A fertility researcher who published a study suggesting that prayer improves in vitro fertilization success rates has renewed his legal battle against an obstetrician/gynecologist who has criticized his work.

Kwang-Yul Cha, a fertility researcher and chancellor of the medical school at Pochon CHA University in Korea, filed a motion on Tuesday (Dec 18) for a new trial after a judge threw out his defamation lawsuit against University of... Click to continue

The National Institutes of Health launched a project today (Dec. 19) aimed at sequencing the myriad microbes that inhabit the human body. NIH has already awarded several millions of dollars in grant money to researchers engaging in the Human Microbiome Project, and ... Click to continue

A provision mandating public access to research published by NIH-funded scientists has survived in the funding bill making its way through Congress this week.

The provision was originally part of a funding bill that President George W. Bush vetoed last month. It mandates that the NIH adopt a policy requiring agency-funded scientists to post their published research on the agency's... Click to continue

Last week the Animal Liberation Front targeted an obstetrician/gynecologist who is funded by the National Institutes of Health and uses non-human primates in his research. The Associated Press reported that Oregon Health & Science University researcher, Miles Novy, woke up last Thursday (Dec 6) to find one of his cars spray painted with the word "sadist" and another painted... Click to continue

A shuttered Canadian nuclear reactor that normally produces radioisotopes crucial to a variety of medical diagnoses will reopen soon.

Emergency legislation passed by the Canadian government late Tuesday (Dec 11) will allow the reactor to open for 120 days and resume production of the isotopes.

Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, was apparently none too happy with the parties... Click to continue

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) announced 22 New Faculty Awards yesterday (Dec 12) while releasing the names of five institutions from which applications were rejected for apparent conflicts of interest.

The grants, awarded to young researchers at institutions throughout the state, total more than $54 million, bringing the amount of research dollars awarded by California's stem cell agency to $260 million since its 2004 inception.

The institute confirmed it had... Click to continue

The shutdown of a Canadian nuclear reactor that produces radioisotopes is causing delays in medical diagnoses and treatments, but nuclear medicine researchers seem unaffected so far.

In mid-November, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) shut down its National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, Ontario for what was supposed to be five days of routine maintenance. But the reactor remains powered... Click to continue

A California state political oversight commission has agreed to investigate a conflict of interest complaint filed against a board member at the state's stem cell agency.

California's Fair Political Practices Commission said yesterday (Dec 10) that it will look into an incident involving John Reed, a member of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine's (CIRM) governing board and CEO of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research... Click to continue

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) announced today that it is eliminating ten grant applications from consideration to avoid breaking its conflict of interest rules regarding grant applications and accompanying letters of support.

"CIRM has opted to act conservatively by refraining from considering these applications," the release said, "and the agency will take steps to clarify future requirements for... Click to continue

Advocacy groups are calling for resignations from the board chairman of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and another CIRM board member in the wake of a violation of the institute's own conflict of interest rules.

Meanwhile, California's state controller, John Chiang, has asked the state's Fair Political Practices Commission to investigate the allegations while his office conducts a financial audit of CIRM.

The conflict of interest occurred in August, when John Reed, a... Click to continue

NIH is nearing the end of a review of the peer review facet of their granting process, and this Friday (Dec. 7) NIH director Elias Zerhouni will meet with his Advisory Committee to the Director to discuss, among other things, the NIH grant peer review process.

This afternoon (Dec. 4), Zerhouni took the discussion to the internet in a live chat session with researchers across the... Click to continue

Conflicts of interest among US Food and Drug Administration advisory committees are more easily solved than the agency is letting on, suggests a Washington-based think tank.

A report issued today (Dec. 3) by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) reinterprets an FDA-sponsored study on conflicts of... Click to continue

An experimental gene therapy treatment did not cause a patient's death earlier this year, according to a federal advisory committee. The National Institutes of Health's Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee announced the findings this morning (Dec. 3) and made recommendations to alter the design of the study, which was cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration to resume last week.... Click to continue