FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich., Oct. 26, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LBO Capital Corp. (Other OTC:LBOA), a Colorado corporation ("LBO Capital"), announced the entrance of its subsidiary, Global Tech International ("GTI"), in a Technology Share and Grant Agreement with SEEDR L3C, a Michigan Low-profit Limited Liability Company ("SEEDR"), to apply its proprietary manufacturing technologies, Powder Impression Molding (PIM) and Molecular Modification Technology (MMT), to the redesign and custom engineering of cold-chain containers used in international and domestic immunization and disease-surveillance programs.
SEEDR received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for its initiative to "Reengineer (Reverse) Cold Chain for Vaccine and Specimen Transport." SEEDR will manage a multidisciplinary group of engineers and designers in partnership with a team of experts from Global Immunization Division of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in applying GTI's advanced manufacturing technologies to improve the performance, affordability, and environmental footprint of the transport containers.
Countries, multinational and bilateral aid agencies, and nongovernmental organizations use these containers to maintain vaccines at the required temperature en route to remote locations for immunization campaigns, such as those against life-threatening diseases like polio and measles.
Reverse cold chain containers are used to transport specimens or other biological products such as blood from the field to laboratories for diagnosis and surveillance. A custom-designed container has the potential to strengthen disease surveillance in the global fight against major diseases such as HIV/AIDS, polio, and measles by ensuring that specimens arrive at laboratories intact and viable.
With PIM allowing SEEDR to utilize recent advancements in materials technology -- including a variety of recycled materials -- more effectively, SEEDR intends to improve the insulation, durability, weight, and usability of these containers to ultimately reduce vaccine and specimen loss, reduce program costs, and strengthen global immunization systems.
Dr. Brent Burkholder, Director of the CDC Global Immunization Division described the potential impact of the project as both economic and programmatic. "Our goal in this project is to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of cold chain capacity around the world, both to protect the significant investment in costly vaccines, and, more importantly, to ensure the safety of those receiving immunizations."
SEEDR Managing Director Michael Moreland said that SEEDR has selected GTI for participation in the project on the basis of GTI's "ability to make highly customized material compositions and intricate product designs scalable and affordable at the production stage -- a unique capability ripe for versatile, accessible, sustainable and transformative applications across the developing world."
GTI will receive $287,848 from SEEDR to coordinate the materials engineering, design modeling, and prototyping for the group. GTI engineers will interact directly with the team from CDC in order to gain tangible, user-derived insights on the exact needs, culture, and context of the containers within the cold chain.
SEEDR's project brings together experts from government, academia, private enterprise, academia and international aid agencies in a collaborative design and innovation process. Managing Director, Michael Moreland, stressed the importance of collaboration in SEEDR's unique design strategy, "We see tremendous potential in fostering transdisciplinary collaboration across sectors and amongst disciplines; our design process is built to maximize that value. By giving each collaborator the opportunity to ask each other the right questions, teach each other, and think critically and creatively, we give ourselves the best chance to produce the most complete solution possible." Dr. Victoria Gammino, project co-investigator and CDC epidemiologist, agreed on the value of a multi-stakeholder process. "This type of public-private partnership facilitates the application of the most cutting edge technologies and design practices to difficult and sometimes intractable public health problems."
GTI President Mario DiNello credited an "engaging alignment of PIM's strengths and the specific requirements of these products" as the initial interest for introducing PIM and MMT to the field of public health and global development.
"With PIM we can introduce a far-wider range of materials and design detail into each container, creating seemingly limitless potential for innovation in terms of thermal performance, durability, lightweighting, recyclability, and several other critical design components of cold chain containers."
GTI's ability to build the containers with recycled materials and reduce the weight of the containers was also of interest to SEEDR and CDC. Sue Gerber, also a CDC co-investigator for the project, noted that, "With GTI's technologies, we have the unique opportunity to improve vaccine delivery capacity while reducing the environmental impact at all stages of the cold chain."
Along with CDC, GTI will work with other SEEDR partners including the Tennenbaum Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology (TI), the global enterprise and innovation think tank and research organization at Georgia Tech.
The Tennenbaum Institute will build a simulation model of the cold chain to monitor and project the effect these improved containers will have on costs and effectiveness.
Mr. Moreland commented on the value of the partnership with TI, "Modeling our potential impact on the cold chain helps us understand what tradeoffs exist between different prototypes and helps reveal additional opportunities for innovation within the cold chain, all of which is critical for effective decision-making at both the design and commercialization stages."
Thomas Itin, Chairman & CEO of LBO Capital, added, "Our partnership with SEEDR presents an important opportunity to add significant value to our core technologies by demonstrating their versatility, competitiveness, sustainability, and importance to developing markets. Entering this rapidly growing market with such strong collaborators is an exciting prospect for our licensing partners and shareholders."
LBO Capital Corp., founded in 1987, and its subsidiaries, Global Tech International, Inc. and Advanced Digital Components, Inc., strive to acquire proven and attractive intellectual property and technology, and to capitalize on them through licensing arrangements with operating companies which recognize benefits from access to carefully selected assets of LBO Capital Corp.
SEEDR L3C is a solution design firm based in Atlanta, Georgia dedicated to redesigning the tools and strategies of global development by matching transformative technologies to transdisciplinary collaboration to produce sustainable and accessible solutions in the fields of public health, energy, shelter, and the environment. Organized as a Michigan Low-Profit Limited Liability Company (L3C) SEEDR is among a burgeoning group of social enterprises committed to bringing the strengths of the private sector to public-interest causes.
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