By John Leavitt, Ph.D. Nerac Analyst
Originally Published: August 12, 2014
In 1987, my colleagues at Stanford and I published a paper that clearly demonstrated that expression of a charge-altered mutant human beta-actin (glycine to aspartic acid substitution at amino acid 245; G245D) caused non-tumorigenic, immortalized human fibroblasts to form aggressive tumors in nude mice (Leavitt et al, 1987a). Read more
New Diagnostics in Medicine – Cheap, Fast, and Accurate
By Stephen Buxser, Ph.D.
Originally Published: July 15, 2014
A major, if not the major, driver of advances in medicine is the development of better diagnostics. Read more
The Holy Grail of Cancer Research – A Protein That Enables Aggressive Tumor Growth and Metastasis
By John Leavitt, Ph.D. Nerac Analyst
Originally Published July 21, 2014
Such a protein appears to be described in a paper published in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics in February 2014 by Heinz-Josef Lenz at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Graz in Austria. Read more
Nucleic and Amino Acid Sequence Research in an Intellectual Property Management Strategy
The global market for biotechnology represents a large and complex amalgamation of different products that touches many different industry segments. In the healthcare industry alone, biologics represent a greater than $125 billion global market, and biosimilars legislation in the US and EU has spawned new generic biologics markets that will continue to grow. In addition, the even larger and more rapidly growing market for personalized medicine is driving biotechnology-based diagnostic and health management tools. In the agricultural industries, the market for genetically modified seeds and crops that are pest and disease resistant continues to grow. In the energy industries, large rounds of funding continue to drive the development of biofuels, the quality and production of which is likely to be improved by biotechnological advances. Participants in all of these markets rely on positive innovations and intellectual property (IP) rights to maintain and grow their market shares.Read more