Month: May 2012
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New Standards Released for Drug Impurity Limits, Methods
U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) in Rockville, Maryland has published two new standards governing elemental impurities in medications. USP says conformance to the standards will be required starting 1 May 2014. Elemental impurities include catalysts and environmental contaminants such as lead or mercury that may be present in drugs. According to USP, elemental impurities can occur…
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Universities to Examine CO2 Injections for North Sea Oil
Geoscientists at University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, with the British Geological Survey, will examine the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) to recover more oil from North Sea wells, while storing the CO2 underground. The program, called Centre for North Sea Enhanced Oil Recovery with CO2 (CENSEOR-CO2) aims to unlock three billion barrels…
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Superbug Genetic Code Cracked, Resistance Factor Identified
Researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, with colleagues in the U.S. and U.K., have sequenced the genomes of the 12 available strains of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria resistant to the drug vancomycin, and determined the piece of the genome that makes the strains resistant. The team published its findings yesterday in the online…
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FDA Approves Assay for Rare Cell Disorders
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new test to help physicians diagnose a group of rare cell disorders. The test, or assay, was developed by Lawrence Schwartz (pictured right), a medical school professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and a researcher in the field of mast cells. Mast cells are found in…
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Latent Tuberculosis Test Devised for Single Chip
Bioengineers at University California-Davis have developed a microfluidics chip, also known as lab-on-a-chip, to test for latent tuberculosis. The researchers, Davis biomedical engineering professor Alexander Revzin and research specialist Ying Liu, expect the test device, for which a patent has been filed, to be less expensive, reusable, and provide results in real time. Tuberculosis, or…
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Japanese Robot to be Adapted for Work with Humans
Engineers at the Tecnalia Research and Innovation Centre in San Sebastián, Spain will further develop the intelligence of a Japanese humanoid robot to enable the device to work along side humans in European factories. The robot model, known as Hiro — short for Human Interactive Robot — is made by Kawada Industries in Tokyo. The…
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Physical Properties of Productive Stem Cells Identified
Biomedical engineers at Brown University in Providence have identified the physical properties of adult stem cells that indicate their most productive use in engineering new tissue. The findings of the team led by biomedical engineering professor Eric Darling (pictured left) appear online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; paid subscription required.…
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Lundbeck, Foundation to Partner on Huntington’s Research
The U.S. subsidiary of the pharmaceutical company Lundbeck A/S and the CHDI Foundation in Los Angeles will collaborate on research for a targeted therapy for Huntington’s Disease. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Huntington’s disease is an inherited disease that causes the progressive degeneration of nerve cells in the brain, affecting a person’s…
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Students Design Pill Dispenser for Visually Impaired
Two undergraduate students of design at University of Cincinnati in Ohio have designed and built a prototype of a prescription-medicine pill bottle that better serves the needs of the blind and visually impaired. Alex Broerman and Ashley Ma will display their device, for which a provisional patent has been filed, at the DAAPworks 2012 show,…
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Grant to Fund Research on Network Efficiency Math Theory
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the U.K. has awarded a £1.6 million ($US 2.5 million) grant to two researchers at University of York to study mathematical theory with applications in electronic communications, including the efficiency of wireless networks. The EPSRC grant will fund the work of York mathematicians Sanju Velani (pictured right)…