#Merck-Newlink Genetics Ebola Vaccine Shows 100%Efficacy in Phase III Trial Merck & co. and Newlink Genetics said today that a single dose of their Ebola vaccine candidate rvsv
-ZEBOV showed 100%efficacy in an analysis of interim data from a Phase III ring vaccination trial in Guinea.
According to those findings, all individuals who received the vaccine were protected against Ebola virus infection within 6 to 10 days of vaccination. he results of this interim analysis indicate that rvsv-ZEBOV might be highly efficacious and safe in preventing Ebola virus disease
when delivered during an Ebola virus disease outbreak via a ring vaccination strategy, the study team concluded.
and July 20, 2015,4, 123 people were assigned randomly to immediate vaccination with rvsv-ZEBOV, while 3, 528 people were assigned randomly to delayed vaccination during the trial, named bola ça suffit, French for bola,
that enough. n the immediate vaccination group, there were no cases of Ebola virus disease with symptom onset at least 10 days after randomization,
whereas in the delayed vaccination group there were 16 cases of Ebola virus disease from seven clusters,
showing a vaccine efficacy of 100%,the researchers added. The international team carrying out the trial included researchers from the World health organization, the Norwegian Institute of Public health, the Health Ministry of Guinea,
and Médecins sans Frontières. he extraordinary efforts of the team in Guinea and other experts have yielded interim results that suggest a potential role for our rvsv-ZEBOV vaccine in the fight against Ebola disease, Roger
M. Perlmutter, M d.,Ph d, . president of Merck Research Laboratories, said a statement. Added Charles J. Link Jr.
M d.,Newlink Geneticschairman, CEO, and CSO: e hope that the interim data published today contribute to the successful registration of our vaccine candidate,
which we believe can play an important part in diminishing the threat of Ebola. The Guinea trial is one of three ongoing studies in
The Sierra leone Trial to Introduce a Vaccine against Ebola (STRIVE) Phase III study being conducted by the Sierra leone College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences, Sierra leone Ministry of Health,
and Sanitation and the U s. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); The Partnership for Research on Ebola Vaccines in Liberia (PREVAIL) Phase II study being conducted by a Liberia-NIH partnership in Liberia.
To date, the rvsv-ZEBOV vaccine has been administered to more than 9, 000 people in Phase I, II,
and III clinical trials. Vaccinated individuals have been shown to develop antibodies against the Ebola virus, but the significance and durability of this immune response have not been determined. rvsv-ZEBOV was engineered initially with support from the Public health Agency of Canada
and licensed to Newlink Genetics. To produce the vaccine, the vesicular stomatitis virus was weakened by removing a gene
and replacing it with a single Ebola virus gene that alone cannot cause the disease. In November 2014
during the West Africa outbreak of Ebola, Merck licensed exclusive rights to rvsv-ZEBOV from Newlink Genetics.
In February, Newlink Genetics said it received $20 million from Merck for achieving a key clinical development milestone.
In addition to the milestone payment, Merck also agreed to pay Newlink $30 million upfront, according to a Newlink regulatory filing.
Newlink also said it was tiered eligible for royalties on sales of the vaccine n certain markets, subject to certain conditions.
Joining Merck, Newlink Genetics, and the Public health Agency of Canada in helping conduct the studies have been NIH and its National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases,
the Walter reed Army Institute of Research, the Canadian Immunization Research Network, and the U s army Medical Research Institute of Infectious diseases.
Major funding for these studies has come from sources that include the U s. Department of defense Defense Threat Reduction Agency and Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program, the U s. Department of health and Human Service Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority,
and the Wellcome Trust. Newlink Genetics released interim results on rvsv-ZEBOV the same day it disclosed its latest quarterly results.
The company finished the second quarter with a net loss of $14. 1 million or ($0. 49) per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $9. 2 million or ($0. 33) per diluted share for Q2 2014.
The company said its R&d expense more than doubled in the second quarter, to $16. 1 million, compared with $6. 5 million in the year-ago quarter,
due to xpenses for manufacturing and research related to the Ebola vaccine candidate, but primarily due to clinical trial expenses related to its pipeline of product candidates, including its Hyperacute immunotherapy cancer programs and its IDO pathway inhibitor (indoximod) programs
#PCR Makes the Jump to Light speed The amplification of minute amounts of genetic material is the cornerstone of every molecular biology laboratory
and DNA sequencing facility. However, with respect to most other molecular techniques used, PCR is sluggish and represents a limiting factor for high-throughput analysis systems.
