LabTV Teams Up with The University of Maryland to Open Up Their Labs to Filmmakers

    STAMFORD, CT, June 09, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- LabTV today announced that The University of Maryland at College Park has agreed to work with LabTV filmmakers to create human-interest video profiles of young working medical researchers at labs on the university's campus. Recently, two University of Maryland film students, Aaron Solomon, and Kai Keefe won the Gold Award this year for the 2014 LabTV Spring Video Profile Contest at the Tribeca Film Festival.

LabTV is an online video platform that showcases short human-interest videos of young medical scientists in a way that will inspire today's high school and college students become "tomorrow's heroes of medical research."

The University of Maryland is one of the top medical research institutions in America with over $400 million in both federal and private funding. With it's School of Medicine growing faster than any other research program in the country, the institution maintains a rich tradition of research support from National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies, including leading philanthropic sources, such as the Gates Foundation.

Vice President and Chief Research Officer, Patrick O'Shea says, "As one of the nation's top public research universities and a leading producer of STEM minority graduate degrees, the University of Maryland shares the LabTV mission of attracting students, especially women and minorities, to research careers in biomedicine," said UMD Vice President and Chief Research Officer Patrick O'Shea. "We are thrilled to participate in LabTV's creation of exciting, engaging video profiles of young scientists doing potentially transformational, NIH-supported work as a way to attract students to this critical field. I am especially proud of UMD students Kai Keefe and Aaron Solomon whose videos of two top UMD labs were recently chosen from among hundreds of submissions to receive LabTV's highest honor. We will continue to support this program by providing additional videos of exceptional biomedical research being conducted by young UMD scientists and engineers."

Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, has repeatedly stated that America needs visible role models in medical research who can encourage more of our best and brightest young people - especially women and minorities - to join this crucial profession.

Accordingly, the NIH is encouraging America's labs to open their doors to LabTV so that both professional and student filmmakers can create the videos that will celebrate young scientists and excite today's students.

"Medical research is the greatest science adventure of our time, but almost nobody knows about it," said LabTV Executive Producer David Hoffman. "On LabTV, our short videos are about people, not about science. The medical scientists we profile are passionate young men and women from every background, every nation and every ethnic group. They find medical research incredibly exciting and rewarding. They are eager to encourage today's students to enter the field."

To that end, LabTV is sending amateur and professional filmmakers to 40,000 NIH-funded medical research labs across America. LabTV filmmakers are creating short video profiles of tens of thousands of young scientists.

"The entire world is in a race against time as the global population gets steadily older and sicker, and as the demands on healthcare systems in every country become more unsustainable," said Mr. Hoffman. "Now more than ever, the world needs today's outstanding students to become tomorrow's heroes of medical science, cracking the code of health and disease to improve and lengthen billions of lives."

"Our goal," said LabTV founder Jay Walker, "is to help students find role models they can identify with - young scientists who are people just like themselves, and who share their dreams and passions."

Universities that wish to have their young scientists profiled on LabTV at no cost to the university or the lab may contact LabTV's Debbie Pranckitas at (415) 813-8100 or by email at [email protected].

David Hoffman is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker of more than 150 television documentaries and multi-part series for PBS, Turner, A&E and Discovery. Mr. Hoffman has produced more than 200 television programs, five feature-length documentaries, and hundreds of Youtube "movies" that together have over 10 million views.

Jay Walker, the founder of LabTV, is also the chairman of Patent Properties and curator of TEDMED, the health and medicine edition of the famous TED conference. A noted entrepreneur, Mr. Walker has founded three companies that serve more than 50 million customers. He is best known as the creator of Priceline, which brought a new level of value to the travel industry.

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LabTV, in cooperation with the National Institutes of Health, inspires STEM-oriented students, particularly women and minorities, to consider a career in medical research. LabTV does this by having filmmakers, primarily undergraduates, interview young medical scientists, and post their interviews on LabTV.com where viewing students can find and connect with successful young medical scientists just like them.

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