University Circle

as preview to own bus rapid transit, michigan paper covers rta healthline success
In the Macomb Daily, the paper of record for Michigan's Macomb County, an article titled "Cleveland's bus rapid transit offers glimpse into metro Detroit proposal" gives locals a taste of what they can expect based on Cleveland's success with the HealthLine.
 
Writer Ryan Felton states that, "the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority has vastly improved public transportation in the region so dramatically that it commonly receives high marks from national groups and observers for making use of its system a breeze."
 
"At the core, the authority’s HealthLine, a 6.8-mile bus rapid transit route that spans bustling Euclid Avenue in this city’s downtown, offers a glimpse of an example that metro Detroit residents could expect from a similarly proposed system the Southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority has floated in recent months."
 
Calling the BRT system "one of the biggest catalysts for new development" in the area, the RTA's Joseph A. Calabrese states, “In the midst of the worst recession we’ve ever seen, almost everything positive happening is happening on Euclid Avenue."
 
Check out the rest of story here.

come together: new collaboration seeks to amplify local music industry's $1B economic impact
Once ground zero for all things rock 'n' roll, Cleveland has steadily shed its reputation as King, and in the process squandered many of the economic benefits that go along with it. An effort by local advocates is attempting to change that by raising the industry’s profile and marketing it to a wider audience.
cleveland international piano competition tops in writer's book
In a Huffington Post article titled "Ranking Summer's Classical Music Competitions: Cleveland Comes Out on Top," writer Laurence Vittes says that among all of the summer classical music competitions he attended this year, the Cleveland International Piano Competition was the undisputed champion.
 
"Between the middle of June and the first week of August, I attended major classical music competitions in Montréal, Indianapolis, Fort Worth and Cleveland," writes Vittes. "In the end, it was two titanic performances in the concerto finals, with the participation of perhaps the country's greatest orchestra and hall combination, which separated the Cleveland International Piano Competition from the rest of the pack."
 
"Severance Hall, where George Szell once led another era's mighty Cleveland Orchestra, hosted the finals," he adds. "It's an awesome, iconic hall that during the Competition was like hearing the music being almost spontaneous combusted by a phalanx of young pianists who played Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Chopin and Beethoven relentlessly, with the occasional Bach or Liszt to sweeten up the pot."
 
"Best of all, the connection between conductor Stefan Sanderling, the contestants and the Cleveland Orchestra itself was brilliant, and most brilliant when first prize winner Stanislav Khristenko played the winning Brahms D Minor, and second prize winner Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev played Rachmaninov."
 
Read the rest of the score here.

abeona therapeutics receives award for its work with sanfilippo disease
Abeona Therapeutics, a small biotech startup company that develops therapies for lysomal storage diseases, earned the Global Gene’s Champion of Hope award, along with its partners, for its work in developing therapies for children with Sanfilippo Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder.
 
Abeona, founded earlier this year in Cleveland as a spinoff of Columbus-based Nationwide Children’s Hospital, is developing two products that came out of research at Nationwide. ABX-A and ABX-B have the potential to cure Sanfilippo Syndrome.
 
Children with Sanfilippo are missing an essential enzyme for normal cellular function, causing toxins in their brains and bodies to cause severe disabilities. Symptoms often appear in the first year of life, causing progressive muscular and cognitive decline, and the disease is usually fatal by the early teens.
 
Current studies show that a single dose of Abeona’s treatments prompted cells to produce the missing enzymes and help repair the damage.
 
“What’s unique about this drug is that it’s a collaboration between Abeona, the hospital and eight international foundations to find a treatment for Sanfilippo Syndrome,” says Abeona president and CEO Tim Miller.
 
Abeona’s products are a result of 10 years of research done by Nationwide’s Haiyan Fu. Abeona is currently raising money to conduct phase I and II clinical trials in 2014. “One of the things that drew me to this company is the pre-clinical data for these drugs,” says Miller. “The life span is improved. If this transfers over to the kids I’ll be very excited.”
 
While there are no approved treatments for Sanfilippo Syndrome yet, Miller says a number of companies are working on therapies.

