Science and Enterprise

Tag: Europe

  • European Approval Granted for Implanted Migraine Device

    St. Jude Medical Inc., a medical device developer in St. Paul, Minnesota, received a CE mark indicating regulatory approval in Europe for its Eon line of neurostimulators to treat chronic migraine. The CE mark, an acronym for the French Conformité Européene, indicates a product meets safety, health and environmental protection requirements in the 27 EU…

  • Pharmas to Collaborate on Improving Clinical Trial Process

    Ten of the world’s larger pharmaceutical companies formed a non-profit organization to improve the way clinical drug studies, a major time and financial expense, are conducted. Abbott, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Genentech (a division of the Roche Group), and Sanofi will take part in the…

  • Home Computer Fetal Ultrasound System Developed

    Engineers at Newcastle University in the U.K. created a low-cost ultrasound scanner that can display images of a fetus on a home computer display. The device aims to make the monitoring of fetal development a more routine task, particularly in less developed areas of the world. The scanner, about the size of a computer mouse,…

  • Project to Study Light-Enabled Quantum Dot Circuits

    Researchers at Tampere University of Technology in Finland are developing a new process for designing and fabricating logic circuits that consume no current and can be read and written with light. The four-year, €1.6 million ($US 2.1 million) study is funded by the Academy of Finland, the country’s main science agency. The project draws on…

  • Nanotech Process Devised for Graphene Semiconductors

    Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim developed a process to make semiconductors by growing nanoscale wires on a graphene substrate. Helge Weman (pictured left), a professor of electronics, led the research team that published its findings last month in the journal Nano Letters; paid subscription required. Weman also co-founded a…

  • Nanotech Process Developed to Detect Heavy Metal Pollution

    Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois developed a nanoscale process to test for heavy metals such as mercury and cadmium in water and fish. Their findings appear onlne in the journal Nature Materials (paid subscription required). The process created by EPFL nanomaterials scientist Francesco Stellacci (pictured…

  • New Materials Developed with Vast Surface Areas

    Materials scientists and engineers at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and University of Surrey in the U.K. created two new synthetic materials with the largest reported amounts of internal surface area. The researchers published their findings online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (paid subscription required). The two new materials, known as NU-109…

  • Cambridge, GSK to Develop Therapies for Lung/Liver Disorder

    University of Cambridge in the U.K. will partner with the global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline to discover and develop new medicines to treat a genetic disease affecting the lungs and liver. The university is expected to receive an upfront payment, and is eligible for milestone payments and royalties under the agreement, but the amounts of those…

  • Electronic Enhanced Carpet Monitors Walking, Detects Falls

    Researchers at University of Manchester in the U.K. added electronic optical fibers on the underside of carpets to monitor and detect changes in walking patterns that can lead to falls. Patricia Scully, who led the the interdisciplinary team from Manchester’s Photon Science Institute, reports the team’s findings today at the Photon12 conference at Durham University…

  • Stem Cell Therapy Results Reported for Spinal Cord Injury

    Researchers for StemCells Inc. in Newark, California reported interim, largely positive, results from a clinical trial of stem cell therapy to treat spinal cord injury. The findings were reported yesterday at a meeting of the International Spinal Cord Society in London. The trial tests StemCells’ therapy to treat disorders of the central nervous system, called…