Georgia Review to present reading by poet Richard Garcia on Nov. 13
Nationally-recognized poet Richard Garcia will read from his work Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. at Flicker, located at 263 West Washington St. The reading is free and open to the public.

Richard Garcia is the author of The Persistence of Objects (2006) and Rancho Notorious (2001), both published by BOA Editions, as well as The Flying Garcias, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1993. He has been awarded a Pushcart Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. For 12 years he was poet-in-residence at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where he conducted workshops in poetry and art for hospitalized children. Garcia’s reading is sponsored by The Georgia Review, the Georgia Poetry Circuit and the UGA Libraries.

College of Pharmacy receives ICAPP grant for new graduate program
The College of Pharmacy’s Division of Outreach and Nontraditional Education recently received its second grant in three years from the University System of Georgia’s Intellectual Capital Partnership Program to educate professionals for the state’s bioscience industry. The new grant provides support for training managers of the clinical trial process for new biomedical products; total funding will amount to $192,670 for the next two years. The new graduate program will provide practical, real-life application for bio business. It will help professionals understand clinical trials’ progressions from product development to testing under the protection of FDA regulations.

Using ICAPP funds, the College of Pharmacy will establish a graduate-level certificate program in clinical trial management that will augment the existing graduate curricula in regulatory affairs, also supported by ICAPP funds. With credit courses offered at the Gwinnett University Center, the program will lead to a graduate certificate and can count toward admission to a master’s degree program in pharmacy with an emphasis in pharmaceutical and biomedical regulatory affairs.

Like the college’s current regulatory affairs certificate program, this new program will be offered part time, using distance learning and weekend sessions specifically geared to the needs of working adult students. The graduate certificate program can be completed in three semesters.

GRA wins national excellence awards
The Georgia Research Alliance’s VentureLab and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholars programs earned Excellence in Technology-Based Economic Development Awards from the State Science and Technology Institute.

The awards recognize exceptional achievement in technology-based economic development, which fosters a climate where innovative companies that develop and adopt technology will thrive.

Such programs tend to focus on several elements that have been found in successful
technology-based economies, including a research base that generates new knowledge, mechanisms for transferring knowledge into the marketplace, an entrepreneurial culture, sources of risk capital and a technically skilled workforce.

VentureLab is a GRA strategy for enhancing and accelerating the process of spinning new technology-based enterprises out of university research. The program currently operates at five of GRA’s partner universities—including UGA—seeking out university-based research innovations, assessing their commercial potential and providing resources to form new ventures. VentureLab awards seed grants to universities and early-stage companies. Award winners were selected through a competitive process by committees of accomplished practitioners and policymakers serving as judges. The awards were handed out at SSTI’s annual ­conference last month in Baltimore.