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Big Pharma replaces innovation with acquisition
Mike WokaschBig Pharma (including Big Biotech) has executed about 130 mergers or acquisitions in each of the past couple of years. The overwhelming majority of deals designed to fill depleted Big Pharma pipelines with more novel and innovative technologies in later stages (closer to market) than their own R&D had been able to produce.
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Microfluidic systems for screening of aptamers
Dr. Afsaneh Motamed-KhorasaniSystematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) is a method to screen the nucleotide ligands from a large library of nucleotide sequences. Aptamers are the nucleotide ligands selected by SELEX method and can be easily and inexpensively produced. Chemical modification and integration into different analytical methods is also easy with aptamers.
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Doctors are an untapped resource in understanding ACA
Pamela Lewis DolanDoctors and nurses, who are among the most trusted sources of information about the Affordable Care Act in many patients' opinions, could play a valuable role in helping the public understand the law. But they are among the least used sources from which most people have actually received information.
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Don’t demonize the machine
Mark HuberIn late August, another Eurocopter Super Puma crashed into the North Sea near the United Kingdom. Four of those aboard died. Over the last several years, a handful of ditchings/crashes of this model have been tied to flaws in the design of its main rotor gearbox lubrication system and a batch of replacement main rotor shafts.
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Why your helicopter seat feels like a brick
Mark HuberNASA is planning to drop-test a surplus Marine Corps CH-46 helicopter on Aug. 28 with the goal of gleaning new data on rotorcraft crashworthiness and seat belt design. The hulk will be rigged with 40 cameras, numerous sensors and 13 crash dummies. The test is part of NASA's Rotary Wing Project.
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Serving the public: Medevac services through Maryland State Police
Mark HuberFor the better part of a decade, my daily commute included a stretch on the 64-mile ring of paved terror around Washington, D.C., called the Capital Beltway. For those who are unfamiliar, this is a demolition derby track masquerading as a freeway. It yields a prodigious and nearly daily dose of automotive carnage. Not surprisingly, at least once a year I would be stuck in traffic at a dead stop behind a Maryland State Police (MSP) helicopter summoned to collect an unfortunate victim of this curious car culture.
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Failure to communicate: Learning lessons from Ornge
Mark HuberIn July, Ontario's coroner released the results of his long-anticipated investigation into 40 patient transport deaths between 2006 and 2012 at the Canadian province's troubled air ambulance service known as Ornge. Most of Ornge's travails have been well-publicized over the course of the last two years, and it is not my intent to rehash them here. Rather, I think it is useful to look at what the coroner said were gaps in decision-making and communications at Ornge because they are instructive in improving service in any EMS organization.
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Too fat to fly: Effect of weight on air medical transport
Mark HuberWhen is a medevac crewmember simply too fat to fly?
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EMS helicopters? Not in my backyard
Mark HuberNIMBY — the acronym means "not in my back yard." People are all for new power lines, airports, factories, windmills, oil wells and other things that benefit the public good — just not in their neighborhood. It's the height of democratic hypocrisy, and it's going on in my neighborhood right now.
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Just say no to MVFR
Mark HuberPilots by their nature are largely optimistic and dedicated to completing the mission, a trait that seems to be stronger in those who fly helicopter EMS. The reluctance to turn down a flight when a patient's life is potentially at stake, even when low clouds are moving in, and/or the temperature/dew point spread is narrowing, is understandable, even emotionally laudable. Life-savers are heroes after all. It is their job to fly into uncertain, dark skies. Wrong. By doing so they needlessly put their lives, the lives of their crew — and patients — at risk.
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