Tag: biotechnology
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FDA Approves Trial Testing Stem Cells for Brain Injuries
Updated 10 June 2016. Gordie Howe died today at age 88. 18 May 2016. A company developing stem cell therapies says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its application for a clinical trial testing stem cell treatments for traumatic brain injury. The intermediate-stage trial, sponsored by Stemedica Cell Technologies Inc. is part of a research…
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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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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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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…
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MIT Spin-Off Develops Material Mimicking Human Skin
9 May 2016. A substance that emulates properties of youthful human skin was shown in pilot tests with human subjects to outperform other materials used for wound dressings. The new polymer material, based on research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and commercialized by Olivo Laboratories, a start-up enterprise, is described in today’s issue of the…
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Genome-Editing Company Raises $108 Million in IPO
6 May 2016. Intellia Therapeutics, a developer of therapies based on genome editing, issued its initial public stock offering, raising $108 million. The Cambridge, Massachusetts enterprise, less than 2 years old, issued 6 million shares priced at $18.00. At the 4:00 pm ET closing bell today, company shares trading on the NASDAQ exchange as NTLA…
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Trial Underway Testing Antibody for Celiac Disease
5 May 2016. A clinical trial testing an engineered antibody therapy for celiac disease in people that do not respond to a gluten-free diet began treating its first patients. The trial is conducted by Celimmune LLC, a biopharmaceutical company in in Lebanon, New Jersey, but patients are recruited in Finland, where the rate of celiac…
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Engineered Protein Advances to Treat Genetic Blood Disorders
4 May 2016. Lab tests by a biotechnology company show an engineered protein can block the actions of genes responsible for low normal hemoglobin production in people with inherited blood disorders like sickle cell disease. The findings of researchers from Acetylon Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Boston were reported in April in the journal PLoS One. Acetylon…