Big tobacco is pulling its money out of academic research -- kind of. Tobacco company Philip Morris told researchers in September of last year that it was ending its controversial extramural research program, Science reported today. But some funding from the company remains.

The news of the ended sponsorship spread this month when University of California President Robert Dynes noted in a February 5 letter to the UC... Click to continue

One of three stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) is valid, according to a non-final ruling issued on Monday by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The three WARF patents have been under examination by the USPTO, beginning in October, 2006, when challenges were brought by the Public Patent Foundation in New York and the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) in Los Angeles. ... Click to continue

A California biotech announced at the Stem Cell Summit in New York City on Tuesday that they have successfully reprogrammed human skin, kidney, and retina cells to a stem-cell-like state without using potentially cancer-causing retroviruses. But experts say their claims are impossible to evaluate since the work has not been peer-reviewed. The company researchers did not say these new cells produced teratomas -- the sign that cells are truly pluripotent.

The company, PrimeGen Biotech based in... Click to continue

Autoimmune diseases may not stem from defects in the immune system alone. Rather, developmental genetic abnormalities in organ tissues may make those organs more susceptible to autoimmune disorders, according to a paper published online today in Immunology and Cell Biology.

"The former explanations of how these [autoimmune] diseases occur weren't... Click to continue

More questions have come up over the new National Institutes of Health public access mandate and its fairness to journal publishers. Two weeks ago Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter sent a letter to NIH director Elias Zerhouni questioning whether the NIH had adequately discussed the mandate with journal publishers before implementing it.

Specter is a ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee that oversees NIH funding.

The NIH public access mandate was passed with the congressional... Click to continue

The sanctity of peer review is under scrutiny again.

Last month Pfizer filed a motion in federal court to force the New England Journal of Medicine to turn over confidential peer review documents for two of their products, Celebrex and Bextra. The company said they need the reviews to help defend themselves in lawsuits involving the two painkillers. But Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science, writes in an... Click to continue

Another microbicide to prevent HIV transmission has been deemed ineffective. The Population Council, a nonprofit research organization, which has been developing the microbicide Carraguard, announced today that phase III clinical results show it ineffective in preventing HIV transmission.

The trial, which ended in March of last year, involved 6,202 women and cost around $40... Click to continue

All papers by Harvard scholars accepted for publication as of today will be freely available to the public. The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences unanimously passed a motion last night (February 12) that requires all arts and sciences faculty articles to be made publicly available.

Harvard is the first US university to mandate open access to its faculty publications, Peter Suber, open access advocate, wrote on his... Click to continue

NIH-funded postdocs won't be getting a raise this year. The agency announced last week that it would freeze National Research Service Award (NRSA) stipends for postdocs and trainees in 2008.

Because the NIH froze NRSA funding last year also, first-year postdocs will get $36,996 in stipends, the same they received in 2006. These budget amounts fall short of the 2001... Click to continue

Alzheimer's disease researchers have long tried to address a key question: Do amyloid plaques cause the disease, or do other disease mechanisms come first? A new study published today (February 6) in Nature reports that plaques form immediately before neurite damage, suggesting that amyloids do... Click to continue

The less-than-reputable entrepreneur at the helm of a company peddling hypo-allergenic cats is under scrutiny again -- this time for fraudulent "designer cats." But now he's taking the offensive by making allegations against journalists who have covered his company.

In January of last year, The Scientist staff writer Kerry Grens investigated a company called Allerca that claimed to have created the world's first hypoallergenic cat. Grens uncovered a string of shady dealings and... Click to continue

Joshua Lederberg, Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist who shaped the field of bacterial genetics, and served as chair of The Scientist's advisory board since 1986, died on Saturday (February 2). He was 82.

Lederberg shared a Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine in 1958 for the discovery that certain strains of bacteria reproduce by mating, thereby exchanging their genetic material. This overturned the... Click to continue