Tag: Asia

  • U.S., China Universities to Collaborate on Cancer Biomarkers

    Arizona State University in Tempe and Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) in Guangzhou, China have agreed to collaborate on research developing early and predictive diagnostics for colorectal cancer. The agreement involves the Biodesign Institute’s Center for Sustainable Health at ASU and the SYSU Gastrointestinal Institute of the Sixth Affiliated Hospital in Guangzhou. Research scientists at the…

  • New Method Can Increase Commercial Antibiotic Yields

    Researchers from the U.K. and Japan have devised a new method for increasing the yields of antibiotic compounds from bacteria. The process, which has practical applications in commercial pharmaceutical production, is scheduled to be described this week in an online issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Most known antibiotics are…

  • USPTO, Taiwan to Pilot Test Reciprocal Patent Reviews

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced a new pilot test of sharing patent reviews with the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO). The trial of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program will permit each office to benefit from work previously done by the other office. USPTO says the expedited examination in each office allows…

  • NSF, Energy Dept to Fund Power Grid Research Center

    National Science Foundation and Department of Energy awarded a grant to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and its partners to establish a new Engineering Research Center for research and education on the nation’s electrical grid infrastructure. The two agencies will invest $18.5 million in the research center over five years. The facility, known as the…

  • Ad Hoc Network Devised for Emergency Communications

    Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have developed a mobile ad hoc system called LifeNet designed to help first responders communicate after disasters. Santosh Vempala, professor of computer science at Georgia Tech and grad student Hrushikesh Mehendale will demonstrate the system at the ACM SIGCOMM conference today in Toronto, Canada. LifeNet is a wireless network designed…

  • Robot Being Developed to Aid in Care of Elderly

    The Japanese research foundation RIKEN, in collaboration with Tokai Rubber Industries Ltd. in Nagoya Science Park, has developed a robot with the ability to lift and carry a patient from floor-level bedding to a wheelchair and back.     The robot, with high-precision tactile sensors and motor control, was designed to meet the needs of caring…

  • Agilent, Singapore Institute Launch Drug Screening Center

    Agilent Technologies in Santa Clara, California and Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) unveiled a comprehensive drug screening platform for biomedical researchers. The service, called the Singapore Screening Centre, will reside in A*STAR’s Experimental Therapeutics Centre. Agilent and A*STAR say the platform can conduct high-throughput screenings to identify potential drug candidates against diseases,…

  • International Team Completes Draft Sequence of Potato Genome

    The Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium (PGSC), a global group of universities and research institutes, has published a draft sequence of the potato genome. Their work appears in the current issue of the journal Nature. PGSC began in 2006 at Wageningen University & Research Centre in the Netherlands, and has grown to include 29 research groups…

  • Compartmented Gel Capsule Developed for Multi-Drug Delivery

    U.S. and Chinese researchers have designed a multiple-compartment gel capsule that could simultaneously deliver drugs of different types. A description of their research is published online in the journal Macromolecular Rapid Communications (paid subscription required). L. Andrew Lyon, a chemistry professor at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and Xiaobo Hu, a former visiting scholar…

  • Lasers, Electric Fields Aid Lab-on-a-Chip Technology

    Researchers from universities in the U.S., U.K., and China are developing new processes that combine a laser and electric fields to manipulate fluids and tiny particles such as bacteria, viruses, and DNA on miniature chip-sized analytic devices. These advances, with applications ranging from drug manufacturing to food safety, are described in the current issue of…