The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

Biotechnology, Health and Business in Canada, the United States and Worldwide

Category Archives: Richard Chan

Friday Science Review: June 11, 2010

Catch up on these genetics stories between World Cup soccer games… Genetic Links to Autism: Phase 2 results of the Autism Genome Project mapping the genetics of autism is reported this week in Nature. Researchers used the latest microarray technology to identify a trend that autism patients carry more insertion and deletion mutations affecting their [...]

Friday Science Review: June 4, 2010

New fixes for spinal injury, Staph infection and cancers… Spinal Cord Self-Repair: A natural repair mechanism in our bodies may be the key to treating spinal-cord injuries.  Following a spinal cord injury, there is an increase in expression of serotonin receptors and the receptors are spontaneously active even in the absence of serotonin.  This autoactivation [...]

Friday Science Review: May 28, 2010

A Map to Better Beer? The key signaling protein-protein interactions in yeast have been mapped.  Mass spectrometry was used to discover the global network between protein kinases and phosphatases to generate the “kinome” map, which contains 1844 interactions.  Since yeasts are model organisms with similar signaling pathways as in human cells, this information is relevant [...]

Friday Science Review: May 21, 2010

A slightly different FSR this week with a spotlight on Global Health, right on the heels of the recent Grand Challenges Canada announcement.  An interesting report in Nature Biotechnology, led by Drs. Abdallah Daar and Peter Singer at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, mapped the collaborations between health biotech companies in developing countries.  The [...]

Friday Science Review: May 14, 2010

A Cure for Brain Cancer: An aggressive type of brain cancer called glioblastoma may be cured using the small molecule dichloracetate (DCA), a cheap and safe generic compound.  The drug works by altering the metabolism of the cancer cells, which is an emerging concept that exploits the different (higher) energy demand of cancer cells.  DCA’s [...]

Friday Science Review: May 7, 2010

Amazing!  Three Nature papers this week… Cracking the Code: The human body is much more complex than the 20,000 or so genes that are encoded in our DNA.  This multiplicity of genetic messages is enhanced by alternative gene splicing, a process where different segments of DNA exons are spliced together to create a different gene [...]

Friday Science Review: April 30, 2010

Maybe these primary research projects will lead to the next great “Dendreon” story… Mirror-rorriM Movement Disorder: Defects in the proper connections between the left and right sides of the brain can lead to involuntary movements where one side of the body follows or mirrors the movement of the other side.  A study of two families [...]

Friday Science Review: April 23, 2010

Iron Man 2: Actually, this is about IRP2 – Iron Regulatory Protein 2.  Ok, not quite as exciting as the superhero movie but it is interesting/unexpected that overexpression of IRP2 promotes cancer cell growth.  In contrast, the very similar IRP1 protein suppresses tumour growth.  The difference seems to lie within a 73 amino acid sequence [...]

Friday Science Review: April 16, 2010

An amazing week of Canadian research advancements… Cancer Genome Project is Well Underway: The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), who is leading the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), published a report this week in Nature outlining the international effort to sequence 25,000 cancer genomes – 500 genomes from each of the 50 most common [...]

Friday Science Review: April 9, 2010

New fixes for diabetes, HIV, and nerve damage… Nano-Vaccine Cures Diabetes: To prevent the immune system from attacking pancreatic cells in Type 1 diabetes, a nanotechnology based “vaccine” was used successfully to stop the disease in mice.  The strategy involves nanoparticles that are coated with diabetes specific peptides and bound to MHC molecules. When injected [...]

Friday Science Review: March 26, 2010

Why Did the Duck Kill the Chicken? Well… a scientific explanation is RIG-I.  Ducks are resistant to influenza viruses but may by asymptomatic carriers.  One of the reasons for ducks’ resistance is because ducks express the RIG-I protein that senses the presence of the viruses.  Chickens, however, do not appear to express RIG-I or a [...]

Friday Science Review: March 19, 2010

An abbreviated Review this week – headliners with links to news article… Unlocking The Opium Poppy’s Biggest Secret Scientists Take Animal Breeding To The Next Level McGill Researchers Create DNA Nanotubes Able To Carry And Selectively Release Materials HLI Team Identifies a Key Predictor of Cardiovascular Death Study Opens New Avenue For Developing Treatments For [...]

Friday Science Review: March 12, 2010

Good viruses, bad viruses, biomarkers and protein structures in this week’s research highlights… Biomarker for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Subset: Using a high-throughput genomic approach to associate gene expression profile with treatment outcomes for Hodgkin lymphoma, researchers identified an overexpression of genes typically expressed by macrophages in samples from patients who had experienced a relapse after treatment.  [...]

Friday Science Review: March 5, 2010

Missing Enzyme Improves Metabolism: Mice lacking the TGH gene for the enzyme triacylglycerol hydrolase showed an unexpected dramatic improvement in their metabolic profile.  TGH is an enzyme that helps to release stored fat or triglycerides into the blood stream where it circulates to be used as an energy source or, if in excess, ends up [...]

Friday Science Review: February 26, 2010

A few medical research applications this week… Personalized Medicine – for Lung Cancer: To develop a personalized medicine approach to treating non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), researchers generated a xenograft model where they implant human tumour tissue into the renal capsule of a host mouse.  As the tumour establishes itself, the mouse then becomes the [...]

