Month: December 2011
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Happy Holidays 2011
Science Business is taking a break today, but we’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a Chanukah video from my niece and nephew Dafna and Adam, with their two little girls providing the dance moves. Enjoy your holidays. * * *
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Baxter, Momenta to Partner on Biosimilars
Pharmaceutical and medical device maker Baxter International and biotechnology company Momenta Pharmaceuticals have agreed to collaborate on development of follow-on biologic drugs, also known as biosimilars. The deal valued at at least $33 million is expected to close in the first quarter of 2012. Under the agreement, Baxter in Deerfield, Illinois, will make an up-front…
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Biotech Lands $30 Million Late Stage Investment
Acceleron Pharma Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts says it raised $30 million in private financing from its current investors and one of its drug development partners. The funds, says Acceleron, will advance its clinical stage drug pipeline, as well as its overall research agenda. The company develops therapies based on the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta)…
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Apple Files Patent Applications for Fuel Cell Power
Apple Inc. in Cupertino, California has filed two U.S. patent applications for building fuel cell systems into the power supplies used in their electronic devices. The patent applications were reported yesterday on the Web site AppleInsider. One invention outlines a fuel cell system to directly power a portable electronic device. In this system, a fuel…
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Energy Dept to Fund R&D on Vehicle Charging Stations
The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) announced grants totaling some $7 million for research and development to help improve the performance and flexibility of electric vehicle chargers on the nation’s power grids. The funds will go to electric vehicle (EV) charging station manufacturers in California, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, who are expected to…
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Patent Awarded for Stem Cell Generation Process
A process that enables a single gene to generate millions of therapeutic stem cells from ordinary human cells has received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patent — number 8,080,420 — was awarded to medical professor Kiminobu Sugaya and colleagues at University of Central Florida in Orlando, and assigned to that…
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FDA Approves Portable Device to Spot Brain Bleeding
The Food and Drug Administration approved last week a hand-held device designed to detect bleeding in the skull, a life-threatening condition. The device, called the Infrascanner, is based on research conducted at University of Pennsylvania and Baylor College of Medicine, and funded in part by the U.S. Office of Naval Research. The Infrascanner detects intracranial…
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Nanotech Solar Energy Paint Developed
Researchers at University of Notre Dame in Indiana have created an inexpensive paste made with semiconducting nanoparticles to produce a spreadable substance that can generate energy. The work of chemistry professor Prashant Kamat and colleagues is described in the 6 December issue of the journal ACS Nano (paid subscription required). Kamat’s team based the compound…
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Math Model Helps Predict Unknown Drug Side Effects
Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston in Massachusetts have created a new method that combines data from a widely used drug safety database to predict adverse drug reactions. The findings from postdoctoral fellow Aurel Cami (pictured left) and colleagues from the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program, appear online in the the journal Science Translational Medicine (paid subscription…
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New Methods Proposed for Testing Allergens Without Animals
A doctoral dissertation at University of Gothenburg in Sweden has outlined testing methods for allergenic substances that do not require the use of lab animals. Ph.D. candidate in chemistry Sofia Andersson (pictured right) defended the dissertation in Gothenburg earlier this month, and is working with the university’s business development office to advance the methods to…
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