Month: January 2015
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$50M Grant Funding Research to Improve Vaccine Effects
30 January 2015. Researchers at Stanford University in California are beginning an interdisciplinary project to improve the way vaccines harness the immune system for protecting against disease. The initiative, which will establish a Human Systems Immunology Center at Stanford, is funded by a 10-year, $50 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Immunologist…
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Gene Therapy Biotech Raises $161M in IPO
30 January 2015. Spark Therapeutics Inc., a biotechnology company in Philadelphia, is raising $161 million in its initial public stock offering. The company, developing genetic therapies for inherited diseases, priced 7 million shares of its common stock at $23.00 a share. The stock trades on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol ONCE, and as of…
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Cancer Progress Indicators Devised
29 January 2015. Researchers in public health and cancer medicine developed statistical tools that capture findings on cancer treatments and care, and provide indicators of progress in defeating the disease. A team from Lilly Oncology — with colleagues from the U.S., Germany, U.K., and Italy — published its findings about the Continuous Innovation Indicators initiative…
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AstraZeneca Begins Four Gene-Editing Collaborations
29 January 2015. The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is taking part in collaborations with research institutes and a company in the U.S. and U.K. to discover new drug targets based on an emerging genome-editing technology. Financial and intellectual property details of the partnerships with Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Innovative Genomics Initiative, Broad Institute and Whitehead Institute,…
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Trial to Test Drug to Delay Early-Onset Alzheimer’s
28 January 2015. A clinical trial is planned to test a current drug for epilepsy as a way to delay the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The late-stage trial undertaken by AgeneBio Inc., a start-up pharmaceutical company in Baltimore, is funded by a $900,000 grant from Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. The trial aims to address…
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Material Developed to Prevent Li-Ion Battery Fires
28 January 2015. Materials scientists and engineers at University of Michigan designed a new material to better protect lithium-ion batteries from starting fires like the kind on Boeing 787 Dreamliners. The team from the lab of engineering professor Nicholas Kotov published its findings yesterday in the journal Nature Communications (paid subscription required). Kotov and first…
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Trial Shows Drug Reduces Depression in One Day
27 January 2015. A clinical trial testing a new drug to treat major depressive disorder shows the drug improved symptoms in patients after a single dose within one day. The intermediate-stage trial was conducted by Naurex Inc., a biopharmaceutical company in Evanston, Illinois and a spin-off from Northwestern University. Naurex develops drugs for diseases of…
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Cartilage 3-D Printed to Repair Windpipe
27 January 2015. Researchers at Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York devised techniques using a commercial three-dimensional printer for creating cartilage to repair or replace a human trachea or windpipe. Doctoral candidate Todd Goldstein, working in the lab of orthopedic researcher Daniel Grande, presented his proof-of-concept findings at this week’s meeting of…
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Stem Cells Shown Effective with Autism in Lab
26 January 2015. The biotechnology company BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc. reports that tests in laboratory mice show its stem cell technology derived from bone marrow is effective in reducing behaviors associated with autism. The study was conducted by Daniel Offen, a neuroscientist at Tel Aviv University in Israel, but no peer-reviewed publication was cited by…
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XPrize Awards $5.25M for Lunar Technologies
26 January 2015. A competition to develop new technologies for landing and robotic exploration of the moon awarded $5.25 million in 9 prizes to 5 private companies, as part of the Google Lunar XPrize challenge. The companies — from the U.S., Germany, Japan, and India — received the prizes for their design and development of…