about Labseed, please visit http://www.labseed.com/ and to find out more about venturelab, please visit www.venturelab.ch
SUNDAY OCTOBER 30 2011
The rise of Swiss medical engineering firm Labseed is one such success story.
Co-founders Hicham Majd and Dr Giorgio Pietramaggiore met when the former was researching cells responsible for wound repair for his thesis at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) while Pietramaggiore, from Italy, was training to be a surgeon at the University Hospital of Geneva.
“Our research projects were complementary,” says Majd, who has Swiss-Moroccan nationality. “By putting them together, they brought about an interesting technology.”
Contemporary medicine wouldn’t exist without implantable medical devices such as orthopedic, dental and breast implants or pacemakers, for example.
However, regardless of function, location or surface material, implantable devices can induce the formation of a hard, fibrotic capsule around them, a capsule that can cause pain in addition to affecting the efficiency of the implanted device.
“We have developed a particular surface treatment called MyCoat that can make implants more biocompatible, enhancing their acceptance and increasing their lifespan,” says Majd.
“We wanted to transfer this technology to manufacturers of medical implants and creating a start-up was the best solution to lead our technology to the market.”
MYcoat doesn’t use foreign to the body materials, is 100% made of proteins, doesn’t cause any negative side effects, isn’t restricted to certain implants, can be used for all implantable devices, will be natural part of the body, doesn’t interfere with the implant production chain, can be applied at any stage, doesn’t treat symptoms, and completely avoids capsular contracture.
Applications include: silicone gastric bands, dental implants, orthopedic implants, implantable pumps (insulin and pain control pumps), post surgical adhesions, wound & nerve healing & regeneration.
To move from the world of research to that of entrepreneurship, Majd went to Boston in 2010 as part of the Venture Leaders Prize and Venture Challenge course, both organised by venturelab.
Financed by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation, venturelab offers individual training for start-ups, including the know-how and contacts required to successfully launch your own company.
Priority is given to start-ups in high-tech fields such as computer science, life sciences and bio- or nanotechnologies and the courses offered are free of charge for anyone demonstrating an innovative and persuasive business idea.
“In Boston, I learned how others have turned an idea into a success,” says Majd before adding: “Such courses were really interesting to learn the business side of entrepreneurship.”
Please click links for more information about www.labseed.com/ and venturelab.
New York's 'Inverted' Bike Shop
Among the many bike shops in Manhattan and Brooklyn, 718 Cyclery stands out for its unique approach to doing business. The start-up, founded four years ago by Joe Nocella, is what could be described as an ‘inverted’ bike shop.That doesn’t mean 718 Cyclery sells upsidedown or backwards bikes, rather the whole bicycle creation process has been ‘inverted’.
Instead of a customer going in to browse a range of factory-made and standardised cycles and then picking out the one that is the closest match for their needs, Nocella and his team create from scratch custom bikes that correspond exactly to the client’s requirements.
“We sit down with customers and ask them ‘what do you see yourself doing with this bike?’,” says Nocella.“We sit down with customers and ask them ‘what do you see yourself doing with this bike?’,” “We sit down with customers and ask them ‘what do you see yourself doing with this bike?’”
Following that chat, 718 Cyclery put together a parts list that will satisfy the customer’s needs, email it out to them and then the client can make changes online together with 718 Cyclery.
“It’s a very fluid process,” says Nocella.
Once all the parts are ordered and ready, the client will come in and can actually build the bike with Nocella and his team.
“Some people want to do all the assembling themselves, while at the other end of the spectrum some people just want to watch and take photos,” he says.
“This whole business is based around building bikes with people. Building your own bike is about being empowered to know more about the machine you’re on, to feel more confident about using it and fixing it.”
And focusing on what the customers wants and providing it is good business. In just a few years founder Joe Nocella has gone from working part time from his garage to opening a small shop, to quickly expanding to much larger premises.
For a fantastic insight into 718 Cyclery, watch this short video entitled ‘The Inverted Bike Shop’ created by Peter Crosby and Chauncey Zalkin from Show Love storytelling services and featuring some excellent ethereal music by The Album Leaf.
For more information on 718 Cyclery, please visit: www.718c.com/
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 12 2012
Labseed and venturelab: Implanting the seeds of success
Entrepreneurship is at the very heart of MB&F and that’s why it is always heartening to learn about start-ups succeeding, often thanks to young, hungry and visionary talent.The rise of Swiss medical engineering firm Labseed is one such success story.
Co-founders Hicham Majd and Dr Giorgio Pietramaggiore met when the former was researching cells responsible for wound repair for his thesis at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) while Pietramaggiore, from Italy, was training to be a surgeon at the University Hospital of Geneva.
“Our research projects were complementary,” says Majd, who has Swiss-Moroccan nationality. “By putting them together, they brought about an interesting technology.”
Contemporary medicine wouldn’t exist without implantable medical devices such as orthopedic, dental and breast implants or pacemakers, for example.
