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The winter frost isn't the only thing affecting our nation's crops, according to the Purdue University Weed Science team. The team is working hard to educate food growers on a major culprit: herbicide-resistant weeds to be exact. Food growers across the country are finding it increasingly difficult to kill "super weeds" as they become resistant to the most popular herbicides. After years of constant exposure to these herbicides, certain invasive plants have also developed a resistance, leading farmers to use more of the chemical. In some cases, the weeds have grown completely tolerant to these chemicals, allowing them to grow as high as eight feet tall.

Protea Biosciences Group, Inc. announced today that Purdue University has acquired Protea's LAESI® DP-1000 Instrument System for direct molecular analysis. The system will be used in Purdue's College of Agriculture, the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, for the molecular imaging of herbicide active ingredients and other related compounds to optimize herbicide applications and improve weed management.

Protea Biosciences Group, Inc.,and InSphero AG jointly announced an update from their collaboration focused on mass spectrometry imaging of InSphero’s 3D InSight™ microtissues. In August 2014, Protea received microtissues from InSphero and hosted members of InSphero’s scientific team for onsite training on the handling and preparation of the microtissues. Protea has since developed workflows for processing the 3D microtissues for mass spectrometry imaging and direct analysis. In addition, Protea has generated data from 3D microtissues grown from the HCT-116 colon cancer cell line that showed the ability for mass spectrometry imaging to detect and image numerous native proteins in 3D microtissues in a single experiment, as well as putatively identify several proteins known to be present at elevated levels in colon cancer cells. Erin Seeley, PhD, Protea’s Senior Scientist for Mass Spectrometry Imaging, will present the first data from Protea and InSphero’s collaboration at

Protea Biosciences Group, Inc. and InSphero AG jointly announced that they have entered into a collaboration that will combine each company's respective 3D technology. InSphero AG is the leading supplier of 3D organotypic microtissues for in vitro toxicology and efficacy studies, with models derived from liver, pancreas, tumor, and brain tissue that yield a high level of predictability during drug development compared to traditional 2-dimensional cell culture and other in vitro model systems.

The onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease processes occurs at the molecular level within brain cells. New revolutionary technology is now available to “mine” Alzheimer’s brain cells and see large numbers of molecules at a time, an important new step in possibly unlocking new insight into treatment for the disease. A new research collaboration with the University of Southampton, a leading biomedical and clinical research institution located in the United Kingdom along with Morgantown, VA-based Protea’s proprietary direct molecular imaging technology, LAESI, will study the molecular mechanisms of the aged brain, in order to identify markers that may indicate risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.