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Challenges Remain for Stem Cell TherapiesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There are many challenges to making stem cell therapies such as regenerative medicine actually work in a therapeutic setting. We might be able to harvest stem cells, from either blastocysts or by creating pluripotent cells from already differentiated tissues, but that's really only the beginning of a medically viable process. Once a cell line is cultured in a maintainable way, the following questions remain: How to direct differentiation into the desired tissue type Optimizing growth conditions and the physical environment for cell cultures or for growing organs for transplant How to inject and transport stem cells to the...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - November 16, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Breakthroughs in Tissue EngineeringEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A tissue is an aggregate of cells, growing and thriving in an environment where they adhere and interact with one another. Tissue Engineering is the use of bioengineering methods to create, improve, develop and grow tissues, which then may be used for grafting, cartilage repair or, ultimately, regenerative medical procedures. The study of tissues is aimed at determining the answers to fundamental questions such as how cells react and interact in a specific matrix, and may involve the use of proteomics to study gene expression and protein production in complex environments. This form of systems biology might look at cellula...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - November 16, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Imagine H1N1 in 1850Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's the year 1847, at a hospital in Vienna. The theory of spontaneous generation is still prevalent in medical circles and story of biotechnology has not yet begun. Hungarian doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis, noting high incidence of post-partum deaths from puerpural fever (caused by Streptococcus organisms), in a wing where medical students are trained, postulates that the students were spreading diseased particles to the new mothers after having handled infected cadavers. He begins a program wherein the students wash their hands with chlorinated water before making rounds, and the death rate drops dramatically. Although Dr. Sem...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - November 11, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Biotech Discoveries and the World War II ConnectionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It's Veteran's Day in the USA, Remembrance Day in Canada and England, and, while it may be called something different in other countries of the world, a day to remember the sacrifices of those who defend our freedom. Did you know there's a connection between World War II and one of the greatest discoveries in biotechnology? In the late 1920's Alexander Fleming made a chance discovery, that Penicillum mold, while non-toxic to humans, secreted an antibacterial substance. In 1929, his paper on the topic did not garner much interest, but during WWII, two chemists at Oxford, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, isolated the substance...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - November 9, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

H1N1: What are the Real Risks?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Travelling during a global pandemic is a risky business! I just got back from a trip to another province of Canada, a four hour flight away. While Ontario is handing out Swine Flu vaccine to the "priority groups" - small children, seniors and health-care workers, BC is facing a shortage and Alberta is dealing with bioethics issues arising from the public outcry over vaccination of the Calgary Flames, and a debate over whether firefighters are a high-risk group. One of the participants of a meeting I attended refused to shake anyone's hand for fear of getting sick, and last week I heard from a friend that children in her ne...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - November 8, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

