AZBio CEO, Joan Koerber-Walker shares highlights from  the 2011 AZBio Awards.  Meet some of this year's award winners.

The AZBio Awards are an Arizona tradition that recognizes the best of the biosciences, showcases our companies, connects our future bioscience leaders to today's. 

Each year AZBio celebrates the milestone 

Students from across Arizona display their research in the Student Discovery Zone sponsored by Northern Arizona University at the 2013 AZBio Awards.

Iron Horse Diagnostics was honored with the 2013 AZBio Fast Lane Award from the Arizona Bioindustry Association for Accelerating the Development of New ALS Diagnostic Tests. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) is a devastating disease that is nearly always fatal within 5 years of onset. Due to similarities in their symptomatic progression is it difficult to differentiate ALS from several other disease mimics (motor neuropathy, progressive muscle atrophy, etc.) until it is too late for intervention to have any real effect. With an earlier diagnosis, and therefore earlier intervention, current clinical care may increase the lifespan of these patients and additional drug therapies that are likely to be introduced to the market could be more rapidly initiated. Not only might life expectancy increase, but patients would be given the chance for a higher quality of life for a longer duration due to more rapid inclusion of the patient into multi-disciplinary care treatment offered at specialized ALS clinics.

http://www.yulex.com/ Rubber and commerce go hand in hand and rubber products are everywhere. Yulex Corporation is the global leader in guayule-based biomaterials for a wide range of markets and diverse applications. Yulex’s Guayule BioRubber Emulsions and BioRubber Solids have medical, consumer, and industrial applications to grow an increasingly diverse market community with ultra-pure, high-performance products. From medical devices to fabric coatings, and from bedding to industrial packaging adhesives, Yulex also provides technical and product development guidance and support, and even custom material compounding and formulation. Yulex Corporation, a technology, marketing and biomaterial product development company that applies sustainable crop science, clean bioprocessing, and materials science for the production of natural, allergy-friendly BioRubber derived from the renewable, crop Guayule was honored with the 2013 AZBio Fast Lane Award from the Arizona Bioindustry Association

AZBio president and CEO Joan Koerber-Walker shares what happens when we embrace possibilities and how together we can achieve our goals.

A  widely respected and tireless civic leader, Rick Myers is a visionary and a strong advocate for promoting the biosciences in Arizona. Rick serves as the Governor-appointed Chair for the Arizona Board of Regents and advocates for growing the research enterprise and promoting biosciences. In 2012, Regent Myers was honored with the 2012 AZBio Public Service Award.

W.L. Gore & Associates   was honored at the 2013 AZBio Awards as the  Arizona Bioscience Company of the Year by the Arizona Bioindustry Association in recognition of the development of the extensive Gore Medical family of products including vascular grafts, endovascular and interventional devices, and surgical meshes by its world class team of innovators in Flagstaff and Phoenix.   In this video you will learn about Gore and also gain insights on what we need to do together to continue our Arizona Bioscience Industry growth from Gore's Kurt Long.

Thomas M. Grogan, M.D., Founder of Ventana and SVP, Medical Affairs of Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. (Ventana), a member of the Roche Group, receives the AZBio Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 2013 AZBio Awards on October 10, 2013. Dr. Grogan was a pathologist and professor at the University of Arizona when in the mid 1980’s he and a small team set out to challenge the limitations of the then current standards and processes for cancer pathology.  What was to become the company’s first digital pathology instrument evolved from Grogan’s notes on a yellow pad into the BenchMark IHC/ISH staining platforms.   Under Grogan’s leadership, Ventana was founded in 1987, went public in 1996, and was acquired by Roche for $3.4 billion in 2008. Over the last 25 years, Ventana has grown to become a global leader in developing and manufacturing tissue-based diagnostic instruments and tests focused on the detection of cancer. Ventana employees continue to pursue the same deeply rooted mission of innovating diagnostic testing and enabling personalized healthcare to improve the lives of all patients afflicted with cancer worldwide. Dr. Grogan has made it his personal mission to make life better for the millions of patients who battle cancer each day.  His passion and dedication are infectious and has spread across the company that he and his team built. Through their efforts they have revolutionized the field of cancer diagnostics and are pioneering new roads in the field of personalized healthcare.”