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Microsoft sponsors BMC prizes

By Andrea Gawrylewski | September 5, 2007

BioMed Central (a sister company of The Scientist) announced today that Microsoft will be sponsoring BMC's annual research awards -- funding two $5000 prizes for research of major significance published in any of BMC's linkurl:open access;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53366/ journals in 2007. Lee Dirks, the director of scholarly communication for Microsoft Research (a research branch of Microsoft that also collaborates with colleges and universities) said in the press release: "We a

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New visa rules for postdocs?

By Alison McCook | September 5, 2007

The linkurl:National Postdoctoral Association;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/13511/ is only four years old, but is already weighing in on serious issues in science. Last week, I received a linkurl:white paper;http://www.nationalpostdoc.org/atf/cf/%7B89152E81-F2CB-430C-B151-49D071AEB33E%7D/IPC%20WHITE%20PAPER%20letterhead.pdf from the NPA suggesting the US make changes to linkurl:visa requirements;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/53418/ for foreign-born postdocs. The gr

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Craig Venter's DNA

By Alla Katsnelson | September 4, 2007

J. Craig Venter, famed geneticist (and member of The Scientist's linkurl:editorial board;http://www.the-scientist.com/about/themagazine/editorialboard/ ) who this summer made headlines with the development of a technique for creating a linkurl:synthetic;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53341/ bacterial cell, once again hit the news with today's linkurl:publication;http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050254 of his own genome in a paper

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Have a question about pandas?

By Ivan Oransky | August 31, 2007

In May, we brought you a linkurl:story;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/53115/ by Jerry Guo, who traveled to China to report on efforts to boost that country's population of pandas. (See a slideshow about the panda facility linkurl:here;http://www.the-scientist.com/2007/5/1/19/100/ .) One of the people Guo interviewed was Lu Zhi, director of Conservation International's China office. Zhi questioned some of China's efforts, especially those at Wolong Nature Reserve, which is planning

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NIH to bank genome-wide association data

By Alla Katsnelson | August 29, 2007

As of January 25, 2008, researchers conducting genome-wide association studies with NIH funding will be required to submit their data, stripped of information that could identify individual study participants, to the a linkurl:central repository;http://www.genome.gov/Pages/About/OD/OPG/GWASFR-082807.pdf at the National Library of Medicine. The database will allow researchers not connected with an original study to mine another lab?s data in search of further gene associations. linkurl:Plans;ht

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Questions about NIH agency chief linger

By Bob Grant | August 29, 2007

One lawmaker has levied more allegations of mismanagement against linkurl:David Schwartz;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/53502/ , director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Last week, Schwartz temporarily stepped down from his position while the National Institutes of Health, which oversees NIEHS, conducts a linkurl:"comprehensive review of the management and leadership";http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/aug2007/od-20.htm at the agency. Senator linkurl:Charles Grassley

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Head scientist leaves CIRM

By Bob Grant | August 27, 2007

Arlene Chiu, the interim chief scientific officer at the linkurl:California Institute for Regenerative Medicine;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22768/ , has announced that she will step down from her post at the end of October. In a CIRM statement Chiu writes that she'll be moving from San Francisco, where CIRM is headquartered to her home in Los Angeles to "pursue new professional directions." Chiu will serve as a consultant to the agency through April 2008, advising newly chosen

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HHMI pays for open access

By Alison McCook | August 21, 2007

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has decided to pay article processing charges if HHMI-funded scientists choose to publish in open access journals from BioMed Central (BMC). Articles published in BMC journals will be immediately free on the Web. The current BMC linkurl:article-processing charge;http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/apcfaq#howmuch ranges from $500 to $2400, depending on the journal. These charges will not come out of an HHMI investigator's budget, so will therefore be in a

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Has pharmacogenomics arrived?

By Alla Katsnelson | August 17, 2007

The FDA yesterday linkurl:updated the label;http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01684.html on a widely used blood thinner, warfarin, to include information about how a patient's genes will linkurl:predict response;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/14864/ to the drug. Patients with certain genetic variations should receive a lower dose of the drug, according to the added text. Although a handful of drugs already note such genetic information on their labels, most of these are

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Anthrax incident in Mississippi

By Andrea Gawrylewski | August 15, 2007

A graduate researcher at the linkurl:University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC);http://www.umc.edu/ in Jackson, Mississippi, was treated for exposure to anthrax on Saturday (August 11), according to a news release from the University of Mississippi Medical Center. The researcher was working in the Biosafety Level 3 high containment lab on Saturday, August 11, where UMC conducts anthrax research. According to the UMC release, the student inoculated a flask of medium with anthrax cells and,

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