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Consortium Developing Synthetic Biology Technology Platform
The Flowers Consortium, a group of five universities in the U.K., is developing a common platform technology for synthetic biology. Development of the platform — a basic set of standard technologies, from which specific applications can be designed — is being funded by a grant of some £5 million ($US 7.8 million) from the Engineering…
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Nanotech Fabrication Process Developed for Smaller Chips
Engineers at Stanford University and two Silicon Valley companies in California have devised a method of creating contact hole patterns for semiconductors that can reduce the size of logic and memory chips, while maintaining their fabrication accuracy. The findings of the team led by Stanford engineering professor H.-S. Philip Wong (pictured left) appear online in the…
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Venture Fund Raises $50M for Cleantech, Materials Start-Ups
Pangaea Ventures Ltd. in Vancouver, British Columbia has raised $US 50 million for its Pangaea Ventures Fund III that aims to invest in early-stage cleantech companies using advanced materials technologies. Pangaea says the new investment fund expects to eventually raise $100 million. The limited partners in the fund are corporate and private-equity venture investors including…
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New Standards Released for Drug Impurity Limits, Methods
U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) in Rockville, Maryland has published two new standards governing elemental impurities in medications. USP says conformance to the standards will be required starting 1 May 2014. Elemental impurities include catalysts and environmental contaminants such as lead or mercury that may be present in drugs. According to USP, elemental impurities can occur…
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Universities to Examine CO2 Injections for North Sea Oil
Geoscientists at University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, with the British Geological Survey, will examine the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) to recover more oil from North Sea wells, while storing the CO2 underground. The program, called Centre for North Sea Enhanced Oil Recovery with CO2 (CENSEOR-CO2) aims to unlock three billion barrels…
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Superbug Genetic Code Cracked, Resistance Factor Identified
Researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, with colleagues in the U.S. and U.K., have sequenced the genomes of the 12 available strains of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria resistant to the drug vancomycin, and determined the piece of the genome that makes the strains resistant. The team published its findings yesterday in the online…
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FDA Approves Assay for Rare Cell Disorders
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new test to help physicians diagnose a group of rare cell disorders. The test, or assay, was developed by Lawrence Schwartz (pictured right), a medical school professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and a researcher in the field of mast cells. Mast cells are found in…
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Latent Tuberculosis Test Devised for Single Chip
Bioengineers at University California-Davis have developed a microfluidics chip, also known as lab-on-a-chip, to test for latent tuberculosis. The researchers, Davis biomedical engineering professor Alexander Revzin and research specialist Ying Liu, expect the test device, for which a patent has been filed, to be less expensive, reusable, and provide results in real time. Tuberculosis, or…
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Japanese Robot to be Adapted for Work with Humans
Engineers at the Tecnalia Research and Innovation Centre in San Sebastián, Spain will further develop the intelligence of a Japanese humanoid robot to enable the device to work along side humans in European factories. The robot model, known as Hiro — short for Human Interactive Robot — is made by Kawada Industries in Tokyo. The…
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Physical Properties of Productive Stem Cells Identified
Biomedical engineers at Brown University in Providence have identified the physical properties of adult stem cells that indicate their most productive use in engineering new tissue. The findings of the team led by biomedical engineering professor Eric Darling (pictured left) appear online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; paid subscription required.…