Month: October 2013

  • Myelin Foundation to Assess Multiple Sclerosis Treatment

    Myelin Repair Foundation in Saratoga, California is collaborating with drug development company Bionure Inc. in Barcelona, Spain to evaluate Bionure’s compound BN201 as a therapy candidate for multiple sclerosis. Financial aspects of the agreement were not disclosed. Multiple sclerosis is a condition where the immune system attacks the central nervous system and damages the fatty,…

  • Novartis Licenses University Stem Cell Transplant Technology

    The global pharmaceutical company Novartis, based in Switzerland, is licensing research conducted at University of Louisville to help transplant patients better tolerate donated kidneys. Financial aspects of the agreement between Novartis and the Louisville biotechnology company Regenerex LLC, the original licensee and completed last month, were not disclosed. Regenerex is the company founded by Suzanne…

  • Peptide Developed to Combat Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

    Researchers at University of Copenhagen in Denmark and  University of British Columbia in Canada developed and tested in the lab a substance they say quickly and effectively kills multiple types of bacteria, including those resistant to current antibiotics. The team led by Copenhagen’s Henrik Franzyk and UBC’s Robert Hancock published their findings last week in the…

  • Many Large Clinical Trials Remain Unpublished

    Medical researchers at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill found some three in 10 clinical trials having 500 or more participants remain unpublished, with results from the vast majority of unpublished studies not made available on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. government’s database. Findings from the team led by emergency medicine professor Timothy Platts-Mills were reported…

  • Contract Awarded for Influenza Vaccine and Immune Booster

    NanoBio Corporation in Ann Arbor, Michigan received a new contract from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of National Institutes of Health, for development of a pandemic influenza vaccine and adjuvant to boost the immune response of that vaccine. The initial contract value is $5.5 million, but the company says it would be…

  • Algorithm Designed for Cars to Alleviate Traffic Jams

    A computer science professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology proposed a mathematical model for monitoring traffic flow in cars to prevent temporary traffic jams that could be implemented with technology already in some vehicles.  Berthold Horn, a faculty member in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, discussed his algorithm earlier this month at IEEE’s…

  • Jewelry-Like Devices in Development to Enable Mobile Health

    Computer scientists and engineers at Clemson University in South Carolina and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire are collaborating on electronic devices worn like jewelry to improve the capture of data for mobile health applications, while maintaining an individual’s privacy and security. The three-year Amulet project, as the initiative is known, is funded by National Science…

  • Trial Underway Testing Genetic Disease Stem Cell Therapy

    A clinical trial is underway testing a therapy based on a patient’s own stem cells to treat childhood cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy (CCALD), a rare genetic disease affecting mainly boys. The trial began treating the first of an expected 15 patients testing the therapy made by bluebird bio, a biotechnology company in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Paris, France.…

  • DNAnexus, Baylor Partner on Large-Scale Genomic Analysis

    Genomics and bioinformatics researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and analytical services company DNAnexus in Mountain View, California are collaborating on large-scale genomic sequencing for research and clinical applications, with a cloud computing platform. The partnership already processed genomic data from more than 14,000 individuals for a genetics analysis on heart disease and…

  • Clinical Trial Tests Ultrasound Device to Boost Stroke Drugs

    A clinical trial found an ultrasound device safe for ischemic stroke patients and helpful for many of these patients in dissolving blood clots in their brains. Researchers from University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, with colleagues from University of Alabama-Birmingham and medical centers in Germany, tested the device in an intermediate-stage trial with 20…