When you're a pharmaceutical company hoping to turn a profit on a controversial product, your work never stops, it would appear. Although, I suppose that's true of any pharmaceutical company nowadays... GlaxoSmithKline, marketers of the over-the-counter weight-loss drug alli, which we linkurl:profiled;http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/consumers_face_a_bewildering_a.html in last month's issue, is asking the FDA to force weight-loss supplement sellers to conduct clinical trials

With all the obsession over who will take over the White House in 2009, it's easy to forget that November will see linkurl:hundreds of other;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54458/ US national elections. These will concern Congress, and could have major impacts on science policy. To that end, linkurl:Scientists and Engineers for America and 15 other societies;http://sefora.org/2008/06/19/action-alert-ask-your-congressman-about-science-today/ have sent linkurl:seven questions;http://

The NIH has wrapped up its year-long effort to reform the way it reviews grant applications, releasing today (June 6) a report that focuses on changes such as shortening and redesigning applications, making it easier for good reviewers to serve, and encouraging innovative and "transformative" projects. For instance, the agency plans to create a new investigator-initiated Transformative R01 Award program worth at least $250 million, and invest at least $750 million in innovative awards, such as

Some of you may remember Aleister Saunders, the Alzheimer's researcher at Drexel University in Philadelphia who was kind enough to open up about the difficult process he went through to apply for tenure. (You can read his story in our linkurl:September, 2007 feature;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/daily/53499/ about tenure.) Well, his hard work paid off. He emailed me to say he was awarded tenure last month. And it looks like his R01 application will be funded, as well. Congratulati

Losing your lab In 2007, more than 4,000 NIH-funded researchers were denied grant renewals. For some,that means they have to close upshop. By Alison McCook Article Extras Web Only: Weaned, via Whitaker Other labs lost For Alan Schneyer, everything changed in June, 2006. The scientist was running a lab in the reproductive endocrinology department at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, and had recently logged some interesting result

Other labs lost By Alison McCook Article Extras Losing your lab Web Only: Weaned, via Whitaker When Peter Cariani was a teenager, both of his parents died. So as an adult starting his career, "I had a fairly fatalistic view towards life," says the scientist, now 51. "I never expected to make much money, but I thought there would be a niche for me that was sustainable and would help me provide for my family and put my kids through college." As

It appears that the US Senate is going to finally cast its vote on a 15-year-old bill with wide bipartisan support against genetic discrimination. According to Scientists and Engineers for America, Senator Tom Coburn has linkurl:agreed to lift his hold;http://sefora.org/2008/04/22/gina-cleared-for-a-vote-in-the-senate/ on the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, or GINA, which prevents insurers and employers from discriminating based on genetics. The bill has passed the House of Represen

This report in from Editorial Administrator and journalist Margaret Guthrie: Earlier this year, we linkurl:reported on a company;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/54215/ called Vet-Stem which has devised a treatment for horses using the animal's own stem cells to heal tendon and ligament injuries. In some cases it's been an unqualified success. One of those successes was part of our story - a big gray gelding named Greg's Gold. When we posted the story online, Greg's

The NIH has placed a March 17 deadline for feedback on its linkurl:final suggestions;http://enhancing-peer-review.nih.gov/meetings/NIHPeerReviewReportFINALDRAFT.pdf on how to change peer review at the agency. You can find information about how to contact the agency on its linkurl:Web site;http://enhancing-peer-review.nih.gov/ about the review process. Thanks to the linkurl:Medical Writing, Editing, and Grantsmanship blog;http://writedit.wordpress.com/2008/03/ for providing a heads up of the d

Winners of scientific image competition coming to big screen in Times Square

Just what is it about autism that produces the three hallmark behaviors of social impairment, language difficulties, and rigidity, or an "insistence on sameness'? Scientists at this year's Keystone meeting on the pathophysiology of autism in Santa Fe, NM, are looking for clues from a molecule we hear an awful lot about in discussions of non-autistic brain activity: Serotonin. It turns out that a significant number of children with autism -- up to 30% -- have elevated levels of serot

This morning's session at the Keystone meeting on the pathophysiology of autism in Santa Fe, New Mexico, focused on the disorder's link to Fragile X syndrome. Like autism, Fragile X is associated with behaviors such as high social anxiety, gaze avoidance, and speech problems. A significant number of people with Fragile X - estimates range wildly from 5 to 60% - have autism, but a smaller number of linkurl:autistic cases are associated with Fragile X;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/d