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Challenge Seeks Fluoride Activity, Disposition in Brushing
2 May 2014. A new challenge at InnoCentive is looking for detailed answers to questions about the way fluoride works in cleaning teeth once it leaves the toothbrush. The challenge has a total purse of $20,000 and a deadline of 29 May 2014. InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts conducts open-innovation, crowdsourcing competitions for corporate and organization…
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Pfizer, Second Genome to Partner on Human Microbes, Obesity
2 May 2014. Second Genome, a biotechnology company in South San Francisco, California, and the pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. are conducting a large-scale study to better understand the relationship among gut microbes, obesity, and metabolic disorders, such as diabetes. Financial and intellectual property aspects of the collaboration were not disclosed. Second Genome develops therapies affecting…
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NYU Medical Center Starts Drug Discovery Partnership Program
1 May 2014. New York University’s Langone Medical Center unveiled an initiative to establish more partnerships with drug and biotechnology companies that move initial therapeutic targets into active drug development programs. NYU’s Office of Therapeutics Alliances, says the university, aims to fill the translation gap or “valley of death” between research performed by academic scientists…
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Cisco Venture Arm Backing Internet-of-Things Start-Ups
1 May 2014. Cisco Investments, the venture capital division of the network technologies company, is taking minority stakes in start-up companies and an accelerator that add Internet connectivity to everyday devices and products, known as Internet-of-Things. The company also plans to make $150 million in early-stage investments over the next two to three years on…
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MERS Vaccine Candidate Produces Immune Response in Lab Test
30 April 2014. Researchers at the biotechnology company Novavax Inc. in Gaithersburg, Maryland and University of Maryland medical school in Baltimore found new vaccines made from engineered protein nanoparticles generated in lab mice an immune response to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) viruses. The team led by Maryland…
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Alzheimer’s Brain Stimulation Implants Completed for Trial
30 April 2014. A clinical trial testing the safety and potential benefit of deep brain stimulation to treat Alzheimer’s disease completed implanting stimulation devices in enrolled patients in the U.S. and Canada. Functional Neuromodulation Ltd, in Toronto and Charlottesville, Virginia says it expects to report the first results from the trial in the second quarter…
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Tablet App Provides Feedback, Improves Drug Adherence
29 April 2014. Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh designed and tested a tablet app, connected to electronic sensors on a pillbox, that provides feedback to older adults and helps them stick to their medication schedules. Anind Dey, a professor in Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, and former Ph.D. student Matthew Lee, now…
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Mayo Clinic Offering Gene Test to Target Chemotherapy
29 April 2014. Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota now offers cancer patients with solid tumors a test that enables physicians to tailor chemotherapy drugs to the patient’s specific genetic background. The test known as Solid Tumor Targeted Cancer Panel or CANCP is available to patients at the Mayo Clinic and its affiliates worldwide, through the…
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FDA Approves Intermediate ALS Stem Cell Clinical Trial
28 April 2014. BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, in New York and Israel, says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its beginning an intermediate stage clinical trial of a stem cell-based therapy for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The trial will test for safety and tolerability of the company’s treatments…
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Diagnostics Firm Licenses Severe Food Allergy Gene Research
28 April 2014. Diagnovus LLC, a molecular diagnostics developer in Nashville, is licensing research on food allergies to detect a severe type of allergic condition based on a patient’s genetics. Financial terms of the deal with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center that conducted the research were not disclosed. The test will analyze a patient’s genome…