Month: March 2014
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Blood Biomarker Measured in Hockey Player Concussions
14 March 2014. Researchers at Quanterix Corp. in Lexington, Massachusetts, and universities in Sweden, tested the company’s method for detecting and measuring tau protein as an indicator of concussion in the blood of professional hockey players. The team led by Pashtun Shahim at University of Gothenburg, with colleagues at Quanterix, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, and University College London published their findings…
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Virtual Fish in Development for Environmental Toxin Testing
13 March 2014. Researchers at Plymouth University in the U.K. and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca are developing a technique to gauge potential toxic effects of chemicals in rivers and oceans using cells from fish configured into a testing device. The three-year, £600,000 ($998,000) project of biologist Awadhesh Jha with colleagues from Plymouth and AstraZeneca is funded by U.K. science…
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Study to Evaluate Spatial Repellents to Control Mosquitos
13 March 2014. Biologists at University of Notre Dame in Indiana are evaluating area-wide techniques for repelling mosquitoes as a way to control diseases like malaria and dengue fever. A grant of $23 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding a five-year project on spatial repellency methods led by biologists Nicole Achee and Neil…
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Trial Underway to Test Mutation Fix for Cystic Fibrosis
12 March 2014. An early-stage clinical trial is underway testing the safety and chemical activity of a drug designed to correct a genetic mutation causing cystic fibrosis. The study, sponsored by N30 Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Boulder, Colorado — the drug’s inventor — aims to enroll up to 40 healthy adults. Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disease…
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Biotech Partnership to Develop Non-Ricin Castor Plants
12 March 2014. Precision BioSciences Inc. and Novo Synthetix, biotechnology companies in Durham, North Carolina, are collaborating on a new type of castor bean, without the ricin poison that makes the beans difficult to process and market. Financial and intellectual property aspects of the deal were not disclosed. Beans from castor plants (Ricinus communis) have the potential to…
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Store Checkout Data Generate Neighborhood Food Profiles
11 March 2014. An epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada devised a method for tracking food choices, with data from food stores, that helps gauge family nutrition in city neighborhoods. The team led by McGill’s David Buckeridge published its findings online in a recent issue of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences…
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Trial Shows Drug Efficacy with Chronic Kidney Disease
11 March 2014. An intermediate-stage clinical trial by La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company in San Diego shows patients with chronic kidney disease taking the company’s drug candidate succeeded in improving their kidney functions, compared to similar patients taking a placebo. However, the drug code-named GCS-100 appears effective only in lower rather than higher doses. The findings are scheduled…
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Start-Up Company Licenses University Stroke Drug Research
10 March 2014. Zocere Inc. in Albuquerque, New Mexico is licensing a neurological protein from University of New Mexico for development into a drug to protect ischemic stroke victims from extensive brain damage. Financial terms of the deal with the university’s technology transfer office were not disclosed. Nearly 800,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke each…
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Smartphone Obstetrics App Gains $2M Angel, Public Funding
10 March 2014. LionsGate Technologies, a medical device developer in Vancouver, British Columbia, received $2 million in private and public financing for its smartphone app measuring blood oxygen levels in pregnant women. The funds will support clinical trials and scaling up for production of LionsGate’s Phone Oximeter, a device that checks for risks of developing high blood pressure…
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Trial Shows Nasal Filter Helps Relieve Hay Fever Symptoms
7 March 2014. A clinical trial at Aarhus University in Denmark shows a small filter placed in the nose reduced symptoms of hay fever among allergy sufferers, compared to a placebo. The inventor of the filter, Peter Kenney, a doctoral candidate at Aarhus, and colleagues presented their findings earlier this week at a meeting of…