Biotechnology news

• You’d Look Good in Designer Genes

  01-02-2017 17:39
  
  Genetic engineering will soon make commercial bluejean production cheaper than ever, writes Henry Miller in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal:
  Many food activists and radical environmentalists have spread misinformation about genetic engineering, attributing to it nonexistent risks, injuries and deaths. Some activists have even vandalized the field trials designed to perform exactly the sort of (superfluous) risk assessment that they demand.
  Genetic engineering doesn’t harm the environ
  
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• Diversity of Kids’ Cancer More Epigenetic Than Genetic

  01-02-2017 16:20
  Tumor cells may multiply quickly or slowly, and sow metastasis and dodge the immune system more or less strenuously. All this variability may be ascribed to genetic heterogeneity—but not always. Some cancers have low genetic complexity. For example, childhood cancers tend to harbor less genetic complexity than the cancers that afflict the elderly. And yet childhood cancers, like other cancers, manifest in diverse ways.To what may the heterogeneity of childhood cancers be ascribed, if not g
  
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• Astellas to Identify Potential Xtandi Patients Using GenomeDx Tests, Database

  01-02-2017 15:57
  Astellas will identify active-surveillance prostate cancer patients who may benefit from Xtandi ®  (enzalutamide)—the drug it co-markets with Medivation—by using GenomeDx’s Decipher ® Classifier tests and Decipher Genomics Resource Information Database (GRID ® ), GenomeDx said today.The value of the collaboration was not disclosed.Astellas has agreed to provide GenomeDx with tumor samples from its Phase II ENACT trial (NCT02799475), designed to compare the time
  
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• CRISPR Variant Produces Tuberculosis-Resistant Cows

  01-02-2017 15:55
  With over 10 million active cases in 2015 and close to 2 million deaths, tuberculosis (TB) remains a leading cause of death worldwide. Moreover, the rampant spread of drug-resistant TB has rendered many common therapies and vaccines useless. Yet now, a team of researchers from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Northwest A&F University in Shaanxi, China, has successfully utilized an innovative form of the genome-editing technique CRISPR to insert a new gene into the cow genome, rendering
  
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• NAP Drug Blocks Formation of Alzheimer's Neurofibrillary Tangles

  01-02-2017 15:24
  It's long been known that tau is a key brain protein involved in Alzheimer's disease and other brain diseases. Aggregates of tau, known as neurofibrillary tangles, have been associated with nerve cell death and cognitive decline.Scientists from Tel Aviv University (TAU) published a study ("ADNP/NAP Dramatically Increase Microtubule End-Binding Protein–Tau Interaction: A Novel Avenue for Protection against Tauopathy") in Molecular Psychiatry that pinpoints the mechanism harne
  
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• Industry Groups Pledge Cooperation with Trump

  01-02-2017 15:15
  Biopharma’s two key trade groups offered to cooperate with President Trump following his meeting yesterday with industry leaders in which he committed to overhauling the FDA and shortening the approval time for new treatments, while restating his call for lower prescription drug prices.Trump was joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, during the meeting, characterized by the administration as a “listening sess
  
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• PDGx Wins SBIR Contract for Assay to Inform on Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy

  01-02-2017 13:48
  Personal Genome Diagnostics (PGDx) has been awarded a Phase I SBIR contract from the National Cancer Institute to develop a cost-effective diagnostic that can help to identify cancer patients who will most likely benefit from checkpoint inhibitor therapy. The work will focus on developing a liquid biopsy assay, based on the firm’s MutatorDETECT™ technology, for quantitatively evaluating a patient’s tumor mutation load from cell-free tumor DNA found in plasma.PDGx says that whil
  
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• Sanofi, Regeneron RA Biologic, Kevzara, Achieves First Global Approval, in Canada

  01-02-2017 12:30
  Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ rheumatoid arthritis drug, Kevzara™ (sarilumab), achieved its first approval, by Health Canada. Clearance by the Canadian regulator covers use of the interleukin-6 receptor (IL-6R)-targeting antibody for treating moderately to severely active RA in adult patients who have either not responded adequately, or who are intolerant to one or more biologic or no-biologic disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs).A decision on sarilumab by the Euro
  
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