Tag Archive for 'biotech'

ACT Inc Receives Patent for Generating Embryonic Stem Cells minus Embryo Destruction

In a revolutionary development, Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., a leading biotechnology company applying cellular technology in the field of regenerative medicine, has announced that it has gotten the go ahead for developing its single-blastomere technique. The company has been issued a patent for its single-blastomere technology that provides an alternative manner of deriving human embryonic [...]

Protection against Asthma through Bacteria and Fungi

A new study has shown that children who grow up in urban areas are more likely to suffer from asthma as compared to children who grow up on farms. Dr. Markus Ege and Professor Erika von Mutius at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) along with an international team of researchers have recently published a large-scale study that proves [...]

Printers Used to Produce Human Skin?

U.S. medical researchers are using modified printers to produce skin for burn victims, the project’s leader says. “We started out by taking a typical desktop inkjet cartridge. Instead of ink we use cells, which are placed in the cartridge,” Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., told [...]

Senators Resurrect Reimportation with New Bill

Two U.S. senators have revived the reimportation debate with a new bill co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of their fellows. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) is teaming up with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) on the proposal, which would allow U.S. pharmacies and drug wholesalers to source products from other countries with “tough safety standards.”

Delivering a Potent Cancer Drug with Nanoparticles can Lessen Side Effects

Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have shown that they can deliver the cancer drug cisplatin much more effectively and safely in a form that has been encapsulated in a nanoparticle targeted to prostate tumor cells and is activated once it reaches its target.  Using the new particles, the researchers were able to [...]

Small Details between ‘In Vivo’ and ‘In Vitro’ Studies Make for Big Differences

Exocytosis, the fundamental process by which cells secrete hormones such as insulin and other useful biological substances, is regulated far differently in life than in laboratory tissue cultures and explanted organs, according to research presented at the American Society of Cell Biology’s 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.  The unexpected findings that exocytosis regulation “in vivo” [...]

CRO’s iPhone App Gives On-demand Study Updates

Calvert Labs is offering clients the same kind of 24/7 on-demand smartphone access to study information that’s available to the rest of the world for news and sports. It’s linked a project-tracking iPhone application with a near-real-time and on-demand filtered information source for preclinical researchers.

NPS Soars on Positive Ph3 Data for Orphan SBS Drug

NPS Pharmaceuticals says that it’s on track to file for regulatory approval of Gattex after a late-stage study involving 86 patients demonstrated promising results for reducing the need for IV feeding among a majority of patients with short bowel syndrome. NPS now plans to file in the second half of the year and the news [...]

Adult Skin Cells Converted Directly to Beating Heart Cells

Scripps Research Institute scientists have converted adult skin cells directly into beating heart cells efficiently without having to first go through the laborious process of generating embryonic-like stem cells. The powerful general technology platform could lead to new treatments for a range of diseases and injuries involving cell loss or damage, such as heart disease, [...]

NanoPopcorn Targets, Cooks and Tracks Prostate Cancer Cells

Another week, another nano-prefixed word to add to the lexicon: NanoPopcorn. This one comes courtesy of researchers at Jackson State University in Mississippi who created a popcorn-shaped nanoparticle that can perform three separate tasks. First, it can detect as few as 50 prostate cancer cells, then it switches into thermal scalpel mode to cook the [...]