Month: April 2014
-
Touch Screen Data Visualization App Developed for iPad
23 April 2014. Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh designed an app for the Apple iPad that allows data stored in worksheets to be manipulated on a touch screen with fingers. Ph.D. candidate Jeffrey Rzeszotarski and computer science professor Niki Kittur will discuss their app, called Kinetica, at next week’s ACM CHI Conference…
-
FDA Proposes Accelerated Medical Device Approval Process
23 April 2014. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed yesterday a change in its approval processes for devices that meet unfilled treatment or diagnostic needs of patients with serious medical conditions. The Expedited Access Pre-market Approval Application, says the agency, is designed to speed not only the approval of new medical devices, but also…
-
Most Americans Favor Contraceptives Required in Health Plans
22 April 2014. A nationwide survey shows about 7 in 10 Americans support birth control medications being required in health insurance plans. The survey, conducted in November 2013 by a team at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor is reported today online in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The Affordable Care Act includes…
-
Gecko-Inspired Adhesive Sticks to Wide Range of Materials
18 April 2014. Materials scientists and biologists at University of Massachusetts in Amherst developed an adhesive technology that attaches heavy loads to a variety of surfaces, yet can still be easily removed and reused. The journal Advanced Materials published yesterday online the work of the team led by polymer scientist Alfred Crosby (paid subscription required).…
-
Patent Awarded for Unwanted Internal Tissue Removal Device
18 April 2014. Savonas Inc., a medical technology accelerator in Sausalito, California, received a patent for a device that safely removes unwanted biological material from internal body cavities during minimally invasive surgeries. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted patent number 8,696,621 on 15 April 2014 to two inventors, including Savonas’s CEO Larry Gerrans. The…
-
Health Care Accelerator Raises $7M for New Initiatives
17 April 2014. Healthbox Global Partners LLC, a Chicago-based business accelerator in the health care industry, says it raised $7 million to fund its operations in six cities in the U.S. as well as support new business models for encouraging innovation. Healthbox is a joint venture of Intermountain Healthcare, a health delivery system in Utah;…
-
Football Head Hits May Need More Than Off-Season to Heal
17 April 2014. Researchers at University of Rochester in New York found college football players may need more than the standard six months from the end of one season to the start of the next for their brains to recover from blows to the head. The team led by Rochester’s Jeffrey Bazarian, a professor emergency…
-
Early Trial Shows Immunotherapy Evidence With Some Tumors
16 April 2014. A clinical trial of a cancer vaccine developed by biopharmaceutical company Celldex Therapeutics Inc. in Hampton, New Jersey shows it generated an immune response which affected the growth of tumors in some patients with advanced stages of cancer. The early-stage trial, conducted with researchers from seven university or research institute labs appears…
-
IT Firm, University Partner on Alzheimer’s Research Platform
16 April 2014. Parabon Computation in Reston, Virginia is creating a crowd-sourced computer network to provide the analytical power for two research studies on Alzheimer’s disease conducted in-house and with George Mason University in nearby Fairfax. The initiative, called Compute Against Alzheimer’s Disease, aims to tap into unused capacity of idle computers donated for this…
-
Blood Glucose Control Drug Approved for Type 2 Diabetes
15 April 2014. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug albiglutide to help adults with type 2 diabetes control their blood glucose levels. Albiglutide is marketed in the U.S. under the brand name by Tanzeum by the global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. Diabetes is a chronic condition where the pancreas does not create enough…