Life Sciences : In The News

New findings at The University of Pennsylvania may signify a turning point in the long struggle to develop effective gene therapies against cancer, according to The New York Times.

A year ago, when chemotherapy stopped working against his leukemia, William Ludwig signed up to be the first patient treated in a bold experiment at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Ludwig, then 65, a retired corrections officer from Bridgeton, N.J., felt his life draining away and thought he had nothing to lose.

Doctors removed a billion of his T-cells -- a type of white blood cell that fights viruses and tumors -- and gave them new genes that would program the cells to attack his cancer. Then the altered cells were dripped back into Mr. Ludwig’s veins.

Source: The New York Times
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King of Prussia based NextDocs raises $10.3 million to provide Microsoft SharePoint to life sciences, according to TechCrunch.

NextDocs, a company that sells Microsoft SharePoint based software for the life sciences industry, has raised $10.3 million in a Series A financing from OpenView Venture Partners.

NextDocs helps life sciences companies of leverage SharePoint-based document and management software.The company actually customizes SharePoint for companies in the pharmaceuticals, medical device and biotech industries. NextDocs actually has over 100 customers across the life sciences industry (including five of the ten largest pharmaceutical companies in the U.S.).

Source: TechCrunch
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The brother of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel joins Penn faculty, according to The Associated Press.


The Ivy League institution in Philadelphia announced Friday that Ezekiel Emanuel will hold dual posts in the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School for business.

Source: The Associated Press
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Bio IT delves into the partnership between Fox Chase Cancer Center, Ignite Institute and Life Technologies that has formed the Cancer Genome Institute.

Following the widely publicized demise of plans to locate the Ignite Institute for Individualized Health in northern Virginia, the institute has found a new home as part of a three-way partnership at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Only it won't be called Ignite anymore.

Ignite has been rolled into pre-existing plans at Fox Chase to build a center for personalized medicine, says Jeff Boyd, senior vice president of Molecular Medicine. "The Ignite Institute and Fox Chase are working together with Life Technologies to launch what is now the Cancer Genome Institute at Fox Chase," says Boyd. Ignite's founder, Dietrich Stephan, serves as consulting chief scientific officer of the new institute.

Source: Bio IT World
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A bulb literally goes on when students work out at Drexel, according to NPR.

If only all the speed and strength of youth could be channeled into power. Turns out, it can. Some colleges and universities have started converting energy from exercise equipment into electricity.

One of those schools is Drexel University in Philadelphia, where student power runs straight into their buildings' power grids. Dan Simmons, director of recreation at Drexel, says a typical 30-minute workout on a treadmill can generate enough energy to hold a light bulb for 2.5 hours.

Source: NPR
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Mummies of the World exhibit opens at The Franklin Institute, making its only East Coast stop in the U.S. on its worldwide tour, according to the Daily Mail.

The wraps are coming off a blockbuster exhibit this weekend at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

A haunting new exhibit entitled 'Mummies of the World' is set to open this Saturday. It will be the largest travelling exhibition ever assembled of mummies.

The exhibit will feature 45 mummies of humans and animals, ranging from 250 years old to nearly 6,500 years old.

Source: Daily Mail (UK)
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Researchers in Temple University's physics department are developing magnets as blood thinners, helping reduce the risk of heart disease, according to CNET.

Temple University physics department chair Rongjia Tao made headlines in 2008 when he developed a simple device that creates an electric field to thin fuel, thereby reducing the size of the droplets injected into the engine and improving fuel efficiency.

Now, Tao and former graduate student Ke Huang are unveiling their latest research that this same principle, when applied to the human body, can help thin blood and reduce one's risk of heart attack--without the side effects of blood thinners such as aspirin.

Source: CNET
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Temple researchers find that prolonged bottle feeding may increase risk of obesity, reports Fox News.

Babies who are still drinking from a bottle after the age of one are more likely to become obese, U.S. researchers said today.

A study of almost 7,000 children by scientists at Temple University in Philadelphia found that those who were still being put to bed with a bottle of milk at age two were 30 percent more likely to be obese at age five.

Source: Fox News
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Philadelphia based insurance giant Cigna Corp. exceeded first-quarter expectations due to lowered medical claims and increased international business, according to The Associated Press.

Cigna Corp.'s first-quarter net income jumped 52 percent as medical claims fell, the international business grew again, and it raised its 2011 profit forecast like other big health insurers that also beat expectations for the quarter.

The Philadelphia company said Thursday earnings in health care, its largest segment, climbed 47 percent, and premiums and fees from its international business rose 32 percent, fueled in part by the purchase of the Belgian company Vanbreda International last year.

Source: The Associated Press
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A new species of lichen is discovered on a rock in Pennsylvania and is named in honor of a Philadelphia plant expert, according to Science Daily.

A Philadelphia botanist who has studied rare plants for 50 years, but has never attained the honor of having a plant named for him is finally getting his due, but with a barely visible organism so rare it may never be seen again.

Dr. Alfred "Ernie" Schuyler, emeritus curator of botany at the Academy of Natural Sciences and a world expert on rare plants, recently was honored when a colleague discovered a new species of lichen and named it after him. The barely visible lichen (LIE kin), Vezdaea schuyleriana, is known to exist on a single boulder in rural central Pennsylvania, northwest of Lewisburg -- and nowhere else in the world.

Source: Science Daily
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Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University, working in tandem with University of Zurich scientists discover a chemical thought to be a vital piece in the Multiple Sclerosis puzzle, according to The Daily Mail.

In a major breakthrough in the battle against the devastating disease, researchers have pinpointed the chemical 'driving force' behind MS.

Without it, the disease does not develop. And when it is mopped up, symptoms are greatly eased, even in brains already ravaged by the illness.

The results come from experiments on mice but the researchers say they are 'quietly optimistic' that taking the same tack will help people with MS. The first trials on patients are penciled in for later this year.

Source: the Daily Mail (UK)
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Johnson & Johnson plans to buy West Chester-based Synthes, and the deal may usher in future medtech investment, according to Reuters.

Johnson & Johnson's plan to buy Synthes for some $20 billion may mean more deals in the sector as rival medical technology firms try to bulk up in tough times, though antitrust issues are a hurdle.

A weak economy and high unemployment have hit sales of medical devices hard, since patients have to take time off and, in the United States, dig deep into their own pockets to help pay for procedures such as knee replacements.

As a result, more and more companies are looking at acquisitions as a way to add new avenues of growth.

Source: Reuters
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New technology to electronically assess head trauma is being developed by Villanova University engineering professor, according to the National Post.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discover more genes that may be linked to Alzheimer's, according to NPR.

Two groups of researchers have scanned the genomes of thousands of individuals, looking for clues to genes involved in Alzheimer's disease. Gerard Schellenberg of the University of Pennsylvania explains how locating those genes could lead to new ways to treat or prevent the disease.

Alzheimer's disease is one of medical science's big mysteries, of course. It's difficult to diagnose. We don't really know what causes it, if there is any single cause. We have no real cure for it.

Well, writing this week in the journal Nature Genetics, researchers may have found some new clues to the disease. Two big consortia of researchers, one in the U.S., one in Europe, have sifted through the genomes of thousands of Alzheimer's patients and have come up with a handful of genes that seem to be linked to the condition. 

Source: NPR
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Philadelphia's Osage University Partners has set up a fund to provide profit to schools where initial research is done, according to The New York Times.

THERE are a lot of smart people in universities. Some may even be geniuses. Many of them are certainly good at inventing technologies that will change our lives.

But for the most part, universities aren't particularly adept at extracting the full measure of profit from all those innovations. While university technology transfer offices routinely license the intellectual property developed on campus, the schools themselves often aren't very nimble at retaining large stakes in the start-ups that exploit that property.

Source: The New York Times
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