Author: Maryam Hadadi

This schematic diagram shows the overall conceptualization of how metabolically engineered E. coli produced a variety of PLGAs with different monomer compositions, proposing the chemosynthetic process of non-natural polymers from biomass. The non-natural polymer PLGA and its other copolymers, which are produced by engineered bacteria developed by taking a systems metabolic engineering approach, accumulate in granule forms within a cell. Credit: KAIST Renewable non-food biomass could potentially replace petrochemical raw…

Bluebird Bio reported encouraging data on its revamped gene therapy for sickle cell disease (SCD) and beta thalassemia this morning, but shares slipped 6% premarket on some unresolved issues. Two years ago, Bluebird was hit hard when a trial of its LentiGlobin candidate failed to hit the mark in a clinical trial, mainly because patients had variable responses to the treatment, which forced the company to change the manufacturing process…

The long and largely unsuccessful effort to develop a vaccine against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, suffered a major setback in 2009, when the experimental shot RV144 was shown in a trial to be just 31% effective. Now scientists led by Duke University are taking insights from that trial, which was conducted in Thailand, and using them to design a more comprehensive vaccination approach. In a study in monkeys,…

In today’s marketplace, consumers have their choice of hundreds of thousands of mobile health (mHealth) apps in Apple’s App Store and Google’s android app store, Play, and EHR vendors now directly incorporate mHealth apps into their patient portals. As the technology landscape of clinical trials evolves, apps are engaging patients in new ways and in real time, thus becoming an integral part of the healthcare infrastructure. In the end, a…

New vaccines promote weight loss. A new study, published in BioMed Central’s open access journal, Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology, assesses the effectiveness of two somatostatin vaccinations, JH17 and JH18, in reducing weight gain and increasing weight loss in mice. Obesity and obesity-related disease is a growing health issue worldwide. Somatostatin, a peptide hormone, inhibits the action of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), both of which…

A publication in the scientific journal Nature describes a unique human monoclonal antibody (MPE8) discovered by the Swiss Biotech company Humabs BioMed SA in collaboration with the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) which is affiliated to the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI). Humabs, a privately owned spin-off company of the IRB, is focusing on the discovery of next-generation human monoclonal antibodies to treat infectious and inflammatory diseases. The study,…

Over the last decade, our appreciation for the contribution of resident gut microorganisms—the gut microbiota—to human health has surged. However, progress is limited by the sheer diversity and complexity of these microbial communities. Compounding the challenge, the majority of our commensal microorganisms are not close relatives of Escherichia coli or other model organisms and have eluded culturing and manipulation in the laboratory. In this Review, we discuss how over a…

Traditional toxicological investigations performed on animals (in vivo) are expensive, time-consuming and may cause animal suffering. But research from Umeå University demonstrates that a neuronal cell model, derived from mouse, can be used to evaluate the neurotoxic effect of chemicals. The alternative toxicity risk assessment could reduce reliance on animal testing while also enable quick large scale toxicity evaluations. “Simple and robust cellular models are important because they allow us…

Northeastern professor Daniel Distel and his colleagues have discovered a dark slithering creature four feet long that dwells in the foul mud of a remote lagoon in the Philippines. They say studying the animal, a giant shipworm with pinkish siphons at one end and an eyeless head at the other, could add to our understanding of how bacteria cause infections and, in turn, how we might adapt to tolerate —…

On average, 1 man in 7 will get prostate cancer in his lifetime.  Following diagnosis, the majority of prostate cancers respond well to any initial treatment.  However, some can relapse and progress to more serious forms even spreading to other organs.  Most initial treatments for prostate cancer involve regulating the man’s levels of the male hormone testosterone either through therapy, surgery, radiotherapy or, in certain cases, simply through disease monitoring.  …