SAN DIEGO, October 8 /PRNewswire/ --

- Findings Confirm Potency of Poly-ICR as Vaccine Adjuvant

Nventa Biopharmaceuticals Corporation (TSX: NVN) today presented positive data from preclinical studies using its proprietary Toll-like Receptor 3 agonist, Poly IC-Poly Arginine (Poly-ICR), at the World Vaccine Congress 2008 in Lyon, France. Study results demonstrated Poly-ICR to be a potent vaccine adjuvant targeting the Toll-like Receptor 3 (TLR3) pathway. Data showed that Poly-ICR, in combination with model antigens, elicits strong anti-target antibody and CD8 T-cell immune responses. These findings demonstrate the versatility of Poly-ICR, suggesting that the compound may possess broad potential for use in both therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines.

NEW YORK, October 8 /PRNewswire/ --

- Agreement Follows Recent Grant by Intellect of License to Wyeth (NYSE: WYE) and Elan Pharma International Ltd.

Intellect Neurosciences, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: ILNS), a biopharmaceutical company focused on development of disease-modifying therapeutic agents for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease (AD), announced today that it has entered into an Option Agreement with a top-tier global pharmaceutical company regarding the right to purchase a license to certain of Intellect's patents and patent applications related to antibodies and methods of treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

PARIS, October 8 /PRNewswire/ -- After 9 months of intensive beta testing using a pool of 9,000 servers created by over 4,000 individual customers, Gandi.net, the largest ICANN-accredited registrar in France, announces the grand opening of its unparalleled hosting service.

The Senecavirus is a "new" virus, discovered several years ago by Neotropix Inc., a biotech company in Malvern, Pennsylvania. It was at first thought to be a laboratory contaminant, but researchers found it was a pathogen, now believed to originate from cows or pigs. Further investigation found that the virus was harmless to normal human cells, but could infect certain solid tumors, such as small cell lung cancer, the most common form of lung cancer.

Scientists at Neotrophix say that, in laboratory and animal studies, the virus demonstrates cancer-killing specificity that is 10,000 times higher than that seen in traditional chemotherapeutics, with no overt toxicity. The company has developed the "oncolytic" virus as an anti-cancer agent and is already conducting early phase clinical trials in patients with lung cancer.

LONDON, October 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Schools are responsible for looking after their students. It is a teacher's job to zip up coats, wipe away tears, and teach children the things they need to know. There are procedures in place to make sure that students are looked after while they are under the school's care, but what about a student's personal data? Are British Schools keeping their students' data safe?

Proteins found in sperm are central to understanding male infertility and could be used to determine new diagnostic methods and fertility treatments according to a paper published by the journal Molecular and Cellular Proteomics (MCP). The article demonstrates how proteomics, a relatively new field focusing on the function of proteins in a cell, can be successfully applied to infertility, helping identify which proteins in sperm cells are dysfunctional.

"Up to 50 percent of male-factor infertility cases in the clinic have no known cause, and therefore no direct treatment. In-depth study of the molecular basis of infertility has great potential to inform the development of sensitive diagnostic tools and effective therapies," write co-authors Diana Chu, assistant professor of biology at San Francisco State University and Tammy Wu, post-doctoral fellow at SF State. The study is included in a special Oct. 10 issue of MCP dedicated to the clinical application of proteomics.

Researchers from Ohio State say that wetlands in tropical areas are able to absorb and hold onto about 80 percent more carbon than wetlands in temperate zones.

The scientists extracted soil cores from wetlands in Costa Rica and in Ohio and analyzed the contents of the sediment from the past 40 years. Based on their analysis, they estimated that the tropical wetland accumulated a little over 1 ton of carbon per acre per year, and the temperate wetland accumulated .6 tons of carbon per acre per year.

The temperate Ohio wetland in the study covers almost 140 acres, meaning it sequesters 80 tons of carbon per year. The tropical wetland covers nearly 290 acres and stores 300 tons of carbon each year.

Edward O. Wilson is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and Harvard research professor emeritus and has pioneered seminal works in evolution of social behavior and organization; and a commitment to conservation that has shaped the face of science, philosophy, ethics and activism for more than a half century.

Who does he admire? Charles Darwin, whose audacious ideas on natural selection, evolution, and the nature of human origins turned a Victorian public and scientific establishment on its collective ear.

On Nov. 4, Wilson will kick off Arizona State University’s Darwinfest, a series of events and speakers that will tap into what Darwin set in motion when he stepped outside of the box 150 years ago to publish “On the Origin of Species.” Wilson will speak about “Darwin and the Future of Science” at 7 p.m. at the Tempe Center for the Arts.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2008 jointly to Japanese citizen Osamu Shimomura, of Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, MA, and Boston University Medical School along with Americans Martin Chalfie, Columbia University, New York and Roger Y. Tsien, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP".

Glowing proteins – a guiding star for biochemistry

The remarkable brightly glowing green fluorescent protein, GFP, was first observed in the beautiful jellyfish, Aequorea victoria in 1962. Since then, this protein has become one of the most important tools used in contemporary bioscience. With the aid of GFP, researchers have developed ways to watch processes that were previously invisible, such as the development of nerve cells in the brain or how cancer cells spread.