Month: May 2014

  • Stress, Diet Apps Numerous but Offer Only Short Term Help

    30 May 2014. Online and mobile apps for stress management and healthy eating are numerous and gaining more users, but their impact appears to be short lived, according to an analysis by a researcher in Finland. Kirsikka Kaipainen, a research scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre in Espoo, Finland, published her findings earlier this month…

  • Epigenetics Biotech Secures $12.9 Million Early Financing

    30 May 2014. Rodin Therapeutics Inc., a biotechnology company in Boston developing therapies based on epigenetics — inherited changes in genetic activity outside of DNA — raised $12.9 million in its first venture funding round. The company is a joint venture of Proteros biostructures GmbH in Munich and Atlas Ventures in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Rodin Therapeutics…

  • More Efficient Growth Factor Delivery Technique Devised

    29 May 2014. Biologists and engineers at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta developed a new process that delivers tissue-building proteins used in regenerative medicine known as growth factors in much higher concentrations than current methods. The team led by Georgia Tech bioengineering professor Todd McDevitt published its findings online yesterday in the journal Biomaterials…

  • Remote Heart Failure Monitoring Device Approved by FDA

    29 May 2014. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved an implanted device that measures pulmonary artery pressure and heart rate of patients with moderate heart failure who were hospitalized in the previous year. The device, the CardioMEMS HF System, is made by CardioMEMS Inc. in Atlanta. St. Jude Medical, a medical device manufacturer…

  • Ohio State, Cancer Center Partner on Research Database

    28 May 2014. Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa and Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus are launching a repository of patient data and tumor samples to speed development of therapies and better match patients to clinical trials. Financial details of the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network or Orien created by the collaboration were…

  • Medical Centers to Develop Brain Signal Tracking, Therapies

    28 May 2014. Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and University of California in San Francisco are developing technologies to analyze brain activity and deliver near real-time neural stimulation therapies. The five-year project is funded by grants from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of $30 million and $26 million respectively to Mass. General and UC-San…

  • Five Pharma Companies to Share Clinical Researcher Data

    27 May 2014. Five pharmaceutical companies are joining together to share their files on researchers conducting clinical trials, to speed the administrative process of starting up new studies. The Investigator Databank is a joint project of Novartis, Janssen (a division of Johnson & Johnson), Merck, Eli Lilly and Co., and Pfizer, and administered by DrugDev,…

  • Drug Sensitivity Target Identified for Mesothelioma Therapy

    27 May 2014. Researchers at the biopharmaceutical company Verastem Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts found the loss of a certain tumor suppressor improves responsiveness to therapies targeting cancer stem cells that treat mesothelioma, an aggressive form of lung cancer. The team led by Verastem’s research director Jonathan Pachter, with colleagues from Fox Chase Cancer Center in…

  • Memorial Day 2014

    26 May 2014. Today is Memorial Day in the U.S., and Science & Enterprise is observing the holiday. We will return to our regular postings tomorrow. *     *     *

  • Industrial Scale Graphene Production Process Devised

    23 May 2014. Engineers at University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and glass manufacturer Guardian Industries developed a process for producing graphene that overcomes many of the obstacles preventing industrial-scale production of this material. The findings of a research team led by MIT’s John Hart and Guardian’s Vijayen Veerasamy appear online today in the…