MONTREAL, Canada, February 6 /PRNewswire/ --

- Shipment of Prion Capture Resin to MacoPharma in Q1 2008;

- MacoPharma Increased its Forecast for P-Capt(R) Filters Sale in 2008;

- Use of Affinity Prion Adsorbent for Plasma-Derived Products to Generate in Excess of CAD$25 M Over the Next 5 Years - CAD$4 M in 2008;

- 10th Product Approved by the FDA and or the EMEA, Contributing to Revenue Growth.

ProMetic Life Sciences Inc. (TSX:PLI) ("ProMetic") today provided an update on its business activities.

Thousands of times a year, a single cell extraction from an embryo is performed to screen for genetic diseases. As of January 2008, the cell could be allowed to divide and the copy used for research without harm to the embryo. Current federal funding is prohibited for experiments that injure or destroy human embryonic stem cells and is limited to cells extracted before President Bush's declaration of August 9, 2001. Meanwhile, four hundred thousand embryos are sitting in clinics waiting to be implanted in the mother's womb or to be discarded – a practice of which no one has raised a disapproving eyebrow. However, rapid advances in stem cell extraction methodology are quickly laying ethical issues to rest. As of January, 2008, stem cell research has laid a golden egg. Thousands of times a year a single cell is taken from an embryo to screen for genetic diseases. Advanced Cell Technology now has the capability to allow the cell to divide in a laboratory dish and use the copy for stem cells.

A new study documents malformations seen in an infant born to a kidney transplant recipient who had taken mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), a widely used immunosuppressant available commercially as Cellcept®. The findings suggest a specific birth defect pattern particular to this drug, reinforcing its potential to harm to the fetus.

Approximately 14,000 births to organ transplant recipients, primarily kidney transplant patients, have been reported worldwide. Although pregnancy was initially ill-advised for these women, the American Society of Transplantation concluded in 2003 that pregnancy is usually safe following the first year of a transplant, provided that organ rejection or other complications have not occurred. The fetal side-effects of several immunosuppressant drugs have been studied, though not for widely used newer medications, such as (MMF).

CHICAGO and PARIS, February 6 /PRNewswire/ --

- Leading North American Traffic Provider to Launch Multiple European Products in 2008

NAVTEQ (NYSE: NVT), a leading global provider of digital map data for vehicle navigation and location based solutions, today announced the expansion of NAVTEQ Traffic to Europe. The company has announced plans to introduce both its real-time NAVTEQ Traffic product and NAVTEQ Traffic Patterns, a product featuring historic traffic data that further optimizes routing in navigation systems and on-line mapping, in Europe in 2008.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada, February 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Diagnostic Imaging International Corp. (OTC: DIIG) was pleased to announce today that the Company stock symbol has been cleared for quotation on the OTC Bulletin Board.

The trading symbol is DIIG.

Additionally the Company announced today that the corporate website is now live at http://www.diig.biz

The Company plans to work diligently to build on its business plan as quickly as possible.

About the Company

NEW YORK, February 6 /PRNewswire/ --

- Purchase Will Expand Ability to Quickly Develop Advanced Water Filtration Products for Developing World

Vestergaard Frandsen, a European company developing and selling disease control textiles, today announced the purchase of a majority share of Prime Water International (formerly known as Prime Membrane Technologies NV), a 15-year old Belgian company with expertise in the development of advanced membranes for water purification products, including Vestergaard Frandsen's LifeStraw(R) products which are designed to prevent water borne diseases and save lives in developing countries.

A study by UC Irvine ecologists finds that excess nitrogen in tropical forests boosts plant growth by an average of 20 percent, countering the belief that such forests would not respond to nitrogen pollution.

Faster plant growth means the tropics will take in more carbon dioxide than previously thought, though long-term climate effects are unclear. Over the next century, nitrogen pollution is expected to steadily rise, with the most dramatic increases in rapidly developing tropical regions such as India, South America, Africa and Southeast Asia.

Nitrogen fertilizer, applied to farmland to improve crop yield, also affects ecosystems downwind by seeping into runoff water and evaporating into the atmosphere. Industrial burning and forest clearing also pumps nitrogen into the air.

LEEDS, England, February 6 /PRNewswire/ --

- With Photo

Masternaut Three X has been rated as one of Britain's best companies to work for. The Leeds-based vehicle tracking firm has received a Best Companies 2008 star status accreditation for its outstanding workplaces and investment in people. Masternaut Three X was just one of five companies in the business services sector to receive the accolade.

Scientists from the University of Bonn are researching which plants giant dinosaurs could have lived off more than 100 million years ago in order to find out how they were able to become as large as they did. Such gigantic animals should not have existed.

Their recipe; take 200 milligrams of dried and ground equisetum, ten milliliters of digestive juice from sheep's rumen, a few minerals, carbonate and water. Fill a big glass syringe with the mix, clamp this into a revolving drum and put the whole thing into an incubator, where the brew can rotate slowly.

In this way they obtained an artificial 'dinosaur rumen'. With this apparatus (also used as a ‘Menke gas production technique’ in assessing food for cows) Dr. Jürgen Hummel from the Bonn Institute of Animal Sciences (Bonner Institut für Tierwissenschaften) is investigating which plants giant dinosaurs could have lived off more than 100 million years ago, since this is one of the pieces still missing in the puzzle involving the largest land animals that ever walked the earth. The largest of these 'sauropod dinosaurs' with their 70 to 100 tons had a mass of ten full grown elephants or more than 1000 average people.

Dr. Jürgen Hummel (c) Frank Luerweg, Uni Bonn

Quantitative modeling of a biological pathway normally involves intense computer simulations to crunch all available data on the dozens of relevant reactions in the pathway, producing a detailed interaction map.

Now an MIT team has used an engineering approach to show that complex biological systems can be studied with simple models developed by measuring what goes into and out of the system. Such an approach can give researchers an alternative way to look at the inner workings of a complicated biological system-such as a pathway in a cell-and allow them to study systems in their natural state.

The researchers focused on a pathway in yeast that controls cells' response to a specific change in the environment. The resulting model is “the simplest model you can ever reduce these systems to,” said Alexander van Oudenaarden, W.M. Keck Career Development Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Associate Professor of Physics and senior author of the paper in Science.