 
Source: Tim Miller
Writer: Karin Connelly
 
take it outside: public art transforms the urban canvas
Once the province of sculptors, public art has evolved into an essential element of urban placemaking and social engagement. From murals on vacant buildings to art in laundromats to edible art installations that are as mouthwatering as they are aesthetically pleasing, we take a look at how public art is transforming our cities.
planning organization charts new path to more sustainable transportation projects
“We’re shifting because the times are shifting,” says Grace Gallucci of NOACA, adding that the planning agency will shift its focus to multimodal transportation, developing a fix-it-first approach that prioritizes existing infrastructure over new road projects, and basing funding decisions on their regional economic development impact.
cleveland clinic celebrates 50 years of kidney transplants
The Cleveland Clinic marks its 50th year of successful kidney transplants this year. While the Clinic was not the first to successfully transplant a human kidney, the hospital was, and continues to be, a pioneer in the field.

“There were two earlier transplants,” explains Robert Heyka, interim chair of the department of nephrology and hypertension at the Clinic’s Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute. “One was in New Jersey, but it only lasted 10 months. The first successful transplant was in 1954, in Boston, which worked because the transplant occurred with identical twins.”
 
The Cleveland Clinic performed its first successful kidney transplant in 1963, in part due to the development of anti-rejection drugs, and in part because Willem Kolff, a doctor from the Netherlands, came to the Clinic in the 1950s with his dialysis machine.
 
Kolff’s original dialysis machines were made with a washing machine motor, a nose cone borrowed from NASA and peach cans. He perfected his machine at the Clinic. Dialysis made it possible to keep patients alive while they waited for a transplant. “A combination of medications and the Cleveland Clinic having dialysis machines made the program successful,” says Heyka.
 
In 1966, the Cleveland Clinic performed 126 kidney transplants. Additionally, Cleveland was one of the first cities to establish an independent organ procurement program in the late 1960s. The organization now is known as Lifebanc.
 
Today, the Clinic has transplanted more than 4,200 kidneys and is on track to perform 200 transplants this year. The Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute ranked second this year in U.S. News and World Report’s America’s Best Hospitals.
 
“All these things we take for granted now as standard and mass produced,” says Heyka. “When you get into it, it’s more inspiring when you hear about the people who did it first and the challenges they had to face.”

 
Writer: Karin Connelly
Source: Robert Heyka
recipe for success: food-based startups face unique challenges
Starting a successful food-based business takes more than a great idea and the ability to cook. Like any entrepreneurial venture, food startups require planning, money and a willingness to be flexible. But those who do dive in have found there's plenty of guidance, support and collaboration in the local food startup community.
cle orchestra declared 'world's favorite orchestra' in poll
Bachtrack, the largest online classical review site and concert finder, declared The Cleveland Orchestra as the winner of the "World’s Favourite Orchestra 2013" contest. Following a month of voting, with 11,895 votes for 417 orchestras from 97 countries, Cleveland Orchestra roundly beat the competition.
 
The Cleveland Orchestra took 20.3 percent of the vote, with the next closest orchestra garnering just 12.4 percent of the vote. 46 percent of the votes came from North America and 48 percent came from Europe.

“We want to thank our fans for voting for The Cleveland Orchestra," says Ross Binnie, Chief Marketing Officer of The Cleveland Orchestra. "We have 60,000 social media followers whom we invited to vote, and they clearly were engaged. We are proud to be one of the world’s finest orchestras, thanks to the support of all the communities we serve.”
 
Read the rest of the results here.

ramble on: local filmmaker plans documentary on glory days of wmms
WMMS "The Buzzard" reached the largest radio audience in the history of Cleveland media. A new film hopes to document the glory years when a charmed roster of on-air talent introduced national rock acts like Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie and Joe Walsh to the people of Cleveland and the rest of the country.
cle clinic researchers discover protein linked to obesity, diabetes
Researcher J. Mark Brown and his team at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute have discovered a protein that might promote obesity and diabetes. Therefore, blocking that protein, called ABHD6, might prevent these diseases.

ABHD6 regulates the brain’s endocannabinoid system, which is involved in metabolism, cravings and hunger.
 
Brown discovered ABHD6’s role in fat storage while studying a mutation in a different protein in the same group, ABHD5. “Normally, fat is stored in triglyceride tissue,” Brown explains. “With abnormal ABHD5, fat is stored in every other cell in the body. In studying that we discovered a crucial breakdown in ABHD6 and we decided to study it.”
 
Brown conducted a study in mice to see how fat was stored in ABHD6, to see if it impacted type-2 diabetes, obesity and fatty liver disease. He found that blocking the protein’s function had a direct impact on these diseases.
 
The research indicates that blocking function of ABHD6 in mice protects against all diseases driven by eating a high-fat diet. Further research could actually lead to a pill that would block ABHD6, and therefore prevent obesity.
 
