Feature Channels: Biotech

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The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr) – two leading non-profit research organizations – today announced the signing of a strategic affiliation that combines the two organizations into a new biomedical research entity with the tools and know-how to rapidly translate its scientific discoveries into life-saving medicines for the public benefit.

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The Department of Energy is partnering with the National Cancer Institute in an “all-government” approach to fighting cancer. Part of this partnership is a three-year pilot project called the Joint Design of Advanced Computing Solutions for Cancer (JDACSC), which will use Department of Energy supercomputing to build sophisticated computational models to facilitate breakthroughs in the fight against cancer on the molecular, patient and population levels.

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A novel invention by Kansas State University researchers may benefit biomedical professionals and the patients they serve during electrode and organ transplant procedures.

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Algae with altered intracellular signaling have increased oil yields

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Using the Titan supercomputer, an ORNL research team created models up to 330,000 atoms and ran simulations on Titan earlier this year that led to the discovery of a THF-water cosolvent phase separation on the faces of crystalline cellulose fiber.

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Researchers at Wichita State University have been awarded with a $1.125 million NASA grant to continue development of a smart skin biomedical sensor.

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A team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory will be developing new instrumentation aimed at determining the chemical and structural makeup of plant cell walls. The group is receiving $1 million a year for three years from the DOE’s Office of Science to develop a subdiffraction Raman imaging platform that will provide an unprecedented look at the specific chemical structures of plant cell walls and then determine how best to deconstruct plant material as a source of biofuels.

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Of the many elusive grails of agricultural biotechnology, the ability to confer nitrogen fixation into non-leguminous plants such as cereals ranks near the very top.

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Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) have found a way to nearly double the efficiency with which a commonly used industrial yeast strain converts plant sugars to biofuel. The newly engineered “super yeast” could boost the economics of making ethanol, specialty biofuels and bioproducts.

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A group of researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have completed a comprehensive molecular analysis of a toddler who developed as a female despite having a male genetic background, termed XY sex reversal. The study identifies for the first time how the machinery for destruction of proteins can render a person poised at the borderline between male and female patterns of development.

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Around the corner from University of Iowa biology professor David Soll’s office is an exclusive reservoir of biological agents used by researchers worldwide seeking to cure cancer. Its mission is deeply personal for Soll. He lost his wife to cancer, and he wants to put an end to the disease.

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ECS is celebrating Open Access Week this year by giving the world a preview of what complete open access will look like. From October 24th through October 30th, we are taking down the paywall to the ECS Digital Library, making over 132,000 scientific articles free and accessible to anyone.

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Laboratories throughout the country are highly automated operations but logging instruments checks and calibrations to meet regulatory requirements is still mostly a manual paper task. A new medical application virtually eliminates the need for paper logs and allows laboratory engineers and technicians to perform routine quality inspections and equipment maintenance using a tablet. It’s called the Assured Compliance SolutionTM, which was developed by Kapios Health, a joint venture between Toledo-based ProMedica and Palo Alto, Calif.-based Kaonsoft.

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When scientists reported in 2014 that they had successfully engineered a poplar plant “designed for deconstruction,” the finding made international news. The highly degradable poplar, the first of its kind, could substantially reduce the energy use and cost of converting biomass to a number of products, including biofuels, pulp and paper. Now, some of those same researchers are reporting a surprising new revelation.

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New research by scientists from the University of Chicago demonstrates that the enzyme ALKBH1 can remove molecular modifications from transfer RNA, causing a measurable effect on protein translation in the cell. The study, published Oct. 13 in Cell, sheds new light on how cells control gene expression, and suggests the possibility that transfer RNA (tRNA) influences cellular processes beyond protein translation.

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Researchers in the laboratory of George Church, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, are working to produce the most modified bacterial genome to date. The researchers believe the method they developed will help others who are trying to make many edits at once to any organism’s genome. Below is a Q&A with the scientists, Nili Ostrov and Matthieu Landon.

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Researchers at the University of Arkansas and their collaborators will use a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to study the origin of Leigh’s disease, a rare and incurable disease that affects the central nervous system.

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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has named the California Precision Medicine Consortium as a regional medical center group in the national network of health care provider organizations that will implement the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) Cohort Program.

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The 2016 AAPS Annual Meeting and Exposition will bring together more than 6,500 scientists, business leaders, government officials and students from around the world to share and learn the latest scientific advances and industry developments.

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/PRNewswire/ -- The Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association (PPTA) and its member companies are sponsoring the fourth annual International Plasma Awareness Week, October 9-15.

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Neidhardt served on the Foundation’s Board of Trustees for nearly two decades and was the first non-Waksman family member to be entrusted with the leadership of the Foundation.

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The Case for Quality, a collaboration between FDA, the medical device industry, healthcare providers and quality experts, released today its first report on the feasibility and effectiveness of using standardized medical device performance data and analytic techniques to help hospitals better compare and evaluate product quality.

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About 100 million years ago, a lowly amoeba pulled off a stunning heist, grabbing genes from an unsuspecting bacterium to replace those it had lost.

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Supported by a $9 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, a diverse team led by Johns Hopkins researchers has begun looking for new ways to attack one of the scariest traits of this disease: its frequent refusal to stay in one place.

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A little goo will do to get RNA and DNA to progress toward self-replication. Could some abundant ingredient have helped the precursors of genes become life molecules? Another indicator that little drama may have been necessary in chemical evolution.

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Patients who have received a solid organ transplant require lifelong immunosuppressive therapy. The threat of transplant rejection due to insufficient drug therapy must be balanced against increased risks of infections and cancer from excessive immunosuppression. A significant unmet need exists for non-invasive diagnostic tools to monitor transplant recipients, especially for early detection of active injury and rejection. A report in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics describes a new non-invasive test that measures donor-derived cell-free DNA (dd-cfDNA) in plasma that has the potential to reduce complications and rejection, improving outcomes in transplant recipients.

