Cell signaling news
Here we present recent news items specially selected from Nature, Nature Medicine and Nature Biotechnology.
July 2004
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News | News in brief | News Features
News
Joint suits aim to weed out agencies' red tape
Frustrated with the slow pace of research into medicinal marijuana, researchers have launched a pair of lawsuits accusing US government agencies of obstructing attempts to obtain supplies of the plant.
Nature (29th July 2004)
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Tough talker quits Congress for bioindustry
A congressman fêted for his dogged pursuit of corporate wrongdoers has made a career change that some observers are finding hard to swallow. James Greenwood, who led recent attacks on conflict-of-interest policies at the NIH, is to become president of the biotechnology industry's major trade group.
Nature (29th July 2004)
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Biologists lobby China's government for funding reform
A group of prominent US-based Chinese scientists met with a high-ranking official from China's government last week to complain about the country's biased and inefficient system for funding life sciences.
Nature (29th July 2004)
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Biologists seek to revamp biowarfare register
A rebellion is brewing among US scientists who handle pathogens that could be used in biological warfare. The official list of hazardous bacteria, viruses and toxins is so frustrating to some microbiologists that they are trying to rationalize it.
Nature (22nd July 2004)
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Budget delays threaten to leave US science in limbo
While researchers relax for the summer holidays, science lobbyists in Washington are feeling tense about the state of the US budget.
Nature (22nd July 2004)
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Stem-cell specialists split over proposal for US repository
A plan to set up a national embryonic stem-cell bank in the United States has met with a decidedly mixed response.
Nature (22nd July 2004)
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Britain decides 'open access' is still an open issue
Can journals function if authors, instead of readers, carry the cost of publication? An inquiry by the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee concluded this week that we will just have to wait and see.
Nature (22nd July 2004)
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Aid agencies predict victory for HIV unless cash crisis is solved
For the first time since HIV was identified two decades ago, the global effort to contain its spread is beginning to bear fruit. But this progress could be derailed by lack of funds and disagreements over the best way to prevent transmission, speakers told the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, this week.
Nature (15th July 2004)
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Britain spends to secure scientific growth
UK researchers will find more money in the coffers of those funding them over the next three years, thanks to spending plans announced by the government on 12 July.
Nature (15th July 2004)
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Authors urged to come clean on competing interests
Many authors continue to keep financial conflicts of interest to themselves, despite ever stricter journal policies requiring full disclosure in published articles. That is the conclusion the Center for Science in the Public Interest has reached after reviewing all the articles in four major medical research journals over a three-month period.
Nature (15th July 2004)
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Indian scientists welcome broad increase in funding
Science spending is to get a major boost under a budget laid out on 8 July by India's new Congress-led government.
Nature (15th July 2004)
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Political wrangling derails German university reforms
An ambitious attempt to reward Germany's top universities looks set to fall victim to squabbling between the country's main political parties.
Nature (15th July 2004)
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Funding not keeping pace with science, warns Pasteur chief
The Pasteur Institute — France's most prestigious private biology laboratory — is facing a financial crunch, warns its director-general, Philippe Kourilsky.
Nature (15th July 2004)
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War of words escalates in run-up to California's vote on stem cells
California is gearing up for an epic battle over a state-wide referendum
on whether to issue a $3-billion bond to support embryonic stem-cell research.
Nature (8th July 2004)
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Superbug
genome excels at passing on drug resistance
A bacterium that is spreading through hospitals because of its resistance
to certain antibiotics is well equipped to develop yet more self-protection,
according to a study of its genome.
Nature (8th July 2004)
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'Inspirational'
leader quits Madrid heart project
A top Spanish cell biologist has spurned the chance to lead a huge cardiology
centre under construction in Madrid. Salvador Moncada — an expert on the
role of nitric oxide in cell signalling — had been planning to take over
as the CNIC's scientific director early next year.
Nature (8th July 2004)
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Low
US participation clouds AIDS meeting
The United States has long had a fractious relationship with the biennial
international AIDS conferences, and the meeting that opens on 11 July
in Bangkok, Thailand, will be no exception.
Nature (8th July 2004)
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Biochemist
takes the reins at top European laboratory
Europe's flagship molecular biology lab has chosen an insider — Iain Mattaj
— to be its fourth director.
Nature (8th July 2004)
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Watchdog
slams failings of Israeli animal-rights law
Procedures designed to supervise animal experiments in Israel have not
been properly implemented, says the government's main watchdog. In a strongly
worded report released on 29 June, the state comptroller said that processes
written into a 1994 law to govern animal experimentation have never come
into effect.
Nature (8th July 2004)
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Kerry
promises spectrum sale to fund science
Democrat John Kerry, the US presidential candidate, has unveiled a strategy
for investing billions of extra dollars in science and technology, with
an emphasis on research in areas other than biomedicine.
Nature (1 July 2004)
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Research cloning gets green light from Japanese ethicists
Japan looks set to end its bar on therapeutic cloning, giving it the chance to compete with Britain, China and similar countries in fast-moving areas of biology such as stem-cell research.
Nature (1 July 2004)
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Junior biologists score partial victory over lab conditions
For a group of junior biology researchers in Germany, proof has arrived that there is indeed strength in numbers.
Nature (1 July 2004)
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Academics seek to cast peer review as a public service
Scientists have been rapped on the knuckles by a panel of academics who spent more than a year assessing public awareness of peer review.
Nature (1 July 2004)
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China's biomedical research takes flight in new directions
China's biomedical researchers — and their supporters overseas — are gathering money for an overhaul of the biomedical research system that they say will dramatically improve the country's ability to deal with disease.
Nature Medicine (July 2004)
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Mexico reverses ban on stem cell research
After months of controversy, the Mexican parliament has approved the creation of the National Institute of Genomic Medicine. The Senate agreed in late April to eliminate a clause banning the institute from using human embryonic cells or producing human clones for research purposes.
Nature Medicine (July 2004)
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Celltech acquisition sends mixed messages
The £1.53 ($2.25) billion agreed-on acquisition of the UK's eldest biotech company, Celltech, by the little-known Belgian drug company UCB provides a warning that independent European biotechnology firms may never be able to rival US giants such as the Californian companies Amgen and Genentech.
Nature Biotechnology (July 2004)
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Europe makes way into structural biology
A European research consortium laid the first stone of a new high-throughput structural proteomics platform in Grenoble, France. The platform is designed to help find ways of producing high-quality crystals of poorly expressed proteins — a bottleneck in structural biology — so that their structures can be resolved and used for drug design.
Nature Biotechnology (July 2004)
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News in brief
Race is key to rapid approval of heart drug |
Europe joins forces to study cell-division genes | Graduate students cannot form unions, board rules |
Health agency gets cold comfort from House budget | Bioterror
charges downgraded to mail fraud for artist |
Don't
mention 'therapeutic cloning', society says | Medical
highlights get a dusting off online | Comprehensive
US clinical trial registry proposed | US
rule on foreign trials | UK
opens stem cell bank | ES
cell debate renewed | Congress
grills NIH | Curie's
victory over BRCA1
News Features
Profile: Clive Svendsen
Punctuated by personal tragedy and professional detours, Clive Svendsen's career has been anything but conventional. But all along the way, his unerring instincts led him to success as a prominent neuroscientist.
Nature Medicine (July 2004)
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Nicotine fix
Could the long-standing villain in tobacco yet prove a hero in medicine? Mounting evidence suggests that nicotine can help in certain diseases — but researchers are wary of giving cigarettes a good name.
Nature Medicine (July 2004)
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