Jim Greenwood, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), last week praised members of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee for supporting legislation that would restore Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant eligibility to small biotech companies that are majority backed by private investment. “I commend members of the committee for supporting this important legislation and thank Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) for his leadership in offering the amendment to the Small Business Administration reauthorization bill. I also want to express my appreciation to the other members of the Committee, particularly Chairman Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Senators Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) for their important contributions to achieve the compromise language included in the Bond amendment. Read the press release.
Rosetta Genomics has secured the rights to patents covering potentially hundreds of human microRNA sequences in diagnostic applications, through a co-exclusive license agreement. The agreement was signed with Garching Innovation, the technology transfer agency of the Max Planck Society, one of the leading scientific research organizations in Europe. This is the second microRNA licensing agreement for Rosetta since May, when the company signed a licensing agreement with Rockefeller University, and is part of a broader strategy to expand the company's product development capabilities. Rosetta Genomics microRNA patent portfolio already covers hundreds of human microRNA sequences. Website: www.rosettagenomics.com.
Teranode Corp. today announced it will participate in a panel presentation at the 11th Annual Drug Discovery Technology & Development World Congress. The panel, titled “How Semantic Web Technologies Are Enabling the Bench to Bedside Vision,” will discuss how the Semantic Web technologies are impacting drug discovery today and their potential to streamline and accelerate drug development. The panel will take place on Tuesday, August 8, in Boston. Eric K. Neumann, senior director product strategy, Teranode, and a leading Semantic Web innovator, will speak on the panel, along with other experts from the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group. Related Bio-IT World stories: Masters of the Semantic Web; Freeing Data, Keeping Structure.
Ariadne Genomics announced that Murex Pharmaceuticals has licensed its Pathway Studio software solution for the visualization and analysis of biological pathways and gene regulation networks. Murex will use Pathway Studio to develop computer-based models for the identification and validation of cancer targets. Pathway Studio (formerly known as PathwayAssist) enables life scientists to identify relationships among proteins, small molecules, cell processes and treatments, and automatically extract relevant biological interactions from scientific literature. Read the press release.
Sigma-Aldrich has expanded its shRNA gene family sets in lentiviral format for direct use in gene silencing. The Mission TRC shRNA Human Kinases Gene Family is the second in a series of shRNA target sets that allows for rapid RNAi cell-based screens in mammalian systems not easily manipulated by traditional siRNA. The lentiviral transduction particle format eliminates the need to propagate bacterial cells, purify plasmid DNA or undertake the lengthy process of preparing virus, saving time and valuable resources. Read the press release.
Interactive Supercomputing Inc. (ISC) announced that its Star-P interactive supercomputing software will now be available on HP ProLiant servers, HP BladeSystem solutions and HP Cluster Platform systems that are based on dual-core x86-64 processors – AMD’s Opteron and Intel’s recently announced Xeon 5100. Read the press release.
Affymetrix and CapitalBio Corp., a life science company based in Beijing, P.R. China, announced that CapitalBio has become a certified Affymetrix Service Provider and will begin offering genotyping services using the Affymetrix GeneChip Human Mapping 500K Array Set. The 500K Array enables researchers to search across the entire genome in detail to find genes involved in disease or drug response. CapitalBio has been offering gene expression profiling services using Affymetrix microarray technology for more than a year. The two companies have also been working together on joint R&D and commercialization programs, including the development of an advanced GeneChip-compatible personal scanner. Read the press release.