Press monitoring
Boeing’s Figuring Out How to Make Jet Fuel From Tobacco
8.8.2014 | Press monitoring
You can’t use tobacco while flying, but your plane can. Boeing is working with South African Airways to power the carrier’s planes with biofuel derived from a new breed of tobacco plant. Biofuels work just like fossil fuels, but they are made from renewable sources like algae, wood, agricultural waste, and camelina and jatropha plants. Finding...
Ebola Serum Turns Out to Be an Antibody Cocktail
7.8.2014 | Press monitoring
The “secret serum” being used to treat the two Americans infected with Ebola virus is a humanized, three-monoclonal-antibody experimental cocktail provided by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, a small San Diego-based biotech company. Known as ZMapp™, the product is the result of a collaboration between Mapp, LeafBio, Toronto-based Defyrus, the U.S....
Seamless gene correction of beta-thalassemia mutations in patient-specific cells
6.8.2014 | Press monitoring
A major hurdle in gene therapy is the efficient integration of a corrected gene into a patient's genome without mutating off-target sites. In a paper published today in Genome Research, scientists have used CRISPR/Cas genome editing technology to seamlessly and efficiently correct disease-causing mutations in cells from patients with...
Self-assembling anti-cancer molecules created in minutes
5.8.2014 | Press monitoring
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...
See-through organs and bodies will accelerate biomedical discoveries
4.8.2014 | Press monitoring
The ability to see through organs and even the entire body to visualize long-range connections between cells as well as fine-grained cellular structures has been a long-time dream of biologists. A study published by Cell Press July 31st in the journal Cell has now made that dream a reality, revealing simple methods for making opaque organs,...
8.2 percent of our DNA is functional
1.8.2014 | Press monitoring
Only 8.2% of human DNA is likely to be doing something important – is 'functional' – say Oxford University researchers. This figure is very different from one given in 2012, when some scientists involved in the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) project stated that 80% of our genome has some biochemical function. That claim has been...
Exploring 3-D printing to make organs for transplants
31.7.2014 | Press monitoring
Printing whole new organs for transplants sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but the real-life budding technology could one day make actual kidneys, livers, hearts and other organs for patients who desperately need them. In the ACS journal Langmuir, scientists are reporting new understanding about the dynamics of 3-D bioprinting that...
Ebola treatments caught in limbo
30.7.2014 | Press monitoring
Medical relief workers fighting a burgeoning Ebola outbreak in West Africa have not been welcomed with open arms. Death was all that the hazmat-suited visitors seemed to bring. Most patients who entered the makeshift hospitals died, their families forbidden to handle their bodies. Rumours flew that these newcomers were harvesting organs and...
Illuminating the dark side of the genome
29.7.2014 | Press monitoring
Almost 50 percent of our genome is made up of highly repetitive DNA, which makes it very difficult to be analysed. In fact, repeats are discarded in most genome-wide studies and thus, insights into this part of the genome remained limited. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE) in Freiburg now...
New, noncommittal mechanism of drug resistance discovered
28.7.2014 | Press monitoring
Microorganisms like bacteria and fungi can evade treatment by acquiring mutations in the genes targeted by antibiotics or antifungal drugs. These permanent mutations were once thought to be the only way for drug-resistant strains to evolve. Now a new study has shown that microorganisms can use a temporary silencing of drug targets -- known as...
