Viresolve Barrier filters are a key component of MilliporeSigma’s Viral Safety Assurance Program to mitigate the risk of viral contamination in upstream bioprocesses and minimize the potential impact on drug supply and patient safety. The Viral Safety Assurance Program takes a holistic approach to viral safety to offer solutions to prevent viruses from entering upstream processes, detect viruses in cells, raw materials and process intermediates and remove viruses in downstream processes.

“Viral contamination is a constant process threat,” says Andrew Bulpin, head of the process solutions business area at MilliporeSigma. “One viral particle has the potential to initiate a bioreactor contamination. Our new Viresolve Barrier filters reduce the risk of bioreactor contaminations that cause process downtime, costly investigations and possible drug supply disruptions that could impact patients.”

Scalable from bench through commercial manufacturing, the filters offer high flux and high capacity virus filtration to ensure productivity, without impacting cell culture performance or protein quality attributes.  Available now in sizes up to one square meter, including scalable micro filters for process development, these capsule filters are easy to implement directly in front of the bioreactor or into a media storage container.

The Viresolve Barrier filter is the latest addition to the Viresolve portfolio, to offer solutions for virus filtration in both upstream and downstream applications.

MilliporeSigma’s Process Solutions business area provides the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of high quality products and services for biopharmaceutical manufacturing.

For more information on Viresolve Barrier capsule filters visitemdmillipore.com/viresolvebarrier.  For additional information on MilliporeSigma’s Viral Safety Assurance Program, visit emdmillipore.com/virus-prevent-detect-remove.

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Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms generally come on slowly over time. Early in the disease, the most obvious are shaking, rigidity, slowness of movement, and difficulty with walking. Currently, there is no cure.

“We hear from people with Parkinson’s and their families every day,” says Ryan Underhill, Managing Director for Parkinson Canada in Nova Scotia. “Having public access to effective treatment options gives them a sense of hope.  We see firsthand how very challenging this disease is for individuals managing their unique symptoms through all stages of disease progression.”

DUODOPA is used to treat patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease who have severe and disabling motor symptoms that cannot be well controlled with available oral treatments. It is a levodopa and carbidopa medication combination delivered in the form of a gel through an intestinal pump.

“We are thrilled that Nova Scotians now have access to DUODOPA,” says Stéphane Lassignardie, General Manager of AbbVie Canada. “We continue to work with the healthcare community and the government to bring our medications to different communities. Our mission is to continue to advance scientific innovation in therapeutic areas where there are limited or no treatment options available to patients.”

Over 25 people are diagnosed with Parkinson’s every day in Canada1. Between 2011 – 2031, the number of Canadians diagnosed with Parkinson’s is expected to double to more than 163,700².

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“This agreement represents a significant milestone for Sunniva,” says Leith Pedersen, president, Sunniva. “Providing the supply of premium cannabis products under this agreement allows Sunniva to accelerate the execution of our business plan and distribution strategy. Our focus in the near-term is to build a sustainable and profitable business as we develop the Sunniva brand. We expect to accomplish this by becoming a low-cost, high-quality producer of medicinal cannabis via large-scale purpose-built production facilities which are compliant with good manufacturing practices. By establishing a strategic partnership with Canopy Growth and allocating a significant portion of our production, we de-risk our business model. This agreement evidences the significant potential of our business strategy.”

Canopy Growth and Sunniva will share the revenue sold through the distribution network set up by Canopy Growth, including the online market. The revenue share will be based on the strain, sales channel and other relevant factors. The sgreement is subject to Sunniva receiving its licence from Health Canada, which is currently in the final review stage, and completing the Sunniva Canada Campus, which is a 700,000 square foot GMP greenhouse facility in British Columbia, Canada.

“We are very excited to announce this agreement with Sunniva and welcome such a successful and impressive partner to the CraftGrow line,” comments Mark Zekulin, president of Canopy Growth. “This agreement further establishes our commitment to providing high-quality cannabis products to Canadian consumers. We look forward to working with Sunniva and their management team and anticipate a successful relationship that will be beneficial for both companies.”

