Porticos: Supported Nanotechnology Research
Porticos is pleased to announce a new partnership with the Center for Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies. The $18.5M Engineering Research Center is developing technologies to improve global health through nanotechnology-enabled, wearable electronics. Porticos will be an Affiliate industry member, helping to advance ASSIST’s research, prototyping, and testing objectives.
Porticos and ASSIST will integrate these nanotechnology research into everyday items we wear. These can collect important data, such as monitoring a user’s health parameters or measuring their personal environmental exposure to harmful gases and pollution. By partnering with ASSIST, Porticos anticipates many opportunities to help shape the future of nanodevices and wearable health products that allow a behavior shift towards managing wellness rather than the common illness-treatment cycle that drives high health costs today. Data from nanodevices will be instrumental in diagnosing and caring for patients, allowing doctors and scientist to collect more and new, “real life” information that currently can’t be collected outside a medical facility. Over time, this information will enable disease prevention and more effective treatments. In the short-term, these technologies allow patients to go about their normal lives unencumbered while still being well cared for.
Headquartered at NC State, ASSIST is a consortium of universities including, Penn State, Florida International, Virginia, Michigan, and the UNC School of Medicine. In addition, ASSIST has affiliations with numerous companies and organizations to develop these technologies. Porticos is pleased to be joining these ranks. As Tom Snyder, Director of Industry Partnerships for the Center explains, “The National Science Foundation evaluates ASSIST by how well we are able to transfer our research results into the commercial sector. Porticos is a great partner for us since they bring technology integration and prototyping expertise to our students and projects during the research phase – while also having a successful track record taking ‘ready’ technologies to market.”
Porticos looks forward to a strong and active partnership with ASSIST and its associated universities and industry members for years to come.
About Porticos — Porticos, Inc. is a mechanical engineering and product development company located in Research Triangle Park, NC. Established in 2003, Porticos continues to produce innovative and effective solutions for its clients and the markets they serve. Porticos, Inc. provides mechanical design, analysis, research and development services to clients including Dell, Motorola, Raytheon, and many others. For more information on how Porticos does “product design for the way we’re designed,” please visit www.porticos.net.
About ASSIST — The NSF sponsored ASSIST Nanosystems Engineering Research Center is developing nano-enabled, ultra-low power, wearable devices, powered by energy harvested off the human body. Integrated sensors enable long-term monitoring of health parameters and environmental exposures leading to active management of wellness and chronic disease prevention. ASSIST is accelerating environmental health research and informing environmental policy, while individual technologies benefit tangential markets. Email tdsnyder@ncsu.edu for partnership details.