PCR and Synthetic BiologyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
When asked about the origins of synthetic biology, the most primitive, and first commercially expoited, example that comes to my mind is the construction of oligonucleotides for PCR. Oligo means short or small, and short-chains of nucleotides (DNA or RNA fragments) have become important tools in biotechnology and genetic research, ever since our ability to sequence DNA. In PCR, small pieces of DNA, usually about 15-20 base pairs long, are needed as primers. Oligonucleotides are also used for gene probing, a process for detecting certain specific sequences, and for enzyme optimization techniques like DNA shuffling and site-...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - November 8, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Geron Corporation's Stem Cell TrialEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Geron Corporation is a company based in Menlo Park, CA and the first biotech company in the USA to be granted permission for a clinical trial of regenerative medicine using embryonic stem cells, in humans. While permission was granted in January 2009, the trials were put on hold until last Friday (October 30, 2009) when the latest round of preclinical trials using animals revealed some side effects that warranted further investigation. According to the Geron News Release, test animals receiving the treatment, GRNOPC1, developed a higher number of cysts at the area of spinal cord injury than in previous studies. However, th...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - October 27, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Is a Bio-Based Economy a Fantasy?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Among those who work in biotechnology, there are three main areas of study: Biomedical, industrial, and environmental biotechnology. In just 15 years since PCR and gene cloning became a part of mainstream biotech research, industrial applications for the products of enzyme technology and GMOs have become competitive alternatives to traditional manufacturing processes, but still, few people are aware of how many everyday enzyme products have made it into their homes. Biofuels still seem to have a long way to go before widespread use and acceptance validate the claims of their proponents. While the biofuels industry has it's...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - October 26, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Synthetic Biology and Artificial SystemsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Synthetic biology has been defined as the creation of artificial life forms, but, in reality, is more often exemplified in the creation of synthetic (man-made) building blocks of lifeforms, such as ribosomes, tissues and proteins and their ligands, that can be added together to create, or enhance, a biological system (as are studied in systems biology). At University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Bertozzi and her research group study cell surface interactions and use synthetic biology to manipulate cellular processes. In doing so, they have been able to adjust the intercellular environment, control how the cells stick to on...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - October 22, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Canada Approves H1N1 VaccineEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Canadians can begin getting their H1N1 flu vaccines next week, now that the Health Minister has announced the vaccine is approved. There haven't been a lot of clinical trial participants in Canada, but the approval is based on European data. China began widespread vaccinations in late September, and the United States and Australia also already have programs in place. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on October 12 (2009) that about 100 low and middle-income countries will recieve donated vaccine starting sometime in November. The donations will be made by vaccine producers such as GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi. Th...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - October 21, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Using Systems Biology to Study InfluenzaEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Systems biology is the study of how individual molecular components in a cell interact with each other to create active biological systems. This "grand scale" study of things generates information on the relationships between the structure and function of macromolecules (such as proteins), reaction dynamics (specific activity), and mechanisms for controlling reaction rates. These days, much of the information is built into models so that when new proteins with similar sequences are encountered, their systemic roles can be predicted. The information obtained about the immune system, or viral and bacterial systems, can be us...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - October 20, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Nano-Scale Mechanical Forces Impact Stem Cell GrowthEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Scientists at the University of Illinois are applying nanotechnology and stem cell research to study the impact of mechanical forces on stem cell differentiation. The group, lead by Dr. Ning Wang, used cells, to which a 4 micron diameter magnetic bead had been attached, to compare the softness of embryonic stem cells to their differentiated counterparts. A tiny oscillating magnetic field was applied to the cells and the amount of movement of the bead was measured and used to determine how firm the surface of the cells were. Dr. Wang determined that the movements were comparable to natural forces within a living cell, and p...
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - October 13, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Telomere Repair Mechanisms Linked to LifespanEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
One approach to studying regenerative medicine is to learn more about telomeres, the segments of DNA at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes that form structures with proteins and help regulate... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - October 9, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

CpG Islands and ORIsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Until recently, much of genetic research has been directed towards determining the sequences of DNA that code for proteins. Little was known about non-coding regions, although these played an important... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - October 6, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Lab-on-a-Chip Making More NewsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
One week after I wrote about James Dou's digital microfluidics entry in the Great Canadian Innovation Competition, a parallel research program from the same University has made headlines for a... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - October 4, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Who Should Win the Nobel Prize in Medicine?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Scientists in Toronto, Ontario are waiting in eager anticipation tonight, to hear the announcement of this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine, since two of their own are favorites for the... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - October 4, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of TelomeresEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology has gone to a trio of scientists from the United States who discovered how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - October 3, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

How to Capitalize on Company IPEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Having a patent application is not the end of the line for developing IP assets, it's only the beginning. There are several business development and post-patent steps that companies can... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 30, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Biomedical Entry in Innovation ContestEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The Great Canadian Innovation Competition is an annual event sponsored by Canadian Business Magazine and Nytric (an innovation consulting company). Among the three finalists for 2009 is James Dou, a... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 28, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Pros and Cons of Cord Blood StorageEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There are a number of biotech companies in the USA, Canada and around the world, that don't deal in research or drug development, but provide a public service to those... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 27, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

The Elusive AIDS VaccineEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Why is it so hard to develop a vaccine for AIDS? Vaccine development depends on finding a protein on the outer layer of the virus that will serve as a... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 23, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Big Day for Swine Flu and AIDS Vaccine NewsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Two significant news stories have broken out in the vaccine development world this morning. The first remains to be validated but, if it is, may be cause for concern for... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 22, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Quantifying Gene Expression by Ribosome ProfilingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Ever since the discovery of translation, scientists have been using measurements of mRNA to estimate relative rates of gene expression in cells. However, over time, we've come to understand that... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 22, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Gene Expression Control by the Degenerative Genetic CodeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The genetic code has some redundancy, in that, in some cases, there is more than one codon for a given amino acid. When this occurs, the code is said to... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 21, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Control of Hydrogel Properties Using PhotodegradationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
One of the main difficulties associated with working with smart polymers is discovering ways to control the biochemical reaction of interest in situ. Each new application presents a new challenge,... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 15, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Monkeys See Red in Gene Therapy BreakthroughEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
And we all thought our donations to research funding went toward finding important biomedical cures for diseases like AIDS and cancer! Where does color blindness fit into that picture? This... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 14, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

The Call for a New Approach to HIV ResearchEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Is a new approach needed to find a cure to HIV infection? Chronic suppressive therapy has become the standard for HIV positive individuals and works by preventing viral gene expression... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 9, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