For many years, scientists have been chasing the dream of developing ultrafast multiplex PCR systems that would be characterized by low power consumption, compact size,
and simple operationarameters that are critical for point-of-care diagnostics. While various groups have proposed ultrafast PCR methods in recent years
none were able to address the challenges of creating a robust thermocycler unit that could handle heating and cooling speeds that were significantly greater than current systems.
Now, bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed new technology they believe will dramatically increase heating and cooling speeds with the switch of a light."
"PCR is powerful, and it is used widely in many fields, but existing PCR systems are explained relatively slow
senior author Luke Lee Ph d.,professor of bioengineering at UCLA, Berkeley.""It is done usually in a lab
or the interaction between light and free electrons on a metal's surface. When exposed to light,
gold is a popular metal for plasmonic photothermal heating since it is extremely efficient at absorbing light.
about 120 nanometers (nm) thick that were deposited onto a plastic chip containing microfluidic wells in order to hold the PCR mixture and DNA sample.
Additionally, the Berkeley scientists used LED LIGHTS with a peak wavelength around 450 nm for most efficient light-to-heat conversion.
Cooling of the chip was equally impressive, dropping at rates around 6. 6°C per second.
"It can be integrated into an ultrafast genomic diagnostic chip, which we are developing for practical use in the field.
#New record efficiency for black silicon solar cells Researchers at the University of Aalto, Finland have broken the efficiency record for black silicon solar cells a type of cell that can gather sunlight even from tight
Black silicon can be manufactured simply by adding a dense network of nanoscale needles on top of a standard piece of silicon.
allowing solar cells that use it to trap light even when it's coming from very low angles.
This could be a good way to increase the yield of solar cells throughout the day
as they don't need the antireflection coatings used by many other types of solar cells. The main issue that has stifled the progress of black silicon cells is something known as carrier recombination.
When a photon hits a silicon atom inside a solar cell, the excess energy frees up an electron that is later used to generate electricity.
effectively wasting the energy provided by the photon. Recombination is proportional to the surface area of the silicon
Now, a team of researchers led by assistant professor Hele Savin has managed to get around the issue, and in so doing, it has increased the record efficiency of black silicon cells by almost four percentage points, up to 22.1 percent.
black silicon cells can gather three percent more energy than a cell with the same nominal efficiency over the course of the entire day.
acting like a chemical and electronic shield, on top of the nanostructures. They also integrated all the metal contacts on the back side of the cell, for added absorption.
Savin tells us, other devices like screens and photodetectors. The results appear in this week's edition of the journal Nature Technology.
#Researchers cut the required bandwidth for graphics-intensive game streaming The rise of cloud gaming services such as Playstation Now may have ushered in a new era of convenience for blasting virtual aliens and monsters to smithereens,
the bandwidth required is astronomical. But researchers at Duke university and Microsoft Research think they have a solution that'll let gamers have their on-demand cake
and eat it too. They have developed a tool called Kahawai (Hawaiian for stream), which splits the rendering calculations between your device
and a remote server rather than offloading them all to the server. The researchers claim that this collaborative rendering technique requires just one-sixth as much bandwidth as conventional cloud gaming setups for the same visual quality.
The mobile or console device sketches out the key parts of each frame or the bulk of the image in a subset of the 60 frames displayed per second (at least six frames must be generated client side to be worthwhile),
while the remote server does the heavy lifting and fills on all of the fine-grained details such as shadows, real-time lighting,
and subtle changes in texture. Kahawai was integrated prototyped and with open-source commercial gaming engine idtech 4,
Quake Wars. The researchers trialled it on 50 hardcore gamers playing Doom 3, with results that suggest no disadvantage for users of Kahawai versus a standard thin-client (i e.,
, server offloaded) streaming system. You can see a comparison of the performance and graphics in different scenarios in the video below.
Kahawai was also found to work offline, sans remote server connections, at lower graphical fidelity,
which is great news for people on unstable networks (because play could continue uninterrupted) and for people with slow internet connections.
Kahawai may have applications beyond gaming, too.""Games are a natural place to start understanding how collaborative rendering can work,
"said study co-author and Duke computer scientist Landon Cox.""But any graphics-intensive application could potentially benefit from Kahawai,
from 3-D medical imaging to computer-aided design software used by architects and engineers.""The researchers presented their findings at the 13th International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications,
and Services in Florence, Italy, on May 19. A paper describing the research is available to download directly from Duke university y
#Ricoh develops energy-generating rubber As digital technology becomes more ubiquitous and the Internet of things takes shape,
Japanese technology firm Ricoh is looking at its new"energy-generating rubber"as one solution.
According the company, the new piezoelectric polymer converts pressure and vibration into electric energy with high efficiency,
Piezoelectric materials come in two major forms; ceramics and polymers. Both are based on the principle of using mechanical strain to generate electricity
and are used in electronics to provide power in specialized applications, such as vibration and pressure sensors.
Unfortunately, both have their downsides. Ceramics convert vibration to energy with high efficiency, but theye heavy, fragile,
and often include toxic lead, while polymers are lighter, more flexible, and more durable, but not very efficient.
According to Ricoh, its new energy-generating rubber combines flexibility and high energy output. It's not only less fragile than ceramics,
but it's also more flexible and durable than other polymers; surviving several million uses in testing.
In addition, it's sensitive to light loads, yet generates high output under heavier ones. Ricoh isn't giving much away about how the new rubber works, its composition,
or specifications, but it does say that it's engaged in further research to produce a commercially viable version of the polymer for both sensors and energy applications o
#Scientists create world's first fully-artificial molecular pump All living organisms human, animal, or otherwise continuously move molecules around their cells.
It's a crucial mechanism of life, vital for feeding cells the proteins they need to function.
And now scientists at Northwestern University have created a machine that mimics this pumping mechanism. Their molecular pump is the world's first such machine developed entirely through chemical engineering in the laboratory,
and it could one day power artificial muscles and other molecular machines.""Our molecular pump is radical chemistry an ingenious way of transferring energy from molecule to molecule,
the way nature does said study senior author Sir Fraser Stoddart. The pump uses small molecules made in the laboratory to replicate the actions of carrier proteins.
It draws its power from chemical reactions, which it uses to drive molecules out of equilibrium from a low to a high-energy state.
That extra energy is necessary to make it work because the ring-shaped molecules normally repel each other, like magnets with the same polarization."
"The artificial pump is able to syphon off some of the energy that changes hands during a chemical reaction
and uses it to push the rings together, "explained the study's first author Chuyang Cheng.
The machine then threads the rings around a nanoscopic chain (an axle) and squeezes them together.
but the researchers believe they may soon be able to make the process work with tens of rings and more energy storage.
A paper describing the research was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. You can see a video that visualizes the molecular pump process below.
#Breakthrough bionic leg prosthesis controlled by subconscious thoughts Biomedical engineering company Össur has announced the successful development of a thought controlled bionic prosthetic leg.
The new technology uses implanted sensors sending wireless signals to the artificial limb's built-in computer, enabling subconscious, real-time control and faster, more natural responses and movements.
It works by laying sensors on the skin of the vestigial limb, which picks up electrical impulses that control, for example, an artificial arm.
these sensors pick up electric impulses from more than one muscle. This degrades performance, requires a lot of practice to operate properly,
and makes the prosthesis slow, Imprecise, and frustrating to use. One answer to this is to use more precise sensor arrangements that make the limb,
for all practical purposes, mind-controlled. The method is used already with great success on upper limbs and even artificial hands,
These bionic prostheses are computerized smart limbs capable of real-time learning with the ability to adjust themselves to the wearer's gait as well as the walking speed and terrain."
"The technology allows the user experience with their prosthesis to become more intuitive and integrative,
"The result is the instantaneous physical movement of the prosthesis however the amputee intended. They no longer need to think about their movements
because their unconscious reflexes are converted automatically into myoelectric impulses that control their Bionic prosthesis.""Two volunteers have had the technology implanted for a year as part of the First-in-Man research project.
we are closer than ever to creating prosthetics that are integrated truly with their user. r
#New process prints electroluminescent layers directly onto three-dimensional objects Electroluminescent (EL) panels are found in many electronics applications, particularly as backlighting for LCD displays, keypads, watches,
when EL panels made from plastic are bent too sharply, fractures and a severely diminished output usually result.
As a result, EL panels have generally been restricted to flat or slightly curved surfaces. However, researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of technology (KIT) and Franz Binder Gmbh & Co have developed now a new manufacturing process to print EL panels directly onto the surface of almost any convex and concave shape.
Even apparently, onto spheres. In essence, the new technique involves printing electroluminescent layers directly onto an object without any intermediate carrier layer (the plastic material mentioned earlier.
In this way, convex and concave surfaces of various materials can be made to glow when an electric current is applied."
