News briefs: Dolomite appoints agent for China: ip.access wins innovation, growth award
Dolomite appointed Universal Analytical and Testing Instruments Ltd in China as a distributor for its microfluidic services and capabilities. UATI will work with local clients helping to secure new business opportunities and manage customer relations for Dolomite.
Dolomite is a leader in Microfluidics, also known as ‘lab on a chip'. This is a new field of science and engineering that enables very small-scale fluid control and analysis, allowing instrument manufacturers to develop smaller, more cost-effective and more powerful systems. With lab-on-a-chip technology, entire complex chemical management and analysis systems are created in a microfluidic chip and interfaced with, for example, electronic and optical detection systems.
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Research at the University of Cambridge funded by the Wellcome Trust has provided a number of promising new drug targets for Huntington's disease, a neurodegenerative disease.
Scientists at Cambridge have identified a number of candidate drugs to investigate further which encourage cells to "eat" the malformed proteins that lead to the disease.
The research group of Professor David Rubinsztein, a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellow at the University of Cambridge, has previously shown that stimulating autophagy in the cells can be an effective way of preventing the malformed proteins from building up. However, there are currently no treatments available that slow the neurodegeneration in people with Huntington's disease. Rapamycin, an immunosuppressant used to lower the body's natural immunity in patients who receive kidney transplants, is the most promising candidate drug currently available but can have significant side effects.
Now, in research published online in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, Professor Rubinsztein and colleagues have shown that a number of FDA-approved drugs for treatments such as migraine and hypertension are able to stimulate autophagy in fruit flies and zebrafish through unexpected pathways.
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ip.access, specialist in picocell and femtocell technologies, has been recognised with a UK technology innovation and growth award from investment research firm Library House, for its success as one of the UK’s fastest growing technology companies.
The UK Technology Innovation and Growth 2008 Awards recognise individuals and organisations that drive the success of the UK's fastest growing technology companies. Award nominations go through an exhaustive assessment process by a broad panel of judges from organisations including PwC, Google, Microsoft, and UK Trade and Investment, as well as Library House.
25 March 2008
