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Ignore the Sticker Shock, Electric Trucks Can Pay You Back
A new MIT study indicates that electric vehicles have the potential to improve the bottom line for many kinds of businesses, in addition to being good for the environment. The findings from the study, conducted by researchers at MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL), were presented last month at the IEEE Power and Energy…
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Patent Granted for Nanotech Medical Diagnostic Technology
Medical diagnostics developer T2 Biosystems in Lexington, Massachusetts has received a U.S. patent for its sensor technology based on magnetic nanoparticles. Patent 8,102,176 was issued on 24 January by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to W. David Lee, a program officer at MIT’s Koch Institute for Cancer Research and a founder of T2 Biosystems.…
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Nanotech Enhanced Oils Boost Insulation Properties
Materials scientists at Rice University in Houston have developed a process for enhancing the efficiency of lubricants to help remove excess heat in electric-power devices from micro-scale components to industrial transformers. The findings of graduate student Jaime Taha-Tijerina, postdoctoral researcher Tharangattu Narayanan, and colleagues appear in the journal ACS Nano (paid subscription required). The team…
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Sanofi to Cut Genzyme Massachusetts Research Staff
The French pharmaceutical maker Sanofi says it will reduce its research workforce employed in and around Boston, as a result of its acquisition of Genzyme Corporation a year ago. Sanofi confirmed the cuts today in a statement to the industry Web site Fierce Biotech. Genzyme, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was acquired by Sanofi last year…
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Prostate Cancer Therapy Shown Effective in Chemo Patients
A phase 3 clinical trial has shown a new drug to treat prostate cancer is effective with patients who had previously been treated with chemotherapy. The results of the study of MDV3100 — made by the biopharmaceutical company Medivation Inc. in San Francisco and Astellas Pharma Inc. in Tokyo, Japan — will be presented tomorrow…
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Risk-Based Air Passenger Screening Could Improve Security
A University of Illinois computer scientist has developed algorithms to assess the relative risk of air passengers that can improve the effectiveness of pre-flight security checks. The work of Sheldon Jacobson in Urbana, Illinois, with Springfield researcher Adrian Lee, appears in the December 2011 issue of the journal Transportation Science (paid subscription required). Jacobson —…
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Canadian Govt Opens Call for Personalized Medicines R&D
The Canadian government opened a matching grant competition for research proposals on personalized medicine. The call seeks research proposals that can take treatments from “one size fits all” to more precise treatments and interventions addressing specific characteristics of the individual, made possible by new diagnostic technologies that look at patients’ unique genetic signatures. The competition…
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$600K Foundation Grant to Fund Cancer Genomics Research
The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) has awarded a $600,000 grant to the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix and the University of Arizona in Tucson for the study of targeted cancer therapies. The three-year grant will enable TGen and the university to continue its NFCR Center for Targeted Cancer Therapies, created in…
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Maryland Utility to Purchase Solar Contest Winning House
The electric utility company Pepco says it will purchase the WaterShed house that won the 2011 Solar Decathlon contest in October. The house was built by faculty and students at the University of Maryland in College Park, its current location. The 2011 Solar Decathlon pitted 20 teams representing institutions in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and…
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Pharmas, Foundations, Agencies Partner on Tropical Diseases
In London yesterday, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 13 pharmaceutical companies, three governments, the World Bank and global health agencies announced a new plan to eliminate or control 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by 2020. The effort announced at an event at the Royal College of Physicians is aimed at 1.4 billion people living…