News Archive

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University have found molecular evidence of how a biochemical process controls the lengths of protective chromosome tips, a potentially significant step in ultimately understanding cancer growth and aging.

In a paper recently published as the cover story in the online journal eLife, biologist David C. Zappulla and graduate student Evan P. Hass show how in baker’s yeast cells, two proteins work together to usher a key enzyme to the chromosome tip, the telomere, to restore its length, which diminishes with each round of cell division.

IBM and Medtronic are part of a group that have won a grant from the Israeli government to open a digital medicine incubator, according to a statement from the Office of the Chief Scientist with the Israeli Ministry of Economy. It’s part of a long-running economic stimulus program to improve investment in Israeli technology startups and create jobs.

The statement was translated from Hebrew with Google Translate.

TEDCO recently awarded BHI with a $10,000 grant to support up-and-coming biohealth enterprises. The funding comes from TEDCO’s 2016 Incubator Assistance Program (“The Program”), to which BHI submitted a proposal earlier this year. The Program is intended to assist Maryland’s incubators in providing added value to their client companies.

“BHI continues to be a leader in identifying and supporting biohealth companies that will make a difference in our region,” said TEDCO’s President and Executive Director Rob Rosenbaum. “Our Incubator Assistance Program—which has become highly competitive—is designed to reward those incubators that will have a significant impact and continue to maximize Maryland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are pleased to present this funding to BHI.”

The project team includes leading behavioral health, family practice, and implementation scientists at Drexel University, the University of California Los Angeles, Northwestern University, and multiple primary care and behavioral health organizations and practice sites. This contract is for the enhancement of the referral relationship and the data dashboard components of www.BH-Works.com. It will help all sizes of networks, including Performing Provider System (PPS), Accountable Care Organization (ACO), and other kinds of provider groups and organizations, to improve the management of their patient populations as related to behavioral and mental health. mdlogix will apply its Relational Network Optimization (RNO) methodology to guide and measure continuous improvements in referral relationships.

The Johns Hopkins University and Luminox-Health, a leading Israeli startup hub focused on digital health, have entered into a multiyear collaborative agreement connecting Israeli entrepreneurs with Johns Hopkins medical expertise, faculty thought-leadership, technology, and network of business partners and investors. Johns Hopkins faculty members will have the opportunity to team up with Israeli entrepreneurs to build solutions to modern medical challenges, which will enable Johns Hopkins to take a leadership role as a pioneer in identifying and driving e-health innovation in the U.S. and abroad.

The agreement brings together one of the world’s pre-eminent medical research institutions and the unique emerging digital health innovation ecosystem of a country that has been called startup nation. Israel is home to more startups per capita than anywhere else in the world. In spite of the proliferation of startups, Israeli entrepreneurs find it challenging to gain access to strategic U.S. partners to further develop their ideas into real-world solutions and grow their companies in the international marketplace.

Peter Thiel knows a promising tech startup when he sees one. The investor was the first outside investor in Facebook. But does he have the same touch in biotech?

The prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist’s investment fund has put its largest ever bet on a biotech company called Stemcentrx, a private and all-but-unheard-of San Francisco company developing cancer drugs that debuted this week with a spectacular valuation worth billions (see “Peter Thiel Backs Biotech ‘Unicorn’ Fighting Cancer Stem Cells”).

San Francisco and Boston accounts for the most investment in digital health and the largest volume of deals. But research from The Brookings Institution shows another way to size up digital health investment beyond these two bookends by looking at the proportion of VC money in metropolitan areas going to digital health.

Billionaire physician-entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong seems to be orchestrating an entire M&A ecosystem within his own entities.

Two more Nant companies reporting mega-funding: NantOmics has raised $150 million and NantCell has raised $100 million, both from a single investor, according to two SEC filings (here and here). These startups fall under the umbrella company NantWorks that was launched by Soon-Shiong in Los Angeles in 2011.

Research involving editing the human genome, including research with human embryos, is essential to gain basic understanding of biology and germ cells and should be permitted, according to one of the first global meetings to debate the controversial new techniques.

The bold statement was published today (Thursday, Sept. 10) by the Hinxton Group, a global network of stem cell researchers, bioethicists, and experts on policy and scientific publishing, who met in Manchester, England, September 3–4.

Six new research professorships have been endowed with $14.9 million in private donations and state funding, the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) announced Wednesday. The state funds were committed through the Maryland E-Nnovation Initiative, which matches private donations to universities for basic and applied research in scientific and technical fields.

The University of Maryland, College Park; University of Maryland Baltimore; and Johns Hopkins University each received $2.1 million through the program to be split among a pair of new professorships at each school.