Brown’s findings were published last week in the journal Cell Reports. “Our paper will be the first that shows the importance of the enzyme in regulating the way the body stores fat,” explains Brown, who has spent the past four years researching ABHD6.
 
“It’s hard to say if it would ever end up being a magic pill to cure obesity,” says Brown. “We look at it like a preventative measure. We’re really excited to move forward with it and conduct safety trials with humans. We know it works in mice, so it’s very important to translate our findings into human studies as quickly as we can.”

 
Source: J. Mark Brown
Writer: Karin Connelly
ny post explores the local scene, lauds city's 'revival'
In a New York Post feature titled “Cleveland is Seeing a Revival,” writer Jennifer Ceasar explores some of Cleveland’s attractions, which increasingly are garnering attention outside of Northeast Ohio.
 
“If you were an Ohioan back in the early ’80s, you might remember 'New York’s the Big Apple, but Cleveland’s a Plum,' an ad campaign to rebrand the failing Rust Belt town. Though it never stuck, today’s Cleveland is earning laurels for its homegrown talent, like Iron Chef Michael Symon, along with farm-to-table eateries, award-winning craft breweries and cool art spaces.”
 
Some of the writer's many stops included Ohio City, home of Flying Fig, Great Lakes Brewing Company and the Transformer Station, Tremont, which houses some of the city’s best eateries, and University Circle, where many of Cleveland’s top cultural attractions reside.
 
Check out the full piece here.

huffpo praises efforts by cle orchestra to attract young audience
In a Huffington Post article titled "In Tune With the Next Generation," Jesse Rosen, president of the League of American Orchestras, praises the Cleveland Orchestra's efforts to be the band with the youngest audience.
 
"The Cleveland Orchestra, best known as one of the world's finest orchestras, with an equally outstanding hall and decades of extraordinary musical leadership, now has a new goal: to be the orchestra with the youngest audience. An audacious goal, but by the looks of the audience in Severance Hall last Friday night at the concert I heard, they are well on their way," he writes.
 
"The performance I heard in Cleveland was one of a three-concert set on their opening weekend. The uncompromising programs included works by Mahler, Beethoven and Schumann. Twenty seven percent of the audience at those three concerts were young people. You read that right, 27 percent. I am one year shy of enjoying senior discounts and I can tell you that concerts, like many things, are more fun with young people around. The vibe in the hall was fantastic."
 
Read the rest of the feature here.
art mag covers first cma exhibit at transformer
A feature in the arts-based blog ArtDaily covers at length the latest exhibit at the new Transformer Station in Ohio City, which is the first for co-curator Cleveland Museum of Art.
 
"The Cleveland Museum of Art presents The Unicorn, its debut exhibition at Transformer Station, a new contemporary art venue owned by the Bidwell Foundation on Cleveland's west side. The Unicorn refers to the book of the same title by Martin Walser, an author whose work often questions how humans continually reshape the past."
 
The group exhibition includes the work of five internationally renowned contemporary artists: Neïl Beloufa, Martin Soto Climent, Shana Lutker, Haris Epaminonda and Daniel Gustav Cramer. The work, some created specifically for this exhibition, explore how memory is constructed by individuals looking backwards from a constantly shifting point.
 
Read the rest right here.

novelmed's macular degeneration therapy ready for clinical trials
NovelMed Therapeutics, a biotech company founded in 2003 that develops treatments for macular degeneration, announced that it has developed an antibody compound that is effective in treating wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and possibly the dry form of the disease as well. AMD affects more than two million people in the United States and is a leading cause of blindness among adults.

Two independent pre-clinical investigations showed that NovelMed's lead compound, an alternative pathway inhibitor, prevents wet-AMD. “We believe our technology inhibits the progression of AMD,” says Rekha Bansal, CEO and founder of NovelMed. “The animal data supports treatment for wet AMD. The compound could possibly treat the dry form as well, which accounts for 90 percent of the AMD market.”
 
Bansal says the therapy currently is in the manufacturing phase, with safety studies scheduled to begin next year and human clinical trials to start in late 2014.
 
“I think we are at the forefront in time with the potential to treat both wet and dry AMD,” says Bansal. “It’s the first treatment of its kind.”
 
Bansal is proud that this breakthrough is happening in Northeast Ohio. “This is a drug coming out of Cleveland for vision loss,” she says. “It’s going to be a great thing for Cleveland.”
 
NovelMed currently has four R&D positions open due to its recent growth.

