Month: September 2015
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Celgene, Antibody Network Partner on Cancer Targets
15 September 2015. The biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp. is collaborating with a consortium of university protein engineering labs to identify targets for antibodies that harness the immune system to treat cancer. The deal provides Celgene with an option to license antibody candidates addressing cancer targets from the consortium, known as Recombinant Antibody Network, for which…
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NIH Backing Alzheimer’s Onset Drug Trial
15 September 2015. National Institute on Aging, part of National Institutes of Health, is funding a late-stage clinical trial testing a current epilepsy drug as a treatment to delay the early onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms. The $7.5 million grant, part of NIH’s national plan to address Alzheimer’s disease, supports the trial testing a low-dose formulation…
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Shanah Tovah 5776
14 September 2015. Science and Enterprise is taking off on Monday, 14 September to observe Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. We wish everyone of any faith or without, a happy and healthy new year, 5776 in our calendar. We will resume regular posting on Tuesday. * * *
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Seattle Children’s, Biotech Collaborate on Gene Editing
11 September 2015. The biotechnology company bluebird bio and Seattle Children’s Research Institute are partnering on gene editing technologies to treat inherited pediatric diseases. Their agreement calls for bluebird bio — the name is spelled in all lower-case characters — based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Seattle — to provide $3 million for research on these…
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Device Detects Breast Cancer Recurrence, Spread
11 September 2015. A research team led by medical and engineering faculty at University of Michigan designed an implanted device that could detect the recurrence and early spread of breast cancer. Results of a proof-of-concept study testing the device in lab mice appears this week in the journal Nature Communications (paid subscription required). The team…
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Research Group, CureVac Partner on AIDS Vaccine
10 September 2015. An organization encouraging development of AIDS vaccines and the pharmaceutical company CureVac are collaborating on creating a potent AIDS vaccine technology. Financial and intellectual property aspects of the partnership between the not-for-profit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, or IAVI, and CureVac in Tubingen, Germany were not disclosed. IAVI sponsors research and development of…
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Patent Awarded for Cancer-Detecting Blood Test
10 September 2015. VolitionRx, a developer of blood tests to screen for cancer, received a U.S. patent for its underlying technology that detects changes in basic cell proteins found in blood. Patent number 9,128,086 was issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on 8 September to four inventors and assigned to the company, incorporated…
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Alliance Mounts Comprehensive ALS Research Program
9 September 2015. A coalition of three medical centers in the U.S. is leading a comprehensive research initiative to find treatments and eventually cures for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. The collaboration, known as Answer ALS brings together researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and Massachusetts General Hospital…
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Youth E-Cigarette Use Seen as Smoking Gateway
9 September 2015. A survey of teens and young adults in the U.S. shows those who smoke electronic cigarettes are much more likely to start smoking tobacco within one year. Results of the study, conducted by a team from University of Pittsburgh and Dartmouth University medical centers, appear online in yesterday’s issue of the journal…
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Genomic Technique Devised to ID Drug Candidates
8 September 2015. Researchers at University of Illinois in Champaign developed a technique using genomic tools to identify natural substances in bacterial strains with potential therapeutic properties. The team led by microbiologist William Metcalf and chemistry professor Wilfed van der Donk published its findings last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (paid…