Month: October 2014
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Graphene Sensor Offers Clear Optical Access to Brain Cells
22 October 2014. Engineers at University of Wisconsin in Madison developed an implanted transparent sensor made with graphene that allows for imaging and diagnostics in the brain requiring line-of-sight access. The team led by electrical engineering professor Zhenqiang Ma and biomedical engineering faculty Justin Williams published its findings this week in the journal Nature Communications.…
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Project Developing DNA Antibodies for Infectious Diseases
21 October 2014. The biotechnology company Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. and partners are developing synthetic antibodies based on DNA that generate an immune reaction to prevent infectious diseases, a project funded by Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA. The $12.2 million DARPA grant is supporting the work of Inovia, in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania,…
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Genomic Data Analysis Service Launches, Hosts Autism Data
20 October 2014. NextCode Health, a start-up informatics company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, unveiled its NextCode Exchange, a shared online genomics database and analysis service for diagnostics and research with sequencing data. The 1 year-old company also is hosting a genomics database of people with autism for online access to researchers. NextCode Health says its databases…
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FDA Exemption Sought for Ebola Blood Plasma Device
20 October 2014. Cerus Corp., a developer of blood safety devices, is asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to allow its system for removing pathogens from blood plasma be used to treat patients in the U.S. with Ebola, while the device is under review. The provision, called a Compassionate Use Investigational Device Exemption, allows…
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Better DNA Sample Prep Methods Sought in Challenge
17 October 2014. A new challenge on InnoCentive is seeking methods that make it possible to prepare DNA samples in the field for sequencing, based on smaller quantities of microbial evidence. The challenge has an award of $25,000 and a deadline of 7 December 2014. InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts conducts open-innovation, crowdsourcing competitions for corporate…
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Simple 3-D Graphene Construction Process Devised
17 October 2014. Materials scientists at Kyoto University in Japan developed a new process that simplifies the building of three-dimension structures with graphene, a light, strong, conductive material with many industrial and commercial applications. Franklin Kim and Jianli Zou from Kyoto’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences published their findings yesterday in the journal Nature Communications…
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Personalized Leukemia Immunotherapy Gets 90 Pct Remission
16 October 2014. Nine in 10 children and adults in early-stage clinical trials of a personalized therapy harnessing the patients’ immune systems achieved full remission of their acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The findings of the team from University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are reported today in New England Journal of Medicine (paid subscription…
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Robot for MRI-Guided Epilepsy Surgery in Development
16 October 2014. Engineers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville are building a robot for epilepsy surgery guided by MRI scans and designed to be less invasive than current surgical methods. The team from Vanderbilt, with colleagues from Georgia Tech and Milwaukee School of Engineering, are demonstrating a prototype of the device this week at the…
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Needleless Delivery Start-Up Lands $11M First-Round Funding
15 October 2014. Portal Instruments Inc., a new enterprise developing needless injections for biologic therapies and other medications, raised $11 million in its first round of venture funding. Financing for the Cambridge, Massachusetts company was led by the Sunrise division of drug maker Sanofi, venture capital company PBJ Capital, and an unnamed medical device manufacturer…
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Astellas, Harvard Partner on Retinitis Pigmentosa Targets
14 October 2014. Astellas Pharma Inc. in Tokyo is collaborating with a genetics and ophthalmology lab at Harvard University to discover more about the onset of the eye disease retinitis pigmentosa and identify therapy targets. Financial details of the three-year deal with Harvard were not disclosed. Retinitis pigmentosa is a family of inherited eye disorders…