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BioLife Solutions announces biologic packaging products pre-filled with GMP biopreservation media

BioLife Solutions, Inc., a leading developer, manufacturer, and marketer of biopreservation tools for cells, tissues, and organs, and OriGen Biomedical, a leading provider of biologic packaging products for research and clinical blood and cell-based therapies, today announced that the companies will introduce sterile standard and custom biologic packaging products pre-filled with BioLife's serum-free, protein-free HypoThermosol® cell and tissue storage/transport media and CryoStor™ cryopreservation media.

21 Jan 2010

Study lays groundwork to develop new treatments for cardiovascular disease and other conditions

In a significant step toward restoring healthy blood circulation to treat a variety of diseases, a team of scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College has developed a new technique and described a novel mechanism for turning human embryonic and pluripotent stem cells into plentiful, functional endothelial cells, which are critical to the formation of blood vessels.

21 Jan 2010

Researchers explain how HSV dismantles host's defense systems

A viral infection is like an uninvited, tenacious houseguest in the cell, using a range of tricks to prevent its eviction. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified one of the key proteins allowing herpes simplex virus (HSV) DNA to fly under the radar of their hosts' involuntary hospitality.

21 Jan 2010

Mouse sperm can discriminate between its brethren and competing sperm, says study

Some mouse sperm can discriminate between its brethren and competing sperm from other males, clustering with its closest relatives to swim faster in the race to the egg. But this sort of cooperation appears to be present only in certain promiscuous species, where it affords an individual's sperm a competitive advantage over that of other males.

21 Jan 2010

Discovery of new class of compounds may help fight hepatitis C

Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have discovered a novel class of compounds that, in experiments in vitro, inhibit replication of the virus responsible for hepatitis C. If these compounds prove effective in infected humans as well, they may dramatically accelerate efforts to confront this virus’s propensity to rapidly acquire drug resistance, while possibly skirting some of the troubling side effects common among therapies in current use and in late-stage development.

21 Jan 2010

New class of HCV inhibitors discovered by Eiger BioPharmaceuticals

Eiger BioPharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company developing antiviral therapies, announced today the publication of research from the labs of Stanford scientist and Eiger Founder, Dr. Jeffrey Glenn, M.D., Ph.D. and colleagues entitled, "Identification of a Novel Class of HCV Inhibitors". Published in the January 20th edition of Science and Translational Medicine, the research validates a domain, termed 4BAH2, within the non-structural protein (NS4B) of the HCV genome, as essential for HCV replication and describes the development of a high-throughput screen leading to the identification of small molecule inhibitors of 4BAH2.

21 Jan 2010

Xbrane Bioscience signs licensing arrangement with Vaxiion Therapeutics

The Swedish biotech company Xbrane Bioscience and the San Diego based biotech company Vaxiion Therapeutics, Inc. have announced that they have reached a licensing arrangement granting Xbrane Bioscience rights to Vaxiion’s proprietary protein production system – the Rhamex System™.

21 Jan 2010

Maturation disorders of nerve terminals may trigger autism

For brain cells to communicate, the contacts to each other must function. The protein molecule neuroligin-1 plays an important role in this as it stimulates the necessary maturation processes at the contact sites (synapses) of the nerves.

21 Jan 2010

Health Canada approves Novartis' Afinitor to treat patients with mRCC

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. (Novartis) announced today that Afinitor(R) (everolimus), a once-daily oral cancer treatment, has been approved by Health Canada for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC), also known as advanced kidney cancer, after failure of initial treatment with VEGF-receptor targeted therapies Sutent(R) (sunitinib) or Nexavar(R) (sorafenib).

20 Jan 2010

TUM biophysicists map changes in energy landscape of zipper-like protein molecule

Biophysicists at TUM, the Technische Universitaet Muenchen, have published the results of single-molecule experiments that bring a higher-resolution tool to the study of protein folding. How proteins arrive at the three-dimensional shapes that determine their essential functions - or cause grave diseases when folding goes wrong - is considered one of the most important and least understood questions in the biological and medical sciences.

20 Jan 2010

Scientists study fruit fly to identify key molecular signal in cancer metastasis

Scientists trying to understand how cancer cells invade healthy tissue have used the fruit fly's metamorphosis from maggot to flying insect as a guide to identify a key molecular signal that may be involved in both processes.

20 Jan 2010

Protein supplements do not improve athletes' performance

Protein supplements don't improve performance or recovery time and, according to a recent study, such supplements are inefficient for most athletes. "They are often poorly used or unnecessary by both high-level athletes and amateurs," says Martin Fr-chette, a researcher and graduate of the Universit- de Montr-al Department of Nutrition.

20 Jan 2010

Scientists explore new ways to counteract viral infections

For the first time the research world has managed to measure the energy that is used when a virus infects a cell. The aim is to find a way to reduce the amount of energy inside the virus and thereby ultimately find a medicine that can counteract infections.

20 Jan 2010

Study shows lack of protease-activated receptors may cause neural tube defects

New research, published by Cell Press in the January 19th issue of the journal Developmental Cell, provides intriguing insight into how the nervous system forms during very early embryonic development.

20 Jan 2010

HSF1A stimulates more protein chaperones and reduces protein misfolding

Scientists at Duke University Medical Center have found some compounds that improve a cell's ability to properly "fold" proteins and could lead to promising drugs for degenerative nerve diseases, including Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.

20 Jan 2010

Researchers show how gliomas can evade drugs aimed at blocking EGFR

Researchers at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Moores UCSD Cancer Center have shown one way in which gliomas, a deadly type of brain tumor, can evade drugs aimed at blocking a key cell signaling protein, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR),that is crucial for tumor growth.

20 Jan 2010

Scientists discover Ebola's immune evasion strategies

A research team led by Gaya Amarasinghe, an assistant professor of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, had previously solved the structure of a critical part of an Ebola protein known as VP35, which is involved in host immune suppression.

20 Jan 2010

Human-milk diet nourishes very low-birth-weight preterm infants in NICU

Prolacta Bioscience, the first and only company to offer human milk fortifier (HMF) made from 100% human breast milk for premature and critically ill infants, has announced the results of a groundbreaking study that will have long-term benefits for the nutritional care of very low-birth-weight preterm infants (less than 2 pounds, 12 ounces or 1250 grams) in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

20 Jan 2010

Statins may protect SCD children from pneumococcal infection

New research suggests a family of widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs might help protect individuals from serious illness following bacterial infection, including the pneumococcal infections that pose a deadly threat to those with sickle cell disease.

20 Jan 2010

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals presents data on multiple therapeutic programs at RNAi Symposium

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading RNAi therapeutics company, today announced that it presented data from multiple pre-clinical and clinical programs at the “RNA Silencing: Mechanism, Biology, and Application” Keystone Symposium held January 14-19, 2010 in Keystone, Colorado. Alnylam and its collaborators presented data from Alnylam’s therapeutic programs including transthyretin (TTR)-mediated amyloidosis and Huntington’s disease, as well as new data on delivery approaches for the systemic delivery of RNAi therapeutics.

20 Jan 2010