Category Archives: BioEngineering

BERKELEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Firespray International has provided an innovative lab exhaust ductwork system for the University of California, Berkeley’s (UC Berkeley) Helios Energy Research Facility (rendering), solving a complex construction challenge at the 113,000 square-foot building under construction in downtown Berkeley.

The structure will house the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) and the University’s Bioengineering Program. Dedicated to finding solutions to global climate change, the EBI is a collaboration of academic experts and energy industry leaders researching new carbon-neutral biofuels and examining biofuels’ potential environmental, social and economic impacts. UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory partnered with the funding agency, energy company BP, to assemble the Institute’s researchers and staff.

The five-story facility is being built to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification. In the design phase, when architectural firm SmithGroupJJR and the Design Engineer, Gaynor, Inc. sought a solution for extremely constrained above-ceiling space, San Jose-based Critchfield Mechanical, Inc. (CMI) proposed Firespray’s Flamebar BW11 lab exhaust ductwork as a space-saving, “single-fix” approach.

“Our project incorporated Flamebar in lieu of using horizontal shaft-wall construction,” said Gabe Pattee, Project Engineer with general contractor Rudolph and Sletten. “As top-tier lab space, Helios was a project with robust, space consuming MEP systems. During our 3D modeling effort, we found Flamebar to be a fantastic value engineering idea to maintain architectural design, save time on schedule and save money,” Pattee added. “The combination of schedule savings and elimination of the horizontal shafts proved to be an economically advantageous benefit to the project.”

Fully compliant with the International Mechanical Code (IMC) and Uniform Mechanical Code (UMC), Firespray’s lab exhaust system is approved by the University of California (Berkeley, San Francisco and Irvine) for use on its campuses. “Eliminating the need for a drywall shaft, Firespray’s system reduced the assembly’s footprint by more than a foot horizontally and vertically,” said Joe Vincenti, vice president, Firespray USA.

“In the lab building’s tightly packed mechanical space, Flamebar BW11 was the only viable solution to make a substantial amount of construction work far easier,” noted architect Johnny Wong of SmithGroupJJR. “As we consider the system for future projects, a key is that it’s listed and accepted under stringent requirements of UL, the University Inspector of Record and the California State Fire Marshal.”

The system features factory-sprayed, stainless steel ductwork fabricated to an enhanced SMACNA standard. Firespray licensee Pacific Firespray applied coating for nearly 5,000 square feet of fire-rated ductwork, which CMI fabricated and installed.

Firespray International is recognized worldwide in design and manufacture of specialized fire ducting systems in sectors including fire-rated ductwork (lab exhaust, smoke exhaust, pressurization, car park exhaust, risers in multi story buildings) and commercial kitchen extract ductwork. For information and system documentation contact: Joe Vincenti, Firespray International, 972-365-5302 or info@firesprayusa.com.

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For UC Berkeley’s New Helios Energy Research Facility: Firespray’s Ductwork Solves Lab Construction Challenge

A team of privately funded Dutch researchers have reached a benchmark in the science of bioengineering. Using only stem cells, they’ve managed to grow a strip of muscle tissue in a Petri dish with the aim of eventually developing techniques for the mass production of eco-friendly lab-engineered meat.

By October of this year, Dr. Mark post of Maastricht University hopes to have world-renowned chef Heston Blumenthal of England’s famous Fat Duck restaurant cook-up the world’s first lab-engineered hamburger for an as yet unannounced celebrity taste-tester.

At a total production cost of roughly $320,000, it promises to be the most expensive hamburger ever created.

The research has been sponsored by a single anonymous donor who hopes that the project will pave the way for a more environmentally sustainable approach to meat production, one that cuts down on the enormous resources required in raising cattle while simultaneously the greenhouse gas emissions that result from it.

A fact seldom mentioned in the discussion on global warming is the significant role played by the world’s livestock population in releasing methane gas into the atmosphere—a greenhouse gas that’s some 20 times more harmful to than the carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels.

