Press monitoring
Chinese scientists to pioneer first human CRISPR trial
22.7.2016 | Press monitoring
Chinese scientists are on the verge of being first in the world to inject people with cells modified using the CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing technique. A team led by Lu You, an oncologist at Sichuan University’s West China Hospital in Chengdu, plans to start testing such cells in people with lung cancer next month. The clinical trial received ethical...
Genome of 6,000-year-old barley grains sequenced for first time
20.7.2016 | Press monitoring
An international team of researchers has succeeded for the first time in sequencing the genome of Chalcolithic barley grains. This is the oldest plant genome to be reconstructed to date. The 6,000-year-old seeds were retrieved from Yoram Cave in the southern cliff of Masada fortress in the Judean Desert in Israel, close to the Dead Sea....
First evidence that GM mosquitoes reduce disease
18.7.2016 | Press monitoring
Releasing genetically modified mosquitoes appears to have helped reduce cases of dengue in a town in Brazil. The news comes as the US is considering whether to approve the use of the same mosquitoes. The trial involved Aedes mosquitoes that had been modified to kill off wild mosquitoes of the same species, and was carried out in the town of...
Antibiotic resistance discovered in the guts of ancient mummies
15.7.2016 | Press monitoring
The gut bacteria inside 1000-year-old mummies from the Inca Empire are resistant to most of today’s antibiotics, even though we only discovered these drugs within the last 100 years. “At first we were very surprised,” Tasha Santiago-Rodriguez of California Polytechnic State University in San Louis Opisbo, told the Annual Meeting of the American...
E. coli: The ideal transport vehicle for next-gen vaccines?
13.7.2016 | Press monitoring
Researchers have developed an E. coli-based transport capsule designed to help next-generation vaccines do a more efficient and effective job than today's immunizations. The research highlights the capsule's success fighting pneumococcal disease, an infection that can result in pneumonia, sepsis, ear infections and meningitis.
Super-sniffer mice have a nose for explosives or disease
11.7.2016 | Press monitoring
Mammals detect smells through a series of sensory neurons and receptors in the nose. Receptors are tuned to specific odors, and the attached neurons transmit the signal to the brain for processing. You'll find a fairly even distribution of different receptors in any given mammalian nose, but we don't quite know how our DNA tells the neurons...
The debut of a robotic stingray, powered by light-activated rat cells
8.7.2016 | Press monitoring
Researchers have created a robotic mimic of a stingray that's powered and guided by light-sensitive rat heart cells. The work exhibits a new method for building bio-inspired robots by means of tissue engineering. Batoid fish, which include stingrays, are distinguished by their flat bodies and long, wing-like fins that extend from their heads....
Using gelatin to bulk up muscles-on-a-chip
6.7.2016 | Press monitoring
Growing muscle for lab-based testing is a tough process, and previous attempts to do so – making use of plastic scaffolds – have failed to produce fully-formed muscle fibers. Now, a team from the University of Southern California (USC) has taken a different approach, using gelatin and a water-logged gel, or "hydrogel," as a scaffold. This new...
Sanofi Pasteur Signs Research Agreement for Zika Vaccine
6.7.2016 | Press monitoring
Paris, France - July 6, 2016 - Sanofi and its vaccines global business unit Sanofi Pasteur announced today a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) on the co-development of a Zika vaccine candidate. According to the terms of the agreement, WRAIR will transfer its Zika purified...
Gene editing could destroy herpes viruses living inside you
4.7.2016 | Press monitoring
Almost all of us carry one form or another of herpes virus, and the consequences can be far worse than the occasional cold sore. Herpes viruses also cause shingles and can be implicated in blindness, birth defects and even cancer – and as yet, we can’t rid ourselves of them. One of our best ways to combat herpes viruses is by blocking the enzyme...
