Researchers in Canada are working on a new way to treat prostate cancer using a virus.

In the study, researchers administered the virus to six volunteer patients and found that it killed off cancer cells while sparing normal tissue.

A mechanism for resistance to paclitaxel in ovarian cancer, microRNA-31, suggesting a possible therapeutic target for overcoming chemotherapy resistance has been uncovered by scientists.

Actelion Ltd (SIX: ATLN) announced today that the company has received a complete response letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for Zavesca® (miglustat) for the treatment of progressive neurological manifestations in adult and pediatric patients with Niemann-Pick type C (NP-C) disease, a rare, neurodegenerative genetic disorder.

Evolva Holding SA (SIX: EVE) today announced that its Danish subsidiary has commenced a research initiative focusing on novel ways to produce vanillin and arabinogalactan proteins. Together with Evolva, the initiative includes four leading Danish research groups from the University of Copenhagen and the Danish Technical University, Danisco, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a major US research institution.

Anne Spang will be presented with the BINDER Innovation Prize at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Cell Biology (DGZ), on 10th March, 2010. The scientist has been awarded the prize for her outstanding work in the area of cell biology.

Abbott (NYSE: ABT) announced today it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the TECNIS® Multifocal 1-Piece intraocular lens (IOL) for cataract patients with and without presbyopia.

Entirely different signal paths and parts of the brain are involved when you try to remember something and when you just happen to remember something, prompted by a smell, a picture, or a word, for instance. This is shown by Kristiina Kompus in her dissertation at Umeå University in Sweden.

A thyroid-hormone-like substance that works specifically on the liver reduces blood cholesterol with no serious side effects.

This according to a clinical trial conducted by researchers from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet, amongst other centres, published today in the top-ranking scientific periodical The New England Journal of Medicine.

Discovery of an antibiotic's capacity to improve cell function in laboratory tests is providing movement disorder researchers with leads to more desirable molecules with potentially similar traits, according to University of Alabama scientists co-authoring a paper publishing March 10 in the journal Disease Models & Mechanisms.

AstraZeneca today announced a license and supply agreement with Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd. Torrent will supply to AstraZeneca a portfolio of generic medicines for which Torrent already has licenses in a range of countries. Working in partnership with Torrent, AstraZeneca intends to brand and market these products in many of its emerging markets, where it already has a strong commercial footprint.

Scorpion venom, a notorious poison, might be used as an alternative to dangerous and addictive painkillers such as morphine, according to a new study.

Discovery

Abbott Laboratories agreed to pay $450 million to take over Facet Biotech, beating out Biogen Idec, which offered almost $430 million in December 2009. The deal will enhance Abbott’s early- and mid-stage pipeline with biologics in immunology and oncology.

Abbott will acquire Facet for $27 per share in cash, a 66.77% premium over its last closing price of $16.19. Biogen Idec first proposed to pay $15 a share while it was in private discussions with Facet, then went public with a hostile bid of just $14.5 per share, and finally bumped it up to $17.5 per share. All three attempts were rejected by Facet, which believes that Biogen Idec was undervaluing the company.

Federal health advisers voted in favor of an experimental drug from InterMune Inc., despite mixed evidence of whether it provides significant benefits for patients with a rare lung disease.

The Food and Drug Administration's panel of lung experts voted 9-3 to recommend approval of the company's drug pirfenidone. That recommendation followed a narrower 7-5 vote that the drug provides a "clinically meaningful benefit" for patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an often fatal lung disease for which there are no approved drugs.

Two new high-throughput RNA sequencing studies by independent research groups are offering a glimpse into gene splicing, expression, and regulation patterns in European and Yoruban populations.

The papers, which relied on samples collected through the International HapMap Project, appear online in Nature today.

Cytokinetics announced today that its drug CK-2017357 has been granted orphan-drug designation by FDA. The drug is in trials for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease), a condition that affects about 20,000 to 30,000 people in the U.S. Cytokinetics plans to initiate a Phase II trial for CK-2017357 in ALS patients in the first half of 2010.

A new pipetting aid unites all essential characteristics for productive work with serologic pipettes: accuracy, speed, and user comfort.

The new Integra Biosciences (Hudson, NH, USA) Pipetboy pro pipetting aid is designed for comfortable and error-free pipetting. A new integral white light-emitting diode (LED) light in the Pipetboy pro provides optimal illumination of the area around the pipette, ensuring accurate pipetting, and preventing eyestrain even when dispensing liquids out of an opaque centrifuge tube or dark container.

Technologies

Cellzome inked a drug discovery alliance with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in the field of inflammatory disease with a €33 million (about $44.79 million) up-front payment. The deal represents the companies’ second drug discovery partnership and will focus on exploiting Cellzome’s Episphere™ technology for the identification of small molecule candidates against targets from four different epigenetic classes.

By sequencing and comparing genomic DNA from wild red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) and chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) from several domestic populations, Swedish, French, and American researchers have been able to pinpoint parts of the chicken genome under selection during domestication.

Individuals with a certain type of genetic susceptibility to lung cancer face a greatly increased risk for the deadly disease with even a small exposure to cigarette smoke

Two Dartmouth biologists have found that brown anole lizards make an interesting choice when deciding which males should father their offspring. The females of this species mate with several males, then produce more sons with sperm from large fathers, and more daughters with sperm from smaller fathers.