Have you ever been so fed-up with colleagues at work that you considered poisoning them? Hopefully not, but at least one lab researcher can claim to have been stressed to the point of insanity. A postdoc in the urology department at the University of California, San Francisco, was arrested last week and charged this week for attempted murder, after he slipped a chemical buffering agent designed to control acid levels in lab solutions into a colleague's drink. The postdoc, Benchun Liu, admitted

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) deputy director for extramural research stepped down last month to take on a new post. Norka Ruiz Bravo, who had been in her position at the NIH for five years, vacated the role at the end of October and is now a special advisor to the NIH director (another position that linkurl:recently changed).;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55050/ For the meantime she will be replaced by Salley Rockey, who has been in the Office of Extramural Research f

US President-elect Barack Obama is already considering a lift on the current restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, according to a member of Obama's transition team. Yesterday, John Podesta, one of the senior members of Obama's transition team and the previous chief of staff for Bill Clinton, told Fox News Sunday that the transition team is already considering lifting current linkurl:limits on stem cell research,;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/53224/ and how Obama can lift

Some proteins may morph from one structure to another - in this case, a cube-like structure can switch to a tetrahedal shape. Credit: SOURCE: Eileen Jaffe / Fox Chase Cancer Center" />Some proteins may morph from one structure to another - in this case, a cube-like structure can switch to a tetrahedal shape. Credit: SOURCE: Eileen Jaffe / Fox Chase Cancer Center For years, Fox Chase Cancer Center researcher Eileen Jaffe's findings on the behavior of

Immune Control CEO Stephen Roth is banking on a controversial hypothesis and is fashioning ways to block a neurotransmitter to fight autoimmune disease.

Secrets from science librarians that can save you hours of work.

Pharma giant Wyeth announced plans yesterday to eliminate research in half of its disease research areas. The company has not yet said what, if any, jobs will be cut in the process. A handful of other linkurl:pharmaceutical companies;http://www.the-scientist.com/2007/2/1/42/1/ have recently narrowed their research focus in response to linkurl:sluggish sales and the growing cost;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54972/ of drug development. Wyeth in particular has suffered from the lo

The Web site of the student-run Harvard Health Policy Review is up and running after about a week of mysterious down time, and the journal's editor has apologized for running a controversial article without proper bias screening. linkurl:Rumors;http://www.gooznews.com/archives/001223.html circulated last week when the Review Web site was down that Harvard authorities had censored the publication of the article, which addressed a long-standing debate about the total cost for developing a drug, f

Local lawmakers in Bremen, Germany, are refusing to renew a prominent neuroscientist's license to conduct research on primates, despite the fact that his research was approved by a national regulatory body. The University of Bremen researcher, linkurl:Andreas Kreiter,;http://www.neuro.uni-bremen.de/~brain/staff/eak.htm works with 24 macaques to measure neuronal firing as part of his studies into cognition in the mammalian brain. During local elections last year, the regional parliament, in resp

Merck plans to eliminate 7,200 jobs by the end of 2011, according to their 2008 third quarter linkurl:financial report,;http://www.merck.com/newsroom/press_releases/financial/2008_1022.html released today. The cuts are part of ongoing restructuring efforts and come after a 28% profit plunge in the third quarter. The restructuring efforts began in 2005, and at the time the linkurl:pharmaceutical company;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/23391/ eliminated more than 10,000 jobs. The c

The first clinical trial treatment based on embryonic stem cells may soon get the go ahead. In May, the Food and Drug Administration linkurl:placed a hold;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54647/ on a clinical trial application submitted by Geron Corporation, a California-based biotech. The company submitted a 22,500-page Investigational New Drug application to the FDA for an embryonic stem cell-derived compound -- called GRNOPC1 -- to treat spinal cord injury. Geron president and CEO

A fungus that has eradicated more than 100 frog species across the globe has spread to an ecosystem in Panama that researchers hoped might hold out from infection a while longer. "The findings are a concern because it means the fungus will continue to move through eastern Panama, and we only have a [limited time] to do what we can to save the frogs, collect data, watch," linkurl:Karen Lips,;http://www.science.siu.edu/zoology/lips/ herpetologist at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, who