In the biotech world, zinc finger nucleases got their start as gene correction tool. But their ability to precisely target and cut specific DNA sequences could be used for other purposes as well, and two recent papers reported methodological advances that could ultimately expand the uses of the technology.
Later this month, the International AIDS Conference is set to occur on U.S. soil for the first time in more than two decades, and researchers have high hopes for the meeting, whose theme is "Turning the Tide Together."
Wnt is a signaling pathway that plays critical roles in development, and its proteins can go awry in many cancers. Now, researchers from the University of Michigan have gained new insights into the relationship between Wnt signaling, metabolism and mitochondria.
San Francisco-based start-up Gemmus Pharma Inc. closed an angel-backed Series A funding round of $1.45 million last week. The company expects the money and the planned second tranche will take its lead compound, GP1001, to a planned 2014 investigational new drug application (IND).
Short-term, the chances of surviving a heart attack are now quite good – on the order of 90 percent. But the longer-term statistics remain grim. Within a year of a first heart attack, nearly 20 percent of victims will have a second outright heart attack, and fully half of them will have additional heart problems that stay short of a full heart attack.
Scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College have developed what they hope will turn into a novel anti-addiction strategy. In mice, they were able to prevent the effects of nicotine by treating the animals with an anti-nicotine antibody – administered via gene therapy.
BOSTON – In the mid-20th century, a cancer patient could die without ever hearing his or her diagnosis. Many doctors, in fact, considered that the ethical thing to do. Since patients had no voice in their treatments, why saddle them with the knowledge of their diseases – which, at the time, could carry considerable social stigma?
Human cells are a minority in their own body, outnumbered 10 to one by cells of the microbiome, commensal microorganisms. "Ninety percent of the DNA that we're carrying around is bacterial," Peter DiLaura told BioWorld Insight, with some viruses and fungi thrown in for good measure.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science published full details of a paper by Dutch researchers that demonstrates H5N1 avian influenza, a highly lethal but to date not very contagious strain of the flu, can acquire mutations that allow it to be spread via aerosol transmission.
BOSTON – As budgets and success rates shrink, talk tends to be of organizations becoming leaner and meaner. But at a standing-room only session on Wednesday, speakers from government and industry looked at ways to become leaner and nicer instead, in the form of so-called precompetitive collaboration.
