Month: September 2015
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Yom Kippur 5776
23 September 2015. We’ll be observing Yom Kippur today, the day of atonement and holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Regular posting will resume tomorrow. In th meantime, here’s Brazilian gospel singer Leonardo Goncalves with his version of the haunting Hebrew prayer for Yom Kippur, Avinu Malkeinu. (Hat tip: J.J. Goldberg, Jewish Daily Forward) * …
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Clinical Trial Underway Testing Cancer Surgery Aid
22 September 2015. A clinical trial is enrolling patients with soft tissue sarcoma to test a synthetic peptide that illuminates cancer cells to make them more easily removed during surgery. The early-stage study is testing the safety of the peptide made by Blaze Bioscience Inc. in Seattle and conducted at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los…
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Virus Particles Rebuilt to Boost Immunotherapies
22 September 2015. Engineers at Stanford University redesigned a hepatitis virus from the inside out to make it a better vehicle to stimulate the immune system for treating disease. The team led by chemical and bioengineering professor James Swartz published its results yesterday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (paid subscription required). Swartz…
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Regeneron to Develop Antibody Therapy for Ebola
21 September 2015. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. received a contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop an engineered antibody designed to treat Ebola infections. The initial $17 million contract from HHS’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority or BARDA covers initial development and testing work on the therapy, but the program…
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3-D Printed Guide Devised to Regrow Nerve Fibers
18 September 2015. Researchers from medical and engineering faculties at five universities in the U.S. developed a technique combining three-dimensional printing with tissue regeneration to grow new peripheral nerves in lab rats. The team led by mechanical engineering professor Michael McAlpine at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis published its findings today in the journal Advanced…
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Optical Device IDs Healthy, Cancerous Tissue in Surgery
18 September 2015. An engineering and medical team at University of Illinois in Champaign designed a surgical tool that identifies and discriminates between healthy and cancerous tissue in real time when removing tumors. Researchers led by engineering professor Stephen Boppart published results of a study testing the hand-held device with 35 breast cancer patients earlier…
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Immunotherapy Shown to Clear Some Cervical Lesions
17 September 2015. A clinical trial testing a vaccine designed to clear up cervical lesions or sores before they become cancerous, found women receiving the vaccine eradicated more of these lesions than those receiving a placebo. Results of the intermediate-stage trial, funded by Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. that makes the candidate vaccine, appear in today’s issue…
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Allied Minds Forming Space Signaling Company
17 September 2015. Allied Minds, a research commercialization company in Boston, is forming a new enterprise harnessing space satellites to detect wireless signals from earth for maritime, emergency, and commercial applications. The company, HawkEye 360 Inc., is licensing research on radio-frequency communications from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, designed initially for U.S. defense and…
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Platelet-Like Nanoparticles Boost Therapeutic Effects
16 September 2015. Engineers and medical researchers at University of California in San Diego designed biocompatible nanoparticles disguised as blood platelets, which they found increased the particles’ targeting and medicinal effects. The team led by engineering faculty Liangfang Zhang and Shu Chien published its proof-of-concept study today in the journal Nature (paid subscription required). The UC-San Diego researchers are seeking to…
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Spin-Off Formed to Develop Brain Disorder Therapies
16 September 2015. A new enterprise developing biologic therapies for disorders of the brain and nervous system is underway, spun-off from the acquisition in July 2015 of Naurex Inc. by the pharmaceutical company Allergan plc. The new company, Aptinyx Inc. in Evanston, Illinois will have many of the same team at Naurex, itself a spin-off enterprise from Northwestern…