Category: New products
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Stem Cells Shown to Improve Heart Failure Health Outcomes
5 April 2016. Results from a clinical trial show a new therapy for heart failure using patients’ own blood-forming stem cells reduces worsening symptoms, hospitalizations, and deaths. Findings of the study testing the treatments developed by biopharmaceutical company Vericel Corp., which funded the trial, appear in today’s issue of the journal The Lancet (paid subscription…
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Pharmacy Interventions Shown to Boost Meds Adherence
4 April 2016. Actions by community pharmacists and other customer-assistance programs at Walgreens pharmacies were shown to improve customers’ adherence to medications and reduce their health care costs. Results of the study conducted by health analysts at Walgreens appear in the 1 April issue of the journal Population Health Management. The research team led by Michael…
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On-Demand Pharma Manufacturing System Developed
1 April 2016. Chemical engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology created a compact manufacturing system that produces small quantities of pharmaceuticals as needed. The system developed in the MIT labs of Alan Myerson, Klavs Jensen, and Timothy Jamison is described in the 31 March issue of the journal Science (paid subscription required). Making drugs at…
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Crowdsourcing Yields Heart Disease Algorithm
30 March 2016. Two financial analysts are the winners of a data science competition to write an algorithm that quickly analyzes MRI images of a person’s heart suspected of cardiac disease. The winning algorithm, by Qi Liu and Tencia Lee, was submitted in the second Data Science Bowl, put on by consulting company Booz-Allen Hamilton…
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Exome Profiles Tapped for Precise Cancer Therapies
30 March 2016. Informatics and genomics researchers at University of Colorado in Denver designed an automated system that matches genetic variations with FDA-approved cancer drugs. The team led by oncology and informatics professor Aik Choon Tan published its findings yesterday (29 March) in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association; paid subscription required. Tan and…
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Sensor Material Developed to Detect Fuel Vapors
28 March 2016. A University of Utah engineering team designed a new ultra-sensitive material that can detect traces of hydrocarbon fuel or explosive vapors in the air. Researchers from the lab of Ling Zang published their findings earlier this month of the journal ACS Sensors; paid subscription required. Zang, a professor of engineering and materials…
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Smartphone App to Support Alzheimer’s Caregivers
25 March 2016. Researchers at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis are designing a smartphone app that taps social media to assist caregivers providing help for people with Alzheimer’s disease. The team of IUPUI social work professor David Wilkerson, gerontology psychiatrist Daniel Bateman, and informatics professor Erin Brady are supported by an innovation grant from the…
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Microneedle Patch Delivers Melanoma Immunotherapy
25 March 2016. An engineering group created and tested in mice a patch with tiny needles that applies drugs stimulating the immune system to fight melanoma, an advanced form of skin cancer. The team from the lab of Zhen Gu, in a joint biomedical engineering program at North Carolina State University and University of North…
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New Biotech Begins Work on Enhanced Platinum Cancer Drugs
23 March 2016. A new biotechnology company began work today on developing improved platinum-based treatments for solid tumor cancers. The company, Placon Therapeutics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a spin-off enterprise from Tarveda Therapeutics, a developer of biologic cancer drugs. Placon Therapeutics focuses on new treatments for cancer using platinum as a cancer-killing agent that works…
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Quick Tests for Mosquito-Borne Viruses Being Developed
22 March 2016. A Canadian company is developing diagnostic tests that it says can detect in 1 minute antibodies in blood indicating the early-stage presence of Zika and other mosquito-borne viruses. The company bioLytical Laboratories in Richmond, British Columbia says its proof-of-concept studies show the feasibility of these quick, point-of-care tests to diagnose dengue and…