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Studying protein complexes with structural genomics

By Jeff Perkel | May 18, 2006

Proteins in vivo often function in complexes, and indeed, that?s how many individual structural biology efforts approach them. Not structural genomics efforts, though: For all their high-throughput methods, structural genomics pipelines typically treat proteins individually, in isolation. A linkurl:paper;http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0602606103v1 released May 11 in __PNAS__ could help bridge this gap. The new method, developed by linkurl:David Eisenberg;http://www.doe-mbi.ucla.edu/P

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The FDA's identity crisis

By Ishani Ganguli | May 17, 2006

On its hundredth birthday, the Food and Drug Administration is having a bit of an identity crisis. The FDA has long been conflicted as to whether it is primarily a regulatory or a scientific entity, said Peter Barton Hutt, former chief counsel for the administration, at yesterday?s FDA Centennial Conference in Philadelphia. In fact, it was the subject of what Hutt called "one of the funniest congressional debates I?ve sat through" during his FDA tenure in the 1970s. Now, as various ?o

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Surprise, surprise. Sussex backs chemistry

By Stephen Pincock | May 15, 2006

Over the past few weeks, the leadership of the University of Sussex, in England, has faced a barrage of criticism from scientists, media and linkurl:politicians;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23404/ over plans to linkurl:reshape its chemistry department;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23404/ in favor of biological chemistry. The planned restructuring, widely seen as the brainchild of vice chancellor Alasdair Smith, was denigrated by a Nobel Laureate, protested against by st

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Hwang charged with fraud, embezzlement

By Alison McCook | May 12, 2006

Hwang Woo-suk, the South Korean researcher who admitted fabricating data on human stem cell lines, has been charged with criminal fraud and embezzlement, and now potentially faces years in jail, prosecutors announced Friday (May 12). In a linkurl:statement;http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060512/sc_nm/korea_science_dc;_ylt=AoWnlxWJZt1f3kSQ6kx3JgoPLBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA-- provided to Reuters, prosecutor Lee In-kyu accused Hwang of being the lead actor in an elaborate plot to fabric

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Histones are everywhere

By Brendan Maher | May 11, 2006

Just the other day I was talking to a researcher on the phone whose work had unexpectedly intersected with nucleosome remodeling. I get the feeling it?s not an uncommon occurrence. I?ve enjoyed following the linkurl:explosion of research;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/23392/ on this topic in the past decade, in part because the analogies are irresistible. As the now pat intro to numerous papers on the subject says, with the sequence of the human genome at hand, scientists are lo

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A word about BioMedCentral

By Richard Gallagher | May 1, 2006

Some of you may be wondering why The Scientist is today publishing a linkurl:news story;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23352/ that on the face of it seems quite critical of BioMedCentral, our sister company. It's a fair question, and one with a simple answer: We are commited to covering significant developments, in science publishing and elsewhere, that are likely to be of interest to our readers, irrespective of the source of the story. This particular article is a test of the edit

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A genome center on a chip?

By Jeff Perkel | April 25, 2006

A nifty paper in yesterday's online edition of PNAS could presage the future of microfluidics development -- not to mention of sequencing technology. linkurl:Richard Mathies;http://chem.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/mathies/mathies.html of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues linkurl:report;http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0602476103 the development of an integrated chip capable of performing the complete Sanger sequencing protocol, from template to gel. Lab-on-a-chip, o

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Goodbye, science writing mentor

By Ivan Oransky | April 25, 2006

I didn't know Laura van Dam particularly well, but I did have the chance to work with her. In 1993, while I was in college, I was an intern at Technology Review, where she was a senior editor. It was a good experience for me, thanks in no small part to Laura, who always had time for this unpolished kid who seemed to always be running off to the lab to finish my thesis. She was infinitely patient, particularly with the pieces that didn't make it into the magazine. I probably learned more when she

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Petition backs animal research

By Stephen Pincock | April 21, 2006

In the UK, the battle for people's hearts and minds over animal research continues apace. For a long time, opponents of animal research dominated the news but linkurl:these days;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/23166/, the tables seem to have turned. The latest thrust came yesterday when the Coalition for Medical Progress launched an linkurl:online petition;http://www.thepeoplespetition.com/signup/ for those who see experiments on animals as being essential. As I write, after midnight

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Chips spark surge in epigenetics

By Jeff Perkel | April 20, 2006

Since my colleague Brendan Maher returned from a chromatin meeting in January, it seems there's been a burst of activity in the epigenetics field, much of it covered here in __The Scientist__. On March 17, for instance, I linkurl:reported;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23235/ on the publication of three papers in __Genes & Development__, which mapped the binding of the Dosage Compensation Complex (DCC) across the __Drosophila__ X chromosome during fly development. Today, __linkurl:Na

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