Novel Technologies News for August 2016

Novel Technologies News Archive

Engineering cells to speed tissue repair Engineering cells to speed tissue repair

Replacing and repairing human tissue is becoming feasible largely due to advances in the use of stem cells. But obstacles still stand in the way of engineering these malleable cells to self-renew or expand.One of those obstacles is an incomplete picture of how cells interact with their environment.

New findings into the biology of progressive hearing loss New findings into the biology of progressive hearing loss

New research with funding from UK charity Action on Hearing Loss has led to the discovery of a new biological mechanism involved in the progressive loss of hearing which could lead to new approaches to treating this common form of hearing loss.

Community verified biological network models show promise for toxicology and drug discovery Community verified biological network models show promise for toxicology and drug discovery

A new set of community-produced biological network models has been shown to allow a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying a range of diseases. The models, of which earlier versions have been described in detail in the past [1,2] have been shown to have important applications in toxicology and drug discovery in a new paper in Gene Regulation and Systems Biology. The models are the latest output of the Network Verification Challenge (NVC), a global crowdsourcing initiative designed to draw on expertise from many scientific areas in order to verify and enhance understanding of biological networks [3].