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The company is now ready to initiate its Phase III clinical trial of PPP001 in terminal cancer patients, the first registration trial in the world for smokable cannabinoid-based drug.  This trial is expected to be a landmark study, enrolling a total of 946 subjects, evaluating the therapeutic benefits of a cannabinoid prescription drug in improving quality of life and treating pain in terminal cancer patients.

“This is an especially significant and noteworthy milestone for the lead candidate in our product pipeline, as it positions Tetra to potentially be the first company with a Health Canada approved, cannabinoid-based drug on the market aimed at treating breakthrough pain in cancer patients,” says Bernard Fortier, Tetra’s CEO. “The advanced cancer pain market is a $2.4 billion market. This is a significant and important opportunity for the company as our drug PPP001 has the potential to help reduce the reliance on opioids for the management of severe pain.”

The first and main recruitment center of the trial will be in Montreal at Santé Cannabis, Québec’s first medical clinic and resource centre specializing in cannabis and cannabinoids for medical purposes.

“Today, most private insurance plans do not cover cannabis treatment, nor is public reimbursement available, making this therapeutic option costly for patients,” says Fortier. “It is very important for us to bring a new therapeutic option for patients in the form of an approved prescription drug and to take action in order to have it reimbursed for patients.”

The trial aims to demonstrate that PPP001 will ease suffering and facilitate a more tranquil experience of living and dying in terminal cancer patients. If everything goes well, the company expects a launch in Canada in early 2020.

“With the expertise of Santé Cannabis, we expect to demonstrate the clinical benefits of PPP001 on the quality of life of advanced cancer patients,” says Dr. Guy Chamberland, Tetra’s chief scientific officer. “It’s important to note that our clinical program will also address the potential of PPP001 to reduce the reliance on opioids for management of severe pain. We expect that, once it is approved as a drug under prescription, PPP001 will be included over time ahead of opioids treatment for those patients with terminal cancer pain. The company will continue to maintain a transparent and direct line of communication with Health Canada and the U.S. FDA to ensure that we address the issues required for drug approval. PPP001 is about patients first.”

Tetra worked with Santé Cannabis physicians to design a clinical trial that would demonstrate the safety and efficacy of PPP001 in terminal cancer patients and have focused the clinical development on the first indication in patients with advanced cancer. The Phase III clinical trial will be performed by the medical team of Santé Cannabis.

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The new exome and custom target enrichment solutions are designed to provide improved performance, versatility and maximum capture efficiency to reduce the overall cost of next-generation sequencing.

“This product line demonstrates the true platform nature of our technology, bringing the power of DNA writing to amplify and enrich the process of DNA reading,” says Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D., CEO of Twist Bioscience. “By leveraging our DNA synthesis technology to deliver precision at scale, we are excited to introduce a new line of next-generation sequencing tools focused on exome and custom capture. We believe these steps in the sequencing workflow are pivotal to effective genome analysis but have traditionally been less than efficient until now.”

As a component of offering the Human Core Exome Kit, Twist Bioscience will offer customers the option of adding IntegraGen’s cloud-based platforms, Mercury and Sirius, for analysis of germline or cancer samples.

For more details, visit the website: https://twistbioscience.com/ 

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“These decisions mark the fifth and sixth patent allowances for our unique CRISPR technology to find new treatments for some of the toughest medical conditions faced today, including cancer, hereditary and rare diseases,” says Udit Batra, CEO, MilliporeSigma. “These foundational integration patents recognize our significant contributions to the genome-editing field and reinforce our commitment to evolving CRISPR technology globally.”

MillipreSigma also had patent filings for its insertion CRISPR method in the U.S., Brazil, China, India and Japan. In 2017, the company was awarded by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, by the Australian patent office, and by the European and Canadian patent offices for this technology.

The company is licensing these patents for applications including basic science research, agricultural biotech and therapeutic use. They also recognise the potential benefits of conducting property defined research with genome editing because of the breakthrough therapeutic potential.

These forthcoming, fundamental patents in South Korea and Israel cover chromosomal integration, or cutting of the chromosomal sequence of eukaryotic cells (such as mammalian and plant cells) and insertion of an external or donor DNA sequence into those cells using CRISPR. Scientists can replace a disease-associated mutation with a beneficial or functional sequence — a method important for creating disease models and gene therapy. Additionally, the method can be used to insert transgenes that label endogenous proteins for visual tracking within cells.

