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Faced with limited funding and the need to find the most time- and cost-efficient route to proof of concept and relevance, how should you reorganize your company to facilitate development of your most valuable assets?
A European high court ruling on the patentability of inventions related to human embryonic stem cells could promote secrecy and reduce access to data and cell lines.
Zafgen hopes that small-molecule targeting of methionine aminopeptidase 2 (MetAP2), an enzyme originally associated with tumor angiogenesis, will lead to a new anti-obesity drug.
Agricultural microbes have become an attractive target for patenting, but the lack of a consistent global patent regime and increasingly heated debates over microbial ownership rights are barriers to the development of this resource.
The increasing complexity of medical science poses significant challenges to medical education, leading to a growing gap between medical researchers and treating practitioners.
In the past year, biologics sector sales grew by single digits, driven by monoclonal antibodies and insulin products. New product launches are showing mixed results and are facing rising challenges from changes to reimbursement policies.
Mouse induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have been shown to retain an epigenetic 'memory' of their cell type of origin. Kim et al. study this question in human cells and document both incomplete erasure of methylation and aberrant de novo methylation during reprogramming.
The International Stem Cell Initiative compares 125 ethnically diverse human embryonic stem cell lines at early and late passage. Data on karotype, single-nucleotide polymorphisms and methylation shed light on how the cells adapt to long-term culture.
Copy-number changes in cancer genomes may be caused by errors during the replication of colocalized DNA regions. De and Michor provide genome-wide evidence for this model by integrating data on DNA replication timing, the three-dimensional organization of the genome and copy-number alterations in cancer.