"By means of the innovative production process we developed together with our industry partner, any type of three-dimensional object can be provided with electroluminescent coatings at low costs,
"said Doctor Ing. Rainer Kling, associate professor at the Light Technology Institute of KIT. Electroluminescent panels are a very popular way to backlight a screen,
particularly as they provide an even glow across their entire face, use very little power,
and generate almost no heat. And they have been around for longer than you might think.
Believe it or not, General electric has had patents on them since 1938, and EL panels have been in use in automobiles
since at least 1960 when Chrysler used them in their prestige models. Essentially the equivalent of a capacitor when used in an AC (Alternating current) circuit, EL panels encase their light-emitting material between two electrodes.
In standard panels, one electrode is generally clear glass or plastic coated with a transparent conductive coating,
while the opaque rear electrode is made generally from a reflective metal foil. In the KIT/Binder EL panel,
however, the production process sees different components of the coating (specifically the electroluminescent and electrically conductive ingredients) applied using a new and unique pad printing process.
The printing machine is furnished with an elastic rubber pad that deforms when applying the coatings, thereby being able to conform to uneven or complex 3d shapes."
"In this way, it is possible to provide surfaces and even spheres with homogeneous coatings at low costs,"said Elodie Chardin,
an engineer working on the project.""Homogeneity of the coating of about one tenth of a millimeter in thickness was one of the challenges of this project."
"Though Saarland University announced a prototype EL printing method earlier this year using ink jet-printers printers,
the KIT/Binder version seems to be the first to produce such coatings on a commercial scale.
The process also only requires very few production steps, which saves money and resources, and a large range colors may be applied to the same surface, thereby providing more versatility to the 3d EL panels.
The short video below shows the process in action on ordinary paper. Source: Karlsruhe Institute of Technolog g
#Audi claims first synthetic gasoline made from plants Just weeks after producing its first batch of synthetic diesel fuel made from carbon dioxide and water,
Audi has laid claim to another synthetic, clean-burning and petroleum-free fuel called"e-benzin."
"The fuel was created by Audi's project partner Global Bioenergies, in France. In late 2014, Global Bioenergies started up the fermentation unit for a pilot program to produce gaseous isobutane from renewable biomass sugars such as corn-derived glucose.
Gaseous isobutane is a sort of raw material for the petrochemical industry that can then be refined into a variety of plastics, fuels and other applications.
The next step in the process was to run the material through a conditioning and purification process, allowing it to be collected
and stored in liquid form under pressure. Some of it was sent then to Germany to be converted into isooctane fuel
"says Global Bioenergies CEO Marc Delcourt.""It is the first time that we have produced real gasoline from plants."
Audi calls the final, refined form of the fuel"e-benzin"and claims that it burns clean due to its lack of sulfur and benzene.
Audi will test the fuel composition and conduct engine tests to see how it performs before eventually trying it out in vehicle fleets.
Delcourt says he could see it being used in consumer cars on a large scale"very soon.""
""We thinking we're bringing greenness to a field that desperately needs greenness, "says Rick Bockrath, vice president for chemical engineering at Global Bioenergies."
"It's basically how we're moving away from an oil-based economy towards something that has a renewable, sustainable future to it."
"Audi and Global Bioenergies hope to tweak the production process in the future so that biomass is required no longer
and e-benzin can be created using only water, hydrogen, carbon dioxide and sunlight. We saw a similar project in Europe in 2014 that sought to make jet fuel.
As part of its next phase, the company is building a new demonstration plant in Germany.
That middle layer will consist of leather fibers and wires made from Nitinol, the latter of which is a shape-memory nickel/titanium alloy.
Women will then have scanned their feet using a portable in store device called the DOME. Foot data from that scan will subsequently be fed into another machine the Shoptool
which will heat the shoes'uppers, allowing them to be molded quickly to the precise contours of the individual buyer's feet.
our nervous system comprising different kinds of cells running signals through complex piping around the body presents a difficult task for scientific research.
stem cell researcher at Canada's Mcmaster University Mick Bhatia caught our attention with a novel approach to creating blood stem cells from human skin stem cells.
advancing efforts to create blood for surgery and treat leukaemia and other cancers. His latest work continues in this same vein,
but demonstrates a method of converting somebody's blood sample into a variety of their nerve cells.
and make the main cell types of neurological systems-the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system-in a dish that is specialized for each patient,
Mcmaster University (PDF P
#Air2nitrous device claimed to cut vehicle exhaust emissions by 90 percent Driving an electric car that gives off no emissions is one of the best ways to reduce your personal transport carbon footprint.