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These latest findings represent the first detailed biochemical characterization of a flavoenzyme involved in antibiotic resistance.

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The bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa can thrive in environments as different as the moist, warm tissue in our lungs, and the dry, nutrient-deprived surface of an office wall. Such adaptability makes it problematic in healthcare – where it causes infections in cases of cystic fibrosis, cancer, HIV, and other immune-compromised conditions – but also makes it a fascinating subject for study.

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Cells never forget to take out the trash. It has long been known that cells tag proteins for degradation by labelling them with ubiquitin, a signal described as “the molecular kiss of death”. Tim Clausen’s group at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna identified an analogous system in gram-positive bacteria, where the role of a degradation tag is fulfilled by a little known post-translational modification: arginine phosphorylation. The discovery, which is published online by the journal Nature, opens new avenues for designing antibacterial therapies.

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Bionic enzymes got a needed boost in speed thanks to new research at the Berkeley Lab. By pairing a noble metal with a natural enzyme, scientists created a hybrid capable of churning out molecules at a rate comparable to biological counterparts.

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Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered exactly how selenium is incorporated into selenoproteins. The finding is published in the journal Nature Communications

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Scientists discovered a new way in which microRNAs can determine the fate of cells in the course of their development. This could be a key to understanding how complex organisms are built, say researchers from the Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna.

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Supervisors approve $3 million in funding to create an incubator to help bioscience startups bring therapies and cures to market.

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Using an unbiased screen in yeast, a team of Whitehead Institute and Stanford University scientists have identified dozens of prion-like proteins that could change the defining characteristics of these unusual proteins.

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Nikhil U. Nair, Ph.D., of Tufts University School of Engineering, has been honored with the 2016 National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award for his work on engineering naturally-occurring, safe, gut bacteria to treat inborn errors of metabolism (IEMs), a relatively poorly-studied family of debilitating genetic disorders that affect patients from birth.

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In a paper published Sept. 22 in Scientific Reports, engineers at the University of Washington unveil peptides that could help bridge the gap where artificial meets biological — harnessing biological rules to exchange information between the biochemistry of our bodies and the chemistry of our devices.

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An international collaboration of government, university, and industry resources showed the promise of using RNA as a safe way to both make and modify induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) from patient cells for clinical applications in regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, and personalized medicine.

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An eccentric enzyme known so far only to exist in a single type of bacterium breaks down a toxin related to TNT and pesticides with counterintuitive moves.

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he National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the University of Pennsylvania a $24 Million, five-year grant to establish a Science and Technology Center (STC) focused on engineering mechanobiology, or the way cells exert and are influenced by the physical forces in their environment.

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From precious metals to maggots, physicians have tried just about everything to help reverse the negative spiral of chronic wounds. And for good reason – these types of non-healing wounds currently cost the healthcare system in excess of $20 billion a year, and millions of sufferers endure months of pain, disability and the constant concern of infection. Now, scientists are testing an experimental electrified mesh bandage that zaps bacteria and stimulates tissue healing.

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A new scientific study conducted by a team of leading geneticists has characterized how cells know when to stop translating DNA into proteins, a critical step in maintaining healthy protein levels and cell function.

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A Northwestern University research team has developed a 3-D printable ink that produces a synthetic bone implant that rapidly induces bone regeneration and growth. This hyperelastic “bone” material, whose shape can be easily customized, one day could be especially useful for the treatment of bone defects in children. Antibiotics also can be incorporated into the ink to reduce infection. The printed biomaterial’s many unique properties set it apart from current bone repair materials.

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MSU Prof. Anil Jain and his team of biometrics researchers demonstrated in a first-of-its-kind study that digital scans of a young child's fingerprints can be correctly identified one year later. A child could be identified by a simple fingerprint scan at each medical visit, allowing them to get proper medical care such as life-saving vaccinations or food supplements.

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In its first-of-its-kind university/industry partnership, FAU and scientists from Sancilio & Company, Inc. are working together to train highly skilled workers in biopharmaceuticals and drug development.

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Christopher H. Contag will join Michigan State University as the inaugural director of the Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering and the chairperson of the new Department of Biomedical Engineering.

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Can having a few drinks help people with clinical depression feel better? Yes. At least in terms of biochemistry.

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Lei Ding, a researcher at the University of Oklahoma’s Stephenson School of Biomedical Engineering, was recently honored with IEEE’s Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society 2016 Early Career Achievement Award. Ding received this award for his seminal original contributions to research in functional neuroimaging technologies, multimodal neuroimaging technologies, brain network mapping technologies, neuroenhancement and neuromodulation technologies. He works with these technologies to find potential better methods of early diagnosis and treatments of various neurological and psychiatric disorders, including autism, cerebral palsy and balance disorder.

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Leading experts from the international biomedical research community announced today that they have the fundamentals of what will become the first detailed standardized guidelines for validating research antibodies. The outcomes of this week’s Antibody Validation: Standards, Policies, and Practices workshop promise to increase reproducibility in preclinical research and improve the chances for breakthroughs in treatments and cures.

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Randy Olson, PhD, a senior data scientist with Penn’s Institute for Biomedical Informatics (IBI), started publishing optimized road trip maps, and now uses his analytical skills to tackle some of biomedicine's biggest questions.

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In the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, five people died from exposure to anthrax-laced letters, and several more were infected. Fifteen years on, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars to fortify the nation’s biodefenses against future attacks, but is it enough? The cover story of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, examines whether the U.S. is really ready for another Amerithrax