Friday Science Review: February 19, 2010

Hunks and pigs highlight this week’s research wrap-up… HUNKs Stop Cancer Metastasis: Researchers screening tumour cells found that expression of the enzyme HUNK (Hormonally Up-regulated Neu-associated Kinase) is significantly lower in cancers.  When they reconstituted HUNK into metastatic cancer cells, it decreased their metastastic potential when tested in mouse cancer models.  Its actions block the [...]

Friday Science Review: February 12, 2010

New Discovery for Neonatal Diabetes: Researchers uncovered an important role for the Rfx6 gene.  Its integrity is required for normal development of the islets of Langerhans cells in the pancreas that produces important hormones including insulin.  Genetic mutations found in Rfx6 are the cause of severe neonatal diabetes where there are no insulin producing islets [...]

Friday Science Review: February 5, 2010

Several neurological related stories this week and quantum biology? Glial Cells – They’ll turn against you: An unusual molecule can turn glial cells, which normally surround neurons, into killer cells that attack the neurons they are suppose to protect.  Researchers made the surprising discovery of proNGF’s role while trying to figure out its function in [...]

Friday Science Review: January 29, 2010

A productive week of international collaborations leading to new drugs or targets… Genetic Map of Yeast: A large-scale, genome-wide interaction map of yeast genes was constructed in an international study.  The extensive network of genetic interactions lays out a functional map of the cell where similar biological processes can be grouped together. Yeast has been [...]

Friday Science Review: January 22, 2010

Some really exciting research in this week’s review… Special (RNAi) Delivery: One of the obstacles for RNAi based therapeutics is the difficulty in getting the RNAi into the cells efficiently to invoke a positive response.  Vancouver based Tekmira Pharmaceuticals (TSX: TKM.TO), in partnership with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ALNY) and researchers at the University of British [...]

Friday Science Review: January 15, 2010

A little sunflower power to brighten up a quiet week… Understanding Cancer Therapy Resistance: A molecular contribution to resistance to cancer treatments is from the cellular protein Clusterin (CLU).   This cell survival protein is targeted by the antisense based OGX-011, one of OncoGenex Pharmaceutical’s leading compounds currently in phase 2 trials for prostate, lung and [...]

Friday Science Review: January 8, 2010

I am starting the new year and decade by recognizing the accomplishments of two distinguished scientists… Two outstanding Canadian scientists were recognized for their valuable contributions to the global research community. Dr. Andras Nagy’s innovative technique to reprogram mature body cells into stem cells – called induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells – was [...]

Friday Science Review: December 18, 2009

Advancing Cell Research with Proteomic Tools: Advances in technology – particularly in proteomics – are allowing scientists to perform research in more complex systems, a complexity that more closely reflects the situation inside the body.  In the latest trend, researchers can label two different populations of cells with different modified amino acids and use mass [...]

Friday Science Review: December 11, 2009

WOW!  A busy week in the bioscience world… Pull Down Your ‘SOCS’ and Grow Some Nerves: A long standing question is how to get mature neurons, which stop growing at around the age of two, to start growing again after sustaining nerve damage.  The answer may lie in a protein called SOCS3 (suppressor of cytokine [...]

Friday Science Review: December 4, 2009

Universal Cancer Signalling Pathway: This is an interesting new twist on cancer signalling that may make scientists rethink how to tackle the disease.  It is thought that there is no single cure for cancer as the hetergenous disease may arise from mutations in a number of different pathways.  In this report, however, researchers demonstrate that [...]

Friday Science Review: November 27, 2009

Two quick reviews on studies addressing Alzheimer’s and lung damage therapy… An ‘- omics’ Study of Lipids in Alzheimer’s Disease: Clues to the underlying molecular mechanisms of amyloid plaque proteins causing Alzheimer’s disease were revealed using a lipidomic method (think broad ‘-omics’ type profiling of lipids).  In diseased tissue, accumulation of certain isoforms or types [...]

Friday Science Review: November 20, 2009

Intestinal disease genomics and how hedgehogs cause arthritis… Genetic Clues to ‘Belly Aches’ in Children: The largest genomic investigation into early onset inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis involved the efforts of an international research team.  In total, genetic information from 3,400 children with IBD and 12,000 healthy children were compared.  [...]

Friday (the 13th) Science Review: November 13, 2009

No bad luck here in unraveling new genetic and proteomic links in disease… Gene Variants Linked to Hearing Loss:  A genetic link to hearing loss in children who are being treated with the chemotherapy drug, cisplatin, has been identified.  Cisplatin is a widely used anti-cancer drug but one of the harmful side effects is hearing [...]

Friday Science Review: November 6, 2009

Just two stories this week – a cancer pathway and innovative dipsticks… New Relationship between Tumour Suppressor Genes: Knocking out genes in mice believed to play a tumour inhibiting role would intuitively result in rapid cancer development.  However, it was a surprise to McGill researchers that mice lacking the tumour suppressors 4E-BP1 and 4E-BP2 were [...]

Friday Science Review: October 30, 2009

Regenerative medicine and Cross-border awards… Gene Therapy Saves Donor Lungs: A technique using gene therapy on donor lungs before transplantation may be used to repair and save damaged lungs, making them potentially suitable for transplantation into patients.  The procedure involves first preserving the lungs at normal body temperature in a protective chamber called the Toronto [...]

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