GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced plans on Friday (June 20th), to donate genomic profiles of more than 300 cancer cell lines to the caBIG database, a government bioinformatics initiative. Data from these cell lines will be freely available to researchers around the world.

The cell lines were derived from breast, prostate, lung, ovarian, and other tumors. "We hope this data will further drive the... Click to continue

Gunther Siegmund Stent, whose work on bacteriophages helped establish the foundations of molecular biology, died on June 12 of pneumonia.

"He was a very remarkable guy. It's hard for any one person to get a full appreciation of what he's done because his interests were so broad," said David Weisblat a molecular and cell biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a postdoc with Stent in the late 1970s. Over the course of his life, Stent studied molecular biology, neurobiology,... Click to continue

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley announced his proposal to invest $1.1 billion in biotech industry, which could trump the $1 billion already signed by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick on Monday (June 16). Now the race for the biggest biotech hub on the east coast begins in earnest.

Maryland's proposal, which O'Malley discussed during a visit to Johns Hopkins University yesterday, would allot funds for a biotechnology center, start-up companies, and $20 million annually for stem cell... Click to continue

For the first time, researchers have succeeded in reversing a condition that causes seizures in mice by transplanting progenitor cells into the brain. The finding, reported in this week's Cell Stem Cell, has important implications for treating a class of childhood diseases marked by myelin insufficiency.

"These are spectacular results," said Ian Duncan at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not... Click to continue

A space biotech company hopes its Salmonella vaccine project will pave the way for other lucrative space biotech projects. The company, SPACEHAB, launched its proof-of-concept experiment as part of the space shuttle Discovery's payload on Saturday (May 31).

In April, I reported that SPACEHAB's CEO Tom Pickens talked up the potential for space biotech at a Congressional hearing on the future of the ... Click to continue