Collaboration will develop and further validate CN Bio’s in vitro model of Hepatitis B liver infection
CN Bio Innovations Ltd (CN Bio), an expert in developing leading edge human biomimetic platforms to test and develop therapeutics for serious diseases, announced today that it has signed a research agreement with Imperial College London to advance the development of in vitro models of liver infection based on the company’s LiverChip™ platform. The announcement coincides with the WHO World Hepatitis Day and serves to further...
AMSBIO, regular sponsor of the annual Beatson International Cancer Conference announces that the winner of the AMSBIO-Trevigen prize for the best poster was Katarzyna Grzes - a PhD researcher specialising in Cell Signaling and Immunology at the University of Dundee (Scotland, UK).
Miss Grzes was named as winner of the Poster Prize for the best presented and most interesting poster for her work entitled 'Metabolic regulation in PTEN null T lymphoma / leukemia'. As one of Cancer Research UK’s core-funded institutes - the Beatson Institute carries out a program of world-class science directed at understanding key aspects of cancer cell behaviour, and try to translate these discoveries into new therapies and...
Telstar has obtained the CFDA authorization license for the commercialization of its biologic safety cabinets for use as medical devices in medical centers and hospitals in China.
The license recognizes that equipment designed and manufactured by Telstar is consistently produced and controlled in accordance with CFDA quality standards. In the laboratory field, Telstar manufactures various ranges of biological safety cabinets which are specially designed for research in Life Science markets including universities, hospitals and R&D laboratories, along with pharma and...
Anasys Instruments reports on the recent installation of an AFM-IR system at the Corrosion & Protection Centre, part of the School of Materials at the University of Manchester for use by the group of Professor Stuart Lyon.
Corrosion is of primary concern in many industrial sectors, including oil, transportation, infrastructure, nuclear, and even bio-technology. At the University of Manchester, the Corrosion and Protection Centre has one of the world’s largest academic bases focused on corrosion and its control. Professor Stuart Lyon is the Director of Research and AkzoNobel Professor of Corrosion Control in the School of Materials. His research interests are...
Almirall today announced that it has entered an agreement to transfer to Astrazeneca the rights to Almirall’s respiratory franchise for an initial consideration of $875 million on completion, and up to $1.22 billion in development, launch, and sales-related milestones.
AstraZeneca has also agreed to make various sales-related payments. Upon completion of the transaction, AstraZeneca will own the rights for the development and commercialisation of Almirall’s existing proprietary respiratory business, including rights to revenues from Almirall’s existing partnerships, as well as its pipeline of investigational novel therapies. The franchise includes Eklira® (aclidinium); LAS40464, the combination of...
Thermo Fisher Scientific has updated an ion chromatography (IC) method to more easily determine total choline (free and bound forms) in 17 samples representing all forms of infant formula, adult nutritionals, and pediatric formulas (powder, ready-to-feed products, and liquid concentrates).
Application Update (AU) 193: Choline in Infant Formula and Adult Nutritionals, a Single Laboratory Validation demonstrates that this simple yet robust approach decreases sample preparation time while accurately determining choline in these products. The method detailed in AU 193 runs on an IC system that requires only a source of degassed DI water for generation of high-purity eluent, thus simplifying operation while increasing precision and...
Researchers at The School of Freshwater Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA, are using NanoSight Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) from Malvern Instruments to investigate the effects of nanoparticle contaminants on freshwater organisms.
The work, which is at the forefront of nanotoxicity testing, has focused on using the unique size, concentration and visualization capabilities provided by NTA to monitor how specific changes in nanoparticle surface chemistry influence the impact of the particles on molecular species in environmental media. NTA is used as part of an ensemble of analytical techniques that includes Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) with the...
Synexus has opened its 23rd Dedicated Research Centre in Bochum, its fourth in Germany.
The state-of-the-art clinic which moved from a much smaller site in Bochum is situated in the historic Kortum House. The five hundred square meter clinic runs primary care clinical trials for major clinical research organisations (CROs) and pharmaceutical companies and provides facilities for up to six professional investigators. Commenting on the new facility Christophe Berthoux, CEO of Synexus said: “Germany is one of our foremost locations for...
Hybrid Cloud Solution Connects Local Storage to the Cloud
Avere Systems, a leading provider of enterprise storage for the hybrid cloud, today announced that the Inova Translational Medicine Institute (ITMI) has chosen Avere for access to the world’s largest, centralized repository of whole genome sequence data. ITMI, a research and development arm of Inova Health System, will use Avere’s FXT Series Edge Filers with FlashMove™ software to move data into and out of the...
