Posts

May 06, 2013

+

2:13 PM | Making the Leap from Academia to Industry: How to Set Yourself Apart from Other Candidates

By Dora Farkas, PhDI have been working in industry for a few years now, and students ask me the same question that I was struggling with during my job search: “How can I get a job in industry if I don’t have industry experience?” Like many other students, I had my heart set on an academic career path when I was in college. I spent my undergraduate [...]

+

8:00 AM | Global Entrepreneurship in the Biotech Industry

Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable and the International Affairs Group at UC San Diego are co-sponsoring an exciting event on Global Entrepreneurship the in Biotech Industry on May 13, 2013. This seminar brings together Greg Horowitt, founder of Global CONNECT, and Jeff Stein, president and CEO of Trius Therapeutics, a developer of antibiotics for drug-resistant, life-threatening infections. [...]The post Global Entrepreneurship in the Biotech Industry appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

+

8:00 AM | Integrating Mesofacts: On Samuel Arbesman’s “The Half-Life of Facts”

Book: The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date Author: Samuel Arbesman Publisher: Penguin Subject: Turnover patterns and their rates of what we call “facts” ISBN: 978-1591844723 RRP: £17 How do we know a technology is nearing its maximum potential? How do we know to stop incremental improvement and [...]The post Integrating Mesofacts: On Samuel Arbesman’s “The Half-Life of Facts” appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

+

7:00 AM | Personalized Medicine – The Future of Medicine

Following a clinical exam, Bob hands over his smartphone to Dr. Trevor. After poring over Bob’s genome sequence on the phone, Dr. Trevor proceeds to type out a prescription. The exam gave Dr. Trevor an idea about what Bob is suffering from. This genome sequence told her about how best to approach Bob’s condition and [...]The post Personalized Medicine – The Future of Medicine appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

+

6:53 AM | News of the week, May 6th, 2013

SCIENCE Youngest child ever to receive bioengineered organ A two-year-old Korean-Canadian girl, Hannah Warren, born without a trachea (tracheal agenesis) has been fitted with a new one bioengineered using her own cells. No child with this condition has ever lived past the age of 6. She has become the youngest child ever to receive a [...]The post News of the week, May 6th, 2013 appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

May 04, 2013

+

11:22 AM | Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine: Learning from Spin Outs

Earlier in February, OBR hosted a timely discussion on the commercialisation of regenerative medicine research, inviting UK based industry leaders Gregg Sando, CEO, Cell Medica, John Sinden, CSO, Reneuron and Paul Kemp, CEO and CSO, Intercytex to share their views and expertise. Regenerative medicines, defined inclusively, encompass tissue engineering, cellular therapies, gene therapies, aspects of [...]The post Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine: Learning from Spin Outs appeared first […]

May 03, 2013

+

6:03 AM | Fighting the Bad Bugs: What Can Be Done About Antibiotic Resistance?

The challenge Ever since their introduction in the early 20th century, antibiotics have saved millions of lives. Indeed, the rise in average life expectancy in the last century is credited in large part to the introduction of these bacterial-fighting agents. But the bacteria have learned to fight back. The enormous selective pressure placed on bacteria [...]The post Fighting the Bad Bugs: What Can Be Done About Antibiotic Resistance? appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

May 02, 2013

+

3:21 PM | OBR-Bay Launches with Panel Discussion of the Past and Future of Biotech

by Benjamin Cohn, OBR Ambassador PALO ALTO, California – This past Monday, April 22nd, marked the inauguration of the newest chapter of Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable in the Bay Area. Students and postdocs gathered for a panel of industry experts, including venture capitalists John Patton (Dance Pharmaceuticals), M. “Ken” Kengatharan (Armetheon, Atheneos Capital), and Doug Fisher (InterWest Partners), as [...]The post OBR-Bay Launches with Panel Discussion of the Past and […]

+

3:18 PM | CUSPE hosts event on ‘Secrets Behind the Cambridge Phenomenon’

by Sophia David, OBR Cambridge Correspondent CAMBRIDGE, Cambridgeshire – An event entitled “Secrets Behind the Cambridge Phenomenon” Thursday evening saw industry professionals, academics and students explore the remarkable success of the “Cambridge cluster”, the dense concentration of technology and life science firms in the Cambridge region. The event was organized by the Cambridge University Science [...]The post CUSPE hosts event on ‘Secrets Behind the Cambridge […]

