A company that serves as an independent review board for clinical trials and was caught approving a fake medical device study will close, the Wall Street Journal linkurl:reports.;http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124042341694744375.html The company, Colorado-based linkurl:Coast IRB,;http://www.coastirb.com/ was exposed in a government sting operation last month. Based on the undercover investigation's findings, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent Coast a formal reprimand on April 14 f

Stem cell lines eligible for US federal research dollars must be derived from embryos created for reproductive purposes that are no longer needed for those purposes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced this afternoon (April 17). The agency will not fund research on cell lines derived from embryos created via in vitro fertilization for research rather than reproductive purposes, nor those created using somatic cell nuclear transfer or parthenogenesis. "This represents unequivocall

Researchers have identified well-delineated brain networks that are linked to five distinct neurodegenerative diseases, according to a paper published in Neuron today (April 15). Image: flicker/linkurl:twitchcraft;http://www.flickr.com/photos/twitchcraft "I think our data gives researchers a road map -- hopefully a treasure map -- saying this is where we should be looking" when studying both neurodegenerative diseases and cognition in non-diseased brains, said linkurl:William Seeley,;http://w

A company that serves as an independent review board for clinical trials and was the center of a recent Congressional "sting operation" was linkurl:reprimanded;http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2009/NEW01996.html today (April 14) by the US Food and Drug Association (FDA) for violating rules protecting research subjects. The company has agreed to freeze some of its key operations. Specifically, under pressure from the FDA, the company, Coast IRB, voluntarily agreed not to approve any new stu

Standardizing the laboratory environment may be doing science more harm than good: Removing all variability from animal experiments makes them less reproducible, rather than more, according to a study published online today in Nature Methods. Image:Wikipedia The study "is certainly a clear demonstration of why standardization can indeed decrease reproducibility, and I hope that from now on this idea will appear less counterintuitive in the field," linkurl:Neri Kafkafi;http://www.geocities.com/n

The system for protecting the safety of people who participate in clinical trials is in shambles and needs a major overhaul, according to the conclusions of a two-year undercover US government investigation. The undercover investigation, which caught a commercial institutional review board approving a fake study made up by investigators at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), is "absolutely" a positive step, said Adil Shamoo, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Univ

A gene strongly associated with schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric disorders regulates the birth of new neurons in the adult brain, according to new research. linkurl:The study,;http://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(09)00021-X published in Cell this week, supports a controversial theory linking diseases such as schizophrenia and depression to neurogenesis and provides new targets for the treatment of psychiatric conditions. Image: flicker/linkurl:Staurland;http://www.flickr.com/photos/

In yet another merger between two major pharmaceutical companies, Merck will acquire Schering-Plough for $41.1 billion, the two companies linkurl:announced;http://www.merck.com/newsroom/press_releases/corporate/2009_0309.html this morning (March 9). The deal is projected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year. The newly formed company will keep Merck's name and its headquarters in Whitehouse Station, NJ, and Merck's CEO, Richard C. Clarke, will remain head of the combined entity.

A new study has revived hopes for an effective vaginal microbicide in preventing the transmission of HIV. A compound widely used in cosmetics and foods can block transmission of the virus by interfering with the immunological steps to infection, linkurl:researchers report;http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature07831.html in Nature this week. Representation of virus expansionafter SIV exposure. Greencrosses: clusters of infected cells. Image: A. HaaseThe compound's microbi

Credit: © Matt Kalinowski Photography" /> Credit: © Matt Kalinowski Photography At the end of his junior year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998, Ed Boyden was hanging out with friends in the basement of the famed Media Lab, trying to figure out what to do for the summer. "We saw this competition online and thought, hey, that's cool," recalls Boyden of the first International Underwater

After his doctorate at University College London, Bjarke Abrahamsen packed his bags and returned home to Denmark in 2008 for a postdoc at the University of Copenhagen, which ranked second for international locations in our 7th Annual Best places to Work for Postdocs survey. One of the things that drew him back, he says, was a more fluid relationship between the university and industry than he

The Biotech Industry Organization (BIO) this morning released a set of statistics that give a rather dire snapshot of the industry's health. Here are some of the highlights -- or, should I say, lowlights -- straight from their roundup: Image: linkurl:flicker:Kaibara87;http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaibara/ - 120 companies (30%) are now trading with less than 6 months of cash on hand. This represents a jump of 90% over the number of companies with less than 6 months cash on hand in 2007. (source