Hi, Cardinal readers, and welcome to this week’s installment of Tech Briefs. Got tips and/or questions? Reach out to me via tad@cardinalnews.org.
A $4.2 million grant from the GO Virginia economic initiative will fund a wide-ranging project to grow advanced manufacturing in much of Southwest and Southside Virginia.
The grant, bolstered by $2 million from other sources in the region, could create 100 jobs in its first two years while helping build a workforce for manufacturing and technology careers, according to a Virginia Tech news release.
The New River Valley Regional Commission will lead Virginia Tech and about a dozen other educational institutions, industrial groups and business accelerators in GO Virginia regions 2 and 3, all looking to expand the 3D-printing horizons of additive manufacturing and advanced materials, AM2 for short.
Region 2 covers the cities of Covington, Lynchburg, Radford, Roanoke and Salem, and the counties of Alleghany, Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford, Botetourt, Campbell, Craig, Floyd, Franklin, Giles, Montgomery, Pulaski and Roanoke.
Region 3 is Danville and Martinsville, and the counties of Amelia, Brunswick, Buckingham, Charlotte, Cumberland, Halifax, Henry, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Nottoway, Patrick, Pittsylvania and Prince Edward.
According to the news release, the regional commission is employing a four-pronged strategy, starting with new innovation studios focused on AM2. The studios, which will offer help to manufacturers, will be at Danville’s Institute for Advanced Learning and Research and at facilities at Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science’s Matter Labs.
AM2 Innovation Fellows, a group of industry experts, will center the second strategy, working with companies and helping accelerate the commercialization timelines. The Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance, Danville’s SOVA Innovation Hub, Virginia Tech’s Launch: Center for New Ventures, VTC Ventures and The Launch Place will help the innovation fellows connect companies with additive manufacturing, robotics and artificial intelligence support.
The third phase is an AM2 Career Network launch, where the grant partners will develop high school curriculum, paid internships and apprenticeships for students and workers. The network will look to fill niches in ninth- and 10th-grade programming.
Virginia Manufacturers Association and Manufacturing Skills Institute will develop the nation’s first industry-certified AM2 credential, collaborating with the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research’s Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing Program and multiple community colleges: Central Virginia, Danville, New River, Patrick & Henry and Virginia Western.
The fourth prong will see the growth of the AM2 Consortium, a coalition of industry and service providers. They will coordinate project activities, consortium meetings and networking, along with outreach and promotional efforts for the AM2 initiative and advanced manufacturing companies in regions 2 and 3.
The project should take several years to develop, with increasing numbers of AM2 products developed as the partners streamline technological adoption and build the nation’s leader in skilled workforce development, said Kevin Byrd, the New River Valley Regional Commission’s executive director.
“GO Virginia has been a terrific partner by championing and investing in our most promising opportunities in the New River Valley,” Byrd said. “Its support is advancing what we do as a region.”
More money could be coming. The AM2 Consortium in March applied for $44 million from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, according to a message to consortium members from Leo Priddy, the NRVRC’s economic development planning specialist and regional innovation officer.
FBRI at VTC opens clean room space
The seeds of another GO Virginia grant bore fruit last week with the opening of a clean room space at Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC.
Clean rooms, crucial for making circuit boards, medical equipment, optical products, pharmaceuticals and more, require a contamination-free environment with heavily filtered air pumped into and out of the space. A $100,000 grant in late 2024 from GO Virginia, along with $221,500 in non-state money, launched the FBRI clean room project.
The lack of such facilities until recently forced companies to go elsewhere in order to manufacture clinical-grade materials that meet the U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards required for human and animal testing, project participants have said.
Some of those participants — from FBRI, Virginia Tech, Montgomery County, Roanoke, the Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance and the Red Gates Foundation, along with other interested parties — got a look at the facility on April 9.
The clean room is a critical step in moving discoveries from labs into the world via early-stage manufacturing, said FBRI Executive Director Michael Friedlander.
“It grew out of real needs identified by academic researchers and companies in the region and reflects a collaborative effort to build the infrastructure required to support them,” Friedlander said in an FBRI news release.
Virginia Tech researchers on all campuses may use the facility, which will provide hands-on opportunities for students and trainees as well, thus strengthening the region’s biotechnology workforce, according to the news release.
It will be a “major attractor” for Biotechnology companies in the region and beyond, said Friedlander, who is also Virginia Tech’s vice president for health sciences and technology.
It is the second clean room project completed this year in Roanoke. Tiny Cargo Co., run by two FBRI researchers, opened its own facility in February, including offices, storage and shipping for cancer and cardiac therapies, in a 7,000-square-foot renovated building at Fugate Road Northeast, near Plantation Road.