 
Source: Rekha Bansal
Writer: Karin Connelly
the cutting edge: three cleveland medical innovations bound for great things
Modern medicine is constantly innovating ways to improve the length and quality of human life. Cleveland researchers are leading the way with cutting-edge treatments and technologies that can blast a brain tumor with a laser, detect a concussion using an iPad, and test for prostate cancer by way of genetics.
noaca director touts bikes, multi-modal transportation in annual address
Speaking last week at the annual meeting of the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), the regional transportation planning agency for Northeast Ohio, Executive Director Grace Gallucci promised a more strategic distribution of money for projects and greater emphasis on multi-modal transportation options.

"We want more choices; that's what freedom -- being an American -- is about," she said. "NOACA is not trying to vilify the automobile; we're trying to attract the best and the brightest. Bicycling is increasingly popular, and more communities are integrating bike plans. Americans are driving less for the first time in a generation, and that trend is clearly led by the Millenial generation."

NOACA also has launched a far-reaching plan to assemble information on the condition of every highway, road and street in five counties, and use this information to make objective decisions about transportation spending. "Making decisions in an objective, data-driven way is more important now than ever. If there ever was a time to make decisions make economic sense, the time is now."

Gallucci touted NOACA's new Regional Bicycle Transportation Plan, a $15 million investment in the City of Cleveland's W. 73rd Street Extension Project and the Clifton Boulevard streetscape project among NOACA's recent, big ticket investments.

Peter Rogoff, Federal Transit Administrator, gave the keynote address. He argued that transit-oriented development projects can spark urban revitalization if done right, citing Cleveland's bus-rapid transit along the Euclid Corridor as one example of success.

Cleveland is a "national model for doing" with the Euclid Corridor project, Rogoff stated, because the project cost a lot less than light rail but resulted in big ridership gains and major economic development along the corridor. Other cities are studying how Cleveland did it and replicating our success, he added.


Source: Grace Gallucci, Peter Rogoff
Writer: Lee Chilcote
ny post promotes pair of cleveland art museums
In a New York Post feature titled “Hit up Ohio’s many art museums,” writer Jennifer Caesar highlights the wealth of masterpieces one can enjoy in the great state of Ohio, including those exhibited by The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) and MOCA Cleveland.
 
"Ohio and the arts are not such strange bedfellows: Flush with cash in the early 20th century -- from industries like steel, rubber and soap -- Cleveland, Toledo, Akron and Cincinnati built grand museums, and acquired masterpieces to fill them."
Highlighted at CMA is the "stellar Islamic art, fine European paintings (JMW Turner, Van Gogh, Monet and Picasso among them) and excellent contemporary pieces by the likes of Christo, Gerhard Richter and Chuck Close."
 
Over at MOCA is, "a rotating series of cutting-edge contemporary art exhibitions (the museum does not have a permanent collection), which lean heavily toward video and performance art."
 
Check out the full story here.

techpint event touches on lessons learned from business failures
"Failure" is a tough word, particularly for entrepreneurial types throwing so much of their lives into a venture that might go belly up within a few months. However, Paul McAvinchey, creator of TechPint, believes valuable lessons can be learned from disappointment.

Such is the theme of this fall's TechPint conference, a casual gathering for entrepreneurs and investors in Internet technology. Coordinator McAvinchey expects more than 250 of the region's most innovative tech pacesetters to attend the quarterly-held event taking place tonight (September 26) at Sterle’s Slovenian Country House. Speakers John Gadd of Hotcards.com, Kendall Wouters of Reach Ventures and Phil Brennan of Echogen Power Systems will touch on how businesses can bounce back from seemingly crushing setbacks.

"It's a fact that you must fail many times before you see success," says McAvinchey, who moved to Cleveland from County Tipperary, Ireland, in April 2012 to lead product innovation for MedCity Media. "If you're failing, that means you're trying. That's a good thing."

Even stories of tremendous achievement, like the billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram, began on a rocky road of risk and false starts, McAvinchey points out.

"Failure will work for you if you learn from it," he says.

The informal get-together is designed to connect the region's tech thinkers over a couple pints of beers, says McAvinchey. TechPint's moniker this month is "Techtoberfest," in appreciation of this suds-filled season of the year.

Autumn also is a time for scary stories, and attendees will hear a few frightening business-related tales at TechPint. "It's important to celebrate failure," McAvinchey says. "This is a way to bring positive attention to it."

 
SOURCE: Paul McAvinchey 
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth