By Anne Stark, LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists are leveraging their extensive experience studying the movement of airborne hazards to better understand the movement of virus-like particles through the air and to identify effective countermeasures. While the burden of airborne diseases is known to be large, its true scope is underappreciated. LLNL researchers…
Life sciences industry must prioritize skills development in 2021
By John Wise, Operations Team Member and Dr. Steve Arlington, President Pistoia Alliance One of the side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been its impact on digital transformation of the workplace and the lab. How and where we work, and how we conduct research, is changing considerably. Developments in technology have delivered significant benefits…
Toward a disease-sniffing device that rivals a dog’s nose
By David L. Chandler | MIT News Office Numerous studies have shown that trained dogs can detect many kinds of disease — including lung, breast, ovarian, bladder and prostate cancers, and possibly Covid-19 — simply through smell. In some cases, involving prostate cancer for example, the dogs had a 99% success rate in detecting the…
MilliporeSigma enhances Design for Sustainability framework, offers customers data-driven insights for greener solutions
MilliporeSigma has launched an enhanced Design for Sustainability (DfS) framework, a unique approach to holistically integrate sustainability into products, systems and services. With the introduction of DfS, MilliporeSigma leads the life science industry in ensuring that sustainability is at the forefront of each stage of the product life cycle. This important strategic initiative supports the…
New, online 2D-LC System empowers scientists to confidently characterize complex samples
Thermo Scientific Vanquish Online 2D-Liquid Chromatography (LC) systems offer a robust and flexible platform for pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical R&D, food safety, environmental testing, omics and polymer analysis scientists to characterize complex samples in-depth with the highest confidence. The Vanquish Online 2D-LC system leverages the performance and ease of use of the innovative Vanquish technology, while offering maximum…
SPT Labtech acquires BioMicroLab expanding its offering in sample management for life sciences
SPT Labtech, designer and developer of automated instrumentation and consumables for life science applications, announces the acquisition of BioMicroLab, a robotics automation provider for life science laboratories. Headquartered in Northern California, BioMicroLab designs and manufactures laboratory automation equipment for biotechnology and scientific research. BioMicroLab’s extensive range of sample handling and tracking solutions complements SPT Labtech’s…
President of the Pistoia Alliance: “Let’s not wait another 100 years to collaborate”
Dr. Steve Arlington, president of the Pistoia Alliance, a global not-for-profit advocating for greater collaboration in biopharma, has called on the life science industry to learn the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and seek out more opportunities to collaborate. COVID-19 dealt the sector a complex challenge, but it has also been a catalyst for organizations…
A machine-learning approach to finding treatment options for Covid-19
Written by Daniel Ackerman, MIT News Office When the Covid-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, doctors and researchers rushed to find effective treatments. There was little time to spare. “Making new drugs takes forever,” says Caroline Uhler, a computational biologist in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Institute for Data, Systems…
Lawrence Livermore’s popular lecture series goes virtual to cover COVID-19
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s popular lecture series, “Science on Saturday,” is going virtual in 2021 with the theme “Combating COVID-19.” The series, targeted to middle and high school students, runs Saturdays at 10 a.m. Feb. 6 through Feb. 27. Each Saturday will feature a different lecture presented by leading Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers…
Scaling single-use liquid dispensing from R&D to automated production
At pharmaceutical companies, including those that deal with reagents, buffers, biologics, cells, immunotherapy and similar products, liquid measurement and filling is often done by hand during R&D and lower initial production volumes. However, as advances are made through the development process, increasing demand for production volume and product changeover increase, result in significant drawbacks to…
R&D winner of the day: FAST 3D Camera for optimized radiation dose and image quality in computed tomography
The Siemens Healthineers FAST 3D Camera supports technologists in their daily clinical routine by helping to reduce the variabilities in patient positioning on the CT bed. It optimizes radiation dose and achieves improved more standardized image quality through reduced image noise caused by isocenter misalignment. It helps reduce patient mispositioning resulting in wrong topogram acquisitions…
Shimadzu Introduces high-sensitivity online total organic carbon analyzer for ultra-pure water measurement
Shimadzu Scientific Instruments introduces the TOC-1000e online total organic carbon analyzer, which provides high sensitivity and low detection limits, reaching 0.1 μg/L, making it ideal for industries requiring high-purity water, including pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, food & beverage, chemical packaging and precision equipment manufacturing. The TOC-1000e analyzer is the industry’s first to use a mercury-free excimer lamp…
R&D 100 winner Horizon Therapeutics to acquire Viela Bio to expand development and grow rare disease medicine portfolio
Horizon Therapeutics, producer of R&D 100 winner TEPEZZA, and Viela Bio today announced the companies have entered into a definitive agreement under which Horizon will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Viela Bio common stock for $53 per share in cash, which represents a fully diluted equity value of approximately $3.05 billion,…
The Pistoia Alliance launches its enhanced President’s Startup Challenge
The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit alliance that works to lower barriers to innovation in life science and healthcare R&D, has this week launched its revised President’s Startup Challenge. Building on the success of the previous six years, 2021 will see the annual Challenge not just fund startups working to transform R&D and healthcare innovation,…
R&D 100 winner of the day: TEPEZZA
Thyroid Eye Disease (TED), a serious, progressive, vision-threatening rare autoimmune disease that affects a small patient population, causes serious damage including proptosis (eye bulging), strabismus (misalignment of the eyes) and diplopia (double vision), and in some cases can lead to blindness. Until the FDA approval of TEPEZZA, TED patients had no approved options for treatment…
Wellcome Leap establishes global network dedicated to accelerated breakthroughs in human health
Wellcome Leap (Leap), a U.S.-based non-profit organization founded by the Wellcome Trust to accelerate innovations that benefit global health, today announced the first 21 participants in the Leap Health Breakthrough Network, a global group of leading academic and research institutions committed to solving the world’s most serious health challenges — such as cancer and infectious…
SPT Labtech announces a co-marketing initiative with Thermo Fisher Scientific to help reduce the cost of NGS library prep
The cost of library preparation is one of the biggest obstacles to large next-generation sequencing (NGS) studies, slowing down the pace of insights from infectious disease surveillance, cancer research and beyond. At the Festival of Genomics, SPT Labtech announced an initiative with Thermo Fisher Scientific to co-market solutions that will enable variant detection at a…
IDMO, of China, joins Repositive Cancer Model network, expanding model database
Repositive has announced this week that IDMO will be joining its global network of CRO partners. Based internationally in China, IDMO is a fast-growing CRO with over 6 years of experience in developing mouse PDX models for cancer research and personalized medicine. With this new partnership, Repositive is expanding its global reach and model selection…
Thermo Fisher Scientific releases SARS-CoV-2 Optimized Precipitation Reagent and Enrichment Kits for isolating virus particles
The Invitrogen Intact Virus Precipitation Reagent and Dynabeads Intact Virus Enrichment kits* are optimized to isolate intact SARS-CoV-2 virus particles such as infectious virus, inactivated virus or virus like particles (VLPs). While virus cultures are often required to obtain sufficient virus yield, long isolation times can slow down sample analysis. Thermo Fisher’s Intact Virus Precipitation…
Lawrence Livermore National Lab and UK company to collaborate on universal coronavirus vaccine
ConserV Bioscience Limited (CBL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have agreed to collaborate on the development of a broad-spectrum or “universal” coronavirus vaccine. This collaboration brings together CBL’s expertise in identifying antigens and LLNL’s nanolipoprotein delivery system. The vaccine has been designed to provide broad-spectrum protection against coronavirus pathogens of human and animal origin,…
ZEISS announces collaborative research partnership with Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience
Zeiss announces that it has formed a research collaboration partnership with the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI). Using an LSM 980 NLO next generation confocal microscope supplied by ZEISS, MPFI will investigate using implanted GRadient INdex (GRIN) lenses in combination with the Airyscan 2 area detector for deep brain functional neuroscience research. Airyscan…
R&D 100 winner of the day: MilliporeSigma Blazar Platform
As the drug manufacturing process evolves, rapid testing will become an essential component in intensified processing and how the industry will detect adventitious agents. MilliporeSigma has developed a first-of-its-kind assay platform that provides highly sensitive viral detection in just days. The innovative Blazar Platform reduces turn-around-time from up to 63 days to ten days, while…
AI-powered microscope could check cancer margins in minutes
A new microscope from researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center can rapidly image large tissue sections, potentially during surgery, to discover on the spot if the cancer was successfully removed. It was created by engineers and applied physicists at Rice and is described in a study recently published…
R&D 100 winner of the day: A Smart-Care Solution for Chronic Wound, iSCare
Chronic wounds have devastating consequences for patients and contribute to billions of dollars in healthcare costs. Diabetic ulcers have the highest growth rate amongst the global population with wounds and require frequent observation to prevent them from becoming chronic. Fifteen percent of diabetic patients will experience at least one diabetic ulcer in a lifetime. Each…
R&D 100 winner of the day: the Optimizer
CCM (Cardiac Contractility Modulation) therapy, delivered by Impulse Dynamics’ the Optimizer, is a breakthrough treatment that can help many people with heart failure feel better and reduce their symptoms. The therapy is designed to improve the heart’s ability to contract by delivering precisely timed pulses of energy directly to the heart. The Optimizer is the…