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Contracts Awarded for New Flu Vaccine Technologies
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded contracts to two companies to help make flu vaccines available quickly for seasonal outbreaks and pandemics. The contracts total $215 million from HHS’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. HHS awarded one contract to Novavax Inc., of Rockville, Maryland, for $97 million over the first…
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Process Turns Algae into Renewable Fuel, Cleans Wastewater
Chemical engineers at University of Arkansas in Fayetteville have developed a method for converting common algae into butanol, a renewable fuel that can be used in today’s internal-combustible engines. The technology has the added benefit helping to clean and oxygenate U.S. waterways by removing excess nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizer in agricultural runoff. The team…
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Blood Protein Test Can Reduce Heart Failure Readmissions
A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland indicates that a routine test for a protein in blood can reduce the number of hospital readmissions due to congestive heart failure. Their findings appear online in the American Journal of Cardiology (paid subscription required). Johns Hopkins research fellow Henry Michtalik and colleagues tested…
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Laser Suturing in Development for Minimally Invasive Surgery
Researchers of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology (IPT) in Aachen, Germany are developing a laser-based suturing process for use in minimally-invasive surgeries. The new process can simplify current methods with a form of laser welding replacing knots. More abdominal surgeries are being carried out in a minimally invasive manner, where the surgeon needs only…
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EUREKA Network to Fund €33 Million in New European R&D
EUREKA, a network of research officials from 40 countries in Europe and Israel, approved a series of new R&D projects in clean technology and related fields. Meeting in Eilat, Israel, the €33 million ($45.7 million) approved by EUREKA will fund 25 projects in renewable energy, agrofood technology, biotechnology, physical sciences, IT and electronics, and industrial…
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Institute to Provide On-Board Space Payload Specialists
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas says today it agreed to send scientists as payload specialists aboard eight suborbital flights, some to altitudes greater than 350,000 feet. SwRI researchers will also fly at least six high altitude missions flown by XCOR Corporation. At least two SwRI researchers will fly into space aboard the…
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Tufts University Gets Patent for Kidney Disease Treatment
Researchers at Tufts University’s veterinary school in Grafton, Massachusetts have received a U.S. patent for an antibody-based treatment for hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a potentially fatal outcome of E. coli poisoning and a leading cause of kidney failure in children. The Tufts technology covered by the patent, developed by microbiology professor Saul Tzipori, uses human…
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Universities, Brewery Partner on Biofuels from Brewery Waste
Researchers from Anheuser-Busch Inbev Inc. in St. Louis, Missouri and three universities have discovered stable microbe communities in brewery sludge with the potential to produce the basic building blocks of fuels. Their findings appear in the 22 February online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team from Cornell University, University…
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Biotech Licenses Technology for Colorectal Cancer Blood Test
Epigenomics AG in Berlin, Germany says it has an agreement for QIAGEN NV in the Netherlands to further develop Epigenomics’s research into a blood test for colorectal cancer. QIAGEN also has an option under the agreement to take the blood test to market. The technology is based on Epigenomics’s research into genomics and DNA indicators…
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Venture Fund to Finance Univ. Tech. Start Ups
Osage University Partners in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania says it completed fund raising for its first venture capital fund financing new enterprises that license technology developed in university labs. The company says the fund, called Osage University Partners 1, achieved its goal of raising $100 million. Osage University Partners was founded in 2009 by venture professionals…