Cell signaling news
Here we present recent news items specially selected from Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology and Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.
April 2009
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News | News in brief | News Features
News
Still strict on stem cells
US stem-cell researchers are applauding draft guidelines released by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to govern federally funded research on human embryonic stem-cell lines, but some say the provisional rules are still too restrictive because they would exclude lines derived from embryos created for research purposes.
Nature News (23 April 2009)
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Pharmaceutical companies join forces on HIV
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Pfizer plan to merge their HIV drug divisions to create a new company that will use the existing research and market portfolios of the parent companies to develop new combination drugs, the mainstay of HIV treatment.
Nature News (23 April 2009)
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Fees delay pharmed drug
Human tests of a potent antibody against HIV have been delayed by up to a year because of wrangling over the application to run a clinical trial in Europe.
Nature News (23 April 2009)
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High hopes for US patent reform
After years of failed attempts at reforming the US patent system, two bills have been introduced in the US Congress that could provide the system with its first major overhaul in more than 50 years.
Nature News (23 April 2009)
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FANTOM studies networks in cells
The FANTOM consortium has used high-throughput sequencing to create a timeline of the messenger RNA molecules produced by human leukemia cells during the process of differentiation.
Nature News (23 April 2009)
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India's electioneers make bold pledges on science
Science features prominently in the manifestos of the main political parties contesting India's month-long general election, which began on 16 April.
Nature News (23 April 2009)
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French life-science alliance unveiled
The French government has created the National Alliance for Life and Health Sciences to develop and coordinate national strategies in the life sciences and rationalize overlap between the country's major science agencies.
Nature News (23 April 2009)
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Genetic profiling used to tailor cancer therapy
Molecular profiling has enabled physicians to treat drug-resistant tumors with custom therapies that specifically target oncogenic proteins or pathways.
Nature News (21 April 2009)
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Designer immune cells fight prostate cancer
Patients that receive their own T-cells that have been genetically engineered to recognize prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) may be better able to fight advanced prostate cancer.
Nature News (20 April 2009)
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A synthetic-biology reality check
Codon Devices, a company that aimed to provide custom synthetic genes and reagents and to partner with other firms to develop synthetic-biology applications, has closed its doors.
Nature News (16 April 2009)
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Cutting off cancer's supply lines
Angiogenesis inhibitors have been hailed as opening a new era in cancer therapy, but a flurry of animal studies suggests that such drugs may in certain situations actually accelerate the spread of cancer.
Nature News (9 April 2009)
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One drug, two targets
An antimalarial drug candidate that kills the malaria parasite and also enhances the effect of classic malaria drugs has been shown to fight drug-resistant malaria parasites in mice.
Nature News (9 April 2009)
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Open-access policy flourishes at NIH
Advocates of free public access to scientific literature are calling a law that requires researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to make their manuscripts publicly available at the PubMed Central repository a success.
Nature News (9 April 2009)
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Pharma swept up in biogenerics gold rush
US President Barack Obama has suggested that the US may finally be poised to delineate a regulatory pathway for biogeneric drugs, spurring pharmaceutical companies to develop biogeneric programs and manufacturing facilities.
Nature Biotechnology News (April 2009)
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First US approval for a transgenic animal drug
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the approval of ATryn, a recombinant human anti-thrombin-α protein derived from the milk of transgenic goats.
Nature Biotechnology News (April 2009)
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Competition intensifies around hepatitis C
Competition for a slice of the hepatitis C market continues to heat up, with positive news on the clinical front for a second-generation interferon (IFN)-α and a spate of lucrative deals for antivirals with novel mechanisms of action.
Nature Biotechnology News (April 2009)
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A stem cell ban is lifted, but some states see a heavy backlash
As the US federal government moves to promote embryonic stem cell research, some states are considering new rules that could hinder such work.
Nature Medicine News (April 2009)
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A vaccine based on conserved regions could prove radical
Antibodies that bind the same genetically stable region on the 'neck' of the influenza hemagglutinin protein prevent the virus from fusing with human host cells and could permit the development of a potent vaccine that can deliver immunity to multiple flu strains.
Nature Medicine News (April 2009)
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Viral outbreak in China tests government efforts
An outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease in China, which since January has killed 19 children and made nearly 42,000 ill, has researchers calling for a better surveillance system to detect the disease and for action to hasten vaccine development.
