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Weill Cornell, Tres Cantos Lab to Research TB Chemistry
Weill Cornell Medical College in New York will provide a microbiologist to work at Tres Cantos Open Lab, a facility of GlaxoSmithKline in Spain, to identify the ability of chemical compounds to penetrate the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria. Financial aspects of the two-year project, funded by the Tres Cantos Open Lab Foundation, were not disclosed. The…
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Bioengineered Microbe to Convert, Recycle Biofuel Waste
Plant biologists at Texas A&M AgriLife Research in College Station are creating a bioengineered microbe to convert the waste from biofuel production into more biofuel. The project led by plant pathologist Joshua Yuan is funded by a $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. Yuan and colleagues at AgriLife are developing a genetically…
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Signaling, Movement Properties Found in Synthetic Gels
Chemical engineers at University of Pittsburgh developed a computational model to track the ability of certain synthetic gels to sense a chemical signal and reconfigure themselves in response. The team led by Pittsburgh professor Anna Balazs describes its findings this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (paid subscription required). Balazs…
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Rare Earths, Materials Hub Set for Ames National Lab
The U.S. Department of Energy will establish a research center at Ames National Lab in Iowa to find solutions to domestic shortages of rare earth metals and other critical materials for energy security. The $120 million Critical Materials Institute, will bring together for five years researchers from academia, four national laboratories, and the private sector.…
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Carnegie Mellon, Anglo American Partner on Mining Robotics
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the mining company Anglo American PLC, based in London, agreed to develop robotic technologies for the mining industry. Financial terms of the five-year deal were not disclosed. The agreement calls for Carnegie Mellon’s National Robotics Engineering Center to design, build and deploy with Anglo American mining robots, robotic tools,…
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Synthetic Stool Found to Stop C. Difficile Infections
Bioscientists at University of Guelph and University of Western Ontario in Canada created synthetic fecal matter for transplants that in early human trials stopped C. difficile infections. The findings of the team led by Guelph’s Emma Allen-Vercoe (pictured right) appear online in the inaugural issue of the journal Microbiome. Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) is a…
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Graphene Oxide Absorbs Radioactive Material in Wastewater
Researchers at Rice University in Houston and Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia developed a lab process with graphene oxide to remove radioactive materials from contaminated water. The team from the labs of Rice chemistry professor James Tour and Moscow chemist Stepan Kalmykov published their findings in a recent issue of the journal Physical Chemistry…
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New Company Formed to Create Engineered Corneal Tissue
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, North Carolina Eye Bank, and the company Ocular Systems Inc., all in Winston-Salem, are forming a new company to create bioengineered tissue for cornea transplants. The startup company, HCEC LLC (for human cultured endothelial cells), is expected first to advance the technology to the point of an FDA submission for…
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Foundation Medicine Adds $13.5 Million to Series B Funds
Foundation Medicine, a genomic diagnostics company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, added $13.5 million to its current venture funding, bringing its series B round — the second financing cycle after start-up — to $56 million. The new investors include entrepreneurs and venture financiers Bill Gates, Evan Jones, and Yuri Milner. Foundation Medicine, founded by scientists at the…
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Color X-Ray System Devised for Health, Security, Industry
Materials scientists at University of Manchester in the U.K. developed a faster and more feasible 3D color X-ray system with potential uses in health care, security inspections, and industrial quality assurance. The researchers, led by Manchester’s Robert Cernik, describe their invention in the current issue of the journal Analyst (free registration required). Cernik’s team, which…