Feature Channels: Biotech

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Diagnosing HIV and other infectious diseases presents unique challenges in remote locations that lack electric power, refrigeration, and appropriately trained health care staff. To address these issues, researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have developed a low-cost, electricity-free device capable of detecting the DNA of infectious pathogens, including HIV-1.

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Ice poses major impediments to winter travel, accumulating on car windshields and airplane wings and causing countless unsuspecting pedestrians to dramatically lose their balance. A team of researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) has developed a new way to prevent ice buildup on surfaces like airplane wings, finding inspiration in an unusual source: the poison dart frog.

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Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have developed a way to chemically disguise RNAi drugs so that they are able to enter cells. Once inside, cellular machinery converts these disguised drug precursors — called siRNNs — into active RNAi drugs.

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New and more effective treatments for diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) and venous leg ulcers (VLUs) are sorely needed. One of the today’s most promising approaches harnesses regenerative medicine, specifically cell therapy. Israel-based Macrocure Ltd.’s lead product, CureXcell™, harnesses living white blood cells, including macrophages, neutrophils and lymphocytes, that are crucial to initiating, promoting and completing the process of cellular regeneration and wound healing for both of these conditions.

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The scientific community has made significant strides in recent years in identifying important genetic contributors to malignancy and developing therapeutic agents that target altered genes and proteins. A recent approach to treat cancer called synthetic lethality takes advantage of genetic alterations in cancer cells that make them more susceptible to certain drugs. Alan F. List, MD, president and CEO of Moffitt Cancer Center, co-authored an article on synthetic lethality featured in the October 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Paul Brindley, Ph.D., professor of microbiology, immunology, and tropical medicine, and scientific director of the Research Center for Neglected Diseases of Poverty at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, co-authored a perspective in the journal Science, calling for researchers to adapt new technologies to research neglected parasitic flatworms.

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Six Case Western Reserve scientists are part of an international team that has discovered two compounds that show promise in decreasing inflammation in diseases such as ulcerative colitis and arthritis. The compounds appear to curtail inflammation-triggering signals from RIPK2. These findings appear in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

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In a first step toward future human therapies, researchers at The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have shown that esophageal tissue can be grown in vivo from both human and mouse cells.

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Sandia National Laboratories researcher Jason Wheeler has been working to make prostheses more comfortable in a twofold approach: sensors that detect how the prosthesis fits and a system to make the fit better. He points out it doesn't matter how high-tech a prosthesis is if it's not comfortable.

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Researchers have developed a technique to jump-start the body's systems for creating blood vessels, opening the door for potential new treatments for diseases whose impacts include amputation and blindness.

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Cancer vaccines have recently emerged as a promising approach for killing tumor cells before they spread. But so far, most clinical candidates haven't worked that well. Now, scientists have developed a new way to deliver vaccines that successfully stifled tumor growth when tested in laboratory mice. And the key, they report in the journal ACS Nano, is in the vaccine's unique stealthy nanoparticles.

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A team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has unlocked the enzymatic synthesis process of rare sugars, which are useful in developing drugs with low side effects using a process more friendly to the environment.

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Researchers sequence the entire genome of the Clostridium autoethanogenum bacterium, which is used to sustainably produce fuel and chemicals from a range of raw materials, including gases derived from biomass and industrial wastes.

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Over the past several decades, Michael Kinch of Washington University in St. Louis says, the pharmaceutical industry has managed to dismantle itself. “It’s done a really efficient job of it,” he said. In a provocative series of articles and interviews, Kinch, the director of the Center for Research Innovation in Business at the university, has been describing the history of this dismantling and its implications for the future of medicine. The inescapable conclusion is that “The process by which drugs are discovered and developed will be fundamentally different in the future,” he says.

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The liver provides critical functions, such as ridding the body of toxins. Its failure can be deadly, and there are few options for fixing it. But scientists now report in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces a way to potentially inject stem cells from tonsils, a body part we don't need, to repair damaged livers — all without surgery.

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In a new study published today, Sept. 8, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has added a new wrinkle to the cell differentiation equation, showing that the stiffness of the surfaces on which stem cells are grown can exert a profound influence on cell fate.

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A new immunotoxin works by getting shuttled into cancer cells, selectively destroying colon cancer, thanks to a quirk of biology

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Researchers at Penn State have demonstrated an acoustofluidic pump powered by a piezoelectric transducer about the size of a quarter. This reliable, inexpensive, programmable pump is a crucial feature for lab-on-a-chip devices that could make the diagnosis of many global life-threatening diseases easy and affordable.