And with the inhabitants of up-and-coming countries like China quickly developing a taste for the luxuries enjoyed by their western counterparts, many fear that meat will become an increasingly expensive item available to an ever smaller percentage of the population.

“Meat demand is going to double in the next 40 years and right now we are using 70% of all our agricultural capacity to grow meat through livestock,” explained Dr. Post in a recent news conference.

“You can easily calculate that we need alternatives. If you don’t do anything meat will become a luxury food and be very, very expensive.”

Post explained that his team focused their research specifically on growing artificial beef because cattle require more resources per pound of meat than almost any other commercially raised livestock.

“Cows and pigs have an efficiency rate of about 15%, which is pretty inefficient. Chickens are more efficient and fish even more,” he explained to Ian Sample of The Guardian newspaper.

“If we can raise the efficiency from 15% to 50% it would be a tremendous leap forward.”

At the moment, the lab production of beef is still a long and grueling process. Using their current technique, Post’s team individually grew small sheets of muscle tissue, each 1.2 inches long, 0.6 inches wide and 0.02 inches thick. To make just a single burger, the team will have to combine some 3,000 of these sheets together with a few hundred sheets of similarly grown fatty tissue.

Moreover, Post concedes that they’re not yet sure how the meat will taste.

Still, like early computers that required entire rooms full of machines just to make simple computations, this method of meat production is still in its earliest phase. With the speed at which technology develops today, Post believes it entirely plausible that a few more years of research could make their current techniques thousands of times more efficient.

“I’d estimate that we could see mass production in another 10 to 20 years,” he told Sample.

At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver last week, Post noted that the significance of their burger would be largely symbolic, a “proof of concept.” What it shows, he told an audience of his fellow scientists, is that “with in-vitro methods, out of stem cells we can make a product that looks like and feels and hopefully tastes like meat.”

In addition to the environmentally friendly features of Petri-dish meat (which will, by the way, require some brilliant marketing to sell), it also has the potential to provide significant health advantages. Because the production of the meat is closely controlled at each stage, the scientists speculate that it would be relatively easy to develop meat with additional, targeted health benefits, such as lower levels of saturated fats and higher levels of heart-healthy polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Moreover, the potential to experiment with previously unfamiliar meats is essentially limitless, giving even the most adventurous palettes something to fantasize about.

“We could make panda meat, I’m sure we could,” said Post.

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World’s First Lab-Engineered Burger Just Months Away

ScienceDaily (Feb. 21, 2012) — University of California, San Diego researchers have developed a new injectable hydrogel that could be an effective and safe treatment for tissue damage caused by heart attacks.

The study by Karen Christman and colleagues appears in the Feb. 21 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Christman is a professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and has co-founded a company, Ventrix, Inc., to bring the gel to clinical trials within the next year.

Therapies like the hydrogel would be a welcome development, Christman explained, since there are an estimated 785,000 new heart attack cases in the United States each year, with no established treatment for repairing the resulting damage to cardiac tissue.

The hydrogel is made from cardiac connective tissue that is stripped of heart muscle cells through a cleansing process, freeze-dried and milled into powder form, and then liquefied into a fluid that can be easily injected into the heart. Once it hits body temperature, the liquid turns into a semi-solid, porous gel that encourages cells to repopulate areas of damaged cardiac tissue and to preserve heart function, according to Christman. The hydrogel forms a scaffold to repair the tissue and possibly provides biochemical signals that prevent further deterioration in the surrounding tissues.

"It helps to promote a positive remodeling-type response, not a pro-inflammatory one in the damaged heart," Christman said.

What's more, the researchers' experiments show that the gel also can be injected through a catheter, a method that is minimally invasive and does not require surgery or general anesthesia.

New, unpublished work by her research team suggests that the gel can improve heart function in pigs with cardiac damage, which brings this potential therapy one step closer to humans, said Christman.

There are few injectable cardiac therapies in development designed to be used in large animals such as pigs, which have a heart that is similar in size and anatomy to the human heart, Christman explained. "Most of the materials that people have looked at have been tested in rats or mice, and they are injectable via a needle and syringe. However, almost all of them are not compatible with catheter delivery and would gel too quickly, clogging the catheter during the procedure.

In experiments with rats, the gel was not rejected by the body and did not trigger arrhythmic heart beating, providing some assurance that the gel will be similarly safe for humans, the researchers note.

Christman has an equity interest in Ventrix, Inc., a company that may potentially benefit from the research results, and also serves on the company's Scientific Advisory Board. The terms of this arrangement have been reviewed and approved by the University of California, San Diego in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.

The study's co-authors include Jennifer Singelyn, Priya Sundaramurthy, Todd Johnson, Pamela Schup-Magoffin, Diane Hu, Denver Faulk, Jean Wang, and Kristine M. Mayle in the Department of Bioengineering; Kendra Bartels, Anthony N. DeMaria, and Nabil Dib of the UC San Diego School of Medicine; and Michael Salvatore and Adam M. Kinsey of Ventrix, Inc. The research was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award Program (part of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research), the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California, San Diego, via Newswise.

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Jennifer M. Singelyn, Priya Sundaramurthy, Todd D. Johnson, Pamela J. Schup-Magoffin, Diane P. Hu, Denver M. Faulk, Jean Wang, Kristine M. Mayle, Kendra Bartels, Michael Salvatore, Adam M. Kinsey, Anthony N. DeMaria, Nabil Dib, and Karen L. Christman. Catheter-Deliverable Hydrogel Derived From Decellularized Ventricular Extracellular Matrix Increases Endogenous Cardiomyocytes and Preserves Cardiac Function Post-Myocardial Infarction. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol., February 21, 2012; 59: 751 - 763 DOI: 1016/j.jacc.2011.10.888

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Injectable gel could repair tissue damaged by heart attack

NEWARK, N.J., Feb. 21, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- American Oriental Bioengineering, Inc. (NYSE: AOB - News) (the "Company") today announced that on January 31, 2012, its board of directors adopted resolutions approving a reverse stock split (the "Reverse Split") of the outstanding shares of the Company's common stock ("Common Stock") at a ratio of one (1) share for every two (2) shares outstanding, so that every two (2) outstanding shares of Common Stock before the Reverse Split shall represent one (1) share of Common Stock after the Reverse Split.

Pursuant to the Company's Amended Articles of Incorporation filed with the Nevada Secretary of State, the maximum number of shares of Common Stock that the Company is authorized to issue will also be reduced from 150,000,000 to 75,000,000.  The Reverse Split will be effected without obtaining shareholder approval pursuant to Nevada law.  The effective date of the Reverse Split with the Nevada Secretary of State is set for Friday, February 24, 2012.  Accordingly, the New York Stock Exchange has set the effective date of the Reverse Split for Monday, February 27, 2012. The Reverse Split is part of the Company's strategy to maintain the listing of its shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

Currently, the Company has approximately 78,503,381 shares of Common Stock outstanding. After the Reverse Split, the Company would have approximately 39,251,867 shares outstanding.  Each stockholder's percentage ownership interest in the Company and proportional voting power will remain unchanged after the Reverse Split except for minor changes and adjustments resulting from rounding of fractional interests.  The rights and privileges of the holders of Common Stock shall be substantially unaffected by the Reverse Split.

About American Oriental Bioengineering, Inc.

American Oriental Bioengineering, Inc. is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving health through the development, manufacture and commercialization of a broad range of prescription and over the counter products.

Safe Harbor Statement

Statements made in this press release are forward-looking and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in these statements.  The economic, competitive, governmental, technological and other factors identified in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in the forward looking statements in this press release.  The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Contact:

Hong Zhu
646-367-1765

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American Oriental Bioengineering Inc. Announces Plans for Reverse Stock Split of its Common Stock

22-11-2011 10:04 Video Abstract from Satoshi Yamaguchi et. al. on their recently published B

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Biotechnology and Bioengineering: Cell stamping from PEG-oleyl surfaces - Video

ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2012) — What if we could engineer a liver or kidney from a patient's own stem cells? How about helping regenerate tissue damaged by diseases such as osteoporosis and arthritis? A new UCLA study bring scientists a little closer to these possibilities by providing a better understanding how tissue is formed and organized in the body.

A UCLA research team discovered that migrating cells prefer to turn right when encountering changes in their environment. The researchers were then able to translate what was happening in the cells to recreate this left-right asymmetry on a tissue level. Such asymmetry is important in creating differences between the right and left sides of structures like the brain and the hand.

The research, a collaboration between the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Center for Cell Control at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, appears in the Feb. 17 issue of the journal Circulation Research.

"Our findings suggest a mechanism and design principle for the engineering of tissue," said senior author Dr. Linda L. Demer, a professor of medicine, physiology and bioengineering and executive vice chair of the department of medicine at the Geffen School of Medicine. "Tissue and organs are not simply collections of cells but require careful architecture and design to function normally. Our findings help explain how cells can distinguish and develop highly specific left-right asymmetry, which is an important foundation in tissue and organ creation."

Using microtechnology, the team engineered a culture surface in the lab with alternating strips of protein substrates that were cell-adhesive or cell-repellent, analogous to a floor with narrow horizontal stripes of alternating carpet and tile. Cells may encounter such surface changes when they travel through the body. ? The researchers observed that as the migrating cells crossed the interface between "carpet" and "tile" sections, they exhibited a significant tendency to turn right by 20 degrees, and, like a marching band, lined up in long, parallel rows, producing diagonal stripes over the entire surface.

"We had been noticing how these vascular cells would spontaneously form structures in cultures and wanted to study the process," said first author Ting-Hsuan Chen, a graduate student researcher in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UCLA Engineering. "We had no idea our substrates would trigger the left-right asymmetry that we observed in the cells. It was completely unexpected.

"We found that cells demonstrated the ability to distinguish right from left and to self-organize in response to mechanical changes in the surfaces that they encounter. This provides insight into how to communicate with cells in their language and how to begin to instruct them to produce tissue-like architecture."

According to the researchers, the cells can sense the substrates beneath them, and this influences the direction of their migration and what shapes they form in the body. Of most interest, the researchers said, was the fact that the cells responded to the horizontal stripes by reorganizing themselves into diagonal stripes.

The team hopes to harness this phenomenon to use substrate interfaces to communicate with cells and instruct them to produce desired tissue structures for replacement. By adjusting the substrates, the researchers say, they have the potential to guide what structures the cells and tissue form.

The next stage of the research will be to control and guide cells to self-organize into two-dimensional and, eventually, three-dimensional patterns chosen by the researchers.

According to the research team, this is one of the first studies to demonstrate that encountering a change in substrate can trigger a cell's preference for turning left or right. It is also one of the first studies showing that cells can integrate left-right asymmetry into a patterned structure of parallel diagonal stripes resembling tissue architecture.

"Applications for this research may help in future engineering of organs from a patient's own stem cells," Demer said. "This would be especially important given the limited supply of donor organs for transplant and problems with immune rejection."

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.

Additional authors included Jeffrey J. Hsu, Alan Garfinkel and Yin Tintut from the UCLA Department of Medicine; Yi Huang and Chih-Ming Ho from the UCLA Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Xin Zhao, Chunyan Guo and Zongwei Li from the Institute of Robotics and Automatic Information System at China's Nankai University; and Margaret Wong from the UCLA Department of Bioengineering.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences, via Newswise. The original article was written by Rachel Champeau.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

T.-H. Chen, J. J. Hsu, X. Zhao, C. Guo, M. N. Wong, Y. Huang, Z. Li, A. Garfinkel, C.-M. Ho, Y. Tintut, L. L. Demer. Left-Right Symmetry Breaking in Tissue Morphogenesis via Cytoskeletal Mechanics. Circulation Research, 2012; 110 (4): 551 DOI: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.111.255927

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Discovery that migrating cells 'turn right' has implications for engineering tissues, organs