But if an EV is out of reach, the next best thing could be a simple retrofittable, scalable device called Air2nitrous (A2n).
The Air2nitrous team describes its electronic emissions control system as a"first phase"device because it works before and during combustion.
As air from the atmosphere passes through the vehicle air filter, it then passes unobstructed through the converter ring located in the air intake duct.
At this point, the reactor exposes the air to electrical discharges separating nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2) from the atmospheric air and transforming it into nitrous oxide (N2o),
Vehicle and machinery operators trying A2n out are reporting fuel savings of six to 20 percent
The system works with combustion engines powered with various fuels, including diesel, LPG, bunker oil, gasoline, natural gas and others.
a job that can be done by any mechanic to any internal combustion engine, with the benefits of the installation being immediate.
including long haul transportation and trucking, agriculture (tractors), mining and off-road vehicles, motorcycles, diesel trains, generators, container ships and aircraft, among others.
It is hoping to have the same impact as the catalytic converter, which was introduced in 1975 to reduce emissions
A2n has passed already California emissions standards on vehicles with and without catalytic converters. The device was shown recently at the Earth day Fair organized by the American Chamber of commerce in Shanghai on April 22,
and the event was used as the product official launch pad. At the moment, the company is only selling units to commercial customers
Prices range from US$1, 200 to $3, 500, depending on engine size, which can vary from a 100cc scooter to a Super Panamax ship p
#Herpes virus genetically engineered to destroy skin cancer cells A new study has pointed to a chink in the armor of skin cancer cells,
suggesting that they can be overpowered by the body's own system with help from a pioneering approach known as viral therapy.
A clinical trial has demonstrated that a genetically engineered herpes virus can not only plant itself in the cancer cells and kill them off,
but activate the body's own immune system to stave off harmful tumors. The clinical trial was conducted across 64 research centers around the world
and led by The Institute of Cancer Research in London. It saw 436 patients suffering from inoperable skin cancers treated with a modified form of herpes virus called Talimogene Laherparepvec T-VEC.
whose genetic errors give rise to weaker defences against infections. The result is engineered a genetically virus with the ability to grow in cancer cells and blow them up from the inside.
What's more, T-VEC is designed also to produce a molecule known as GM-CSF that moves the body's immune system to destroy tumors
Some of the 436 patients where treated with injections of T-VEC, while others were given a control immunotherapy.
when used in the less advanced stages of the cancer, suggesting that T-VEC could prove a valuable early treatment option for skin cancers that are unable to be removed by a surgeon.
Patients with stage III and early stage IV melanoma a condition that was shown to carry an average survival of 21.5 months
The scientists say that T-VEC is the first of such viral therapies to be proven beneficial in treating melanoma in a phase III clinical trial.
The drug has been submitted to both the US Federal Drug and Food administration and the European Medicines Agency for consideration, with the scientists hopeful of winning approval later this year.
The findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology y
#Ballistic wallpaper to help protect soldiers seeking temporary shelter It sounds like an old Goon Show joke,
but soldiers may one day protect themselves from blasts by wallpapering temporary shelters. It may not be very decorative,
but the new ballistic wallpaper under development by the US ARMY Corps of Engineers uses a special fiber inlay to help prevent walls from collapsing under blast effects.
If you wander the back alleys of British towns, you can still spot obscure windows dating back to the Second world war showing traces of sticky tape that the owners never bothered to strip off.
During the German Blitz Britons would crisscross their windows with ordinary tape to keep the glass from turning into flying daggers during bomber attacks.
It was a simple fix that saved many thousands of lives and the principle is being revived to reinforce not windows,
but whole walls. According to Nick Boone, a research mechanical engineer with the US ARMY Corps of Engineers'Engineer Research and development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg, Mississippi, soldiers will often take temporary shelter in abandoned buildings made of masonry, brick, cinderblock,
or other materials. These may seem substantial, but when struck by an explosive shell or missile,
they can collapse into dangerous rubble. The new wallpaper, which was unveiled at the Pentagon on May 14 as part of Department of defense Lab Day,
is a portable, lightweight means of quickly reinforcing existing walls. It consists of rolls of adhesive wallpaper made of flexible polymer film,
which is embedded with Kevlar fibers in a crisscross pattern. According to Boone, the wallpaper can be applied easily
and keeps blast-damaged walls from turning into a hail of flying debris. Boone says that the wallpaper has undergone already blast testing at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and Eglin Air force base,
Florida, and is still in the research and development stage, but it could one day see use in the field.
Source: US Arm m
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