Cell signaling news
Here we present recent news items specially selected from Nature, Nature Medicine and Nature Biotechnology.
September 2007
2007:
December |
November |
October |
September |
August |
July |
June |
May |
April |
March |
February |
January
Other years: 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2008
News | News in brief | News Features
News
South African scheme lures in top talent
South Africa's mission to create a globally competitive national academy of sciences reached another milestone last week with the announcement of 51 new research chairs.
Nature (27 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Q&A: King of the stem cells
Nature interviews Australian biologist Alan Trounson, the new president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) about his vision for the CIRM.
Nature (27 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Stem-cell fraudster is working in Thailand
Reports that the disgraced South Korean cloning scientist Woo Suk Hwang has set up a research base in Thailand have been met with worries by Thai science-policy officials.
Nature (27 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Bacteria may be wiring up the soil
A team of researchers claims that bacteria can sprout webs of electrical wiring that transform the soil into a geological battery, allowing them to get rid of electrons generated during metabolism.
Nature (27 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Stem cells by any other name
Resulting from an executive order by President Bush that has been viewed as an attempt to downplay the potential of human embryonic stem cells, the US Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry will be renamed Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Registry.
Nature (27 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Florida courts German life-sciences institute
Germany's Max Planck Society is to open its first non-European institute in Florida; the new institute will house about 150 staff and focus on bioimaging.
Nature (20 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Malaria research should go 'back to basics'
The George Institute for International Health in Sydney, Australia, urges marlaria vaccine manufacturers to step up research into the parasite that causes malaria in hopes of developing a successful vaccine.
Nature (20 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Gene therapy might not have caused patient's death
A patient with arthritis who died in July during a gene-therapy trial may have succumbed to an infection she had before the viral vector was administered.
Nature (20 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Borysiewicz to head UK medical council
The appointment of Leszek Borysiewicz — a leading vaccinologist from Imperial College — as head of the UK Medical Research Council has calmed fears that fundamental research in the UK might be on the decline.
Nature (13 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Long-held theory is in danger of losing its nerve
An reanalysis of data from a suite of seminal neuroscience papers has caused the current theory about synaptic neurotransmitter release to come under scrutiny.
Nature (13 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Interferon discovery and ferret flu
Jean Lindenmann, co-discoverer of the interferon cytokines — glycoproteins produced by cells in response to pathogens — talks about the work leading to the 1956 discovery.
Nature (13 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Allegations of bias cloud conflicting reports on bisphenol A's effects
Two scientific reports about the chemical Bisphenol-A, commonly found in plastics, came to opposite conclusions about its ability to mimic estrogen actions fueling an already intense health debate.
Nature Medicine 13, 1002 (2007)
| Full Text |
Bone marrow transplant paper revives contentious debate on fertility
Scientists have used mice to seek answers about whether women can replenish their supply of eggs, but after three years, the debate about whether mice can regenerate eggs is far from settled.
Nature Medicine 13, 1003 (2007)
| Full Text |
Arsenic patent keeps drug for rare cancer out of reach of many
Treating acute promyelocytic leukemia with arsenic is accessible only to wealthy people because of a patent on the soluble form of the drug that is held by a US company.
Nature Medicine 13, 1005 (2007)
| Full Text |
Funding crunch forces stem cell company to abandon therapies
Singapore's flagship stem cell company has ditched its cell-therapy programs in favor of other applications of stem cell technology, such as licensing human embryonic stem cell lines created under clinical manufacturing standards.
Nature Biotechnology 25, 951-952 (2007)
| Full Text |
ZymoGenetics' moves recall young Genentech
Seattle-based ZymoGenetics signed an agreement with Leverkusen, Germany-based Bayer Healthcare in June to share marketing rights to Zymo's recombinant thrombin.
Nature Biotechnology 25, 955 (2007)
| Full Text |
BioPolis report paints fractured picture of EU biotech
Targeted programs complement general spurs to economic growth, but the gap between new and old EU countries remains.
Nature Biotechnology 25, 956-957 (2007)
| Full Text |
All about Craig: the first 'full' genome sequence
In a preliminary analysis published this week, controversial genomics pioneer Craig Venter has picked apart the sequences belonging to both chromosomes in each of the 23 chromosome pairs found in his cells, providing the first glimpse of the variation found within a single genome.
Nature (6 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Genomes within genomes
A team of genome researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, has made the surprise discovery that the DNA of the fruitfly Drosophila ananassae contains the entire genome of a parasitic bacterium of the Wolbachia genus.
Nature (6 September 2007)
| Full Text |
DNA probe finds hints of human
A groundbreaking analysis of Neanderthal DNA that suggested they interbred with humans was based on samples contaminated with human DNA, a new study suggests.
Nature (6 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Crashing DNA's ultraconservative party
Our understanding of human evolution, health and disease is being rewritten because of the finding that a colony of mice that lacks stretches of DNA that scientists believed were essential for survival are eating, growing and reproducing normally.
Nature (6 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Chinese law aims to quell fear of failure
In an effort to encourage scientific risk-taking and to curb rampant misconduct in China, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) has proposed a law that would allow Chinese scientists to report failures in their research without jeopardizing their chances of future funding.
Nature (6 September 2007)
| Full Text |
News in brief
| HIV vaccine failure prompts Merck to halt trial
| FDA poised for broader powers over drugs on sale
| California universities maintain tobacco habit
| Japan names institutes in search for global excellence
| California gets Australia's top stem-cell scientist
| Texas A&M under fire for biosafety shortcomings
| Biomarker group grows
| HIV drug-diagnostic combo
| Genentech, Tercica join
| Axe-wielding professor fined for dumping ether
| Hybrid embryos win support from UK public
| Green light for centralized bank of patients' gene data
| Publishers campaign against open access
News Features
Biotechs go generic: The same but different
Several lucrative protein-based drugs are poised to go off patent, but the makers of biopharmaceuticals argue that their products are too complex to be reproduced as generics.
Nature (20 September 2007)
| Full Text |
Therapy on trial
The death of a participant in a gene therapy trial has thrown the entire field into question — as it did once before in 1999. Can the field survive this second setback?
Nature Medicine 13, 1008-1009 (2007)
| Full Text |
|
