News and Trends 26 Jul 2018 AI Company Raises €8.6M to Find Drugs for Rare Diseases Faster and Cheaper Than Ever Cambridge-based Healx has raised $10M (€8.6M) in a Series A round to scale up its AI technology, which could significantly reduce the time and cost of developing drugs for rare diseases. Backed, among other investors, by the founder of Abcam, Healx plans to use the fundraising to double its workforce from 15 to over 30 […] July 26, 2018 - 4 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 25 Jul 2018 Two Drugs as Good as Three for Treating HIV ViiV Healthcare reports promising data from two HIV treatments with two drugs instead of the usual three, which have the potential to reduce the side effects of antiretroviral therapy in the long term. People infected with HIV are treated with lifelong antiretroviral therapy, which traditionally consists of three or more different drugs. The British […] July 25, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 19 Jul 2018 Kite Partners with Dutch Biotech to Develop a New Form of CAR-T Therapy Kite will support Gadeta in the development of a new type of CAR-T therapy that could be more effective in solid tumors. Approved just last year, CAR-T cell therapy is offering hope to patients with severe forms of blood cancer. The developer of one of only two CAR-T therapies currently in the market, Kite, has […] July 19, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
More News! 18 Jul 2018 Lab-Grown Meat Will Be on the Market in 2021 Dutch startup Mosa Meat has raised €7.5M in a Series A round, which will support the development of a first lab-grown meat product that is expected to make it to market by 2021. Mosa Meat is a Dutch startup co-founded by Mark Post, the scientist behind the world’s first lab-grown burger. After an early investment […] July 18, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 16 Jul 2018 CRISPR-Cas9 Shown to Cause Previously Unseen DNA Damage Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK have found that gene editing with CRISPR-Cas9 can cause significantly more off-target damage to the DNA than previously thought. Published today in Nature Biotechnology, the study is the first to look at unexpected DNA changes caused by CRISPR across large regions of the genome. […] July 16, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
More News! 14 Jul 2018 An Artist’s Insight into the Day-to-Day Life at the Francis Crick Institute A new interactive art installation at the Francis Crick Institute in London lets visitors peek into what life at the famous research institute is like. “The Francis Crick Institute is this incredible, huge, imposing building of which the public can see very little inside,” Alex May, a British digital artist, told me during an interview. His […] July 14, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 11 Jul 2018 Gene Therapy for Retinitis Pigmentosa Tested in Humans for the First Time French biotech Horama has treated the first patients with a gene therapy for retinitis pigmentosa that could prevent the progressive loss of vision caused by this genetic condition. A Phase I/II trial with Horama’s gene therapy for retinitis pigmentosa is running at the Nantes University Hospital. The therapy is aimed at fixing genetic defects in a […] July 11, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
More News! 8 Jul 2018 How Can Biology Help Us Prepare For Life in Space? An exhibition at the Science Gallery Dublin explores how humans are preparing to live in the harsh conditions of outer space — and how microorganisms might help us do so. Space traveling is closer than many of us think. NASA has plans to send humans to Mars in the 2030s, and Elon Musk seems to […] July 8, 2018 - 5 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Interview 3 Jul 2018 Fighting Antimicrobial Resistance with Fast Molecular Diagnostics Antimicrobial resistance is predicted to kill more people than cancer by 2050. Is it possible to prevent it? At our Refresh Meetup in Berlin, I talked with Achim Plum, CBO of the diagnostics company Curetis, about what are our best bets to turn the tables in the fight against the threat of antimicrobial resistance. The […] July 3, 2018 - 8 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 30 Jun 2018 Glass Microbiology: From the Microscope to the Art Gallery Artist Luke Jerram is behind Glass Microbiology, a series of beautiful glass-blown microbes that are changing the way we perceive viruses and bacteria. We’ve all seen at some point brightly-colored illustrations of viruses, most likely the feared HIV or an alien-like bacteriophage. These representations feed our imagination and help us understand the tiny but complex world of […] June 30, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 28 Jun 2018 Muscular Dystrophy Drug Fails in Phase 2 Trial The stock of Summit Therapeutics has plunged by 80% after announcing that its drug candidate for Duchenne muscular dystrophy failed to meet the primary and secondary endpoints of a Phase II clinical trial. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a genetic disease that causes progressive muscle deterioration in children born with the disease. The British-American company Summit […] June 28, 2018 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 27 Jun 2018 International Fund Raises €300M for Dementia Research The Dementia Discovery Fund has raised $350M (€300M) to support industrial and academic scientists doing early-stage research to develop new dementia medicines. Launched in 2015, the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) is dedicated to investing in early-stage ventures that develop disease-modifying therapeutics for all types of dementia, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Yesterday, the DDF completed a […] June 27, 2018 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email