Author Archive
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
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
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
Transgenic Mice Used to Improve Antibody Production
Researchers from China reported, in Acta Biochimica et Biophysica Sinica, a way to improve antibody production. Traditionally, antibody production uses recombinant fusion protein as an antigen to raise antibodies against the epitope, part of the molecule recognized by the immune system, of a target protein. At noted by the authors however is the issue that “the concomitant [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Biology, Chemistry, Pharmaceuticals by Wendell
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
Is Good Parenting Genetic?
A group of researchers ranging from Oxford University to the Universities of California, Berkley and Los Angeles published in PLoS ONE showing evidence that humans show neural brain activity for parental instincts. Previously, this group found that when individuals were shown adult or infant faces, they had similar neural activity in the striate cortices spreading along ventral and dorsal [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Etiology, Genetics by Wendell
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
mircoRNAs Help Develop Skin
MicroRNA’s are short single stranded ribose nucleic acids which regulate gene expression. They have been found in heart and muscle tissue, and some exclusively in the brain. The term was first introduced in 2001 in Science. Researchers at Rockefeller University have discovered that microRNA’s also help create our skin to protect us from bacteria and possible prevent skin cancer.
The lead authors, [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Biology, Cancer, Drug Discovery, Pharmaceuticals by Wendell
Saturday, March 1st, 2008
Uncovering Apoptosis, Programmed Cell Death.
Investigators at Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital have announced new research which has advanced the understanding of how cells undergo Apoptosis. Apoptosis is intentional programmed cell death and is believed to be one of the main reasons for the existence of cancer which hijacks apoptosis and prevents it from occurring. A report on this work can be found in the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Biology, Cancer, Disease, Medicine by Wendell
Friday, February 29th, 2008
Weekly Roundup
Here’s what happened this week on Biotech Mashup:
Monday, February 25th, 2008
Researchers “filmed” for the first time an electron in motion around a nucleus.
Bullfrogs may produce an anti-aging compound.
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Your next computer may use a protein hard drive.
Robots can be powered by rat heart muscles.
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
Nanotechnology is improving medicine with better vaccines.
Wired Blog [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Biotech Mashup, Weekly Roundup by Wendell
Friday, February 29th, 2008
Live Cells for Toxin Detection
Researchers at Purdue University, have published in Nature, a new technology for detection of toxins and food-borne pathogens. The research group claims the technology is able to detect several pathogens in thousands of food and water samples in a couple of hours. Interestingly, it can also estimate the number of microbes present in a sample and determine whether that amount [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Biology, Diagnostics, Engineering, Technology by Wendell
Friday, February 29th, 2008
Pollution an Aphrodisiac…for Songbirds?
A group of scientists from Cardiff University, University of London, and Max Planck Institute for Ornithology have reported in PLoS ONE, for the first time, that when birds eat small invertebrates contaminated with environmental pollutants, significant changes occur in both the bird’s behavior and their brain. Surprisingly, male European starlings that have been exposed to higher levels of natural and synthetic estrogen, [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Biology, Disease, Pollution by Wendell