+

11:17 AM | Graduate Opportunities with the RSC

GREAT GRADUATE OPPORTUNITIES: We’ve just opened for applications to the RSC Graduate Scheme for a September start date. We also have some short summer placement opportunities available in Publishing and Science Writing. The graduate Publishing Editor position is also open to applications. Full details of the graduate schemes can be found here and the summer placements are advertised here Posted by Julie FranklinMay 2, 2013 12:17 pm

May 01, 2013

+

8:09 PM | Entrepreneurship in the classroom: a lesson from high school

Educating the next generation of business-minded scientists is not a task to be taken lightly. Many institutions around the world include in their academic curriculum courses on technology transfer, performance management, organizational theory, and financial decision-making, even in graduate programs that focus primarily on basic science subjects such as biochemistry or genetics. These courses are [...]The post Entrepreneurship in the classroom: a lesson from high school appeared first on […]

April 30, 2013

+

7:01 PM | Even da Vinci knew the importance of a skills based CV

I'm always going on about making sure you make your CV relevant to the position that you are applying for and to really concentrate on the skills that the recruiter is looking for, so it was great to stumble across this recently. It would seem even da Vinci was aware of the importance of highlighting his skills, and importantly providing specific examples too. I guess in essence CV's haven't really changed that much at all.Posted by Laura WoodwardApr 30, 2013 8:01 pm

+

6:48 PM | PhD Career Guide Podcast Episode 2

The second episode of the PhD Career Guide PODCAST is now up and available for download from iTunes, Stitcher, and many other podcast directories. You may also listen to the episode directly on the& [...]

April 29, 2013

+

12:27 PM | News of the Week, April 29th, 2013

SCIENCE NIH-backed HIV vaccine “a failure” The largest currently running AIDS vaccine trial has been stopped. The study involved 2,500 participants in 19 cities and was terminated when an oversight committee reviewed the study’s preliminary results and concluded that the vaccine was not working. The reason for ending the study was that of those who [...]The post News of the Week, April 29th, 2013 appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

+

7:41 AM | Internships for Chemists in Westminster

There is still time to apply for this great opportunity. Internship for Chemists in Westminster The Westminster Fellowship Scheme is an annual internship at the offices of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology [POST]. The RSC will fund two candidates to work at POST for three-months, engaging in work that is intended to aid scientific research into public policy areas, as well as raising public awareness. The candidates will experience the inner workings of the […]

+

7:00 AM | The Importance of Communication; Making Science Accessible

We are living in a time of exciting discoveries, huge technological advancement, and great scientific innovation, but only now is the scientific community finally realising that communication is the key to managing change in public opinion and understanding of research. In the past, these advances have sparked some scary news stories when scientists have had [...]The post The Importance of Communication; Making Science Accessible appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

April 28, 2013

+

9:30 AM | The Future of Tissue Engineering

Tissue engineering is often thought of as a “Frankenstein-type” science where scientists build living tissues from otherwise “dead” tissues and organs. However, current advances in technology mean bringing life to cadaveric tissues is becoming more and more sophisticated: less of the lightning strikes and more stem cells and 3D printing! Tissue engineering is defined as [...]The post The Future of Tissue Engineering appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

April 25, 2013

+

10:51 PM | Hope for homegrown organs

NEWSFLASH A chronic shortage of consenting donors exists worldwide and new methods of organ procurement are greatly needed. In the US, around 100,000 people are waiting for a donor kidney, and 400,000 rely on haemodialysis. In the UK, more than 51,000 people annually are treated for end-stage kidney failure, and 90% of people on the national transplant waiting [...]The post Hope for homegrown organs appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

+

9:12 AM | Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD): Key Advances in Medicine

Advances made in medicinal sciences are conventionally accepted as inevitably constant – as ongoing processes – in modern society, if you are not playing a part in forwarding human endeavour you might as well go back to digging up dirt with your ancestors. 2012 was no different a year insofar as such advances being made in [...]The post Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD): Key Advances in Medicine appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

April 24, 2013

+

7:35 PM | Is in vitro meat the future of food production?

