Cell signaling news
Here we present recent news items specially selected from Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology and Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.
June 2009
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News | News in brief | News Features
News
New protein structures replace the old
Dutch structural biologists are using 're-refinement' software to verify and improve data in the Protein Data Bank (PDB).
Nature News (25 June 2009)
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Deficit dooms Swedish gene institute
Cost overruns have forced the Institute of Genetics in Sweden's Lund University to reorganize and lay off four researchers.
Nature News (25 June 2009)
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G8 cancels science parley
The Italian government has canceled the G8 science and technology meeting that would have focused on monitoring climate change and maintaining environmentally friendly energy supplies.
Nature News (25 June 2009)
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Florida universities hit by funding crisis
Public universities in Florida are depending on the federal economic stimulus bill to stave off staff cuts and departmental closures.
Nature News (25 June 2009)
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Biology society narrows Chinese rifts
Scientific relations between Taiwan and mainland China have begun to warm following a meeting in Taipei of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America (SCBA) and the introduction of a bill that would permit Taiwanese universities to recognize university degrees from mainland institutions.
Nature News (25 June 2009)
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Has NIH funding improved public health?
An analysis of more than 50 years of research funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggests that it has helped to avert up to 1.35 million deaths per year from cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.
Nature News (22 June 2009)
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Heart study questions diabetes drugs
A class of diabetes drugs called thiazolidinediones (TZDs) might increase the risk of heart failure by activating the transcription factor peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma (PPAR-γ).
Nature News (22 June 2009)
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Research parks feel the economic pinch
Science parks, which have proliferated in recent years, face an uncertain future as the recession affects government budgets, university endowments and private investments.
Nature News (18 June 2009)
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Venezuelan scientists speak out
Research in Venezuela, already battered on many fronts, faces budget cuts that have in recent weeks triggered students to protest and others to complain that the country's science infrastructure is approaching collapse.
Nature News (18 June 2009)
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Italy outsources peer review to NIH
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is gearing up to begin a review of about 1,000 biomedical research grant applications for the Italian government.
Nature News (18 June 2009)
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Chemistry publisher moving to online-only journals
The American Chemical Society (ACS) plans to refocus most of its academic journals into online-only publications in an effort to cut costs and become more environmentally friendly.
Nature News (17 June 2009)
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Novel anticancer strategy targets DNA repair
Poly(ADP–ribose) polymerase inhibitors could provide a major advance in the therapy of difficult-to-treat tumors, such as triple-negative breast cancer.
Nature Drug Discovery News (June 2009)
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Trial watch: Phase 0 trials for anticancer drug development
The results of the first 'Phase 0' clinical trial in oncology, which aimed to establish at a very early stage whether an agent behaves in human subjects as would be expected on the basis of preclinical studies, have been reported.
Nature Drug Discovery News (June 2009)
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Chronic myelogenous leukaemia market
Imatinib resistance in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) has created new niches in the CML market.
Nature Drug Discovery News (June 2009)
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UK science shuffled again
Science-policy experts say that a UK cabinet reshuffle, in which responsibilities for research and universities were absorbed into a newly inflated business department, might increase the focus on science as the country tries to haul itself out of economic recession.
Nature News (11 June 2009)
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Grant applications swamp agency
The US National Institutes of Health, already groaning under the weight of grant applications brought on by a $10.4-billion economic stimulus package, is likely to be inundated with a second tidal wave of applications this autumn that could send success rates plummeting.
Nature News (11 June 2009)
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Taiwan builds biotech runway
Taiwan's government has announced the launch of a US$1.76 billion venture capital fund as part of a comprehensive 'biotechnology takeoff package' aimed at putting the country on Asia's biotech map.
Nature Biotechnology News (June 2009)
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Mixed news for Avastin
A phase 3 clinical trial of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitor Avastin missed its primary endpoint for early-stage colon cancer, but was approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration as a therapy for recurrent glioblastoma multiforme in patients with refractory progressive disease.
Nature Biotechnology News (June 2009)
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UK budget puts faith in biomedical sector
The UK budget for 2009 includes a new £750 million Strategic Investment Fund to provide financial support for emerging technologies in areas such as biotechnology and a commitment to examine the level of taxation on innovative activity — including intellectual property.
