Science and Enterprise

Tag: genomics

  • Patent Awarded for Engineered Soybean to Control Parasite

    A Kansas State University research team in Manhattan, Kansas received a patent for a genetically engineered soybean plant that aims to control a devastating parasite causing millions of dollars in crop damage each year. The engineered soybean plant was developed by four current or former K-State faculty: Harold Trick, Timothy Todd, Michael Herman, and Judith…

  • Engineered Plant Produces Compounds for Plastics

    Plants may have in theory the kinds of raw materials for plastics obtained from petroleum-based chemicals, but in reality, getting plants to accumulate these desired products in any meaningful quantity has been an elusive goal. In a step toward industrial-scale green production, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New…

  • U.S. PTO to Continue Gene Patents, BIO and AUTM File Brief

    The Dow Jones news service reports today (2 November) that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (U.S. PTO) will continue to consider applications for gene-related patents, while the Justice Department has come out against such patents in a friend-of-court brief filed late on Friday in a case challenging them. David Kappos, undersecretary of commerce for…

  • Macular Degeneration Test Company Gets Investment

    The Ontario Genomics Institute (OGI) in Toronto said today it has made an investment in molecular diagnostics company, ArcticDx Inc., also in Toronto. ArcticDx has developed Macula Risk, a test designed to determine one’s inherited risk for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common form of acquired blindness in the developed world, affecting over 10%…

  • Report: U.S. to Oppose Gene Patenting

    The New York Times reports today (30 October) that the U.S. Department on Justice late on Friday filed a friend-of-the-court brief stating the U.S. government’s opposition to making genes from humans and other natural sources eligible for patents. The Times says the case involves two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The brief…

  • NSF Grant Funds Research on Drought-Resistant Crops

    University of Maryland in College Park has received a $5 million grant from National Science Foundation to lead a multi-institutional research partnership to help develop crop plants able to withstand drought conditions. The project will focus on guard cells in the canola plant (Brassica napus) — pictured right. Canola is an important oilseed crop grown…

  • Virginia Tech Licenses DNA Delivery Platform

    Techulon Inc., a life sciences company in Blacksburg, Virginia, has signed an agreement with Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties Inc. to license and market a new, traceable DNA delivery platform created to deliver genetic medicine to cells while carrying a tracker beacon so scientists can follow its progress. Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties is the university’s technology…

  • Patent Issued to Biotech for DNA Libraries

    Dyadic International Inc.,  a biotechnology company in Jupiter, Florida says it has been issued Patent No. 7,794,962 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on its method for the expression and subsequent screening of DNA libraries in filamentous fungal hosts. The company says the patented technology can help speed up the discovery of genes…

  • BARDA Awards Contract for Smallpox Antiviral Drug

    SIGA Technologies Inc. in New York, New York said today it received notice that the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), intends to award a contract for the company’s smallpox antiviral for the strategic national stockpile. SIGA says a protest from another company…

  • Novartis to Develop Flu Vaccines with Synthetic Genomics

    Novartis, a global pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland, says today it will join with Synthetic Genomics Vaccines Inc. (SGVI), in La Jolla, California to apply a combination of synthetic biology and genomics to accelerate production of influenza seed strains required for vaccine manufacturing. Seed strains are starter cultures of a virus, and the base…