The University College of London will be the likely host to a new $261 million neuroscience institute, according to a statement sent to The Scientist from the Wellcome Trust, a co-developer of the new center. Beating out Oxford and Cambridge Universities, UCL will host the new center devoted to researching neural circuits and behavior, and could be completed as soon as 2011, Nature linkurl:reported;http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080819/full/454922b.html?s=news_rss yesterday. Work at the instit

Will findings by Worcester, MA-based Advanced Cell Technologies (ACT) on large-scale blood production from stem cells help the company pull in some much-needed capital? By now you've likely seen reports on a linkurl:paper;http://bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.org/cgi/content/abstract/blood-2008-05-157198v1 appearing today in Blood in which researchers differentiated human embryonic stem cells into oxygen-carrying blood cells, in large quantity. The results suggest it may be possible to create

A science publisher that holds copyright supreme has a double standard, a science blogger is arguing. This week, science blogger Mike Dunford of linkurl:The Questionable Authority;http://scienceblogs.com/authority/ posted a linkurl:blog;http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2008/08/reed_elsevier_caught_copying_m.php saying that Reed Elsevier had copied some of the content from his blog without permission. While checking out links to his blog, Dunford came across a page run by LexisNexis (a Reed El

Researchers have introduced the world to Gordon, the first robot that operates on real brain tissue, according to a linkurl:news release;http://www.reading.ac.uk/about/newsandevents/releases/PR16530.asp from University of Reading in the UK yesterday (August 13). The robot moves only under direction from his brain, which is a collection of 50,000-100,000 rat neurons. The researchers separated the neurons from rat fetuses, cultured them, and then spread them on a nutrient-rich array panel with 6

Roche won't be acquiring Genentech in the near future. Roche's bid to purchase the remaining public shares of the biotech company undermines the value of the company, Genentech's board of directors linkurl:announced today;http://www.gene.com/gene/news/press-releases/display.do?method=detail&id=11427 (August 13). Last month, Roche linkurl:put in a bid;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54841/ to buy up the remaining 44% of Genentech's shares it does not already own for $89 a share. A spe

Five British hospitals and medical research centers are joining forces to link basic research and healthcare more closely, the University College London (UCL) announced last week. The Guardian linkurl:reported;http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/07/health.highereducation?gusrc=rss&feed=politics last Thursday that the four centers "disclosed plans for a 2 billion [pound] business partnership to create the largest biomedical research organization in Europe," suggesting that new hefty fundi

Researchers have created 20 disease-specific pluripotent cell lines by reprogramming skin and bone marrow cells from patients with genetic disorders, they report in a paper to be published tomorrow in Cell. "These cells will be an incredible resource for those interested in studying the root causes of these diseases," wrote linkurl:Kevin Eggan,;http://golgi.harvard.edu/Faculty/Eggan.html Harvard researcher who was not involved in the study, in an Email to The Scientist. The researchers, led by

Researchers have discovered the first virus to infect another virus, according to a study appearing tomorrow in Nature. The new virus was found living inside a new strain of the viral giant, mimivirus. "This is one parasite living on another parasite, which is really fascinating," linkurl:Michael Rossman,;http://bilbo.bio.purdue.edu/~viruswww/Rossmann_home/index.shtml microbiologist at Purdue University, who was not involved in the study, told The Scientist. linkurl:Didier Raoult;http://www.a

The British High Court's rejection linkurl:last week;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54909/ of a biotech company's patent on the genetic sequence coding for a therapeutically important protein may be a warning for other biotechs who hold patents on portions of the human genome. The court ruled last week that a patent held by Human Genome Sciences since the mid 1990s was invalid because at the time the company applied for the patent they hadn't demonstrated a practical use. The patent

Images behind the search for ligands Images behind the search for ligands var so = new SWFObject("http://images.the-scientist.com/content/images/slideshows/baiting_ebola/slideshow.swf", "gallery", "500", "385", "6", "#ffffff"); so.addVariable("file", "http://images.the-scientist.com/content/images/articles/54896/ligand.xml"); so.write("flashcontent");

Credit: © Max Dolberg" /> Credit: © Max Dolberg Pieter Dorrestein went to Northern Arizona University primarily for the rocks. The rocky landscape made it the obvious choice for an aspiring geologist, and the rock climbing was just as appealing. In 1997, as a sophomore, Dorrestein heard that chemist John MacDonald was looking for a climbing partner. Once they'd paired up, the two hit it off and Dorrestein became fascinated with MacDonald's work in molecula

Hooked on a Hunt Arguably the biggest fishing expedition in the history of cell biology is drawing to a close. What have we caught? By Andrea Gawrylewski Related Articles 1 The receptor showed a remarkable homology to the seven-transmembrane receptor rhodopsin, involved in nighttime light perception, and the only receptor known at the time to act through a G protein. The new beta 2AR genomic sequence suggested that a new family of receptors might ex