Signaling news
Here we present recent news items specially selected from Nature, Nature Medicine and Nature Biotechnology.
April 2003
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News | News in brief | News Features
News
Biologists deploy database to quash drug-resistant bacteria
European microbiologists have assembled a database to help combat the rising tide of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Nature (24 April 2003)
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National Academies launch grants for interdisciplinary work
The US National Academies are set to start awarding grants of their own for the first time, under a $40-million project funded by the California-based W. M. Keck Foundation.
Nature (24 April 2003)
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Trial suggests vaccines could aid HIV therapy
A therapeutic vaccine could help patients with HIV to take a break from their exacting drug treatments, according to a prominent immunologist.
Nature (17 April 2003)
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Taiwan left isolated in fight against SARS
Researchers in Taiwan say they are being shut out of the global investigation into the pneumonia-like disease that is sweeping the world because their country isn't recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO), which is coordinating the study.
Nature (17 April 2003)
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Infection risk puts the brakes on Canada's biomedical research
The epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is freezing up biomedical research in Toronto, Canada, as medical-school administrators are forced to reduce access to hospital buildings.
Nature (17 April 2003)
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Polish science academy prepares for radical overhaul
Winds of change are set to blow through the Polish Academy of Sciences, according to the plant biologist freshly elected to run the organization.
Nature (17 April 2003)
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Researchers get to grips with cause of pneumonia epidemic
Four weeks into a major global investigation of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, investigators around the world are still wrestling with key questions about the transmission and origins of the mystery disease.
Nature (10 April 2003)
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Japan aims to let industry compete for grant money
Japanese academics are nervously eyeing a government plan that would open up the country's main research programmes to industrial participation for the first time.
Nature (10 April 2003)
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China joins investigation of mystery pneumonia
The World Health Organization has confirmed that it has managed to enlist China in the international investigation of the mystery pneumonia known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
Nature (3 April 2003)
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Report fuels criticism of UK research council
For years, critics of Britain's Medical Research Council have quietly grumbled that the prestigious funding agency doesn't plan its priorities carefully enough. Now the detractors are claiming vindication after a scathing report from a parliamentary committee endorsed their views.
Nature (3 April 2003)
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Looming flu pandemic has experts crying fowl
The death last month of a Hong Kong man infected with H5N1, an avian influenza virus, has once again sounded the alarm for a global influenza pandemic.
Nature Medicine (April 2003)
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AIDSVAX flop leaves vaccine field unscathed
HIV vaccine researchers have known for years that VaxGen's AIDSVAX, and others like it, have little chance of inducing antibodies that can neutralize HIV.
Nature Medicine (April 2003)
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Skeptical scientists skewer VaxGen statistics
When California-based VaxGen announced in February that its HIV vaccine was ineffective in a majority of trial participants, few researchers in the field were surprised.
Nature Medicine (April 2003)
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Fools' rush in where genome giants fear to tread
Wrangling the last bits of sequence from the human genome could provide a few surprises — enough to drive research into some tricky territory beyond the original goals of the Human Genome Project.
Nature Medicine (April 2003)
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Ambitious researchers take awkward first steps to a Euro-NIH
Europe urgently needs a new research council with the power, independence and financial clout of the US National Institutes of Health if it is to reverse the brain drain to the US and elsewhere: that was the opinion bandied about at a lively meeting in Paris last month.
Nature Medicine (April 2003)
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Spain strives for its own 'excellence'
Even as researchers pursue the dream of a unified European research network, at least one nation — Spain — is forging ahead on its own.
Nature Medicine (April 2003)
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Troubled times force old pharma to learn new tricks
The floundering economy, a stringent regulatory environment and the dwindling number of drugs in the pharmaceutical pipeline are forcing translational researchers to re-think the way they structure pharma-academic partnerships, heard attendees at the Days of Molecular Medicine conference.
Nature Medicine (April 2003)
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UK bidding war amidst merger mania
The UK's first ever biotech bidding war broke out last month, with at least two firms vying to take over the proteomics research firm Oxford GlycoSciences.
Nature Biotechnology (April 2003)
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FDA panel recommends easing gene therapy trial limits
Members of the Biological Response Modifiers Advisory Committee recommended several measures to officials of the Food and Drug Administration for easing restrictions on trials involving retroviral vectors.
Nature Biotechnology (April 2003)
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US Patent Office strategic plan may penalize biotechs
Responding to congressional pressure "to re-invent themselves," the US Patent and Trademark Office sent to Congress legislation proposing a more expensive patent and trademark fee structure needed to fund its transition to a leaner, faster, and paperless patent office.
Nature Biotechnology (April 2003)
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Industry ponders reimbursement crisis
Industry observers are concerned that reforms of the US healthcare reimbursement system could have damaging repercussions for biopharmaceutical manufacturers by shrinking or eliminating potential markets.
Nature Biotechnology (April 2003)
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News in brief
Japanese lab turns the page on cDNA delivery
| Scientists blast European vote to limit stem-cell work
| Human genome finished in time for DNA's golden jubilee
| Fresh funding hike mooted for US biomedical research
| Heart-attack deaths raise fears over smallpox jabs
| Canada drives medical protein-structure hunt
| Cash crisis forces US genetics lab to close
| France to revise bioethics law
| US cloning legislation resurfaces
| COX-2 patent invalidated
News Features
The Grid: Tomorrow's computing today
The physics lab that gave us the World Wide Web is now gearing up to make the first practical deployment of the Internet's next big thing: the Grid.
Nature (24 April 2003)
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Negative results: Null and void
Many scientific studies produce negative results that never see the light of day. Is progress in some disciplines being hampered by researchers' tendencies to consign these data to the bin?
Nature (10 April 2003)
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