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Arris Pharmaceutical Corp. and Sequana Therapeutics Inc. join up in a merger that creates a new company, Axys Pharmaceuticals, that "will be the first company integrated from gene to drug," according to a spokesman. Amersham Life Sciences and Pharmacia Biotech link up to form Amersham Pharmacia Biotech Ltd., a new company that "will be the largest biotechnology supplier in the world." Triangle Pharmaceuticals Inc. acquires fellow pharmaceutical company Avid Corp., thereby gaining "access to a n

Moms, doctors, and researchers all agree that good hygiene practices such as washing your hands and keeping a clean household are the best guards against many diseases. Disinfectants, soap, and water remain the old standbys for keeping homes and hands clean. However, antibacterial compounds added to dishwashing detergents, lotions, and even fabric have taken the marketplace by storm. Although many scientists in industry believe these products give consumers an added edge against bacteria and ot

The excitement of turning theory into therapeutics...The opportunity to focus on research, without the distractions of committee work...The prospect of advancing one's career without navigating the tenure process...The chance to collaborate, rather than carve an individual niche...The potential for greater remuneration--if the science proves marketable... A host of reasons prompts scientists to ponder switching from academia to industry--whether as start-up employee, biotech entrepreneur, or B

OLD NEWS REBORN TRANS-ATLANTIC MEDITATION AIDS HONORS FROM THE FRYING PAN TO THE PHARMACY CHEMIST HONORED BRAIN-PROTECTING DRUGS OLD NEWS REBORN The wild spike in the stock price earlier this month of Rockville, Md.-based biotechnology company EntreMed Inc. was sparked by a few remarks over dinner, says the company's chairman, John Holaday. The comments came from Nobel laureate James Watson, director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y. He was praising the work of M. Judah

Long-standing public and political contention over the effects of the United States' economic embargo on the health of the Cuban people appears to be approaching a watershed. The proponents of a change in U.S. policy base their arguments on the results of scientific research over recent years that indicate the embargo has contributed to unhealthy shortages of food and medicine in Cuba. In both houses of Congress, bills are being considered that would exempt from the embargo the sale of food to

As Mark Twain may--or, according to some sources, may not--have said about the weather, everybody has grumbled for years that National Institutes of Health peer-review study sections are stacked against clinical research, but nobody ever does anything about it. Now, that's changing, along with a lot of other standard operating procedures in NIH's peer-review system. NIH's Center for Scientific Review (CSR), which runs the panels that review about 70 percent of NIH grant applications, is about

A wave of anxiety is sweeping the nation's 125 medical schools. These schools and their affiliated teaching hospitals--the academic health centers where new doctors are minted and where cutting edge biomedical research and medicine is practiced--are being squeezed financially by cost-conscious health maintenance organizations. Managed care providers steer their members who need medical care to nonteaching hospitals where costs are lower or, when their members do see doctors at academic health c

More than five million people visit Lancaster County, Pa., annually. They crowd small towns to catch a glimpse of a Mennonite family on the way to church in a horse-drawn buggy, and they jam country backroads to marvel at an Amish farmer and his mule plowing a field. To many visitors harried by the pace of modern living, the Amish and Mennonites represent a simpler, purer, and more pious way of living. To others, they represent a rich source of scientific data. Each year investigators in medi

NEW AND IMPROVED: Hoechst Merion Roussel's new research facility (inset) in Bridgewater, N.J. will house activities in biotechnology, automated screening and robotics, computational and medicinal chemistry, molecular modeling, and biophysics. Automated high throughput screening (above) will allow researchers to search huge chemical libraries for promising therapeutic compounds. OPENING DAY AT HOECHST Hoechst Marion Roussel (HMR) Inc., based in Frankfurt, Germany, marked the beginning of a new

Vectors in development seek to benefit from earlier trials The gene therapy field resembles a toolbox containing instruments researchers haven't quite mastered, and the number of devices--viral and nonviral vectors--in this toolbox keeps increasing. "There are all these different tools out there," notes A. Dusty Miller, researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. "People are still trying to figure out what tools to use for what diseases." Photo: Richard Lobell Photography

The logical outcome of gene mapping is nigh. Biotechnology companies are using genetic information to design new drugs that may go beyond merely slowing or stopping a disease process to inducing the regeneration or repair of damaged tissue. Looking past the conventional drug targets of enzymes and gene-coupled receptors, researchers are seeking out molecules in the pathways along which biochemical signals are transferred. In some cases, their work has led to compounds--now in clinical trials or

Photos courtesy of Engineering Animation, Inc. BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE: Among the tools to counter effects from biological weapons, bioengineered red blood cells (above) can patrol the circulatory system, sponging up viral particles and carrying them to the liver for destruction. Synthetic macromolecules, or dendrimers (right), can capture viral particles and prevent further viral destruction of healthy cells. Biological weapons have been around since medieval warriors hurled plague-ridden corp