Cell signaling news
Here we present recent news items specially selected from Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology and Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.
October 2009
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News | News Features
News
Woo Suk Hwang convicted, but not of fraud
Cloning pioneer Woo Suk Hwang was sentenced to two years in prison at the Seoul Central District Court on 26 October 2009, after being found guilty of embezzlement and bioethical violations but cleared of fraud.
Nature News (29 October 2009)
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African science feels the pinch
Researchers and policy-makers have said that the global financial crisis is hampering plans to revive African science.
Nature News (29 October 2009)
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Making a cellular menagerie
A US$2.5-million stimulus grant has been awarded to the American Society for Cell Biology to establish an online open-access database called 'The Cell: An Image Library'.
Nature News (23 October 2009)
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Hwang verdict imminent
A verdict is expected soon on charges against the South Korean cloning researcher Woo Suk Hwang, who has been indicted for fraudulent and unethical research.
Nature News (22 October 2009)
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Drug clears the fog of a sleepless night
Pharmacological inhibition of phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4) can rescue the effects of sleep deprivation on memory formation in mice.
Nature News (21 October 2009)
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Total recall achieved
Research with mice suggests that stimulation of a remarkably small number of neurons can evoke entire memories.
Nature News (20 October 2009)
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Survey of medical centers points to funding gaps
A survey of nearly 2,000 researchers at 50 academic medical centers around the US has revealed significant gaps in the funding of health services research.
Nature Medicine News (October 2009)
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Infections linked to prostate cancer
The xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) has been identified in 27% of 334 prostate cancer biopsies; however, a causal connection between the virus and tumorigenesis is far from certain.
Nature Medicine News (October 2009)
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'Propaganda index' proposed for medical literature
Experts at the sixth international congress of the Peer Review and Biomedical Publication have advised that the inappropriate 'spin' of biomedical results could be countered in part by using a 'propaganda index'.
Nature Medicine News (October 2009)
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Analysis of retractions puts spotlight on academia
Two studies have revealed that about half of the medical papers retracted over the past few decades were pulled because of misconduct rather than an innocent mistake.
Nature Medicine News (October 2009)
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Japan to slash huge grant scheme
In Japan, a new ¥270-billion (US$3-billion) funding program is under fire from both politicians and researchers, and its funding may be cut by ¥170 billion.
Nature News (15 October 2009)
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Cancer metastasis scrutinized
Most cancer research has focused on blocking primary-tumor growth, but many experts are now shifting their focus to secondary tumors in the hope of blocking tumor cells' metastatic potential.
Nature News (15 October 2009)
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Where the US stimulus money is going
Nature examines where the US$52.65 billion that was earmarked for science from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is being directed.
Nature News (15 October 2009)
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Key protein-design papers challenged
Two papers published by protein engineer Homme Hellinga's lab at Duke University Medical Center have been challenged.
Nature News (15 October 2009)
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Gene therapy could remedy Parkinson's
A potential gene therapy for Parkinson's disease — exogenous expression of three genes involved in synthesizing dopamine — can correct motor deficits in monkeys without causing the jerky, involuntary movements that often accompany long-term treatments for the disease
Nature News (14 October 2009)
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Cell invasion caught on camera
A two-photon imaging technique has caught T cells in the act of penetrating cerebral structures of rats with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.
Nature News (14 October 2009)
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Spotlight focuses on protein-misfolding therapies
A new drug candidate has, for the first time, modified disease progression in patients with a rare inherited protein-misfolding neuropathy known as transthyretin (TTR) amyloid polyneuropathy.
Nature Biotechnology News (October 2009)
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Golden Triangle taps Boston
The UK's Golden Triangle Partnership — an informal coalition between the Oxfordshire Bioscience Network, Cambridge's biotech trade association ERBI and the London Biotechnology Network — has enlisted Boston's biotech supercluster as it first international partner.
Nature Biotechnology News (October 2009)
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Gulf beckons biotech
Arab nations are pouring billions into ambitious biotech-related programs in a push to establish new sources of revenue for the region through biotherapeutics and clean energy.
Nature Biotechnology News (October 2009)
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Chromosome protection scoops Nobel
Three US scientists — Carol Greider, Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak — have won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering the structure of telomeres and elucidating how they protect chromosomes from degradation.
Nature News (8 October 2009)
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Radical shift proposed for funding European research
The European Research Area Board has suggested that the responsibility for managing and allocating funding for European research should be devolved from the European Commission to independent agencies, including the European Research Council (ERC).
Nature News (6 October 2009)
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Ribosome clinches the chemistry Nobel
Three molecular biologists who mapped the structure and inner workings of the ribosome — the cell's machinery for churning out proteins from the genetic code — have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Nature News (7 October 2009)
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Booming biosafety labs probed
Researchers in the US are pushing back against Congress' attempt to introduce stricter regulations on laboratories that handle the most dangerous pathogens, saying that adding such rules could hobble work on countermeasures for killer pathogens and drive researchers from the field.
Nature News (1 October 2009)
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Iranian ministers in plagiarism row
Three journals have confirmed that they will retract papers co-authored by Iran's science and education minister Kamran Daneshjou, a professor in the school of mechanical engineering at the Iran University of Science & Technology (IUST) in Tehran, after learning that his peer-reviewed papers duplicated substantial amounts of text from previously published articles.
Nature News (1 October 2009)
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Rutherford Building cancers a "coincidence"
Cancer deaths at the University of Manchester were unlikely to be linked to physicist Ernest Rutherford's historic experiments, an inquiry has concluded.
Nature News (30 September 2009)
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Lessons from the lung for targeted anticancer drugs
The evidence that lung cancer patients with particular mutations in the EGFR gene are more likely to respond to gefitinib emphasizes the need for companies to identify the right patients for targeted therapies early in the development process.
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery News (October 2009)
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Trial watch: Mixed results for novel CD20-targeted antibody
The disappointing results of Phase III trials of the CD20-targeted human monoclonal antibody ofatumumab in rheumatoid arthritis and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma dampen hopes for the potential of the drug to achieve the success of the pioneering CD20-targeted mAb rituximab.
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery News (October 2009)
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News Features
Neuroscience: Shooting pain
Sean Mackey, the head of the Pain Management Center at Stanford University School of Medicine, inflicts pain on people in the hope of learning how to relieve it.
Nature News (29 October 2009)
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The most transparent research
Nature Medicine examines how breakthroughs in genetics, electrical engineering, chemistry and solid-state physics have allowed a handful of researchers to develop ways to render biological tissues transparent.
Nature Medicine News (October 2009)
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Neuroscience: Small, furry ... and smart
Researchers have engineered more than 30 strains of 'smart mice', but little is known about the potential side effects of cognitive enhancement.
Nature News (15 October 2009)
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Human genetics: Hit or miss?
Genome-wide association studies have identified genes that are potentially responsible for many human diseases and phenotypes — Nature examines how such studies have provided clues about the genetic basis for the regulation of fetal hemoglobin levels, schizophrenia and height.
Nature News (8 October 2009)
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Eastern Europe: Scaling the wall
Nature talks to researchers from central and eastern Europe about what has changed in the 20 years following the collapse of the Soviet-controlled communist governments.
Nature News (1 October 2009)
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Eastern Europe: Beyond the bloc
In the late 1980s, the collapse of communist regimes and their replacement by democracy and market economies led to a dramatic decrease in science expenditure across eastern Europe — an effect that has proven difficult to overcome in some eastern European countries.
Nature News (1 October 2009)
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