Here's some advice for going green in the lab. Graphic by Miguel Tovar/University of Houston

Trying to make your lab greener? Here are some practical examples of how to reduce your lab's carbon footprint and increase sustainability. Since China stopped accepting certain types of plastic waste from the United States and Europe in 2017, the need to dispose of hundreds of single-use plastic vials and other materials (per researcher, each year!) has created an avalanche of waste.

The "single use" problem

COVID-19 has led to even more single-use plastics in labs – and in our everyday lives. The sheer number of gloves, testing kits and even masks we throw away is incredible. "The majority of masks are manufactured from long-lasting plastic materials, and if discarded can persist in the environment for decades to hundreds of years," wrote authors from the University of Portsmouth at the Conversation.com.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Labs are full of other single-use plastics such as pipette tips, weighing boats, tubes, flasks, reagent bottles, cuvettes, and more. 'Reduce, reuse and recycle' is a fine mantra, but how do researchers cut down on plastics when the sterility of equipment is a concern?

According to the UK's Chemical and Engineering News magazine, "Different users have optimized washing protocols to get pipette tips clean enough for different lab techniques, including mass spectrometry or toxicology and immunology assays.

Earlier this year, for example, researchers at the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences found their washed pipettes gave the same results as new tips for preparing small-interfering-RNA screening libraries." Customers of Grenova, a lab equipment firm, have reported that some tips can reused 25-40 times.

Baby it's cold

In Nature, Jyoti Madhusoodanan wrote: "Scientists are increasingly aware of the disproportionate environmental footprint of their research. Academic research facilities consume three to six times as much energy as commercial buildings, much of that due to refrigeration and ventilation systems." The has led some third-party "green companies" employed by labs to hold entire conferences around ultra-low temperature freezers. In a feature advertisement in Nature Portfolio, a statistic read: "An average Ultra-Low Temperature freezer consumes as much energy as a single-family home (~20 kWh/day)."

Help for scientists

There are non-profits that will help you mitigate the amount of waste produced by your lab. One of these, My Green Lab, said on its website: "Run 'for scientists, by scientists,' we leverage our credibility and track record to develop standards, oversee their implementation, and inspire the many behavioral changes that are needed throughout the scientific community."

And it offers a free training course for "ambassadors" – those who would like to guide their lab toward sustainable practices.

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This article originally appeared on the University of Houston's The Big Idea. Sarah Hill, the author of this piece, is the communications manager for the UH Division of Research.

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Houston startup raises $6M to scale home-based healthcare platform

fresh funding

As healthcare systems race to expand care beyond hospitals and into the home, investors are placing bigger bets on the infrastructure needed to make that shift possible.

This month, Rosarium Health announced it has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Kalos Ventures, with participation from ResilienceVC, Rock Health Capital, Symphonic Capital, Black Tech Nations Ventures and others.

The investment will help the Houston-based startup continue to build its platform, which features a national network of 800-plus clinicians and 3,000-plus contractors to coordinate home accessibility upgrades and modifications for seniors and people living with disabilities.

For founder and CEO Cameron Carter, the company’s mission grew out of firsthand caregiving experiences.

“From my own personal caregiving experiences, I realized that the benefits exist on paper, but not in reality,” Carter said in a news release. “Families are being left to figure out the paperwork and installations all on their own, which shouldn’t be how this works.”

While Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans have expanded coverage for home-based services and accessibility modifications, the logistics behind delivering those services often remain fragmented.

Rosarium’s platform coordinates the entire process, from clinical assessments and referrals to contractor management, documentation, reimbursement and installation.

“A clinician can document that a home isn’t safe and a plan can approve a benefit, but there’s no one that’s responsible for making sure the work actually gets done,” Carter says. “We built the missing piece.”

The company was founded in 2021 as Rose Health and was a 2023 participant in the Texas Medical Center’s Accelerator for HealthTech program. It has scaled quickly, building a network of more than 800 clinicians and 3,000 contractors across 34 states.

Rosarium is currently in-network for 1.2 million Medicare and Medicaid lives, with projected coverage expected to reach nearly 4 million by the end of the year, according to the release.

“We’re excited to back Cameron because he and the team at Rosarium are building the infrastructure healthcare needs right now to make the home a safe and comfortable place of care,” Kate Ballinger, investor at Kalos Ventures, added in the release.

As part of the recent investment, Ballinger will join Rosarium’s board of directors.

With eyes on the future, Rosarium plans to grow its partnerships with Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans, including CalViva and Community Health Plan of Imperial Valley, strengthening its presence in California while expanding access to underserved communities.

Additionally, Carter predicts that home-based healthcare will be part of a broader transformation happening across the industry.

“There’s a growing recognition that health outcomes are shaped by what happens in the home,” he said in the release. “The future of healthcare isn’t just treating people after something goes wrong. It’s creating environments that help prevent those problems in the first place.”

Houston business mogul Tilman Fertitta acquires Caesars in $17.6B deal

Money Moves

Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta may currently be serving as America’s ambassador to Italy, but his company is as busy as ever. Fresh off its move to revive the Houston Comets WNBA franchise, his company, Fertitta Entertainment, has announced a $17.6 billion deal to acquire Caesars Entertainment, Inc.

Speculation about the deal has been circulating since at least March, according to various media reports. The deal combines Fertitta’s well-known Golden Nugget casino brand with all of the properties in the Caesars’ portfolio, including Las Vegas hotels Caesars Palace, Harrah's, Paris Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood, Horseshoe, The LINQ Hotel, Flamingo, and The Cromwell.

Overall, the combined company will include 60 domestic casino resorts and gaming facilities; online gaming including sports betting, iCasino, and Caesar’s online poker platform; retail sports betting at over 200 third-party locations through the William Hill brand; and over 550 Fertitta Entertainment outlets, including more than 450 Landry's full-service restaurants across America. The companies will combine their loyalty programs, Caesars Rewards, Golden Nugget's 24 Karat Select Club, and Landry's Select Club.

The terms will see Caesars’ shareholders receive $31 per share. Fertitta Entertainment will also acquire approximately $11.9 billion of Caesars' outstanding debt.

The transaction will be financed through a combination of equity contributed by Fertitta Entertainment, assumed Caesars' debt, and new committed debt financing arranged by a group consisting of 10 banks. It is subject to approval by Caesars’ shareholders and government regulators.

Fertitta Entertainment is the Houston-based company behind a diverse array of hospitality businesses, including The Golden Nugget, The Post Oak Hotel, River Oaks District, the Kemah Boardwalk, and Houston’s Downtown Aquarium.

It also operates a number of prominent restaurant brands, including Mastro's Restaurants, Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse, Morton's The Steakhouse, The Palm, McCormick & Schmick's, Landry's Seafood House, The Oceanaire Seafood Room, and Saltgrass Steak House.

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This article first appeared on CultureMap.com.