Science & Research
HUNTSVILLE, Ala -- One of the world’s favorite confections – chocolate – may be improving at its basic ingredient thanks in part to research from the HudsonAlpha Genome Sequencing Center. HudsonAlpha, in partnership with MARS, Inc., the USDA, IBM and Clemson, Indiana and Washington State universities, is learning more about the cacao genome and sharing that knowledge to improve the way breeders and farmers harvest the crop.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- Sleeping, eating, working; humans, as well as many other living organisms, have circadian patterns, regularly occurring, 24-hour rhythms, that are part of normal function. Dysfunctions in regular patterns – such as insomnia and unexplained fluctuations in appetite, body temperature and/or hormones — are symptoms shared by many patients with depression. Researchers at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, with scientists at the University of Michigan, the University of California at Irvine, Stanford University and Weill Cornell Medical College, collaborated in a study where they found the first direct evidence connecting cellular level activity in the brains of patients with depression to out-of-step circadian rhythms. These groups have been part of the Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Consortium for the past decade.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- EGEN, Inc. today announced that it has recently initiated a Phase I clinical trial of its novel immunotherapy agent, EGEN-001, in combination with PEGylated liposomal Doxorubicin or Lipodox for the treatment of recurrent ovarian cancer. The EGEN-sponsored trial is conducted by a network of researchers led by Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) at member institutions under an agreement between the GOG and EGEN, Inc. Premal Thaker, M.D., M.S., of Washington University School of Medicine, is the Study Chair for the trial.
Serina Therapeutics, Inc. has developed a proprietary, patented polymer technology for drug development and announced an agreement with AstraZeneca to develop the polyoxazoline (POZ) polymer therapeutic with an AstraZeneca proprietary compound. The nature of the POZ therapeutic and the terms of the agreement were not immediately disclosed. 
CFD Research Corporation has been awarded a $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop their novel in vitro tumor model. SynVivo-Tumor replicates the tumor microenvironment with physiologically and morphologically realistic microvasculature including endothelial cell-lined leaky vessels and 3D solid tumors. Tumor drug delivery is a complex phenomenon affected by several elements in addition to physico-chemical properties. 
Huntsville, Ala. - A Huntsville company whose fingerprint scanner can photographically capture fingerprints from as far as six meters has been named to Popular Science's "Study illuminates photosynthesis as an evolutionary process
HudsonAlpha scientists among those examining tiny algae
HUNTSVILLE, Ala - When you think about walking through a tall meadow of grass, you likely envision peace and calm. But on a sunny day those grass blades are busy factories turning light into food energy through a complex mechanism of enzymes arranged in the photosynthetic pathway. Those grass cells can only act as factories because distant ancestors declared war on other cells and swallowed them whole, trapping and forcing them to work for the grass cell.
