Cell signaling news
Here we present recent news items specially selected from Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology and Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.
September 2009
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News | News Features
News
German science looks to new political players
Germany's budget for research and technology should continue to grow following the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Nature News (24 September 2009)
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Genomics shifts focus to rare diseases
The advent of cheap, high-throughput genome sequencing is enabling scientists to link defects in single genes to the development of rare genetic disorders.
Nature News (24 September 2009)
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Plans for UK research assessment revealed
University and research leaders in the UK are cautiously welcoming the Research Excellence Framework (REF) — a new system for auditing research quality that allows peer reviewers to make decisions based on the extent to which the work submitted for assessment has been cited by subsequent research publications.
Nature News (23 September 2009)
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Research chief steps down over fake data
Chemist Peter Chen, the vice president of research and corporate relations at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), will quit the post after an investigation concluded that data in publications from his group had been faked.
Nature News (23 September 2009)
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Protein burns its evolutionary bridges
The glucocorticoid receptor (GR) evolved more than 400 million years ago from an ancestral receptor that was activated by a trio of hormones (cortisol, aldosterone and deoxycorticosterone), and researchers have now shown that mutations that impart selectivity to cortisol cannot be reverted.
Nature News (23 September 2009)
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Vaccine venture boosts health hopes
The US pharmaceutical company Merck and the UK Wellcome Trust will create a joint, not-for-profit £90-million (US$150-million) research center in India to develop affordable vaccines.
Nature News (17 September 2009)
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Ghosts still present in the medical machine
The medical literature continues to be haunted by ghostwriting — a practice that, in its most extreme form, involves pharmaceutical companies designing and paying for studies or reviews, then seeking a guest author to be credited while the company goes unacknowledged.
Nature News (17 September 2009)
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News Q&A: Choon Fong Shih
Choon Fong Shih, the first president of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), talks to Nature about his goals and vision for this new university.
Nature News (17 September 2009)
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RIKEN scientist arrested
The Japanese researcher Tatsuo Wada, who is well known for his work on 'supramolecules', was arrested last week for allegedly misappropriating research funds.
Nature News (17 September 2009)
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Colour blindness corrected by gene therapy
A gene-therapy approach for exogenous expression of the L-opsin gene in red–green color-blind monkeys has restored their ability to see color.
Nature News (16 September 2009)
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Human Genome Sciences trial data wow lupus community
Human Genome Sciences has announced that its monoclonal antibody Benlysta (belimumab), which targets the tumor necrosis factor family member BLyS, has met its primary endpoint in the first of two phase 3 clinical trials for lupus.
Nature Biotechnology News (September 2009)
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PARP inhibitors blaze a trail in difficult-to-treat cancers
Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors have shown promise in treating aggressive cancers such as ovarian cancer and triple-negative metastatic breast cancers (TNBCs).
Nature Biotechnology News (September 2009)
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China tightens IP protection, but concerns linger
China's newly revised patent law will help bolster Chinese innovation, but might weaken brand manufacturers and make doing business in China more difficult for foreign biotech firms.
Nature Biotechnology News (September 2009)
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Pakistan's first biotech plant
Pakistan has launched its first biopharma company, called BF Biosciences, to manufacture interferon-α for hepatitis treatment.
Nature Biotechnology News (September 2009)
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Ethics scrutiny needed for Chinese-European projects
A group of bioethics experts who are part of the Chinese–European BIONET project warns that biomedical research collaborations between Europe and China need greater ethical oversight to combat unregulated stem-cell therapies and prevent the exploitation of clinical-trial participants.
Nature News (10 September 2009)
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Toxicity testing gets a makeover
The European Commission has revealed a new approach to repeat-dose toxicity testing that mandates extensive safety testing of chemicals while also requiring less use of animals in those tests.
Nature News (10 September 2009)
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Stem-cell drug fails crucial trials
Osiris Therapeutics has announced that Prochymal — a drug consisting of cultured mesenchymal stem cells — performed no more effectively than a placebo at preventing graft-versus-host disease.
Nature News (9 September 2009)
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Nobelist's brain institute wins reprieve
A civil court in Rome has ordered the Santa Lucia Foundation not to shut off any more amenities to the European Brain Research Institute (EBRI) while the EBRI struggles to find funding and political support.
Nature News (7 September 2009)
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Flab and freckles could advance stem cell research
Fat cells and melanocytes can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells much faster and more efficiently than the fibroblast skin cells that are traditionally used in stem-cell research.
Nature News (7 September 2009)
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Stem-cell projects falter
California's troubled economy has hit the state's ambitious stem-cell research program, delaying the construction of facilities and disrupting recruitment.
Nature News (3 September 2009)
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Keeping genes out of terrorists' hands
Two competing groups of companies have proposed different standards for screening orders for hazardous toxins and genes so that they don't get into the hands of terrorists.
Nature News (3 September 2009)
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Trial watch: BLYS-targeted antibody shows promise in Phase III SLE trial
Belimumab, a monoclonal antibody that targets B lymphocyte stimulator (BLYS; also known as TNFSF13B and BAFF), met the primary end point in a Phase III trial for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery News (September 2009)
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Fresh from the Pipeline: Golimumab
Golimumab, a fully human antibody that is specific for tumor necrosis factor, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis in April 2009.
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery News (September 2009)
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News Features
Money in biomedicine: The senator's sleuth
Paul Thacker, a reporter-turned-Congressional-investigator, has disrupted the careers of several top researchers with lucrative industry ties by exposing their failure to comply with conflict-reporting requirements.
Nature News (17 September 2009)
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Health economics: Life in the balance
The researchers and policy-makers at Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) face the difficult task of reconciling the expense of medical treatments with the nationalized health system budget.
Nature Biotechnology News (17 September 2009)
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Data sharing: Empty archives
Most researchers agree that open access to data is the scientific ideal, yet their concerns about their work being scooped, poached or misused has prevented many scientists from uploading their data to public repositories.
Nature News (10 September 2009)
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Rethinking therapeutic cancer vaccines
Despite widespread interest in their development, therapeutic cancer vaccines directed against tumor-associated antigens have not yet been successful in clinical trials.
Nature News (September 2009)
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