Biotech / Biomedical October 2008 Archive

It’s not what you think – at least I think the main motive for the class-action lawsuit filed this week in British Columbia, Canada, is to allow the offspring of ... Read More

I just found this really cool site funded by the Government of Canada, where you participate in an interactive online "adventure" trip to Mars. The site is designed to teach ... Read More

Do you do clinical research in Europe? How is your company faring since the establishment of the European Union’s Clinical Trials Directive (2001/20/EC)? The Directive, implemented into EU member states ... Read More

White Rot Fungi (WRF) are the only organisms known to degrade significant amounts of lignin, a fibrous structural material in plants that consists of complex cross-links of phenylpropene units. Lignin ... Read More

Ceres is a network of environmental organizations, investors and businesses concerned with sustainability. Their objective is to help businesses address environmental issues such as climate change, and promote growth and ... Read More

Genome scanning refers to a number of different molecular methods all geared towards detecting anomalies in the sequence of individual people's DNA. Although we might, as individuals, have slightly different ... Read More

One of my pet peeves as a scientist is when research results are misquoted by media as having proved or disproved something, or when people without a science background quote ... Read More

For a bit of a change from the biopharmaceutical and biofuels angles, I've been writing a piece on different aspects of biotechnology in agriculture, and adding a new list item ... Read More

Most people are familiar with Cystic Fibrosis as a chronic, inherited disease that manifests itself as a thick mucus that lines the lungs and impairs breathing in its victims. What ... Read More

Scientists are developing a vaccine for drug-resistant bacteria based on the biofilms they produce that protect them from antibiotics. The discovery that these "superbugs" produce a sticky substance which induces ... Read More

This year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry, awarded yesterday, gives a nod to a discovery that has played an enormous role in biotechnology and become as commonplace as E. coli as ... Read More

Individual bacterial cells don't always live in isolation. Some types of cells thrive in groups, offering each other protection, shared nutrients and sending signals for when to divide or produce ... Read More