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...US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command or “DEVCOM,” a US Army-sponsored study by Texas A&M University has led to a development of an invention called a “centrifugal microfluidic platform,” which the Army says could have a major impact on the field of bioelectronics by accelerating the discovery of new biomaterials. Researchers’ published their findings earlier this year in the peer-reviewed journal Advanced Materials Technologies. “There’s a lot more that we can do to engineer organisms than was possible even five or ten years ago, and it has really opened up doors for developing new ways of making materials and understanding...

Vol. 4, Issue 160, p. 160sr4 Sci. Transl. Med. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3002717 STATE OF THE ART REVIEW The ability to regenerate damaged tissue is one of the great challenges in biomaterials and medicine. Successful treatments will require advances in areas ranging from basic cell biology to materials synthesis, but there have been major hurdles in translating the biomedical advances, such as scaffolds that direct stem cell differentiation, into marketed products. Careful consideration of the challenges going from bench to bedside is paramount in maximizing the chances that a good idea becomes a good treatment. We look at a variety of material-based...

[Snip]In the mid-1980s, the National Science Foundation warned that the nation would soon lack enough scientists and engineers to fill the necessary posts in academe -- a forecast that turned out to be wildly inaccurate. Instead, over the past decade, thousands of frustrated researchers have labored in postdoctoral positions at low wages because they could not find jobs in academe or industry.[Snip] Current data suggest that the new predictions may fare no better than earlier ones. In fact, contrary to prevailing wisdom, which fixes blame on poor training in science and mathematics from kindergarten through the 12th grade, record numbers...