CRISPR genome-editing technology, which allows the precise modification of chromosomes in living cells, is advancing treatment options for a variety of medical conditions. CRISPR applications are far-ranging — from identifying genes associated with cancer and rare diseases to reversing mutations that cause blindness.

MilliporeSigma has 12 years of experience behind them in this field, and was the first company to offer custom biomolecules for global genome editing.

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The temperature range is from room temperature to 90.0°C readable and settable to 0.1°C.

The PID temperature control software regulates temperatures to ±0.1°C. The temperature accuracy and stability are within ±0.1ºC with a stable temperature indicator lamp on the front panel that lights when the target temperature is stable to within ±0.2ºC.

The unit holds columns up to 30 cm long by ¼” or 3/8” diameter in mounting clips provided with room for guard columns and fittings. Larger diameter columns may be used by removing the column clips that hold the smaller columns. The CO20 features simple controls, digital display of target and actual chamber temperatures, an injection counter, and 30-day timer with alarm and user settable Auto-Off.

There is an accessory stand available if the operator desires. The unit operates from 12 volts DC and comes with a bench top universal power supply for use anywhere in the world, 3-wire AC line cord for the country of use, counter cable, twelve-month warranty, and instruction manual. The Model CO20 is UL, CSA, and CE compliant.

For more information, go to www.torreypinesscientific.com.

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Doctors and a medical resident at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry are wagering that their innovative card game that has been modelled after the popular Cards Against Humanity will help raise awareness of the risk of opioid overdose and concurrently, save lives.

“I’m part of the transplant team that deals with heart and lung transplants,” says Michiko Maruyama, a third-year cardiac surgery resident and the creator of the card game. “We have been noticing over the past couple of years that there’s been an increase in young donors because of the fentanyl overdose. It’s quite emotional—we’re very thankful that the family of the teenager or young adult has donated their organs, but at the same time, it’s very hard for us to harvest the organs of someone who was otherwise healthy but made one unfortunate decision that led to their death.”

Maruyama, as well as Cheryl Mack from the department of pediatrics, and Ferrante Gragasin and Vivian Ip from the department of anesthesiology and pain medicine at the university decided to put their heads together to see what they could do for the troubled youth.

Knowing that a “fear tactics” campaign wouldn’t be the best approach for their project, Maruyama used her educational background and experience as a U of A graduate in industrial design to find an easy, approachable and attractive way for teenagers and young adults to talk about fentanyl.

“Fentanyl is a drug that we use at the hospital. It has many uses from general anesthesia to chronic pain,” she says. “We started to see the negative effects of fear-tactic campaigns with people coming into the hospital and not wanting to use fentanyl even if it was prescribed. That’s something we have to deal with as health-care providers. We wanted to create a campaign that shows both sides and be creative while doing it.”

The researchers realized that the card game Cards Against Humanity is very popular among youth, so Maruyama contacted the creators of the game and obtained their permission to create a spinoff version centred on opioids called Doctors Against Tragedies.

They created two versions. One, a no-filter no holds barred sort-of version for adults that resembles the tone of the original game, and a trivia-based version with more appropriate language for teenagers over 12 years old, which can be used in high schools.

There were over 200 doctors who aided the researchers is the review of the game to ensure quality content from all over Canada and the United States. The hope is that this game will spread across Canada and be used as an educational and prevention tool when it comes to learning about the facts and risks of fentanyl and related products. It is a not-for-profit game and is available for free download online at DoctorsAgainstTragedies.com.

This project was made possible through the support of a grant from the Alberta Medical Association, in conjunction with the Canadian Medical Association.

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The funding, which is provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) project grants, will encourage world-class researchers to study a wide range of topics, including cancer therapy and gene editing; low testosterone and its impact on the heart; pharmaceutical safety and transparency; insulin resistance and heart muscle damage; neurodevelopmental disorders; innate immune memory; more effective breast cancer treatments; and alternative therapies for bacterial infections.

“Our government is fully committed to taking concrete action when it comes to the health and well-being of all Canadians,” says The Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Health, in a news release. “This investment will fund research that will lead to new treatments, breakthroughs, and fundamental advances in health science. We are proud of our researchers, and will continue to support them in their efforts to help keep Canadians healthy and continue their research right here at home.”

