Hot Topics

Biotech

Biotech February 13, 2020

Applied DNA to speed up coronavirus countermeasures

By GREGORY ZELLER // Look out, coronavirus – Applied DNA is coming for you. Adding to its growing portfolio of cutting-edge Polymerase Chain Reaction-based projects, Stony Brook-based Applied DNA Sciences is expanding its Joint Development Agreement with Italian R&D company Takis Biotech, with the headline-making 2019-nCoV in their sights. Already hot on the trail of new cancer vaccines, the partners will now work on a “linear DNA” vaccine against the dreaded Wuhan, China-based illness that’s…

Read More

Biotech July 30, 2019

Writing the book, literally, on bioelectronic medicine

By GREGORY ZELLER // The pioneering work of several key researchers has made Long Island a focal point in the emerging science of bioelectronic medicine – their combined knowledge and achievements could fill a book. And it has. Fresh off the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press comes “Bioelectronic Medicine: A Subject Collection From Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine,” which belies that awkward academic title with a sharp and exciting focus: groundbreaking progress in bioelectronics,…

Biotech July 25, 2019

With pilot run ending, top marks for LI Bioscience Hub

By GREGORY ZELLER // The Long Island Bioscience Hub is making the grade, according to a report card prepared by independent evaluators. Since launching in 2015, the LIBH – a National Institutes of Health effort uniting Stony Brook University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institute for Medical Research – has trained hundreds of innovators, helped fund dozens of technology-development projects and assisted the formation of numerous startup companies and…

Biotech July 9, 2019

For secure signatures, DNA is mightier than the sword

By GREGORY ZELLER // One of Long Island’s busiest biotechs has (literally) inked an exclusive security deal with a leading global penmaker. Stony Brook-based Applied DNA Sciences this week announced a five-year agreement with German manufacturer Montblanc-Simplo GMHB, master of not only “luxury writing instruments,” according to the Hamburg-based company’s website, but a wide range of watches, jewelry, eyewear, leather goods and other personal (and personalized) products. Pens, however, will be the focus of the…

Biotech June 17, 2019

With synthetic opioids lurking, DNA detector scores

By GREGORY ZELLER // With synthetic opioids increasingly implicated in the alarming number of drug-overdose deaths plaguing the nation, a stalwart Long Island biotech’s DNA-based tracking technology has received a major endorsement. The peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS ONE has published a paper by Stony Brook-based Applied DNA Sciences on the molecular tagging of pharmaceuticals – a next-gen supply-chain authenticator that Applied DNA considers unforgeable, inescapable and particularly useful in a world where counterfeit drugs are…

Biotech April 17, 2019

Feinstein stimulates talk of an arthritis breakthrough

By GREGORY ZELLER // An encouraging new study out of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research says noninvasive bioelectronic stimulation – administered through the outer ear – can effectively reduce symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. The potentially quantum leap for the treatment of RA and other inflammatory diseases was reported Tuesday in Bioelectronic Medicine, an open-access journal aggregating articles and data from across a dozen-plus basic and clinical disciplines, including biochemistry, neuroscience, bioengineering, artificial intelligence and…

Genetics April 15, 2019

Honey, I shrunk the shrew (and maybe your kidney)

By GREGORY ZELLER // Cutting-edge evolutionary science meets a Rick Moranis movie in an innovative international study of a surprisingly shrinkable furball. Freshly supported by a three-year grant from the international Human Frontier Science Program, Liliana Dávalos, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution in Stony Brook University’s College of Arts and Sciences, will dive even deeper into the world of the shrew – a remarkable, mole-like mammal known to shrink its mass, including…