Reports detail information used to craft the updated EHS research strategy.
Advanced super-resolution microscope enables to see innermost workings of the cell
Stephanie Meyer, a physicist specializing in optics, is bringing new capabilities to the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus by building an advanced, super resolution microscope able to see some of the innermost workings of the cell.
New discovery paves the way for using super strong nanostructured metals in cars
Super strong nanometals are beginning to play an important role in making cars even lighter, enabling them to stand collisions without fatal consequences for the passengers. A PhD student at Riso DTU has discovered a new phenomenon that will make nanometals more useful in practice.
Oxford Nanopore Opens New Informatics Outstation in Cambridge, UK
Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Ltd announces the expansion of its Oxford headquarters and the opening of a new Oxford Nanopore informatics outstation in Cambridge, UK.
Alnylam and MIT Collaborators Publish Data on Novel Lipid Nanoparticles for Systemic Delivery of RNAi Therapeutics
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading RNAi therapeutics company, together with collaborators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), announced today the publication of new data describing a novel approach for systemic delivery of RNAi therapeutics using synergistic combinations of novel lipid-like materials called 'lipidoids'.
Scientists take the next major step toward quantum computing
Using high-magnetic fields, Susumu Takahashi, assistant professor at the University of Southern California, and his colleagues managed to suppress decoherence, one of the key stumbling blocks in quantum computing.
Key advance toward single-molecule electronics
Scientists are reporting a key advance toward the long-awaited era of "single-molecule electronics," when common electronic circuits in computers, smart phones, audio players, and other devices may shrink to the size of a grain of sand.
How nanotechnology will transform disease detection
Conventional diagnostic tools often cannot detect many cancers, Alzheimer's and other life-threatening diseases early enough to provide effective treatment. But nanotechnology, which is revolutionizing electronics and other fields, promises to similarly transform medicine, particularly when it comes to identifying illnesses more quickly.
Physicists break 150-year-old law
A violation of one of the oldest empirical laws of physics has been observed by scientists at the University of Bristol. Their experiments on purple bronze, a metal with unique one-dimensional electronic properties, indicate that it breaks the Wiedemann-Franz Law.
XEI Scientific Launches Evactron CombiClean at M+M 2011
XEI Scientific Inc, manufacturers of more than 1,100 EVACTRON De-Contaminator Plasma Cleaning Systems for electron microscopes and other vacuum chambers, announces the release of their new Evactron CombiClean system which simplifies the control and operation of plasma radical sources for both column and desktop cleaning of specimens for electron columns used in SEMs, TEMs and FIBs.
Nanopatterned surface maintains stem cells’ long-term viability and phenotype
Currently, when adult stem cells are harvested from a patient, they are cultured in the laboratory to increase the initial yield of cells and create a batch of sufficient volume to kick-start the process of cellular regeneration when they are re-introduced back into the patient. The process of culturing is made more difficult by spontaneous stem cell differentiation, where stem cells grown on standard plastic tissue culture surfaces do not expand to create new stem cells but instead create other cells which are of no use in therapy. New findings show that nanoscale patterning is a powerful tool for the non-invasive manipulation of stem cells. Their facile fabrication process employed, a range of thermoplastics that can be processed with exquisite reproducibility down to 5 nm fidelity using injection moulding approaches, offers unique potential for the generation of cell culture platforms for the up-scale of autologous cells for clinical use.
Nanomedicine’s health hope
New nanotechnology-based treatments, including nerve tissue engineering that draws on the limb-regrowing ability of the axolotl, and techniques for targeted attacks on ovarian and lung cancer, were discussed at a major nanomedicine conference in Sydney last week.
A closer look at plasmonics
The combination of transmission electron microscopy and electron energy-loss spectroscopy allows for the study of surface plasmon resonance in nanostructures.
Spherical carbon molecules can make perfectly formed quantum dots
Buckyballs can be converted into graphene quantum dots by heating them on a ruthenium substrate.
Nanomechanics: New test measures key properties of polymer thin films and membranes
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a measurement technique that reliably determines three fundamental mechanical properties of near-nanoscale films.
Carbon nanotube ‘cupcakes’ may help measure terahertz laser power
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have found that dense arrays of extra-long carbon nanotubes absorb nearly all light of long wavelengths, and thus are promising coatings for prototype detectors intended to measure terahertz laser power.
Flaxseed Fails as Treatment for Hot Flashes
(HealthDay News) -- The search for a safe remedy for menopausal hot flashes has been foiled again, with flaxseed the latest in a long line of compounds that apparently don't reduce the incidence of the unpleasant symptoms.
Researchers presenting a new study Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago report that a daily flaxseed bar was no more effective than a placebo in helping with hot flashes in women with or without breast cancer.
"It's unfortunate because these are such common problems, not just in breast cancer survivors but in postmenopausal women in general," said Dr. Joanne E. Mortimer, director of women's cancers programs at City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif. "These poor women have one less option." Mortimer was not involved with the study.
Hot flashes often occur in breast cancer patients who have undergone hormonal treatment for their tumors as well as in women going through normal menopause. Read more...
