Details of First Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) Projects Released
The European Commission has released details of the first projects to receive support under the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) Joint Technology Initiative (JTI). The 15 projects will share a EUR 246 million funding pot. EUR 110 million of this will come from the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), while the pharmaceutical industry will provide the remaining EUR 136 million through in kind contributions (e.g. staff, laboratory facilities, materials and clinical research).
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New technology could lead to safer gene therapy
EU-funded scientists have developed a new, non-viral way of getting genes into a cell. The technique appears to avoid the side-effects, such as cancer, which can occur when viruses are used to smuggle genes into a cell. The scientists hope their discovery will 'simplify the way gene therapy is conducted, improve its overall safety and reduce the costs'.
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Breakthrough on the cause of bacterial infections
European researchers have identified 39 proteins that interact with bacterial toxins in infected human cells, amounting to significant progress in understanding bacterial infection sources. The discovery, funded in part by the EU through the 'Interaction proteome' project, may open up new treatment targets for human illnesses in the future. The study is published in the journal Cell Host and Microbe.
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Effectiveness of malaria drug varies throughout Africa
An international study of malaria led by researchers in the UK shows that the effectiveness of the widely used anti-malaria drug sulfadoxine may vary widely across Africa because malaria parasites in different parts of the continent have developed different resistance mutations to the drug.
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Tobacco gets new, healthy image
Tobacco use triggers a number of common diseases in humans including heart disease and lung cancer. However, a group of scientists from Europe may be tobacco's saving grace. They successfully used genetically modified tobacco plants to generate medicines for a number of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. The study was part of the Pharma-Planta project, which was funded under the EU's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) to the tune of EUR 12 million. The study's results were recently published in the open access journal BMC Biotechnology.
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Manhattan Research Releases Digital DTC Relevance Rankings
More than 60% of U.S. adults turn to the Internet as a decision support tool in healthcare and disease management, and certain condition groups are more likely to use online health resources than others, according to pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research. Acne, restless leg syndrome, and cancer patients are among the top ten therapeutic categories adopting eHealth activities, which can range from reading a health-related blog to joining an online patient community.
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Robots and scientists thinking together
Scientists in the UK have incorporated artificial intelligence (AI) and a sophisticated set of algorithms into a robot, named Adam, that can develop hypotheses and carry out a whole scientific experimentation cycle. The research, published in the journal Science, paves the way for dramatically increasing the rate of scientific progress.
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