Treating sick people with healthy blood is nothing new. But a new biotech company wants to treat disease by transforming red blood cells into tiny medicine delivery pods, using genetic engineering techniques that have helped turn other human cells into cutting-edge cancer therapies.
The startup is called Rubius Therapeutics, and it’s announcing today a $25 million investment from Flagship Ventures, a Cambridge, MA-based venture group.
La multinacional alemana Bayer ha decidido abandonar en dos años la mayor planta que tiene en España, situada en Tarragona, y que se dedica a la fabricación de productos químicos derivados del poliuretano.
En concreto, la filial química de Bayer -ahora denominada Covestro y que saldrá a bolsa en 2016- ha anunciado el cierre de la planta de producción de MDI (la materia prima que elabora) para finales de 2017 debido a que "las instalaciones en Tarragona ya no pueden seguir siendo competitivas como un centro de producción de MDI en Europa", según recoge el plan aprobado por el Consejo de Supervisión de Covestro en su reunión del pasado 4 de diciembre.
Investors may be cooling on early stage tech startups but that there are still some hot young companies in the sector, if you know where to look.
The folks at startup research company Mattermark did that for their subscribers last week, ranking 582 Bay Area companies that have raised $10 million or less. The growth scores of these 10 rose to the top, showing strong early traction.
In addition to funding, factors taken into consideration included employment growth, increases in social media and website traffic and inbound links to the companies. The momentum of more than half of the top 10 has slowed, according to Mattermark.
Familial hypercholesterolemia is a disease that can be detected easily and for which treatment exists. However, in Europe, only Slovenia and the Netherlands have put in place screening for the disease. EurActiv France reports.
Global warming has led to a rise of new and reemerging diseases, which have seriously affected animals, the European animal health industry has warned.
As delegates meet in Paris this week for the final stage of negotiations to reach a deal to cap global warming, the animal health industry has sent a warning message about the impact on animal health in the event of “inaction” against climate change.
Insurers are increasingly recognizing the IoT’s potential to offer real-time monitoring of vehicles, homes, and other areas of key risk exposure. And one way they are seizing on this opportunity is partnering with emerging startups and tech giants in the space.
An Israeli-tested drug that tackles cancer through sophisticated manipulations of the body’s natural immune system was key in helping rid former US president Jimmy Carter of life-threatening tumors that developed after he was diagnosed with melanoma earlier this year.
Researched in Israel by Professor Jacob Schachter of the Ella Institute for melanoma treatment and research at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Keytruda is part of a promising new class of drugs called immunotherapies, which harness the body’s immune system to help fight cancer.
Bacterial infection is a fairly common and potentially dangerous complication of wound healing, but a new “intelligent” dressing that turns fluorescent green to signal the onset of an infection could provide physicians a valuable early-detection system.
Researchers in the United Kingdom recently unveiled a prototype of the color-changing bandage, which contains a gel-like material infused with tiny capsules that release nontoxic fluorescent dye in response to contact with populations of bacteria that commonly cause wound infections.
An artificial intelligence engine that Google uses in many of its products, and that it made freely available last month, is now being used by others to perform some neat tricks, including translating English into Chinese, reading handwritten text, and even generating original artwork.
The AI software, called Tensor Flow, provides a straightforward way for users to train computers to perform tasks by feeding them large amounts of data. The software incorporates various methods for efficiently building and training simulated “deep learning” neural networks across different computer hardware.