The Project Grant competition is one of CIHR’s flagship funding programs. The grants are multi-year and designed to support researchers at various stages in their careers as they conduct health research and knowledge translation projects. Project grant recipients are leaders in their fields and their projects tackle pressing health issues that matter to Canadians, such as cancer, autism, heart disease, and dementia.

“We are proud of the remarkable work being done by our medical researchers, who are improving health and helping us all live healthier lives,” says Alice Aiken, vice-president research for Dalhousie. “We are incredibly grateful for the support they are receiving from CIHR, which enables them to continue leading the way in developing innovative solutions to today’s most pressing health care problems.”

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Considering most of those “yummy” foods that a lot of us like, whether on the odd occasion or on an all-too-regular basis are high in saturated fat and sugar, a recent study from the University of Montreal Research Centre (CRCHUM) might entice us to put down that chocolate bar and pick up an apple instead.

We all know that a diet rich in saturated fat and sugar will ultimately lead to obesity and possibly diabetes, but did you know it causes inflammation in the brain as well? The researchers of the study claim that saturated fats create inflammation in the nucleus accumbens – the part of the brain associated with mood and reward – that leads to anxious, depressive and compulsive behaviours linked to metabolic dysfunction and obesity. It was published in the journal Molecular Metabolism providing more evidence on the harmful effects of too much-saturated fat on health.

“The depressive, anxiety and compulsive behaviours and the metabolic changes observed with the diet rich in saturated fat were not observed with a diet rich in monounsaturated fat, the type of fat found in olive oil,” says Stephanie Fulton, a CRCHUM researcher and professor in the Department of Nutrition of Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Medicine.

The metabolic impairments observed with the saturated high-fat diet include hyperinsulinemia and glucose intolerance, which are associated with the development of type II diabetes. Fulton and her team of researchers worked with two groups of mice fed a diet containing the same number of calories every day, 50 per cent of which were from fat. One of the groups was fed the saturated fat diet, while the other received monounsaturated fat, and the third group of mice was fed a low-fat diet.

“The animals with the diet rich in saturated fat voluntarily consumed more calories,” says Léa Décarie-Spain, the study’s first author and a PhD student in Fulton’s laboratory. “It took only 12 weeks for the diet rich in saturated fat to cause obesity, anxiodepressive behaviours and the metabolic changes associated with prediabetes.”

The Mediterranean diet has been and is currently praised for being rich in nutrients and low in saturated fats that alleviate and protect against negative thoughts patterns like depression. In this study, the researchers were able to identify neuronal mechanisms that give rise to depressive behaviour elicited by the diet-induced obesity. The study showed that anxiodepressive behaviours can result from inflammation observed in the nucleus accumbens. A genetic manipulation in that part of the brain made it possible to inhibit a molecule that plays a key role in advancing the inflammation.

“This manipulation succeeded in protecting the mice eating the diet rich in saturated fat from brain inflammation. Consequently, the signs of depression and anxiety and the compulsive sugar seeking disappeared,” explains Décarie-Spain. “Poor diet quality along with metabolic disturbances can lead to negative emotional states, which can stimulate the quest for comfort through food, and thereby lead to compulsive behaviour.”

These findings encourage further research into anti-inflammatory interventions that could inhibit depression caused by immune activity in the nucleus accumbens and really bring to the light the vicious power cycle that those who struggle with weight and obesity go through.

Saturated fat is typically seen in the form of palm oil – which is widely used in the processed food industry.

“We hope that this study will help educate people about the importance of diet, not only because of the link with cardiovascular diseases and certain cancers, but also because of the neurological and psychiatric problems that are increasingly associated with obesity,” says Fulton. “We also hope that our results will put pressure on the food industry to reduce saturated fat content in foods.”

Although a few sweet treats and a hamburger every now and then won’t bring on a case of depression, researchers still warn, “We should simply avoid eating such foods in excess in order to keep a healthy metabolism and inflammation at a minimum” said Décarie-Spain. “It’s a question of moderation.”

So maybe it’s time to put down that chocolate bar.

This study follows on an earlier study published by Fulton in 2013 which showed that obesity leads to anxiodepressive behaviours which have an impact on brain reward signaling and vulnerability to stress.  

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