A high-security pathogen lab in Galveston, Texas, survived the hurricane that hit the region last month, but is now the focus of safety concerns plaguing biosafety research of late.

Galveston is an island often hit by hurricanes. Ike, which hit in September, caused more than $700 million in damage to the University of Texas facilities there, about $18 million of that to research labs, Nature reported. But the pathogen lab... Click to continue

David Vitrant, a PhD student in genetics at the University of Pittsburgh, thinks he's got a creative idea for alternative schemes to fund research: simply ask the public for money. He recently launched non-profit, called FundScience, that aims to connect researchers with potential donors.

To explain why he started FundScience, Vitrant cited a number well-known to NIH-funded scientists: 42, the average age at which researchers these days receive their... Click to continue

In a boost to the field of synthetic biology, researchers have created an RNA-based device that can control gene expression of target genes, thus regulating molecular processes in living cells, a paper in this week's Science reports.

The paper "shows this design approach for the first time in a biological system," ... Click to continue

Two of the five US labs that conduct research on the world's most dangerous pathogens suffer from serious security shortfalls, according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) today (October 16).

What's more, the labs were given the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) stamp of approval despite these shortcomings, the report states.

The two labs were not named in the report, but the... Click to continue

The recent suicide of microbiologist Bruce Ivins, pegged by the US government as the culprit in a spate of deadly anthrax mailings in 2001, is already spurring a boost in security procedures and screening at labs working on deadly pathogens.

Boston University's biolab, a controversial high-security facility under construction in the city's South End neighborhood, plans to vet... Click to continue

Francoise Barré-Sinoussi of the Institut Pasteur in Paris and Luc Montagnier, cofounder and director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, have won the 2008 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine for their the discovery of HIV. Harald zur Hausen of the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg also received the prize for his work identifying the human papilloma viruses and their role in cervical cancer.

According to the Nobel Prize Committee, Barré-Sinoussi and... Click to continue

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine will be shared by three researchers who identified two viruses that have had crucial impacts on human health. Harald zur Hausen of the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg will be honored for his work in the 1970s identifying the human papilloma viruses and their role in cervical cancer. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi of the Institut Pasteur, and Luc Montagnier, co-founder of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, will share the... Click to continue

Analysis of a newly-identified 48-year-old tissue sample from a woman infected with HIV has confirmed that the virus emerged in the early 20th century, researchers report today in Nature.

By comparing the differences between the sequence of this sample from 1960, the second-oldest ever found, and that of a 1959 sample identified a decade ago, Michael Worobey of the... Click to continue