Washington University in St Louis (WUSTL) has just received a $2M research grant that will go towards combating a disorder which afflicts, often fatally, nearly 5.8 million Americans each year: heart failure. Heart failure is one of the leading causes of death in the US and although many promising drugs have been introduced over the years, we have yet to find a definitive treatment for the variety of cases that doctors encounter. This $2M NIH award wil go to a team of WUSTL scientists for basic research that will contribute to our understanding of heart disease and ideally lead to more effective treatment. The end goal of this research project is the design and construction of artificial tissue models of the heart, which will allow scientists to more quickly and efficiently test new drugs.
Tags: Bioscience research, Midwest, biomedical sciences, biomedical research, Bioresearch, Washington University, Missouri, WUSTL, heart disease, 2012, Biochemistry, BioResearch Product Faire Event, Research, NIH, MO, St Louis, BRPF, basic research funding
San Antonio, Texas is a good place to be if you're a nurse. According to Workforce Solutions Alamo, the demand for nursing jobs in the county will increase by 1,800 positions in the next four years. This is good news for the University of Texas Health Science Center, the only college in the region that offers a doctorate nursing progam. The Health Science Center educates more than 800 students per year in its nursing college alone.
Tags: Biomedical expansion, Texas, 2012, UT Health Science Center San Antonio, UTxSA, BioResearch Product Faire Event, San Antonio, TX
Construction began four years ago on Mt. Sinai New York's new 550,000sf Hess Center for Science and Medicine on E. 102nd St., between Madison and Fifth Avenues in East Harlem. Originally due for completion this fall, the new opening date has been pushed into spring of 2013. The 13-storey building is a major advance in the medical institute's larger plan of integrating its clinical and research areas through a strong translational medicine program. Basic research facilities will include wet and dry bench labs, animal facilities, and computer-supported research spaces. There will be lounges, meeting and education rooms, and other open, interactive spaces to encourage collaboration through daily contact. The half million square feet will add to, not replace, Mount Sinai School of Medicine's overall facility space. They have already begun recruiting and hiring new faculty researchers.
Tags: Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Northeast, Translational Research, New research facilities, 2012, MSSM, BioResearch Product Faire Event, NY, New York City, new construction
Sometimes it makes more sense to start from scratch and get it right than to try and retrofit and modernize older lab buildings. That's just what Ohio State University in Columbus decided to do for its Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Chemistry Building (CBEC). The new 225,000 gsf lab building broke ground last month and will replace 4 older facilities that had deferred maintenance and lacked proper floor-to-floor height, structural dimensions, and environmental stability. The New Koffolt Laboratories will be LEED-certifiable (possibly Silver) and will constitute a substantial upgrade with their science wet labs, computational research spaces, shared core laboratories, instructional spaces, and offices. The $126M project is due to be completed in September 2014.
Tags: Midwest, Ohio State University, Ohio, Bioresearch, University of Cincinnati, New research facilities, new science wet labs, 2012, Biochemistry, bio research, BioResearch Product Faire Event, Cincinnati, research laboratories, Columbus, OH, new construction, BRPF, OSU, UC
There's been a lot of promising news lately on the HIV/AIDS drug and treatment front, and more scientific solutions are being developed in labs every day. Bringing new vaccine and drug treatments to fruition has been challenging, though, as test animals such as mice do not have immune systems that are similar enough to ours to predict what would really happen in a human model. Now, at bio science research labs at the Ragon Institute in Boston, scientists have overcome that obstacle by engineering a mouse with what is essentially a human immune system. The Ragon study just published in Science Translational Medicine successfully demonstrated that these "humanized mice" do in fact respond like a human does when infected with HIV. This is a big step towards developing and testing new vaccines in the lab.
Tags: Harvard University, Northeast, AIDS Research, animal research, 2012, Immune System, Boston, BioResearch Product Faire Event, MA, Harvard, BRPF, scientist solutions
Remember the character of Pigpen in the comic strip Peanuts? He walked around within a cloud of dust and dirt. Well, according to University of California Davis microbiologist Jonathan Eisen, we all live within our own aura of microbes --10 times as many microbial cells as human cells!--and that's probably a very good thing for our health. It sounds counterintuitive at first, but not all microbes are bad. We've come to realize intestinal biota are good for digestion and colon health (among other things), but the outside of our bodies is also host to vast colonies of microbes that are increasingly proving to be vital cohorts of our immune system.
Tags: University of California Davis, microbiome, DNA Sequencing, genomic research, California, 2012, BioResearch Product Faire Event, UCSD, Sacramento Campus, TED
The University of Colorado already has a terrific medical program at its Anschutz Medical Campus. This April we talked about their groundbreaking efforts against multiple sclerosis. Now, Anschutz Medical is waging war on one of America's greatest enemies: obesity.
Tags: biomedical research, University of Colorado, Southwest, 2012, Anschutz Medical Campus, BioResearch Product Faire Event, CO, public health, Fitz, Aurora
Research scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have discovered five rare mutations in an “autism susceptibility gene” that seem to increase the risk of developing an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in boys. According to an article on Medical Xpress, the number of children diagnosed with autism has recently increased to 1 in 100, so the research now is more relevant than ever.
Tags: Emory University, 2012, Georgia, Emory, BioResearch Product Faire Event, research scientists, Atlanta, GA
University expansion is never uncomplicated, especially in an urban environment where density is high, real estate is ultra-expensive, and development is intensely regulated. Yet new buildings do go up in places like New York City if you have the drive, wealth, and reputation of an institution like Columbia University, which is currently constructing not only new buildings but an entirely new campus to expand its academic and research programs. In addition to the original Morningside Heights location and the Medical School campus in Washington Heights, Columbia has purchased and is building a new campus in the "Manhattanville" neighborhood, stretching from 125th Street to 133rd Street in West Harlem.
Tags: biomedical sciences, Northeast, Biomedical expansion, New research facilities, New York, Columbia University, 2012, Neuroscience, Columbia, BioResearch Product Faire Event, NY, new construction, NYC campus competition
Medical research building construction is underway at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with high hopes for top level research once the three stages of this project have all been completed. The goal for this project, which together will be called the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research (WIMR), "is to create a new kind of, almost revolutionary, model for how we do medical research," said Dr. Robert Golden, dean of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
Tags: Medical Research, cancer research, 2012, WI, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Madison, UW Madison, BioResearch Product Faire Event, Madison, construction