Biotechnology news

• Misleading reporting from 60 Minutes and the Washington Post

  17-10-2017 18:39
  The scourge of opioid abuse is a growing public health crisis that has left no community in our nation untouched. It cuts across geographic, generational, political and economic divides, leaving in its wake countless victims, devastated families and economic ruin. America’s biopharmaceutical companies are committed to finding solutions to the crisis by leveraging advances in science and human biology to transform the standard of care for pain management through non-addictive, next generati
  
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• BIO Investor Forum Opens Amid Positive Signs for Emerging Biotechs

  17-10-2017 17:36
  Today the BIO Investor Forum opens in San Francisco amid optimism in the biotech sector. Venture investment is outpacing last year; the NASDAQ Biotech Index is up 38 percent since the election; and stocks of small, clinical-stage biotechs – those with no approved products – are up 78 percent.
  In 2017, innovation is advancing at a breathtaking pace – with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approving its first-ever CAR-T cell therapy for an untreatable form of c
  
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• Epigenetics Linked to Resistance for Anti-Cancer Drug

  17-10-2017 16:31
  Scientists at Vanderbilt University say they have discovered a nongenetic cause of resistance to cetuximab, a therapeutic that is used to treat advanced colorectal cancer. The team’s study (“lncRNA MIR100HG-Derived miR-100 and miR-125b Mediate Cetuximab Resistance via Wnt/β-Catenin Signaling”), which is published in Nature Medicine , suggests a novel strategy for overcoming this resistance.“Using whole-exome sequencing and transcriptional profiling, we found that the
  
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• Leukemia May Shrivel If Fat Cells in Marrow Are Plumped

  17-10-2017 16:30
  Bolstered by an adipogenesis-promoting drug, fat cells in the bone marrow effectively “crowded out” leukemia, yet they made room for healthy blood cells. Such effects are not simply due to physical crowding in the bone marrow niche. They are more about cells cramping each other’s styles while they try to attain their fully differentiated forms.Altering the bone marrow environment so that it favors the formation of healthy blood cells and disfavors the formation of leukemic cell
  
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• Autism Bias toward Males Explained through Signaling Pathway

  17-10-2017 16:21
  The disproportionate ratio of males affected by autism spectral disorder (ASD) has perplexed researchers for several years. Moreover, this male bias is also seen in other neurodevelopmental disorders, like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and specific language impairments. Now, new research by investigators at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and University of Pennsylvania—aiming to understand why ASD is more common in boys—has uncovered differences in
  
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• J&J Halts Sirukumab Development, Talacotuzumab Trial

  17-10-2017 16:06
  Johnson & Johnson said today it has ended development of the rheumatoid arthritis candidate sirukumab, and halted a Phase II/III trial of the acute myeloid leukemia (AML) candidate talacotuzumab—both of which the pharma giant had touted as potential blockbusters just five months ago.Sirukumab had been under development by J&J’s Janssen Biotech for moderate-to-severely active rheumatoid arthritis, but was rejected on September 22 by the FDA, which instead issued a complete res
  
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• Membrane Vacuum Cleaner Suggested as Potential Gram-Negative Bacteria Target

  17-10-2017 14:24
  Scientists at the U.K.’s University of Newcastle suggest that a bacterial membrane protein that acts as a type of membrane vacuum cleaner could represent a promising new target for rendering harmful Gram negative strains susceptible to existing, a well as new antibiotics. Blocking the protein, which is called Mla (maintenance of outer membrane lipid asymmetry), would effectively disrupt the composition of one of the two layers of the bacterium’s outer membrane, which normally acts as
  
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• For Today’s Hearing on the Drug Delivery System, ‘Follow The Pill’

  17-10-2017 14:00
  The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will hold a hearing this morning on the cost of prescription drugs. The second in a series of hearings on drug costs, today’s hearing is expected to take a close look at the drug delivery system. It’s an important topic, but also a very complicated one. The drug cost ecosystem includes multiple players and each one has a unique role in bringing medicines from research labs to pharmacies and deciding how much patients pay
  
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• Epigenetic Mechanism Found Responsible for Cetuximab Resistance

  17-10-2017 13:58
  Scientists at Vanderbilt University say they have discovered a non-genetic cause of resistance to cetuximab, a therapeutic that is used to treat advanced colorectal cancer. The team’s study (“lncRNA MIR100HG-derived miR-100 and miR-125b mediate cetuximab resistance via Wnt/β-catenin signaling”), which is published in Nature Medicine , suggests a novel strategy for overcoming this resistance.“Using whole-exome sequencing and transcriptional profiling, we found that th
  
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• Australian Scientists awarded $2.5m to support ground-breaking medical research into cancer diagnostics and cardiovascular disease

  17-10-2017 00:56
  thumbnail Two Australian scientists have each been awarded an AUD$1.25 million, five-year, CSL Centenary Fellowship to further research into gentler, more effective cancer diagnostics and, to advance understanding of what really causes our arteries to clog.  
  
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