SBE
May 2011
 
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arrow Biotech News
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  • A new biomaterial that resembles live muscle tissue has been created by researchers at the University of British Columbia. The engineered version of the protein titin is one hundred times smaller than titin itself and shares the characteristic properties of muscle tissue, namely high resilience at low strain and toughness at high strain.
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100505133302.htm

  • A new tool useful for metabolic engineering, "targeted proteomics," has been developed by coupling selected-reaction monitoring (SRM) mass spectrometry with liquid chromatography, providing high sensitivity and selectivity for the rapid identification and quantification of proteins within cells, and thus enabling researchers to identify metabolic bottlenecks in the production of a desired byproduct.
    http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2011/04/20/metabolic-path-technique/

  • New research suggests that the decreasing production of neurons as a mammal ages may be caused by the decrease in numbers of adult stem cells in the brain, which experiences a 100-fold decrease over an individual's typical lifetime, in stark contrast to blood stem cells that go through many cycles of inactivity, cell production, and self-renewal, but their numbers do not decline with age.
    http://www.cshl.edu/Article-Enikolopov/study-identifies-stem-cell-related-changes-that-may-contribute-to-age-related-cognitive-decline

  • Researchers develop a 33% more efficient photovoltaic cell using a genetically engineered strain of the M13 bacteria-infecting virus together with carbon nanotubes. The virus helps significantly with the prior challenges encountered with carbon nanotube-based solar cells, where the nanotubes would either not arrange themselves properly, or where one would not have a strong handle on their conducting/semiconducting properties.
    http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/solar-virus-0425.html

  • Researchers working on fully cataloging the human genome's functional elements, released a database of their work to the public as part of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project. One of the major goals of the project is to find DNA elements that govern the regulated expression of genes.
    http://genome.ucsc.edu/ENCODE/
 
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Sartorius Ad
 
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Join us on Thursday, June 9, 2011 at 3pm EDT for a webinar by Dr. Mark Holtzapple of Texas A&M. Dr. Holtzapple will describe the challenges of providing energy to a growing world. To address energy needs, he will show an advance bio-refining technology that he developed which converts waste biomass into bio-gasoline. Further, he will explain how to reduce the need for gasoline by using a high-efficiency engine. Register today.
 
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Congratulations to SBE Managing Board chairman Greg Stephanopoulos for winning the 2011 Eni Award for Renewable and Non-Conventional Energy. Dr. Stephanopoulos, of MIT, received the prize for his work in modifying bacteria in order to increase the efficiency of converting renewable raw materials into usable biofuels. More.
 
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SBE Advisory Board member Douglas Clark of UC-Berkeley was recently named associate director of the Synthetic Biology Institute, a new collaboration between UC-Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. The new institute will work to engineer cells and biological systems to transform health, medicine, energy, and the environment. Read the press release.
 
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It's not too late! Call for Nominations is still open for 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.
 
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Registration is now available for AIMBE's conference on Defining the Industry-Academic Relationships for Effective Technology Transfer in Medical and Biological Engineering to be held June 13-14 in Palo Alto. Register here.
 
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Congratulations to Karl Barber (University of Buffalo) for correctly answering last month's What Protein Am I? quiz with antifreeze protein! 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 June 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.
 
 
The Society for Biological Engineering (SBE) is a new technological community of AIChE
Its mission is to promote the integration of biology with engineering and realize its benefits
through bioprocessing, biomedical, and biomolecular applications.
For comments and contributions to SBE Connections, email bio@aiche.org.

AIChE © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers