LATEST NEWS & PUBLICATIONS

The US Department of Defense has announced an $87.5 million award to create the Bioindustrial Manufacturing and Design Ecosystem (BioMADE). BioMADE, a Department of Defense Manufacturing Innovation Institute, will increase nonmedical bioindustrial manufacturing capacity using microorganisms like bacteria, yeast and algae. BioMADE will share space in the new Microbial Cell Production Facility with the University’s Biotechnology Resource Center (BRC), which is part of the BioTechnology Institute (BTI).

President-elect Joe Biden has named a thirteen-member advisory board to confront the COVID-19 pandemic. The Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board will include Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Osterholm founded CIDRAP in 2001 and is an international authority on emerging infectious diseases. CIDRAP has been a longtime member center of the Consortium on Law and Values.

The Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives Planning Grant Program helps support the creation of interdisciplinary faculty research teams or research partnerships between the community and the University. Funding is meant to support the preparation and submission of grant proposals for the 2021 HFHL funding cycle or equivalent University, government or private sources.

A new study finds that the US public is ready to accept human-animal chimera research. Although the National Institutes of Health placed a moratorium on funding this research in 2015, Japan lifted its ban last year. This new article reports on a survey of US public attitudes on chimera research, led by Drs. Andrew Crane, Francis Shen, and senior author Walter Low at the University of Minnesota. Prof.

The University of Minnesota is conducting clinical trials for an innovative treatment that utilizes CRISPR technology to combat metastatic gastrointestinal epithelial cancer. The treatment is based on research conducted by Branden Moriarity, PhD, Beau Webber, PhD, and R. Scott McIvor, PhD, of the University of Minnesota Medical School and the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota.

Professor Damien Fair, Redleaf Endowed Director at the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, has been selected for a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. Prof. Fair also has faculty appointments with the Institute of Child Development and Department of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota.

The Center for Bioethics will host “The Ethics of Underfunding: Changing the Narrative about Native American Health Care,” a webinar featuring Dr. Mary Owen, Director of the Center of American Indian & Minority Health; Assistant Professor, Dept. of Family Medicine & Behavioral Health at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth.

Professor Arturo Casadevall, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, authored a recent opinion article for the Wall Street Journal on issues surrounding convalescent plasma as a treatment for COVID-19. Prof.

In an article featured on STAT, Professor Holly Fernandez Lynch comments on transparency and trust related to ongoing AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine trials. Prof.

In a recent CNN story, two former Commissioners of the Food and Drug Administration offer their perspectives on how political pressure could affect the release of a COVID-19 vaccine. Both also feature in the Consortium’s “COVID Controversies: Ethical Challenges in Research & Treatment” webinar series. Dr.