New Protocols Increase Stem Cell Expansion Outputs and Improve Differentiation into Cardiomyocytes
TAP Biosystems (now part of the Sartorius Stedim Biotech Group), a leading supplier of innovative cell culture and fermentation systems for life science applications, today announced that the ambr15™ micro bioreactor system is being used at the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM), Canada to rapidly develop methods for culturing stem cells in bioreactors, thus shortening timelines for successfully scaling-up and...
AFFiRiS AG announced today at a press conference in New York results of AFF008, a Phase I clinical trial of PD01A, a vaccine against Parkinson’s disease.
PD01A is the first therapy against the protein alpha-synuclein, a promising Parkinson’s drug target, to enter clinical testing. The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) supported the study with a $ 1.5 million grant, and presented at the press conference on the impact a disease-modifying therapy would have for patients. The Foundation will support a follow-up study testing a boost vaccination, the next step toward a Phase II trial...
Researchers have developed a simple and versatile method for making artificial anti-cancer molecules that mimic the properties of one of the body’s natural defence systems.
The chemists, led by Professor Peter Scott at the University of Warwick, UK, have been able to produce molecules that have a similar structure to peptides which are naturally produced in the body to fight cancer and infection. Published in Nature Chemistry, the molecules produced in the research have proved effective against colon cancer cells in laboratory tests, in collaboration with Roger Phillips at the Institute for Cancer Therapeutics, Bradford, UK. Artificial peptides had previously been difficult and prohibitively expensive to manufacture in large quantities, but the...
Frost & Sullivan Life Sciences Senior Research Analyst Sriram Radhakrishnan discusses the available screening options to enable early detection of the virus
“The Zaire Ebola virus causes a highly contagious and lethal hemorrhagic fever leading to the death of the infected individuals. The recent outbreak of the virus in West Africa has alarmed the world, especially Europe and the US, owing to the geographical speed of the infection spread and high fatality rates. While many experts feel that the chances of the spread of the virus are very low in Europe and the US, healthcare authorities have been on a...
Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT), the world leader in oligonucleotide synthesis, is sharing its wealth of qPCR expertise and knowledge in a special qPCR compendium edition of the DECODED newsletter, available free of charge online.
In this issue, number 4.2, researchers can read an interview with internationally recognized expert on quantitative PCR, Dr Jo Vandesompele. Discussing the common issues researchers face when using qPCR, and the future direction of the technology, Dr Vandesompele notes a trend towards digital PCR (dPCR). For those who want to discover dPCR in more depth there is a special article dedicated to the topic – ‘Digital PCR (dPCR) – what is it and...
Is your method good enough for EU Regulation No. 1169/2011?
In the future it will be mandatory in all member states of the European Union to indicate the calorie content on processed foods along with the following six nutrients: fat, saturated fatty acids, carbohydrates, sugar, protein and salt (EU Regulation No. 1169/2011). When it comes to the determination of the salt content, thermometric titration is superior to any other method with regard to cost, accuracy, ease of use, and robustness.
EKF Diagnostics, the global diagnostics company, announces that the latest results from its collaboration with the Institute of Life Sciences at the University of Swansea, UK, have continued to confirm the effectiveness of its PointMan™ DNA enrichment technology for isolating and characterizing low-level DNA mutations in blood.
This is significant since with such sensitivity, it paves the way for the possibility of using a simple blood test to screen and diagnose different cancers, as well as monitor the efficacy of anti-cancer therapies. Following work undertaken by the Swansea-based team earlier this year, which successfully detected circulating free DNA (cfDNA) mutations from melanoma patients using PointMan, further studies were carried out on...
Viruses designed to target and kill cancer cells could boost the effectiveness of chemotherapy to the arms and legs and help avoid amputation, a new study reports.
Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, tested the effectiveness of a genetically engineered version of the virus used to vaccinate against smallpox. They found use of the virus alongside isolated limb perfusion chemotherapy – given directly to blood vessels supplying the affected arm or leg as an alternative to amputation – was more effective in rats than either treatment on its own. The study, published in the...
FRAME is calling for more collaboration between alternatives organisations and the pharmaceutical industry following publication of a new investigation of preclinical drugs trials using laboratory animals.
Scientific papers covering more than 2,300 substances tested on rats, mice and rabbits were analysed to measure the likelihood ratio that chemicals showing no adverse reactions would behave the same way in humans. The paper, published in FRAME's scientific journal ATLA, says: "The current nadir of new drug approvals and the drying-up of pipelines may be a direct consequence of continued animal use. Our results for these additional preclinical species have...
Integrating an INTEGRA VIAFLO 96 multichannel pipette into their high throughput expression facility has enabled Molecular Partners (Zurich, Switzerland) to streamline the discovery and development of a novel class of targeted protein therapeutics termed DARPins.
