Month: December 2011
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Genome Institute to Fund Research on Rare Diseases, Medical Care
Funding announced by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of National Institutes of Health, will support new research on rare inherited diseases, informatics tools, and use of genomic data in medical care delivery. The four-year, $416 million plan also continues funding for current initiatives on large-scale genomic sequencing production. NHGRI plans to award…
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Prototype Molybdenite Microchip Developed
Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed the first microchip on a molybdenite platform. The chip, with capabilities that exceed the limits of silicon, is described in a recent online issue of the journal ACS Nano (paid subscription required). Physicist Andras Kis and colleagues from EPFL’s Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and…
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Biogen Idec, Samsung to Form $300M Biosimilar Venture
Biogen Idec, a biotechnology company in Weston, Massachusetts, and the Korean conglomerate Samsung will form a joint venture to develop and market follow-on biologic drugs known as biosimilars. Investments by both companies in the venture will total $300 million. Samsung will contribute $255 million of the $300 million for an 85 percent stake in the…
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UC San Francisco, GE to Partner on Cord Blood Research
University of California at San Francisco and and GE Healthcare are collaborating on an R&D project to help overcome the lack of blood-forming stem cells available to patients suffering from several life-threatening diseases. The three-year, $841,000 project aims to make better use of umbilical cord blood gathered at the birth of a baby, which is…
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Report: Electrical Grid Needs Technology, Regulatory Changes
The electrical power grid in the U.S. faces significant changes in technology over the next two decades, says a new report from the MIT Energy Initiative, but the grid also needs regulatory, economic, and security upgrades to meet these changes. The authors — 13 MIT faculty members plus one author from Harvard — discussed the…
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Mobile Lab to Test Environmental Impact of Farms
The Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development, (Neiker-Tecnalia) in Spain has built a mobile environmental monitoring unit to assess on site greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions from farms. The measurements from the mobile lab will be used to assess techniques based on scientific protocols to ease the environmental impact of livestock farming developed by…
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Senate Passes SBIR/STTR Reauthorization in DoD Funding Bill
The U.S. Senate yesterday passed a reauthorization of the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR and STTR) programs through 2019. The reauthorization of the SBIR and STTR programs were included in the larger Department of Defense authorization for the current 2012 fiscal year that began on 1 October. The bill passed…
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Rice Growers to Develop Sustainable Farming Standards
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines is joining a consortium of international organizations, government agencies, NGOs, and private companies in an initiative to set environmentally sustainable and socially responsible rice production management standards. The Sustainable Rice Platform, as it’s called, aims to boost growers’ rice production, keep the environment healthy, facilitate safer…
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Study Takes Down Renewable Energy Myths in the U.S. South
A study by researchers at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and Georgia Tech in Atlanta analyzes myths propagated by both advocates and opponents of renewable energy and finds they don’t hold up to scrutiny. Their findings appear online in the journal Energy Policy (paid subscription required). Duke’s Etan Gumerman and Georgia Tech’s Marilyn Brown,…
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Lilly, Med Centers to Study Type 2 Diabetes Obstacles
Eli Lilly and Company, the Indianapolis pharmaceutical maker, is conducting a study to better understand real-world obstacles that keep people with type 2 diabetes from reaching their treatment goals. In the MOSA1c study — short for Multinational Observational Study Assessing Insulin use: Understanding the challenges associated with the progression of therapy — Lilly is partnering…