Research & University News

Researchers from the UK and Canada have reported a method for reprogramming human skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells without the use of viral vectors.

The Dutch public-private partnership, Top Institute Pharma (TI Pharma), is helping fund a project aimed at developing a vaccine for Chikungunya, an insect-borne virus that can cause disability. There is currently no vaccine available for the disease. The project has a budget of €2.3 million which will be jointly funded by TI Pharma and members of the research consortia.

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The privately-owned Belgian biotechnology company, Algonomics, has signed an agreement with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) to investigate a new approach to improve the immunogenicity of candidate AIDS vaccines.

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Privately-owned Cellzome Inc is to receive a grant of up to €3.85 million from the German government. Spread over five years, the grant will enable Cellzome’s Heidelberg unit to expand its proteomics platform for the discovery and development of new drugs.

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Paolo Macchiarini, head of thoracic surgery at the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona, Spain and colleagues have reported the results of a trachea transplant into a woman with tuberculosis using tissue from a donor which was repopulated with stem and epithelial cells from the recipient. This is understood to be the first ever trachea transplant and the first ever tissue transplant to be performed without the use of immunosuppressive drugs.

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A long-standing collaboration among Cellartis AB, the Hagedorn Research Institute of Novo Nordisk, and Professor Henrik Semb of Lund University into diabetes has been upgraded with a view to developing a new cell therapy for the treatment of type 1 diabetes.

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The University of Cambridge is highlighting the results of a Phase 2 study of the monoclonal antibody alemtuzumab which, it says, shows the drug has promise for treating people with multiple sclerosis.

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Research published in the journal, Science, and financially supported by the Wellcome Trust, describes how a new class of antibiotics could be developed to treat multi-drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

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The European Institute of Innovation and Technology, based in Budapest, Hungary, has appointed its first 18-person governing board. The institute is a new European Union organisation that will promote new technologies in the physical, social and life sciences.

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Four days after announcing its first ever research agreement with the University of Cambridge in the UK, GlaxoSmithKline has disclosed a five-year collaboration with the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in the US to discover new therapies based on stem cell science.

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