Month: May 2015
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Health Data, Analytics Firms to Boost Cancer Trial Access
29 May 2015. A health data company and genetic analytics firm are beginning a service that they say will make it easier for cancer patients to take part in clinical trials of new drugs. Financial details of the collaboration between Guardian Research Network in Spartanburg, South Carolina and Molecular Health in Cambridge, Massachusetts were not…
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Smartphone Vision App Found Accurate as Clinic Test
29 May 2015. An inexpensive smartphone-based test was found to measure visual acuity as well as the familiar standard eye chart used in clinics. The team that developed the Portable Eye Examination Kit or Peek at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and other institutions in the U.K. published its results in yesterday’s…
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Synthetic Spider Silk Developed with Customized Properties
28 May 2015. Materials scientists and engineers developed and produced samples of synthetic spider silk, with a process that can adjust the silk’s properties to meet special demands of users. The team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, led by MIT engineering professor Markus Buehler, published its findings earlier this month in the…
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Genome Interpretation Database, Quality Effort Underway
28 May 2015. A program to improve diagnostics and research based on genomic variations is underway that collects genetic data and implements standards for their interpretation. A description of the Clinical Genome Resource or ClinGen program appears in yesterday’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. ClinGen is a collaborative effort of public, academic,…
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Patent Awarded for Plant Gene Sequence Engineering
27 May 2015. A patent for a genetic sequence derived from soybeans, but applicable through engineering to a range of plants, was granted to Ceres Inc., an agricultural biotechnology company in Thousand Oaks, California. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted patent number 9,024,004, Sequence-determined DNA fragments encoding acetohydroxyacid synthase proteins, on 5 May 2015 to…
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Alliance Building Platform Against Drug-Resistant Infections
27 May 2015. A coalition of health care providers, academic labs, and a pharmaceutical company formed an organization to develop a common research platform for countering multi-drug aesistant infections. The group known as Share ID — short for sharing hospital data to advance research and enhance patient care in infectious diseases — is underwritten by specialty…
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Software Companies Integrate Cancer Analytics, Patient Mgmt
26 May 2015. Two companies with software addressing different perspectives of cancer care agreed to offer an integrated version of their products. Flatiron Health in New York, a developer of cancer analytics, and Varian Medical Systems in Palo Alto, California, a provider of decision support software for cancer care, announced the deal today, but released…
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Memorial Day 2015
25 May 2015. Today is Memorial Day in the U.S., and Science & Enterprise is observing the holiday. We will return to our regular postings tomorrow. (Photo: A. Kotok) * * *
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Space Object Taxonomy Sought in $50K Challenge
22 May 2015. A new challenge on InnoCentive seeks a scientifically-based method for describing orbiting space objects with the fewest characteristics possible, but still predicts the objects’ behavior. The competition has a total purse of $50,000 and a deadline for submissions of 20 July 2015. InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts conducts open-innovation, crowdsourcing competitions for corporate…
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Study IDs Advanced Prostate Cancer Genome Mutations
22 May 2015. An analysis of biopsy samples from men with prostate cancer that spread to other parts of their bodies identifies genomic anomalies found in nearly 90 percent in men with the condition, for which treatments may be available. Findings from the team at eight institutions in the U.S. and U.K. appear today in…