NSB Public Service Award Call for NominationsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Science is an integral part of our lives, yet many people take for granted the amount of time, effort, money and, sometimes, persistence that goes into some of the discoveries... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 7, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Fruit Flies Make Good Models for Brain CancerEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I have written before about the usefulness of certain insects, such as the firefly, in biomedical research. Drosophila is another insect used in biotech research, and an insect nearly everyone... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 3, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

H1N1 Remains a Moderate ThreatEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The World Health Organization has announced that, although the flu virus known as H1N1, or Swine Flu, remains a significant threat, it is still only a moderate threat and has... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - September 1, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Bacteria Boost the Benefits of BlueberriesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The radio announcement reported that modified blueberry juice was found to reduce the incidence of diabetes and obesity in mice. It was another example of food biotechnology, generating berries with... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 30, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Good Help a Commodity in Canadian BiotechEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In every job I've ever had, from waitressing in highschool, to laboratory manager in a small biotech company, I've been witness to the age-old adage "good help is hard to... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 25, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Retrotransposons Linked to EpigeneticsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A DNA fragment that can transport itself from one location in a genome to another is called a transposon. Some eukaryotic cells host transposons that contain a gene sequence homologous... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 21, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Novel Ideas for Vaccine DevelopmentEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Fall is rapidly approaching and with that, the threat of an impending flu pandemic. Media talk of the swine flu vaccine had taken a backseat to other issues for awhile... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 21, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Immune Cell MemoriesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Did you know that your cells have memory cells? Well, it's not quite like that, but, interestingly, our immune system does have a memory. Everyone knows that once you have... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 20, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

The Risks of Startup StockEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The headline "3 Reasons Not to Predict FDA Action" caught my eye. The blog was posted on an investment website and told the stories of three small to mid-sized biotech/pharmaceutical... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 18, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Tomato Breeding Efforts for Improved NutritionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A University of Guelph report says scientists in Ridgetown (Ontario) are breaking new ground in the efforts to improve the nutritional value of tomatoes. Tomatoes are already rich in the... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 12, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Online Science Site a Biotech Resource for Educators and StudentsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The countdown to "back to school" has begun in fact a colleague of mine was lamenting as much as two weeks ago that she had to start her back... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 12, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Congress on Biomedical PublishingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The Sixth International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication is coming up from September 10-12, 2009, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. This event is sponsored by the American Medical Association... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 11, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Crop Biotechnology Turns to Asexual Seed ProductionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Advocates of agricultural biotechnology believe that one way to ensure a greater global food supply is through the use of GM crops carrying cloned genes for enhanced traits such as... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 4, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Latent Genes Stop HIV in HumansEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Monkeys are able to express a gene for a protein called retrocyclin, which inhibits HIV infection of their cells. Humans have the same gene, but it has a nonsense mutation:... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 3, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Oncogenes and CancerEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There are several different causes of cancer, all of which boil down to genetic mutations of some sort. It's how the mutations arise that make the difference. Some are inherited,... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - August 2, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Prion Protein and Degenerative DiseasesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Prions are small proteins that transmit disease by refolding into an abnormal state that cannot be degraded by normal cellular processes. The prion protein (PrP, or PrPC for cellular PrP)... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - July 28, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Are Biotech Markets Recovering?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Apparently July has been a good month for investing in biotechnology in the USA, with gains in the biotech sector up 24%, riding on the clinical trial success stories of... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - July 28, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Ethics of iPS Research ExploredEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
While the issue of using iPS cells doesn't carry the weight of the embryonic stem cell debate, there are still some controversial topics coming to light as our ability to... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - July 27, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

What Causes Gene Mutations?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Not surprisingly, scientists studying the human genome are finding that certain regions of our genes show more variety than others. Part of the reason for this is the rate of... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - July 27, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

My Sister's Keeper and Designer BabiesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I just finished reading the book My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult (maybe you've seen the movie that was just released this year). I'd love to review it for About... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - July 21, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

American Biotech Needs Patent ReformEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A little while ago I blogged about the risks of having a weak national patent system, based on a review I read, of the shortfalls of the Canadian system. Now... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - July 19, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

NSERC Bioconversion Network Ready for ActionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Canada has a new research initiative to promote and fund biofuels research. NSERC Bioconversion Network was formed in 2008 and is ready to jump-start programs to investigate lignocellulosic bioconversion at... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - July 15, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer

Eliminating the Downstream Bottleneck: Is Disposable the Answer?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
According to a recent survey by Bioplan Associates, Inc., many biotech companies are finding their downstream protein purification equipment can't keep up with bioreactor production. The answer, according to BioProcess... (Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical)
Source: About.com Biotech Biomedical - July 13, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Source Type: consumer