Science Education & Policy

SUNNYVALE, California, June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- - Cytori and UC lose rights to Adipose-Derived Stem Cells; business agreements and activity under other patents likely affected. Artecel, Inc., announced today that the patent inventorship litigation concerning the foundational, composition-of-matter patent covering stem cells isolated from adipose (fat) tissue has been decided in favor of Artecel's licensor, the University of Pittsburgh ('Pittsburgh') and against Cytori Therapeutics' licensor, the University of California ('UC'). Such stem cells are one of the most promising kinds of adult stem…

SAN FRANCISCO, June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- - Food Safety, Healthcare and Transportation 'Industry Solution Tracks' Strengthen Conference Agenda TechInsights today announced the expansion of the RFID World 2008 conference (http://www.rfid-world.com/2008), offering demonstrable vertical market RFID solutions, discussion forums, seminars and symposia that address the increased demand from industry leaders for a RFID solutions-focused event. RFID World 2008: Beyond RFID: Global Solutions for the Auto ID Community will take place in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand September 8-10. The slate of RFID World…

SAN DIEGO, June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Cardium Therapeutics (Amex: CXM) and its operating unit InnerCool Therapies announced today that InnerCool has entered into a exclusive commercialization agreement with N.G.C. Medical S.p.A., a leading Italian distributor of medical products. N.G.C. Medical primarily sells medical products to the intensive care, surgical and interventional cardiology markets. They also provide in-service management of surgical suites, intensive care units and interventional laboratories for a number of Italy's leading hospitals. The agreement covers InnerCool's CoolBlue(TM…

With food prices going up, farmers are getting wealthy (or wealthier, in the case of the big conglomerates), right? Not outside the US, according to a study in Economic Development and Cultural Change by Marcel Fafchamps(1) and Ruth Vargas Hill(2). In their new study for look to the long-time coffee producing nation of Uganda to attempt to answer the riddle of why higher prices don't 'trickle down' in other countries, even if they are modern liberalized economies. Coffee is the world's largest agricultural commodity, and is also one of the world's most volatile. Large global coffee price…

Are senior doctors who help drug companies sell their drugs independent experts or just drug representatives in disguise, asks Ray Moynihan from the University of Newcastle in Australia, in this week's BMJ. Pharmaceutical companies regularly sponsor leading specialists with "generous fees to peddle influence" and promote drugs to the profession and the public, writes Moynihan. Drug companies will pay influential doctors up to $400 an hour to act as key opinion leaders, and some doctors earn more than $25 000 a year in advisory fees. Kimberly Elliot, a former award-winning drug company sales…

ROME, June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- - Institute will focus on Policy Solutions to Protect Personal Data in the Digital Age in Italy and the European Union A group of prominent Italian privacy advocates and jurists have launched the Italian Institute for Privacy (www.istitutoitalianoprivacy.it/en/), a public policy think tank focused on improving privacy protection in the digital age. This broad-based coalition of prominent Italians will focus its efforts on the protection of personal privacy online for citizens in Italy and throughout Europe. Protection of personal privacy and data online is a…

Enactment of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) of 2008 is a boon to individual patients and for genetic research, write Kathy Hudson, M.K. Holohan, and Francis Collins in the June 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. But the bill is not a panacea, they note: Employers, health insurers, patients, and doctors now must be educated about its provisions, gaps remain in genetic testing oversight, and there still may be opportunities to misuse genetic information. Hudson, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts-funded Genetics and Public Policy Center, and co-authors…

NASA hopes to use the the new Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures film WALL-Eto promote interest among schoolchildren in science and technology. They have signed a Space Act Agreement for a series of educational and public outreach activities related to Disney-Pixar's new movie opening in theaters nationwide on June 27, 2008. This collaboration highlights the similarities between the movie's storyline and NASA's real-life work in robot technology, propulsion systems and astrophysics. Disney-Pixar's WALL-E is set 700 years in the future. The film's main character is the only rover-robot left…

AUSTIN, Texas, June 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Ringdale(R), Inc., a technology leader in network enhancing connectivity solutions, today announced the availability of FollowMe(R) Embedded for Ricoh, a completely integrated version of FollowMe Printing, the industry standard secure document output management solution. FollowMe Embedded for Ricoh works on all Ricoh multifunction printers (MFPs) that incorporate Ricoh's Embedded Software Architecture (ESA), to provide easy access to FollowMe's copying, printing, emailing, faxing and scanning capabilities. Through an embedded front panel on Ricoh MFPs,…

LONDON, June 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Responding to yesterday's announcement made by Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Health, of a Government review in to the current policy on 'top-up' payments for NHS treatment, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) has called for consistency and fairness to be overriding factors. Paul Bennett, chair of RPSGB's English Pharmacy Board, said: "The government has encouraged the development of multiple access routes to medicines, for instance by de-regulating some medicines (such as Simvastatin and emergency hormonal contraception) so that…