Archive for March, 2008
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
Hormones from the Heart
Most of us think of the heart as a highly sophisticated and durable pump. But another function of the heart is to secrete peptide hormones, which are small proteins that function as hormones. Multiple hormones are encoded by the atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) gene that help to regulate blood pressure and volume. At the Experimental Biology 2008 conference in San Diego [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Biology, Biotech Mashup, Cancer, Drug Discovery, Medicine, Pharmaceuticals by Jeff
Monday, March 10th, 2008
Building Small Molecules using a DNA Program
The main function of DNA is to encode the building blocks of proteins, and molecular biologists have become quite adept at cutting and pasting stretches of DNA to make nearly any protein they can envision. Unfortunately, small molecules, which are some of the most effective drugs, cannot usually be built so readily. Rather, synthetic organic chemists must [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Business, Cancer, Drug Discovery, Pharmaceuticals by Jeff
Monday, March 10th, 2008
HemCon Medical Technologies Uses Shrimp to Save Lives
Ten years ago if you had a car wreck and suffered deep lacerations the standard treatment would have been a tourniquet to prevent bleed out. While waiting to reach a hospital, the result of this treatment could have been loss of a limb or death. Now, it is the year 2008, and treatment procedures have slowly been changing to use [...]
4 Comments » - Posted in Biology, Biotech Mashup, Chemistry, Medicine, Technology by Wendell
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
DNA Fabrication One Strand at a Time
When in 1990 IBM arranged 35 individual xenon atoms to spell out “IBM,” the feat heralded a new era of nanofabrication. And it was so totally cool. But there’s not much you can really do with xenon atoms, and the process had to be performed under a near vacuum at close to absolute zero. A new technique [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Chemistry, Engineering, Physics by Jeff
Friday, March 7th, 2008
Weekly Roundup
Here’s what happened this week on Biotech Mashup:
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
mircoRNAs Help Develop Skin
Is Good Parenting Genetic?
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
A snow cone full of bacteria
Transgenic Mice Used to Improve Antibody Production
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
15 Companies That Could Change Medicine
Pacific Biosciences Working Toward the 15-minute Genome
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
Sangamo Designing Proteins that Target DNA
PDL BioPharma Couldn’t [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Biotech Mashup, Weekly Roundup by Jeff
Friday, March 7th, 2008
Do You Speak Fly?
If you are a computational biologist you may want to learn “Fly.” A group of researchers published in PLoS ONE Computation Biology that through the use of electrodes they have been able to monitor neuron impulses in a fly as it was “flying.” The group was able to simulate flying by harnessing the fly into a turntable [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Biotech Mashup, Computational by Wendell
Friday, March 7th, 2008
Menssana Research Takes Your Breath Away
If I told you in the future you will be able breath into a device and know if you have cancer, would you believe me or would you ask me what new science fiction book I was talking about? Menssana Research would tell you that the future is now. They have developed and tested a new [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Biology, Biotech Mashup, Business, Cancer, Chemistry, Diagnostics, Disease, Medicine, Technology by Wendell
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
Sangamo Designing Proteins that Target DNA
Many of the drugs we use to fight cancer or ward off pain aim to inhibit the activity of proteins that the body naturally produces. Instead of inhibiting the activity of a protein, what if you could just instruct your body to stop making it altogether? Or instead of getting injected with a lab-produced protein that your body [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Biology, Biotech Mashup, Drug Discovery, Medicine, Pharmaceuticals by Jeff
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
PDL BioPharma Couldn’t Sell Company, Announces Downsizing
As reported on Biospace.com, PDL BioPharma announced that due to the inability to sell the company or a portion of the company’s biotechnology and discovery assets they will instead remain independent and downsize, cutting 260 jobs. PDL BioPharma owns proprietary antibody humanization technology that has been licensed to numerous companies, including Biogen Idec, Inc. They are [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Biotech Mashup, Business, Medicine, Pharmaceuticals by Wendell
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
Pacific Biosciences Working Toward the 15-minute Genome
The era of personalized medicine is fast approaching. Having your genome sequenced rapidly and cheaply will be key to this fundamental change in the way medicine is practiced and drugs are developed. Several companies are working toward the $1,000 genome, including Pacific Biosciences, one of Biotech Mashup’s top 15 picks for companies that have the potential [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Biotech Mashup, DNA Sequencing, Diagnostics, Engineering, Genetics by Jeff
