Tag: pharmaceuticals
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MedImmune, Joslin Partner on Diabetes Research
10 March 2015. Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston and MedImmune, the biotechnology subsidiary of pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, are collaborating on research to identify new drugs to treat diabetes. While the partnership calls for MedImmune to fund research conducted at Joslin, financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Diabetes is a chronic condition where the pancreas…
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Heart-on-Chip Device Built to Screen Drugs
9 March 2015. A bioengineering team at University of California in Berkeley developed a device with cardiac tissue derived from stem cells that can test drug candidates for potentially toxic effects. Researchers from the lab of engineering professor Kevin Healy published their findings today in the journal Scientific Reports. Healy and colleagues created this device…
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Gates Invests, Supports R&D in RNA Vaccine Maker
6 March 2015. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is making an equity investment and providing a grant to support research at CureVac GmbH, a developer of vaccines and therapies with RNA molecules. The foundation is investing €46 million ($52 million) in CureVac, in Tübingen, Germany, but the amount of the grant supporting research in…
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Trial Testing Stem Cell Therapy for Spinal Cord Injury
5 March 2015. A clinical trial testing a stem cell therapy for spinal cord injury is recruiting patients at an Atlanta rehabilitation center. The intermediate-stage trial, conducted by biotechnology company Asterias Biotherapeutics, aims to initially enroll 13 adults to test three dosage levels of neural stem cells designed to restore motor functions to spinal cord…
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Synthetic Polymer Shown to Reduce Heavy Bleeding
5 March 2015. A University of Washington research team developed a synthetic polymer that in lab animals acts like natural proteins to form blood clots to stop heavy bleeding, a common danger in trauma cases. The group led by Washington bioengineering faculty Suzi Pun and emergency medicine professor Nathan White published its findings yesterday in…
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Genome Editing Shown to Repair Sickle Cell Gene
2 March 2015. Geneticists at the biotechnology company Editas Medicine show how genome editing techniques could repair mutations in the gene that causes sickle cell disease. Cecilia Cotta-Ramusino, a researcher with Editas, presented her findings today at the Keystone Symposium for Genomic Instability and DNA Repair in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. Sickle cell disease is a…
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Adult Stem Cell Quality Control Methods Devised
27 February 2015. A European research team developed a process for testing the safety and quality of adult stem cells before being used in gene therapy treatments on patients. The team led by stem cell scientist Yann Barrandon at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne published its findings today in the journal EMBO…
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Registry to Track Psoriasis Drug Safety
26 February 2015. A new registry of patients with psoriasis will track the safety of a recently approved biologic drug designed to treat that disorder. The Corrona Psoriasis Registry is a joint undertaking of National Psoriasis Foundation and Corrona LLC, a company in Southborough, Massachusetts hosting registries of patients with chronic diseases. Psoriasis is an…
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System Personalizes Cancer Nanomedicine Treatments
24 February 2015. Medical and engineering researchers at University of California in Los Angeles designed a system that generates a personalized combination of drugs, including medicines with nanodiamonds, to treat metastatic cancer. The team led by Dean Ho from UCLA’s dentistry school and Chih-Ming Ho, a professor of mechanical engineering, published its findings last week…
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Bristol-Myers Squibb Acquires Biotech Cancer Therapies
24 February 2015. Bristol-Myers Squibb is purchasing biotechnology company Flexus Biosciences Inc., gaining many of that company’s cancer therapies in a deal valued as much as $1.25 billion to Flexus’s shareholders. The deal allows Flexus Biosciences shareholders to spin-off a new enterprise to develop the remaining drug programs, including treatments for cancer. The acquisition gives…