April 2011 |
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- Using a library of polymer "building blocks" researchers at IBM and IBN (Singapore Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology) design new polymer nanoparticles able to detect and destroy gram-positive bacteria like antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, as well as fungi. Unlike prior studies, in which these types of particles were either toxic or did not work in humans, the IBM particles have shown promise in preliminary studies on mice and human cells.
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/37268/?ref=rss&a=f
- Researchers, for the first time, show the effects of increasing the number of newborn-neurons in the adult brain, by engineering mice lacking a gene responsible for the programmed cell death of about 50-80% newborn neurons in the adult hippocampus, in an effort to understand the role of neurons in cognition and mood.
http://menanddepression.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2011/nurturing-newborn
-neurons-sharpens-minds-in-mice.shtml
- Engineers develop a new technique for boosting the stability of enzymes to make them useful under a much broader range of conditions, by confining them inside carefully engineered nanopores. Instead of denaturing, the enzymes mostly retained their 3-D structure and exhibited a significant increase in activity.
http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2851
- Researchers elucidate the mechanism behind the anticancer properties of green tea by showing how green tea extract (GTE) stiffens the cell walls of cancer cells while not affecting healthy normal cells. This stiffening is important because when cancer metastasizes, its cell walls need to be soft enough to squeeze through capillaries and move throughout the blood system.
http://www.cnsi.ucla.edu/news/item?item_id=1967397
- Researchers demonstrate how mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are able to differentiate and self-assemble into three-dimensional structures reminiscent of the retina in the early stages of embryonic development.
http://www.cdb.riken.jp/en/04_news/articles/11/110407_selfmadeeye.html
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Join us May 3rd for a special webinar from the Bailey Award Series by MIT's Dr. Bob Langer! Dr. Langer was presented with the Bailey Award in 2006. He will discuss Engineering and Health Care: From the Discovery of the First Angiogenesis Inhibitors to the Development of Controlled Drug Delivery Systems and the Foundation of Tissue Engineering. Registration is now available.
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| Call for Nominations: SBE's James E. Bailey Award For Biological Engineering. Submit your nomination package by June 15th. |
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| SBE's Journal Biotechnology Progress is offering a new annual prize for excellence in publications in biological engineering. The deadline is July 15, 2011. For more information, visit http://www.aiche.org/uploadedFiles/SBE/About/sbebpaward-20110324.pdf. |
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| Call For Papers is now open: The 2011 AIChE Annual Meeting will be held in the Minneapolis Convention Center October 16-21, 2011 Deadline is Monday, May 2nd. |
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The Fifth International Meeting on Synthetic Biology (SB5.0) will be held on June 15 – 17, 2011 at Stanford University.
Registration is now open and space is limited. More information on speakers, schedule and registration: http://sb5.biobricks.org/registration/
This meeting will be the first time in over two years that an open and self-defined global community will share, consider, debate, and plan efforts to understand life via building, to make biology easier to engineer, and to work together so that the ramifications of such efforts are most likely to benefit all people and the planet. See the full flier (pdf). |
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| Congratulations to Mark Blenner (Harvard Med) for correctly answering last month's What Protein Am I? quiz. Visit http://www.aiche.org/sbe/education/wpai.aspx for this month's mystery protein. Be the first to answer it correctly and your name and organization will be featured in our May newsletter. |
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| SBE's e-Connections is edited by Adrian Andrew Fay, Web Science Editor, with input from SBE staff. Contact us at bio@aiche.org. |
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Not a current SBE member? It's never too late to join or renew. Costs are $75 for regular members, $25 for graduate students, $10 for AIChE, ACS and IBE members, or free for undergraduates. Join now at http://www.aiche.org/apps/ecommerce/bio/index.asp.
Member benefits include:
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Subscription to SBE's semi-annual BioSupplement to Chemical Engineering Progress. |
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Discounts on leading biological engineering conferences including SBE and SBE cosponsored meetings and courses. |
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Access to online membership directory. |
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A voice in education, employment and technology advancement topics. |
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