DARPins are a next generation of protein therapeutics combining the advantages of antibodies and small molecule drugs. High target specificity and potency, small size, cost-effective production and a whole range of possible multi-specific format choices gives them the potential to surpass existing antibody drugs and revolutionize protein therapeutics. Andreas Lehmann, an Expert Technical Assistant working in Molecular Partners 96-well high throughput expression facility commented...
To support genomic clinical research, being undertaken to prepare the local area for personalized medicine, the Institutional Biobank of Lausanne (Lausanne, Switzerland) has invested in 2D sample storage consumables from Micronic to safeguard its valuable samples.
The Institutional Biobank of Lausanne (BIL) was created to support clinical research and more specifically research in genomics. After the sequencing of all local patient samples in the biobank, BIL aims to exploit the genomic and clinical data for specific research projects. This data will be used to better understand disease, better target individuals who respond to treatment (personalized medicine) as well as identify patients who consent to...
The first high-resolution X-ray crystal structure of the metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGlu5) transmembrane domain was reported in Nature this week.
The work was performed at Heptares Therapeutics, a leading drug discovery and development company using TTP Labtech’s innovative liquid handling technology for lipidic cubic phase crystallography (mosquito LCP). Dr Andy Doré, Head of Crystallography at Heptares Therapeutics and joint first author of the recent article in Nature, stated, "the mosquito LCP was used for all crystallisation setups of the mGlu5-StaR resulting in us...
Anasys Instruments reports on EPFL’s Francesco Simone Ruggeri success winning a poster award at the recent annual meeting of the Swiss Physics Society held at the University of Fribourg.
Francesco Simone Ruggeri is a member of the Doctoral Program in the group of Professor Giovanni Dietler, head of the Laboratory of the Physics of Living Matter at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). The research activity of the laboratory of physics of living matter is mainly devoted to the study of DNA topology, cellular machines, protein mechanics and high-resolution low temperature Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)...
CN Bio Innovations Ltd (CN Bio), an expert in developing leading edge human biomimetic platforms to test and develop therapeutics for serious diseases, announced today that it has signed a research agreement with Imperial College London to advance the development of in vitro models of liver infection based on the company’s LiverChip™ platform. The announcement coincides with the WHO World Hepatitis Day and serves to further...
Miss Grzes was named as winner of the Poster Prize for the best presented and most interesting poster for her work entitled 'Metabolic regulation in PTEN null T lymphoma / leukemia'. As one of Cancer Research UK’s core-funded institutes - the Beatson Institute carries out a program of world-class science directed at understanding key aspects of cancer cell behaviour, and try to translate these discoveries into new therapies and...
The license recognizes that equipment designed and manufactured by Telstar is consistently produced and controlled in accordance with CFDA quality standards. In the laboratory field, Telstar manufactures various ranges of biological safety cabinets which are specially designed for research in Life Science markets including universities, hospitals and R&D laboratories, along with pharma and...
Corrosion is of primary concern in many industrial sectors, including oil, transportation, infrastructure, nuclear, and even bio-technology. At the University of Manchester, the Corrosion and Protection Centre has one of the world’s largest academic bases focused on corrosion and its control. Professor Stuart Lyon is the Director of Research and AkzoNobel Professor of Corrosion Control in the School of Materials. His research interests are...
AstraZeneca has also agreed to make various sales-related payments. Upon completion of the transaction, AstraZeneca will own the rights for the development and commercialisation of Almirall’s existing proprietary respiratory business, including rights to revenues from Almirall’s existing partnerships, as well as its pipeline of investigational novel therapies. The franchise includes Eklira® (aclidinium); LAS40464, the combination of...
Application Update (AU) 193: Choline in Infant Formula and Adult Nutritionals, a Single Laboratory Validation demonstrates that this simple yet robust approach decreases sample preparation time while accurately determining choline in these products. The method detailed in AU 193 runs on an IC system that requires only a source of degassed DI water for generation of high-purity eluent, thus simplifying operation while increasing precision and...
The work, which is at the forefront of nanotoxicity testing, has focused on using the unique size, concentration and visualization capabilities provided by NTA to monitor how specific changes in nanoparticle surface chemistry influence the impact of the particles on molecular species in environmental media. NTA is used as part of an ensemble of analytical techniques that includes Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) with the...
The state-of-the-art clinic which moved from a much smaller site in Bochum is situated in the historic Kortum House. The five hundred square meter clinic runs primary care clinical trials for major clinical research organisations (CROs) and pharmaceutical companies and provides facilities for up to six professional investigators. Commenting on the new facility Christophe Berthoux, CEO of Synexus said: “Germany is one of our foremost locations for...