Nature News (2 April 2009)
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Congress probes NIH stimulus funds
Members of the US Congress have made it clear that they will keep close tabs on how the National Institutes of Health (NIH) spends the US$10.4-billion supplied in February's economic stimulus package.
Nature News (2 April 2009)
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Research review boards dogged by criticism
The US Government Accountability Office has reported that an undercover investigation into the network of institutional review boards (IRBs) has revealed flaws that expose it to 'unethical manipulation'.
Nature News (2 April 2009)
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Dismissed researcher wins court battle
A court in Munich has ruled that the German Research Centre for Environmental Health was wrong to dismiss without notice one of its directors, immunologist Jean-Marie Buerstedde.
Nature News (2 April 2009)
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Retracted paper rattles Korean science
Nature this week is retracting a 2000 paper that promised an advance in diabetes treatment using gene therapy.
Nature News (2 April 2009)
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Experimental design could reduce need for animal tests
By performing initial screens that detect and account for genetic and environmental variations in research animals, researchers could potentially cut the number of expensive secondary screenings and make their results more reproducible.
Nature News (30 March 2009)
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The comparative effectiveness challenge
With US$1.1 billion now allocated for comparative effectiveness research in the United States, a key question is how to use this opportunity to develop a better model for the assessment of health-care value.
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (April 2009)
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iPS cell technology gains momentum in drug discovery
The successful reprogramming of adult cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells without viral vectors adds to the excitement about the application of iPS cells in drug discovery and development.
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (April 2009)
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Trial watch: Pivotal oncology trials: outlook for Q2 2009
Data from three notable oncology trials are due to be reported in the second quarter of 2009: sipuleucel-T (Provenge; Dendreon) in androgen-independent prostate cancer, bevacizumab (Avastin; Genentech/Roche) in front-line metastatic breast cancer and erlotinib (Tarceva; OSI Pharmaceuticals/Genentech/Roche) in non-small-cell lung cancer.
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (April 2009)
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Trial watch: Novel HIV gene therapy enters Phase I trial
A Phase I clinical trial aims to make the T cells of HIV-infected patients resistant to CCR5-mediated viral entry by removing the patients' CD4+ T cells, disrupting the CCR5 gene and returning the cells back to the patient.
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (April 2009)
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News in brief
| Company offering ethical reviews suspends activity
| US and Japan to collaborate on stem-cell technology
| US medical institute invests in undergraduates
| America's science adviser speaks
| Genome Canada cancels stem-cell project funding
| Europe revises animal-research proposals
| US AIDS programme 'essential and expensive'
| Indian biotechs partner with government
| Malaysia seeks biotech partners
| US stimulus bill challenges biomedicine to deliver
| New cancer research centers open in UK
| Broad-acting HPV vaccines explored to fight cancer
| Drug patent pools start to take shape
| Gates supports Chinese tuberculosis drive
| More mega-mergers confirmed
| Human embryonic stem cell restrictions lifted
| Sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor modulators
News Features
Stem cells: Fast and furious
The field of induced pluripotent stem cells has gone from standing start to headlong rush in less than three years — Nature charts the course so far, and the obstacles ahead.
Nature News (23 April 2009)
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Developmental biology: Two by two
Researchers are on the hunt for genes that could explain the remarkable rate of identical twins born in some remote villages around the world.
Nature News (16 April 2009)
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Evolution: Biology's next top model?
Alternative model organisms present considerable obstacles — they are often difficult to collect and maintain, and genetic and genomic tools have to be custom-built — but there is a place in science for models that have a specialist role.
Nature News (9 April 2009)
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Greek research: Feast and famine
While researchers in Greece starve for government support, biomedicine is thriving at a lavish new center in Athens.
Nature News (9 April 2009)
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New relief for gout
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an oral inhibitor of xanthine oxidase for the chronic management of gout.
Nature Biotechnology News (April 2009)
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The curious case of clioquinol
An indigestion drug blamed for a debilitating illness that affected thousands of people in the 1950s has been resurrected as a potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease, but not everyone is cheering for the drug, clioquinol, to make a comeback.
Nature Medicine News (April 2009)
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Neuroscience: One hundred years of Rita
Nature News talks to Italian senator and research scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini, who shared the Nobel prize in 1986 for her discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF).
Nature News (9 April 2009)
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