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What if repairing large segments of damaged muscle tissue was as simple as mobilizing the body’s stem cells to the site of the injury? New research in mice and rats, conducted at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine, suggests that “in body” regeneration of muscle tissue might be possible by harnessing the body’s natural healing powers.

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A modified version of the Clostridium novyi (C. novyi-NT) bacterium can produce a strong and precisely targeted anti-tumor response in rats, dogs and now humans, according to a new report from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers.

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As hemp makes a comeback in the U.S. after a decades-long ban on its cultivation, scientists are reporting that fibers from the plant can pack as much energy and power as graphene, long-touted as the model material for supercapacitors. They’re presenting their work, which a start-up company is working on scaling up, at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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As the Food and Drug Administration mulls over whether to rein in the use of common antibacterial compounds that are causing growing concern among environmental health experts, scientists are reporting today that many pregnant women and their fetuses are being exposed to these substances. They will present their work at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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Wrapping wound dressings around fingers and toes can be tricky, but for burn victims, guarding them against infection is critical. Today, scientists are reporting the development of novel, ultrathin coatings called nanosheets that can cling to the body’s most difficult-to-protect contours and keep bacteria at bay. They’re speaking about their materials, which they’ve tested on mice, at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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UC San Francisco researchers have identified cells’ unique features within the developing human brain, using the latest technologies for analyzing gene activity in individual cells, and have demonstrated that large-scale cell surveys can be done much more efficiently and cheaply than was previously thought possible.

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Scientists at the University of Kentucky, led by nano-biotechnologist Peixuan Guo, have reported the discovery of a new, third class of biomotor, unique in that it uses a "revolution without rotation" mechanism. Recently, Guo's team reported that these revolution biomotors are widespread among many bacteria and viruses.

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Laboratories at The Scripps Research Institute are investigating antibodies to fight Ebola virus, including the three antibodies recently used to treat two American health care workers infected with the Ebola virus.

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While developing an important cancer drug, Wistar scientists discovered that mice without the TRAP-1 protein live healthier longer lives, with fewer tumors and signs of aging.

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AMP today reaffirmed its position that the vast majority of laboratory developed procedures should continue operating under the regulation of the CLIA program at the CMS and not be subject to pre-market review by the FDA, as suggested in the draft guidance notification issued to Congress on July 31, 2014.

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A team of Whitehead Institute researchers is bringing new levels of efficiency and accuracy to one of the most essential albeit tedious tasks of bench science: pipetting. Dubbed “iPipet,” the system converts an iPad or any tablet computer into a “smart bench” that guides the execution of complex pipetting protocols.

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A team of scientists in Israel and Germany have created robots that are only nanometers in length, small enough to maneuver inside the human body and possibly inside human cells.

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Bee, snake or scorpion venom could form the basis of a new generation of cancer-fighting drugs, scientists will report here today. They have devised a method for targeting venom proteins specifically to malignant cells while sparing healthy ones, reduces or eliminates side effects that the toxins would otherwise cause. Their study is part of the 248th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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The Kavli Foundation Lecture series features two prominent scientists: one in the booming area of ionic liquids, the other in medical materials. The former has made a novel compound with the potential to lower the energy it takes to capture carbon dioxide. The latter has engineered tissues and medical materials such as a stretchy glue that could transform surgery. They are presenting at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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Cyborg technology is bringing us real-life electronic skin, prosthetics and ultra-flexible circuits. Now taking this human-machine concept to an unprecedented level, pioneering scientists are working on the seamless marriage between electronics and brain signaling with the potential to transform our understanding of how the brain works — and how to treat its most devastating diseases. Their presentation is taking place at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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With nothing more than a smartphone and less than $10 of trinkets and hardware supplies, students at Missouri University of Science and Technology can build their own microscopes this fall as part of a biology lab.

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As one of the 10 largest medical exhibitions in the U.S., the 2014 AACC Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo is the place where breakthrough innovations in clinical testing and patient care are introduced to the healthcare world. This year, many of the trailblazing products displayed by the Expo’s 650 exhibitors will include the latest diagnostic technology in the field of mobile health.

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Robotic conference offers instruction to assist trained surgeons expand their minimally invasive surgical techniques.

