Tag: genomics
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Engineered Castor Beans Growth-Tested as Biofuel Feedstock
The plant genomics company Evogene Ltd. in Rehovot, Israel says growing trials of its engineered castor bean show it is ready for commercial development as an alternative feedstock for biodiesel fuels and other industrial products. The three-year trials were conducted in Brazil with SLC Agrícola S.A., a grower of soybeans, corn, and cotton. Evogene’s biofuel…
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Fox Foundation, Companies Create Research Tools Group
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research in New York and seven companies are joining in a consortium to systematize development and sharing of tools for studying Parkinson’s disease. The seven companies are Amicus Therapeutics, ApoPharma, Biogen Idec, Eli Lilly and Company, Pfizer, PsychoGenics and Upsher-Smith Laboratories. The group, called the Parkinson’s Disease Research Tools…
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Copper and Copper Alloys Found to Destroy Norovirus
Biologists at University of Southampton in the U.K. found surfaces made of copper and copper alloys can quickly destroy norovirus, the pathogen causing acute gastroenteritis. Researcher Sarah Warnes and Bill Keevil, director of the university’s Environmental Healthcare Unit, published their findings earlier this week in the online journal PLoS One. Norovirus is a highly contagious…
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Portal Launched Matching Cancer Cells to Drug Molecules
The Broad Institute, a medical research organization with scientists from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, opened its Cancer Therapeutics Response Portal, an online resource that matches potential drug molecules to their sensitivities among hundreds of cancer cell lines. The portal is described this week in the journal Cell (paid subscription required), in an…
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Genetic Technique Tracks Salmonella Strain in Supply Chain
Agricultural scientists at Pennsylvania State University found a way of identifying and tracking strains of antibiotic resistant Salmonella bacteria through the food supply chain, even if the strain evolves. The team from the lab of food science professor Edward Dudley describes the technique in the September issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (paid…
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XPrize Cancels $10 Million Genomics Challenge
The XPrize Foundation in Los Angeles cancelled a $10 million challenge to bring down the cost of genomic sequencing, saying the advance of technology has overtaken the purpose of the competition. Foundation chair and CEO Peter Diamandis announced the cancellation on Thursday in a Huffington Post article and on the challenge’s Web page. The Archon…
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Challenge Seeks Technique to Estimate Age from DNA Samples
A new challenge on InnoCentive asks for a crowd-sourced solution for determining an individual’s age from a small sample of that person’s DNA. The competition has a a prize purse of $25,000 and a deadline of 7 October 2013 for submissions (free registration required). InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts conducts open-innovation, crowd-sourcing competitions for corporate and…
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Biotech Gets Small Business Funds for Universal Flu Vaccine
TechnoVax Inc., a biotechnology company in Tarrytown, New York, received a grant from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of National Institutes of Health, to develop a vaccine that protects against a wide assortment of flu strains. The initial award of $300,000, made under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program at NIH,…
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NIH Funds Three New Neurologic Drug Discovery Projects
National Institutes of Health is funding three new neurological drug research initiatives to address Fragile X syndrome, nicotine addiction, and age-related macular degeneration. Awards for the three projects, from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), total nearly $446,000. The three studies are funded under the Neurotherapeutics Network, part of the NIH Blueprint…
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TB Diagnostics Developer Gains $1.5M in Early Financing
TB Biosciences, a biotechnology company in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania developing genomics-based diagnostics for tuberculosis, received $1.5 million in its first fund-raising round after initial start-up. The financing was led by Bethlehem venture capital company Originate Ventures, joined by Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania and the NYU Innovation Venture Fund. Tuberculosis, or TB, is a…