Science and Enterprise

Month: June 2012

  • Challenge Seeks Method to Connect Tissues Without Sutures

    A new challenge on InnoCentive seeks a method for surgically connecting fluid-bearing tissues without using sutures. The competition, sponsored by the Cleveland Clinic, has a maximum prize of $30,000 and a final submission deadline of 12 August 2012. InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts conducts open-innovation, crowd-sourcing competitions for corporate and organization sponsors. The Cleveland Clinic notes…

  • Software Developed that Amplifies Video Frame Variations

    Computer scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have written software that amplifies variations in successive frames of video that are imperceptible to the naked eye. The team of graduate students, alumni, and faculty from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory will discuss their software in August at the next Siggraph conference in Los Angeles.…

  • Selenium Found to Control Staph Bacteria on Implant Material

    Engineers at Brown University in Rhode Island discovered the ability of selenium nanoparticles to control the growth of staph bacteria on a type of plastic often used in medical implants. Doctoral student Qi Wang and biomedical engineering professor Thomas Webster describe their research online this week in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research A (paid…

  • FDA Approves Drug to Manage Spinal Cord Injury Pain

    Pfizer Inc. in New York says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved its drug pregabalin, marketed as Lyrica, to manage neuropathic pain associated with spinal cord injury. The drug was given a priority review by FDA. Spinal cord injuries can happen to young, healthy people as a result of trauma from car…

  • Nanotube Paint Developed to Reveal Structural Strains

    Engineers, chemists, and physicists at Rice University and University of Houston in Texas have developed a paint with carbon nanotubes and fluorescent properties that can reveal structural strains in bridges and airplanes. The Rice/Houston team describes its work online in the journal Nano Letters (paid subscription required). The new material developed by the team led…

  • Bioengineered Kidney Scaffold Developed and Implanted

    Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina have devised a framework for building new kidneys for eventual transplant, and tested the scaffold in pigs. The results are described online in the journal Annals of Surgery (paid subscription required). The goal of the proof-of-concept study was to develop a framework for a replacement…

  • Method Devised for Inexpensive Graphene Production

    Researchers from Poland, France, and India have developed a process for producing the high-performance material graphene using common laboratory equipment. The team led by the Institute of Physical Chemistry (translation provided by EurekAlert) of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, published a description of that process earlier this year in the journal Chemical Communications;…

  • NC State, Strasbourg Institutes to Advance Biomanufacturing

    North Carolina State University in Durham and University of Strasbourg in France, along with the Alsace BioValley cluster in Europe, are forming Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center (BTEC) International, to provide educational and regulatory advisory services in the U.S. and Europe. BTEC International will initially combine the resources of NC State’s Golden LEAF Biomanufacturing Training…

  • GSK Licenses Nanotech Product Development Platform

    The global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) will license a nanotechnology-based product development platform created by Liquidia Technologies in North Carolina. The precise financial scale of the deal was not disclosed, but the companies say total earnings by Liquidia could reach as high as several hundred million dollars. Liquidia has built a development technology for pharmaceuticals…

  • Mobile Data Help Predict Displaced Populations in Haiti

    Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden used data from a mobile phone company in Haiti to devise a system to predict population displacements when disaster strikes. Their findings appear online in in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (paid subscription required), and formed the basis of a service to help relief…