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The groundbreaking scientific studies featured at the 2014 AACC Annual Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo will include research on a blood test for Alzheimer’s that uses biochip technology, a new test to diagnose colon cancer early, a more accurate method for determining multiple myeloma prognosis, a less stressful test for sleep apnea, and the development of a bank of biospecimens from pregnant women that could prove crucial for women’s health research.

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Researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center are exploring ways to wake up the immune system so it recognizes and attacks invading cancer cells. One pioneering approach uses nanoparticles to jumpstart the body’s ability to fight tumors

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COLA, the largest private accreditor of medical laboratories serving more than 8,000 across the U.S., successfully concluded its 2014 Leadership Summit in April. More than 30 thought leaders in health care, including physicians, regulators, public health experts, medical laboratory scientists, manufacturers, nurse practitioners and more gathered in San Francisco to discuss the future of laboratory medicine in the context of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The group explored the implications of the dynamics of ACA and changing payment policies on quality and learning in laboratory medicine.

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The nation’s healthcare system -- and with it, the laboratory community – is undergoing a period of tremendous change as The Affordable Care Act begins implementation and new healthcare delivery models such as The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) and Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) proliferate. With more than 70 percent of medical decisions based on lab data, laboratories are emerging as vital partners of these new healthcare teams. Labs are uniquely qualified to use the patient data they capture to provide feedback to allied health professionals that can increase efficiency and contain health-care costs while improving patient care.

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COLA Inc., based in Columbia, MD, an independent, nonprofit laboratory CLIA-accreditation organization, accrediting more than 7,000 clinical diagnostic labs on July, 2013, launched a new education subsidiary, COLA Resources Inc. (CRI®), whose mission is to “Provide educational & consultative services aimed at improving laboratory medicine and patient care.”

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Diazyme Laboratories today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted 510(K) clearance to market its Vitamin D assay for Clinical Chemistry Analyzers. In line with the rapid increasing clinical demands for testing of this important biomarker, Diazyme’s new Vitamin D assay, utilizing its femtoquantTM technology (a sensitive homogenous enzyme-immunoassay platform), provides the first fully automated Vitamin D test for use on general clinical chemistry analyzers. Diazyme’s Vitamin D assay measures total 25-hydroxy Vitamin D (sum of 25-(OH)D3 + 25-(OH)D2 ) levels.

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Applied and effortless simplicity of Burkert products have always been something to rely on – now we have added pure flexibility to the list of standards you can expect. The unique Pneumatic Dosing unit from Burkert – ultra precision and repeatability of fluid dosing come together with a flexible, customizable design giving you precisely the results that matter to you. Whether your world is dosing pharma media or syrup, vaccines or coffee flavors, wide ranging performance just met your changing needs.

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As a leading educator in laboratory medicine, COLA Resources Inc.’s (CRI®) goal is to continually update our education platform to reflect and support education regarding changes in regulatory requirements. The most recent regulatory changes impacting the clinical laboratory is the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) new Individualized Quality Control Plan (IQCP) quality control interpretive guidelines. CRI®’s IQCP program is designed to assist clinical laboratories develop and implement their own individualized quality control. The program contains an innovative and intuitive software program IQCP E-Optimizer™ and an IQCP Implementation Guide.

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Attending the CRI® Symposium for Clinical Laboratories, affords participants the opportunity to participate in discussions centered on EDUCATION FOR LABORATORY EXCELLENCE – making a positive impact for quality patient care. This year’s symposium will be held October 15-18, 2014 at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel & Spa Lake Buena Vista (Orlando), FL. Participants can attend a wide selection of educational sessions, earn up to 20 CME or P.A.C.E® credits, network with other healthcare professionals and visit the exhibit hall featuring the latest laboratory technology, equipment and supplies.

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A partnership born out of the URI Institute for Immunology and Informatics has resulted in a new web-based tool designed to help manufacturers of protein-based therapeutics improve the safety of their manufacturing processes, avoiding problems that caused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to suspend a clinical trial in 2012.

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Whitehead Institute scientists have genetically and enzymatically modified red blood cells to carry a range of valuable payloads—from drugs, to vaccines, to imaging agents—for delivery to specific sites throughout the body.

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Using a type of human stem cell, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have created a three-dimensional complement of human retinal tissue in the laboratory, which notably includes functioning photoreceptor cells capable of responding to light, the first step in the process of converting it into visual images.

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When stem cells are used to regenerate bone tissue, many wind up migrating away from the repair site, which disrupts the healing process. But a University of Rochester research team makes use of a technique that keeps the stem cells in place, resulting in faster and better tissue regeneration.