Till recently, just two classes of antiretroviral drugs, reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors, were on the market to treat HIV infection. Last week, the FDA linkurl:approved;http://www.reuters.com/article/health-SP/idUSN1221331120071015 Merck's raltegravir (Isentress), which interferes with viral replication at a different point, blocking the enzyme integrase to prevent the integration of the viral genetic material into host DNA. In our September issue, The Scientist reporte

This morning former vice president Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) were awarded the linkurl:2007 Nobel Prize;http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/ "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." According to a linkurl:statement;http://blog.algore.com/2007/10/i_am_deeply_honored.html posted on his Web site, Go

Robert Ferrell, a geneticist at the University of Pittsburgh who was linkurl:indicted;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22260/ in June, 2004, along with Steven Kurtz, an artist at the State University of New York in Buffalo, after Ferrell shipped bacteria to Kurtz to use in an art project, pled guilty yesterday to charges of "mailing an injurious article," according a linkurl:report;http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--artvsterror1011oct11,0,7989955.story by the AP

Gerhard Ertl, a German physical chemist, was awarded the linkurl:Nobel Prize for Chemistry;http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2007/ this morning for research that defined how molecules interact at interface between solids and gasses. His work laid the foundation for the modern field of surface chemistry, and had important implications for understanding processes such as how catalytic converters clean up car exhaust, how the ozone layer gets depleted, and how iron rusts. Ertl

Rumors of J. Craig Venter's achievements in creating artificial life are again linkurl:circulating;http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange in the press - the Guardian reported this weekend that Venter has successfully made a fully synthetic chromosome, dubbed Mycoplasma laboratorium. The chromosome reportedly consists of 381 genes, and in total contains 580,000 nucleotide base pairs. In a linkurl:study;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53341/ published thi

On the heels of linkurl:recent revelations;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53626/ of unreported accidents in Texas university labs and breaches of safety regulations at the University of Wisconsin, an AP article today linkurl:reports;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/02/AR2007100200158.html on mishaps at biosafety labs across the country. More than 100 such incidents have occurred since 2003, and some were not reported as required, according to the article.

The British government and three big pharma companies announced a partnership today (October 3) to develop techniques for using linkurl:stem cells;http://www.the-scientist.com/2007/6/1/34/1/ to test the safety of new medicines, the linkurl:Financial Times reports.;http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ecdb2c48-714b-11dc-98fc-0000779fd2ac.html So far, the article notes, big companies have stayed away from the controversial field. The group, launched today as a nonprofit called Stem Cells for Safer Medicine

Related Articles Genomic Alterations 2.0 Tips for CNV Detection Bac in time Aneuploid problems Old dog, new tricks Multiplex for control Needle in the haystack Comparative genomic hybridization (CHG) provides the densest coverage of probes for CNV detection, but the traditional technique using bacterial artificial chromosome arrays is time consuming and not always reproducible. Two companies, Agilent and NimbleGen, have released dedicated CGH platforms that instead use oligonucleotid

Stephen Pincock reports:linkurl:Leszek Borysiewicz;http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/aboutimperial/rectorandprincipalofficers/professorsirleszekborysiewicz , deputy rector of Imperial College London, was officially named today (September 28) as the next chief executive of Britain's troubled Medical Research Council, replacing Colin Blakemore who linkurl:steps down;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/52932/ this month. Borysiewicz is best known for his work on oncogenic viruses, including hum

A linkurl:report;http://www.oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-01-06-00160.pdf released today by the Department of Health and Human Services reveals that the linkurl:FDA;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/36885/ is woefully lax in monitoring clinical trials research, according to the linkurl:New York Times.;http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/health/policy/28fda.html?ref=healthThe article reports that agency officials don't know how many clinical trials are going, and that just 200 inspecto

A University of Wisconsin researcher working with the Ebola virus operated his lab under lower biosafety standards than are required for working with the deadly pathogen, according to the Sunshine Project, an Austin-based biosafety watchdog group. A linkurl:press release;http://www.sunshine-project.org/publications/pr/pr190907.html posted on the group's Web site and an linkurl:AP report;http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local//index.php?ntid=246861 filed late last night state that the lab, headed

Recent biosafety breaches have occurred at three University of Texas schools, the Chronicle of Higher Education linkurl:reports;http://chronicle.com/news/article/3051/bio-mishaps-hit-2-more-university-labs-in-texas) . At UT Austin, officials failed to report 10 out of 13 incidents that took place over the last seven years. Incidents at the other two schools both took place in April: Workers at the UT Health Sciences Center in Houston were exposed to anthrax, and at UT San Antonio to tularemia. (