CONTENTS

May 2006

FEATURES
How will one of the world's largest and most respected pharmaceutical companies come back?
By Fran Hawthorne
Taking Stock of Merck
Histones serve as slates to a dizzying array of modifications, but researchers are confident they can decipher the epigenetic puzzle.
By Brendan Maher
Is It a Code: The Debate
By Bryan M. Turner and Steven Henikoff
How to overcome the remaining hurdles in cell survival, supply, and immune rejection
By A.M. James Shapiro
The Path to Clinical Protocols
Less time, more conferences, and better mobile technology: Meeting planners struggle with the challenges facing the industry.
By Keith O'Brien
What's the Value of Conferences?
A Keystone Symposia survey says: $20-30 million in research fun savings
By James W. Aiken
ALSO THIS MONTH

A PRESCRIPTION FOR PHARMA

The industry needs more foxes and fewer hedgehogs.
By Richard Gallagher

MAIL

What went horribly wrong in a London clinical

THE AGENDA

Sex and the mind; Sex and the scientist; Sex and the flower; Sex and the coed

WANTED: OWL KILLERS

By Melissa Lee Phillips

THE CALORIE HUNTERS

By Ishani Ganguli

SEEING EBOLA FROM SPACE

By Stephen Pincock

RADIO FOR WATER

By Ishani Ganguli

A NEWSPAPER HIRES AN IRB

By Ivan Oransky

TREATING GENETIC DISEASE TODAY

Why wait until gene therapy and therapeutic cloning are perfected? Conventional treatments hold at least as much promise.
By Arnold Munnich

SEARCH ME NOT

My fellow columnist wants us to Google our brains. But will I lose my identity in the process?
By Glenn McGee

SPACE INVADERS ARE HERE

Guess what? They're little and green!
By Jack Woodall

COMING FULL CYCLE

Paul Nurse had trouble getting into graduate school. Twenty five years later, he won the Nobel Prize for his work on the cell cycle.
By Karen Hopkin

SERUM PROTEOMICS SCRUTINIZED

SELDI-TOF still struggles to prove its worth as a clinical diagnostic tool
By Aileen Constans

COPY NUMBER A MAJOR
SOURCE OF VARIATION

By Ishani Ganguli

WEBLOGO: DATA VISUALIZATION
FOR EVERYONE

By Jeffrey M. Perkel

A NEW WEAPON FOR
RESISTANT BACTERIA

By Ishani Ganguli

PAPERS TO WATCH

 

SETTLING AN OOCYTE
ACTIN CONUNDRUM

 

A PROGRAM TO IMPROVE
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

 

SCIENTIST TO WATCH

Matthew Albert:
Fascinated by Cell Death
By Aude Lecrubier

MY OWN PRIVATE SYNCHROTRON

Tired of waiting months for beamline time? Here's a possible solution.
By Jeffrey M. Perkel

TEN STEPS TO BETTER HPLC

How to keep your high-performance liquid chromatography running smoothly
By Jeffrey M. Perkel

HOW IT WORKS

Miniaturizing HPLC
By Jeffrey M. Perkel

WHY PATENT TROLLS
THREATEN BIOTECH

The backlash following the Blackberry patent dispute would hurt patents in the life sciences
By Ronald I. Eisenstein

IT'S GOOD TO BE CEO

Compensation at the top rises at publicly traded companies
By Ronald Rosenberg

STEM CELL CHASERS

By Aaron J. Bouchie

SPREADING BETTER DIAGNOSIS

By Ned Stafford

GRANT WRITING FOR SCIENTIST ENTREPRENEURS

The science and art of applying for a business grant
By Shauna Farr-Jones and
Amy F. Boggs

CASUAL FRIDAYS EXTENDED

Water, wheels, and Wi-Fi contribute to the new professional networking
By Virginia Gewin

MAKING THE MOST

Five tips for life science execs to maximize their earnings in their next job
By Ronald Rosenberg

FOUNDATIONS

Chromatin Immunoprecipitation
By Jeffrey M. Perkel