Nature Medicine News (June 2009)
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NIH draft seen as 'working compromise'
Draft guidelines on stem-cell funding issued by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) might block federal funding for experiments that rely on certain commonly used stem-cell lines due to the requirement that stem-cell lines be derived from unused embryos created for in vitro fertilization.
Nature Medicine News (June 2009)
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Mind the skills gap
The UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has launched a consultation to identify skills and expertise that are in danger of being lost from the nation's bioscience research community.
Nature Medicine News (June 2009)
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Publication of fake journals raises ethical questions
One of the world's largest publishers of medical literature, Elsevier, has come under fire for having distributed marketing periodicals that many people say deceptively resembled peer-reviewed journals.
Nature Medicine News (June 2009)
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Straight talk with ... Otto Yang and Patrick Miller
Otto Yang and Patrick Miller have experienced firsthand the challenges of writing and reviewing research grants, and share some of their grant writing tips with Nature Medicine.
Nature Medicine News (June 2009)
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Mouse patent sparks 'uncivil' spat
The Jackson Laboratory, a non-profit genetics research center in Maine, is embroiled in a patent dispute with the Central Institute for Experimental Animals (CIEA) in Kawasaki, Japan, over the development of a strain of immunodeficient mice.
Nature News (4 June 2009)
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Europe's parliamentary priorities
The outcome of the election of new Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will help shape European science and technology policies for the next five years.
Nature News (4 June 2009)
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Open-access publishing gains another convert
University College London (UCL) has announced that all research published by university staff must be placed online in an institutional free-to-access repository — but only when publishers' copyright rules allow.
Nature News (3 June 2009)
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Warning for diplomats over misuse of science
At a meeting on science diplomacy, John Beddington, the UK government's chief scientific advisor, and Nina Fedoroff, science advisor to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, warned against misusing science to achieve political goals.
Nature News (2 June 2009)
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Drug giants unite to develop cancer therapy
AstraZeneca and Merck & Co. have announced a collaboration to test the efficacy of a combination of their respective MEK and AKT inhibitors in treating cancer.
Nature News (2 June 2009)
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News in brief
| Researchers urge action on medical-isotope shortage
| EU legislation increases clinical-trial workloads
| Editor to quit over hoax open-access paper
| FDA gains the power to regulate tobacco products
| Mixed results for Plavix challengers
| German science secures historic windfall
| Californian universities hit by state's budget woes
| Legal accord eases path to Europe's research facilities
| TNF-blocker triple approval
| Phase zero launch
| University wins injunction against animal activists
| Changes at the top for Indian science
News Features
Cyberinfrastructure: Feed me data
The iPlant project is a US$50-million, five-year program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that could serve as a model for the biological research community, which is struggling to integrate and process a torrent of computational data.
Nature News (25 June 2009)
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Science journalism: Breaking the convention?
Blogs and Twitter are opening up scientific conferences to those not actually there — but will these tools foster scientific collaboration or undermine meetings?
Nature News (25 June 2009)
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Microscopic marvels: Seeing the system
Single plane illumination microscopy (SPIM) captures beautiful and unprecedented moving images of whole organisms as they grow, one cell division at a time.
Nature News (4 June 2009)
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Microscopic marvels: Microscope for the masses
The tiny 'optofluidic' microscope, which might cost as little as US$10 apiece, could allow cheap, high-throughput imaging and boost low-cost science and medicine in developing nations.
Nature News (4 June 2009)
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Microscopic marvels: The big and the bold
The ultrahigh-voltage electron microscope at Osaka University in Japan is the most powerful of its kind and has been used to develop exquisitely detailed three-dimensional images of a Purkinje cell.
Nature News (4 June 2009)
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Microscopic marvels: The naked microscope
Raman microscopy allows users to detect, locate and identify certain molecules without having to attach tags such as gold particles, antibodies or fluorescent proteins.
Nature News (4 June 2009)
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Microscopic marvels: The glorious resolution
The ingenious principle behind stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy permits the resolution of nanoscale fluorescent images.
Nature News (4 June 2009)
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