The concept of growing meat separately from a living animal was documented as far back as 1932 when Winston Churchill wrote that “fifty years hence, we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium” (1). It’s 30 [...]The post Is in vitro meat the future of food production? appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

+

8:30 AM | Stratified medicine: enabling the translation of cancer therapies – Oxford, May 1st

On Wednesday the 1st of May at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, OBR and the University of Oxford Medical Sciences Division will hold an event discussing the Stratified Medicine in Oncology among a variety of attendees and panelists. For cancer patients, a “one size-fits all” approach to drug and therapeutic treatments, is unpredictable [...]The post Stratified medicine: enabling the translation of cancer therapies – Oxford, May 1st appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

+

8:00 AM | Nanomedicine and Nanotechnology: Promising Directions for Translation

This article continues an examination of the relatively young field that applies nanotechnology to medicine. Part 1 defined nanomedicine and covered nano-based therapeutics already being translated into the clinic. New directions in Nanomedicine — clinical translation Nanomedicine research focusing on other administration routes could be much closer to clinical translation. For example, nanoparticles designed to cross [...]The post Nanomedicine and Nanotechnology: Promising Directions […]

April 22, 2013

+

7:58 PM | News of the Week, April 22nd, 2013

SCIENCE First possible death in Swansea epidemic Last week saw the first possible death in the ongoing South Wales measles epidemic. Public Health Wales (PHW) is currently tackling an epidemic of over 800 cases, with 77 hospitalisations since the outbreak began last November. PHW laboratory tests diagnosed that the 25 year-old Swansea man had disease at the time [...]The post News of the Week, April 22nd, 2013 appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

+

12:12 PM | Beyond your PhD

The question of what to do after completing a PhD is one that every doctoral candidate must face. Indeed, even if you don’t ask yourself the question, you can be sure that someone else will, whether it be a curious stranger or your concerned mother. The University of Glasgow recently hosted a careers event designed [...]The post Beyond your PhD appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

+

9:20 AM | CASMI Launch: 21st March 2013

The Wellcome Trust hosted the official launch of CASMI, the Centre for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical Innovation. CASMI is a partnership between UCL and the University of Oxford, which focuses on resolving and addressing the medical innovation challenge in the bioscience sector. As highlighted by the centre’s director Dr Richard Barker, in his opening [...]The post CASMI Launch: 21st March 2013 appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

April 21, 2013

+

10:20 PM | OneStart Top 10 Announced!

OBR and SR-One are pleased to announce the Top 10 teams in the OneStart Competition. After extensive work with their industry mentors, all 35 semi-finalist teams developed comprehensive pitches and business plans. The judges, after pouring over the submissions, have chosen only 10 to move on to the final round. These teams will present their ideas [...]The post OneStart Top 10 Announced! appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

April 19, 2013

+

5:38 PM | Coming Soon to a Journal Near You: Video Abstracts

Some of you may be familiar with a new trend at some science journals: video abstracts in which the authors explain their findings on camera, sometimes enhanced with animations or other visually-rich media. A few journals routinely accept and publish video abstracts prepared by authors. Two of these are the New Journal of Physics and Cell, and you can see examples of their video abstracts by going to their websites.These video abstracts are typically short (3-5 minutes) and often published on a […]

+

7:47 AM | A giant leap forward in identifying molecules

There is a giant leap forward in identifying molecules, which was revealed in a recent issue of Nature (vol. 495, pp. 461-466). Inokuma and colleagues employed a type of “crystalline sponge,” which absorbs small molecules in nanogram amounts and induces an ordered array so that their structures could be known through X-ray crystallography. Here’s why [...]The post A giant leap forward in identifying molecules appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.

April 18, 2013

+

6:51 PM | #ChemMovieCarnival – The Absent-Minded Professor

Chemistry has made many appearances in films—sometimes depicted accurately, more often not so much. This week, there’s a blog carnival devoted to chemistry’s role in movies. The carnival is being curated by @SeeArrOh over at Just Like Cooking, and can be followed at #ChemMovieCarnival. I’m going to go way back to my youth for my offering, as [...]

+

1:41 AM | Re-igniting Biotech in the Bay: OBR Launches New Chapter

Stanford, UCSF, UC Berkley – the San Francisco Bay Area is studded with academic institutions at the roots and leading edge of modern biotechnology. Nobel Prize winning scientist Dr. Paul Berg arguably spawned the dawn of modern biotechnology, and specifically genetic engineering, over 40 years ago, with his pioneering work in recombinant DNA at Stanford [...]The post Re-igniting Biotech in the Bay: OBR Launches New Chapter appeared first on Oxbridge Biotech.