It's no secret that former CoManage/Syndesis Ltd. chief Dave Nelsen is busy drumming up his next venture -- a 10-person company named TalkShoe, with a mysterious product that will fall somewhere between the Web's hottest buzzwords: podcasting and Web 2.0.

Mr. Nelsen won't comment on his plans, but he's officially left the Pine offices of CoManage/Syndesis and moved next door to join his new team in developing the enigmatic product that could be unveiled sometime in the spring.

TalkShoe, sources said, is not actively soliciting money, instead subsisting on money raised from individual "angel" investors and Mr. Nelsen himself.

In the meantime, you can catch Mr. Nelsen on the Web, channeling Martha Stewart in a series of audio casts on bread and wine making. Visit www.talkcasts.net and you'll hear Mr. Nelsen, a k a "CEO Breadman," sharing recipes for banana sunflower bread and challah interspersed with trivia.

Yesterday's recipe in honor of St. Patrick's Day was for Irish Red Ale Wheat Bread. There's also a home wine making and wine tasting tutorial with Mr. Nelsen and someone mysteriously named "The Other Guy." If you can identify this person, whose photo is beside Mr. Nelsen's, send Bits & Bytes an e-mail.

Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse chief Doros Platika has returned from Washington, D.C., where he was lobbying the Pennsylvania congressional delegation on the importance of making changes to a Small Business Innovation Research grant regulation that some biotech advocates say is damaging to start-ups.

To receive a Small Business Innovation Research grant, a firm must be at least 51 percent owned by American individuals, federal law states. But in 2001, the Small Business Administration ruled that the term "individual" did not include a venture capital firm, which by fueling fledgling companies with money often takes a large stake of the ownership. Many biotech companies since have been denied grant money or have opted not to apply, advocates say.

Resolving this problem is critical, said Dr. Platika, as young biotech firms rely upon these grants and venture dollars for 10 to 15 years of research and clinical trials before a product is ready for market.

On Monday, the Greenhouse will begin announcing investments ranging from $100,000 to $250,000 to seven local life science upstarts. One of these is Oakland-based NeuroLife, the biotech start-up that is competing in the CMU Tepper School's McGinnis Venture Competition this weekend.

Dr. Platika also is actively "in talks" with a number of venture capital firms to raise "risk capital" -- more than $100 million dollars -- a portion of which would be earmarked for Pittsburgh companies.

"The rest can be invested locally, too," Dr. Platika said. "Part of our job would be to identify investment opportunities that could accommodate that kind of money."

The Greenhouse already is part of Commerce Health Ventures, a joint investing effort with King of Prussia-based NewSpring Capital to sprinkle $9 million in tobacco settlement and an additional $27 million in private matching dollars to local life sciences firms.

Michele Migliuolo, the physicist who founded South Side-based Verimetra Inc., a micro-electromechanical firm with a biotech mission, has taken on a new role as a senior director at Seagate Technology in the Strip District.

Dr. Migliuolo describes his role as the "right and left hand" of Mark Re, Seagate's vice president of research.

Verimetra, which was developing techniques to help surgeons perform complex cardiac procedures on a fetus while still in the mother's womb, will be sold soon, said Dr. Migliuolo, who would provide no further details. The company worked in the early part of the decade with both Hazelwood tech engines, Innovation Works and the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, which invested $400,000 and $100,000 in the company, respectively.

The Allegheny Conference on Community Development's Kathryn Zuberbuhler Klaber took time off from her dual role as executive vice president, research and analysis, and executive director of the Pennsylvania Economy League of Southwestern Pennsylvania to help Lynn Swann with his gubernatorial race, campaign manager Ray Zaborney said.

Ms. Klaber volunteered to assist Mr. Swann with his speech before the Pennsylvania School Board Association.

Both the Economy League and the Conference are nonpartisan organizations, so Mr. Zaborney said "we want to be clear that Ms. Klaber was a volunteer." The Conference did not return requests for comment by press time.