Immunice for Immune Support
FDA Releases Draft Of Mobile Health App Guidelines
The Washington Post (7/19, Overly) in its Capital Business column reported that the Food and Drug Administration has "proposed its first-ever regulations of the burgeoning mobile health industry" Tuesday, concentrating on a "segment of applications that officials described as being akin to medical devices." FDA policy adviser Bakul Patel, who helped develop the guidelines, "said the agency sought to balance the potential for innovation with patient safety in the rapidly changing mobile space." The guidelines suggest "three types of applications should require the FDA's sign off: a mobile application that acts as an accessory to a regulated medical device, turns a mobile gadget into such a device or makes suggestions regarding a patient's diagnosis or treatment."
How Should Personalized Medicine & Digital Pathology Work Together?
Courtesy of the Digital Pathology Association.
I think this year's Pathology Visions program is going to be excellent with more news about the program to follow shortly. If you have attended before, I think you will find the topics for this year's speakers very engaging, current and practical. If you haven't been before, this may be one program to include among your meetings this Fall.
World-renown pathologist, Dr. Mahul B. Amin, will discuss this and more at the 2011 Pathology Visions Conference. Dr. Amin's keynote address will also focus on the role of the pathologist in contemporary health care and discuss the contributions, strengths and limitations of traditional microscopy.
(PRWEB) July 19, 2011
How does personalized medicine fit into the ever-evolving world of digital pathology? Mahul B. Amin, M.D. will share his perspective on the topic and more at the 2011 Digital Pathology Association’s Pathology Visions Conference. The 7th annual international conference will be held Oct. 30 – Nov. 2, 2011 in San Diego, CA at the Manchester Grand Hyatt.
Dr. Amin’s keynote address promises to shed light on how personalized medicine relates to the discipline of pathology. Dr. Amin currently serves as the Chairman and Professor of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. His talk will also review the role of the pathologist in contemporary health care and discuss the contributions, strengths and limitations of traditional microscopy. Topics many in the field of digital pathology will find intriguing.
The Pathology Visions Conference will also showcase more than 35 additional distinguished speakers who will share their breadth of digital pathology knowledge in the clinical, research and education arenas.
Additionally, the Pathology Visions Conference will feature dozens of cutting-edge industry workshops, an extensive exhibit hall filled with the latest product solutions, access to white paper sessions, round-table discussions, scientific poster sessions, and networking events.
The Digital Pathology Association’s annual meeting is the premiere conference dedicated solely to the field of digital pathology. Conference attendees travel from around the world to take part in this yearly must-attend event for anyone working with, or interested in, digital pathology. The Pathology Visions Conference supports the mission of the Digital Pathology Association to facilitate education and awareness of digital pathology applications in health care.
To learn more and to register for the 2011 Pathology Vision’s Conference visit http://digitalpathologyassociation.org/pathology-visions-conference.
FDA seeks comments on proposed policy for companion diagnostics
(Submitted by Steve Potts, CEO of Flagship Biosciences, a digital pathology services company).
On July 12, 2011, the FDA released a new draft guidance on the development and review of companion diagnostics (CDx). I would encourage anyone working in anatomic pathology to review the draft, as it will have widespread impact on digital pathology companies, antibody providers, and anatomic pathologists in both private practices and large reference laboratories. The guidance was also discussed in Dr. Elizabeth Mansfield's presentation available at the Molecular Diagnostics for Cancer Drug Development June meeting in Boston.
The most important point can be summarized by one equation:
Failure/lack of test approval = no therapeutic product approval
If this doesn't make get your attention, nothing will. An approved drug can cost from $200M to $1.2B to develop (wide variability in costs is largely due to indication type, you can make your own calculations). Let's recast the equation in terms of the cost of failure for the companion diagnostic and the cost of failure for the therapeutic. A good example is HER2 IHC, which brings in $50M in total global annual sales divided across a handful of chemistry and image analysis players. Let's assume the next big companion diagnostic is almost this big -- and the firm has only four other competitors. So $10M in lost sales per year, perhaps spread over 10 years, and perhaps $10M spent on development. Total cost of failure for the CDx -- $100M.
Now let's look at the failure cost of the therapeutic due to CDx failure, continuing with the HER2 example. Herceptin had total ten-year sales from 1998 to 2008 of $7.7B, and has climbed higher the last two years. Let's assume only 10 year sales, meaning total cost of failure is lost development costs of $1B and lost ten-year sales of $7.7B.
$100M =? 7.7B Lost Sales Cost
$10M =? $1B Lost Development Costs
One can see the imbalance clearly between the diagnostics and therapeutics industry. Having worked in both diagnostics and therapeutics, the only thing the two industries have in common is biology.
Clearly every pharmaceutical executive will re-examine carefully all the risks involved in their companion diagnostics programs, as CDx competency becomes a determining factor in success or failure for pharma. Does their translational companion diagnostic team have experience launching diagnostic products? Do they have experience in regulatory filings of 510k and PMAs? Is there any part of the diagnostic technology that is not already well proven and widely used in clinical laboratory settings? Has their CDx internal pharma team or external CDx team actually worked in clinical laboratory settings?
In the next several posts, we will look at the specifics in the CDx policy, and then what impacts we might predict for IHC and FISH/CISH based anatomic pathology testing.