Avere Systems, a leading provider of enterprise storage for the hybrid cloud, today announced that the Inova Translational Medicine Institute (ITMI) has chosen Avere for access to the world’s largest, centralized repository of whole genome sequence data. ITMI, a research and development arm of Inova Health System, will use Avere’s FXT Series Edge Filers with FlashMove™ software to move data into and out of the...
TAP Biosystems (now part of the Sartorius Stedim Biotech Group), a leading supplier of innovative cell culture and fermentation systems for life science applications, today announced that the ambr15™ micro bioreactor system is being used at the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM), Canada to rapidly develop methods for culturing stem cells in bioreactors, thus shortening timelines for successfully scaling-up and...
PD01A is the first therapy against the protein alpha-synuclein, a promising Parkinson’s drug target, to enter clinical testing. The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) supported the study with a $ 1.5 million grant, and presented at the press conference on the impact a disease-modifying therapy would have for patients. The Foundation will support a follow-up study testing a boost vaccination, the next step toward a Phase II trial...
The chemists, led by Professor Peter Scott at the University of Warwick, UK, have been able to produce molecules that have a similar structure to peptides which are naturally produced in the body to fight cancer and infection. Published in Nature Chemistry, the molecules produced in the research have proved effective against colon cancer cells in laboratory tests, in collaboration with Roger Phillips at the Institute for Cancer Therapeutics, Bradford, UK. Artificial peptides had previously been difficult and prohibitively expensive to manufacture in large quantities, but the...
“The Zaire Ebola virus causes a highly contagious and lethal hemorrhagic fever leading to the death of the infected individuals. The recent outbreak of the virus in West Africa has alarmed the world, especially Europe and the US, owing to the geographical speed of the infection spread and high fatality rates. While many experts feel that the chances of the spread of the virus are very low in Europe and the US, healthcare authorities have been on a...
In the future it will be mandatory in all member states of the European Union to indicate the calorie content on processed foods along with the following six nutrients: fat, saturated fatty acids, carbohydrates, sugar, protein and salt (EU Regulation No. 1169/2011). When it comes to the determination of the salt content, thermometric titration is superior to any other method with regard to cost, accuracy, ease of use, and robustness.
This is significant since with such sensitivity, it paves the way for the possibility of using a simple blood test to screen and diagnose different cancers, as well as monitor the efficacy of anti-cancer therapies. Following work undertaken by the Swansea-based team earlier this year, which successfully detected circulating free DNA (cfDNA) mutations from melanoma patients using PointMan, further studies were carried out on...
Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, tested the effectiveness of a genetically engineered version of the virus used to vaccinate against smallpox. They found use of the virus alongside isolated limb perfusion chemotherapy – given directly to blood vessels supplying the affected arm or leg as an alternative to amputation – was more effective in rats than either treatment on its own. The study, published in the...
Scientific papers covering more than 2,300 substances tested on rats, mice and rabbits were analysed to measure the likelihood ratio that chemicals showing no adverse reactions would behave the same way in humans. The paper, published in FRAME's scientific journal ATLA, says: "The current nadir of new drug approvals and the drying-up of pipelines may be a direct consequence of continued animal use. Our results for these additional preclinical species have...
DARPins are a next generation of protein therapeutics combining the advantages of antibodies and small molecule drugs. High target specificity and potency, small size, cost-effective production and a whole range of possible multi-specific format choices gives them the potential to surpass existing antibody drugs and revolutionize protein therapeutics. Andreas Lehmann, an Expert Technical Assistant working in Molecular Partners 96-well high throughput expression facility commented...
The Institutional Biobank of Lausanne (BIL) was created to support clinical research and more specifically research in genomics. After the sequencing of all local patient samples in the biobank, BIL aims to exploit the genomic and clinical data for specific research projects. This data will be used to better understand disease, better target individuals who respond to treatment (personalized medicine) as well as identify patients who consent to...
The work was performed at Heptares Therapeutics, a leading drug discovery and development company using TTP Labtech’s innovative liquid handling technology for lipidic cubic phase crystallography (mosquito LCP). Dr Andy Doré, Head of Crystallography at Heptares Therapeutics and joint first author of the recent article in Nature, stated, "the mosquito LCP was used for all crystallisation setups of the mGlu5-StaR resulting in us...
Francesco Simone Ruggeri is a member of the Doctoral Program in the group of Professor Giovanni Dietler, head of the Laboratory of the Physics of Living Matter at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). The research activity of the laboratory of physics of living matter is mainly devoted to the study of DNA topology, cellular machines, protein mechanics and high-resolution low temperature Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)...