Media Advisory
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEApril 25, 2001
Media opportunity:Russian scientists to learn Wall Street capitalism in Albuquerque, N.M.
Assignment editors and reporters interested in attending a media opportunity -- from 1- 1:30 p.m., Thursday, April 26 -- should call Iris Aboytes at 505-844-2282 by 10:45 a.m. Thursday to arrange for an escort. Escorts will leave from the Wyoming Gate of Kirtland Air Force Base at 12:30 p.m.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- An unusual side of Sandia National Laboratories will be on display Thursday, April 26, from 1-1:30 p.m. in Sandia's Robotic Manufacturing Science and Engineering Laboratory (RMSEL).
Russian scientists from SPEKTR (pronounced SPECTOR), a fledgling Russian company, will meet that afternoon with the founder and president of the leading African-American-owned investment banking firm, M.R. Beal, to learn how to finance the manufacture of an innovative wheelchair seat intended to prevent development of potentially deadly pressure sores. The seat was originally developed by Calif.-based Numotech, Inc., which is expected to seek a New Mexico company to perform the final assembly, testing, and long-term servicing of the seat, once components are provided by the SPEKTR organization.
A non-operative prototype of the wheelchair seat, to be displayed at RMSEL Thursday, uses a series of air pumps to automatically inflate and deflate air bladders that prevent pressure sores from forming. Such sores -- the dreaded results of extended immobility -- are caused by insufficient blood circulation in the patient's soft tissues. The sores can become infected and result in amputations and even death.
Expected to be present at the media opportunity are Jim Tegnelia, Sandia VP for Department of Defense Programs; Bernard Beal, president of Wall Street-based M.R. Beal & Co. Investment Bankers; Dr. Robert Felton, president of Numotech; and a representative of SPEKTR. Each will give a five-minute talk on the contribution of his group to the project, and then answer questions.
The $3 million project, when signed, will be a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) between Sandia and Numotech, funded under the US Department of Energy's Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) program. Researchers will address industrial engineering and assembly problems, as well as materials improvements needed to create a manufacturable version of the FDA-approved prototype already developed.
Scientists, engineers, and technicians from SPEKTR -- former employees of Russian nuclear labs -- will provide manufacturing services as a subcontractor to the CRADA. One aim of the IPP program is to help former Russian nuclear weapons scientists succeed in peaceful lines of work.
SPEKTR bears no relationship to the fictional Soviet group dedicated to eliminating Maxwell Smart from the American TV show of the 1970s. The company name is Russian for Spectrum, denoting the wide range of work the company proposes to undertake.Numotech will market the seat and train users and health care providers on proper application and maintenance.
The seat was originally designed under a 1994 project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), DOE, and the State of New Mexico. Sandia and Numotech, Inc. designed and built the prototype Generic Total Contact Seat.
Sandia's part in the project is to design the electrical subsystem to self-diagnose any failures, alerting the patient to begin weight-shifting again.
The $33-million, 73,000-square-foot RMSEL building houses staff and equipment of Sandia Labs' Intelligent Systems and Robotics Center (ISRC), the largest robotics research and development program in the United States.
M.R. Beal & Company (www.mrbeal.com) is a New York-based investment bank and financial advisor that specializes in municipal and corporate finance, proprietary equity research and directed brokerage for major institutions.
Sandia is a multiprogram Department of Energy laboratory, operated by a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation. With facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy, environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia Media Contact: Neal Singer, [email protected], (505) 845-7078
Sandia National Laboratories' World Wide Web home page is located at http://www.sandia.gov.Sandia news releases, news tips, science photo gallery, and periodicals can be found at the News and Events button.
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