More than a quarter of all breast implants must be removed within four years, because neighboring tissues develop a rigid envelope of fibrous tissue to protect themselves from the foreign body.
On the left is an example of an implant that has contracted due to fibrous tissue growth, on the right is a Mycoat treated implant.
Labseed has developed a protective covering made up of a nanostructured surface and a layer of collagen that will prevent the body from rejecting the implant. Our bodies treat all medical or plastic surgery devices- things like breast implants, knee and hip replacements, pacemakers and insulin pumps - as foreign invaders. We are equipped with a complex surveillance system for recognizing and then eliminating them.
In the empty intracellular space between the device and neighboring tissues, special cells that are in charge of this reaction, called fibroblasts, assemble to deal with the intruder. In certain cases, sometimes even several years after the implant is placed, they surround it and cover it in a very hard capsule. In addition to its unattractive appearance, particularly in breast implants, this reaction can also prevent the implant from functioning properly, such that in a quarter of patients, implants must be removed within four years after implantation.
Labseed's Mycoat combines nano/microtechnology and biochemistry to render foreign bodies virtually "invisible" to cells that are watching out for invaders. Mycoat structures the surface of a medical device or implant at a nanometer-level precision. The implant is then coated with collagen. In this way, neighboring cells are no longer in direct contact with the foreign body but with the nanometer-structured, collagen-coated surface.
To the cells, this protective coating looks like just a new extracellular matrix, which they see as normal tissue. The fibroblasts will thus adhere quite naturally to the object, as if it was an integral part of the patient's body.
“We have developed a particular surface treatment, for which a patent has been registered, that can make implants more biocompatible, enhancing their acceptance and increasing their lifespan,” says Majd. “We wanted to transfer this technology to manufacturers of medical implants and creating a start-up was the best solution to lead our technology to the market.”
Heart pacemakers could also be coated making them less likely to be attacked by the boy's own defences.
To move from the world of research to that of entrepreneurship, Majd went to Boston in 2010 as part of the Venture Leaders Prize and Venture Challenge course, both organised by venturelab.
Financed by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation, venturelab offers individual training for start-ups, including the know-how and contacts required to successfully launch your own company.
Priority is given to start-ups in high-tech fields such as computer science, life sciences and bio- or nanotechnologies and the courses offered are free of charge for anyone demonstrating an innovative and persuasive business idea.
For more information about Labseed, please visit http://www.labseed.com/ and to find out more about venturelab, please visit www.venturelab.ch
SUNDAY OCTOBER 30 2011
Implanting the Seeds of Success
Entrepreneurship is at the very heart of MB&F and that’s why it is always great to hear about start-ups succeeding, often thanks to young, hungry and visionary talent.The rise of Swiss medical engineering firm Labseed is one such success story.
Co-founders Hicham Majd and Dr Giorgio Pietramaggiore met when the former was researching cells responsible for wound repair for his thesis at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) while Pietramaggiore, from Italy, was training to be a surgeon at the University Hospital of Geneva.
“Our research projects were complementary,” says Majd, who has Swiss-Moroccan nationality. “By putting them together, they brought about an interesting technology.”
Contemporary medicine wouldn’t exist without implantable medical devices such as orthopedic, dental and breast implants or pacemakers, for example.
However, regardless of function, location or surface material, implantable devices can induce the formation of a hard, fibrotic capsule around them, a capsule that can cause pain in addition to affecting the efficiency of the implanted device.
“We have developed a particular surface treatment called MyCoat that can make implants more biocompatible, enhancing their acceptance and increasing their lifespan,” says Majd.
“We wanted to transfer this technology to manufacturers of medical implants and creating a start-up was the best solution to lead our technology to the market.”
MYcoat doesn’t use foreign to the body materials, is 100% made of proteins, doesn’t cause any negative side effects, isn’t restricted to certain implants, can be used for all implantable devices, will be natural part of the body, doesn’t interfere with the implant production chain, can be applied at any stage, doesn’t treat symptoms, and completely avoids capsular contracture.
Applications include: silicone gastric bands, dental implants, orthopedic implants, implantable pumps (insulin and pain control pumps), post surgical adhesions, wound & nerve healing & regeneration.
To move from the world of research to that of entrepreneurship, Majd went to Boston in 2010 as part of the Venture Leaders Prize and Venture Challenge course, both organised by venturelab.
Financed by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation, venturelab offers individual training for start-ups, including the know-how and contacts required to successfully launch your own company.
Priority is given to start-ups in high-tech fields such as computer science, life sciences and bio- or nanotechnologies and the courses offered are free of charge for anyone demonstrating an innovative and persuasive business idea.
“In Boston, I learned how others have turned an idea into a success,” says Majd before adding: “Such courses were really interesting to learn the business side of entrepreneurship.”
Please click links for more information about www.labseed.com/ and venturelab.
