Month: May 2016
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Zika Virus Cloned for Drug, Vaccine Development
17 May 2016. Researchers in Texas produced a genetically-engineered clone of the Zika virus to provide a testing platform for developers of diagnostics, vaccines, and treatments for the growing outbreak. The team from University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, led by geneticist Pei-Yong Shi, reported its findings yesterday in the journal Cell Host and Microbe.…
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Biogen, UPenn Partner in $2B Gene Therapy Research Deal
16 May 2016. The biotechnology company Biogen is collaborating with University of Pennsylvania’s medical school on research into gene therapies and editing, with payments to the university totaling as much as $2 billion. The partnership will fund research in the labs of University of Pennsylvania medical professors James Wilson and Jean Bennett, who study gene…
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Smartphone App Helps Deal with Negative Moods
13 May 2016. A smartphone app created at two university psychology departments in the U.K. was shown to reduce the intensity of negative moods among its users. The team from University of Liverpool and University of Manchester reported its findings in the May 2016 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry Open. The app, called…
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Ingestible Robot Designed for Stomach Objects, Wounds
13 May 2016. An engineering team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed a tiny robotic device for swallowing into the stomach to remove foreign objects and repair wounds. Researchers that include team members at University of Sheffield and University of York in the U.K., as well as Tokyo Institute of Technology, will describe the device…
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Collaborations Study Microbiome in Cancer, Metabolic Disease
12 May 2016. The biopharmaceutical company Seres Therapeutics is sponsoring research into the role of gut microbes in cancer and metabolic disorders, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and University of Pennsylvania. Financial ]aspects of the agreements between Seres, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Memorial Sloan Kettering and Penn were not disclosed. Seres Therapeutics discovers and…
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Portable Genome Device to Combat Wildlife Trafficking
12 May 2016. A handheld device for analyzing DNA can be used on the scene to identify products with endangered wildlife, to help stop poachers and smugglers of those species. A team from University of Leicester in the U.K. that devised this solution is the recipient of a $10,000 prize in the Wildlife Crime Tech…
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Chip Device Simulates Human Gut Interactions
11 May 2016. A device simulating the human intestine was shown in lab tests to generate similar responses to interactions between gut microbes and cells, as found in humans and animals. The HuMix system — short for Human Microbial Cross Talk — developed by researchers at University of Luxembourg and University of Arizona, is described…
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Personalized Heart Model Devised for Treatment Decisions
11 May 2016. A medical engineering team developed three-dimensional computer models of the heart that better predict heart rhythm problems requiring an implanted defibrillator than current guidelines. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University led by biomedical engineering professor Natalia Trayanova published its findings yesterday in the journal Nature Communications. Trayanova and colleagues from the Johns Hopkins…
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Neurological Biotech Raises $65M in Venture Funds
10 May 2016. A biotechnology company designing treatments for neurological disorders caused by rigidity in nerve cell synapses, is raising $65 million in its first venture funding round. Aptinyx Inc. in Evanston, Illinois, is a spin-off enterprise that formed when Naurex Inc., another biotech company, was acquired by drug maker Allergan plc in September 2015.…
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Vaccine Shown to Give 1-Year Malaria Protection
10 May 2016. An early-stage clinical trial with healthy volunteers shows an experimental vaccine can protect against malaria infection for as long as 1 year. Results of the trial, conducted by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, part of National Institutes of Health, and University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, appear…