Recent News

By Category: Research

Bird Flu: Any Information to Declare?

(Discover Magazine) The focus on information reflects how far synthetic biology, bioinformatics, and the Internet have all come in recent years. And there’s now a new twist on this information debate, reported in a Dutch newspaper and followed up on by CIDRAP.

March 14, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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111 Organizations Call for Synthetic Biology Moratorium

(Science AAAS) Synthetic biology needs more oversight, and the government needs to put in place regulations specific for this field. That is the bottom line for 111 environmental, watchdog, and other organizations that released a report today with specific recommendations for managing new biological techniques for building and remaking organisms for research and commercial uses Read More »

March 14, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biosafety, Biotechnology, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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Post-exposure antibody treatment protects primates from Ebola, Marburg viruses

(US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases) Army scientists have demonstrated, for the first time, that antibody-based therapies can successfully protect monkeys from the deadly Ebola and Marburg viruses. In addition, the animals were fully protected even when treatment was administered two days post-infection, an accomplishment unmatched by any experimental therapy for these viruses Read More »

March 14, 2012
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, and Research
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The bioterrorism threat and laboratory security

(Homeland Security Newswire) Leonard A. Cole, an expert on bioterrorism and on terror medicine who teaches at Rutgers University, investigates the security of U.S. high containment labs in light of the dramatic growth in the number of these labs, which handle dangerous pathogens, following 9/11 and the anthrax attacks.

March 13, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biosafety, Bioterrorism, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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Dutch export rules could block publication of Fouchier H5N1 study

(CIDRAP News) In a new twist in the ongoing controversy over publication of two studies involving H5N1 viruses with increased transmissibility, there are indications that the Dutch government may consider using export regulations to …