Yesterday the British High Court overturned a UK genome patent owned by biotech Human Genome Sciences. The patent covered the inflammation-linked protein neutrokine-alpha which is part of the tumor necrosis factor family of cytokines. The court overturned the patent, ruling that at the time its application was filed there was no practical application, the Financial Times linkurl:reported.;http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c2649894-5f54-11dd-91c0-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1 Human Genome Science

Researchers have for the first time been able to generate a pluripotent stem cell line from the cells of a patient with a genetic disease, according to a study appearing tomorrow (August 1) in Science. The scientists successfully reprogrammed skin cells from an 82-year-old patient with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) into healthy motor neurons. "It's a stunning accomplishment," Neil Cashman, professor of neurology at the University of British Columbia who was not involved in the study, told

Embryonic stem cells are a tricky business, as evidenced by Advanced Cell Technology's linkurl:recently announced;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54884/ financial woes. The technology is too nascent for guaranteed returns, but potential payoffs could be huge. Increasingly, biotechs are looking to navigate the uncertain funding waters by forging partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. Some biotechs working on embryonic stem cells have been able to get start up money from the state

New statistical analyses of the National Institutes of Health's peer review process suggest that the current system may be missing the mark on funding the right proposals. Reviews of as many as 25% of all proposals are biased, according to a study led by linkurl:Valen Johnson,;http://gsbs.uth.tmc.edu/tutorial/johnson_v.html from MD Anderson Cancer Center to be published tomorrow (July 29) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Johnson collected about 14,000 reviewers' scoring data

The Duke University Medical Center has agreed to conduct an inquiry into allegations of misconduct against Duke protein biochemist linkurl:Homme Hellinga,;http://www.biochem.duke.edu/faculty/homme-hellinga according to a linkurl:letter;http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7203/full/454397b.html Hellinga wrote to Nature, which was published in the journal this week. Hellinga retracted two papers earlier this year that claimed to have redesigned ribose-binding protein (RBP) to catalyze trio

Aging may not be caused by the accumulation of cellular damage, as a linkurl:prominent theory;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54281/ suggests. Instead, the process may result from the deterioration of crucial developmental pathways, according to a study published tomorrow in Cell. "What we found is, I think, a different way to think about aging," linkurl:Stuart Kim;http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~kimlab/ of Stanford University, main author of the study, told The Scientist. Kim and his coll

The announcement last week of Advanced Cell Technology's imminent closure is evidence that embryonic stem cell technology may be linkurl:too nascent;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54544/ for fruitful biotech innovation, according to some industry analysts. For the past 10 years Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) has been a spotlight company for linkurl:endeavors;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/24363/ in embryonic stem cell research and cloning. But in a Securities and Exchange

Pharmaceutical company Roche seems to be changing up its research focus. The company is pulling the plug on its HIV research program, and today offered more than $40 billion to buy up the 44% of biotech Genentech that it does not already own. A Roche spokesperson told linkurl:Chemical & Engineering News;http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/86/i29/8629notw7.html that there are no drugs in the company's HIV drug pipeline that warrant further development. They had been developing antiretrovirals, all of w

As more journal articles go online, only more recent articles tend to be cited, according to a linkurl:study published today;http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/321/5887/395 in Science. In addition, only a small group of journals and articles are being cited, the study found. linkurl:James Evans,;http://sociology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/evans.shtml a sociologist at the University of Chicago, surveyed a database of 34 million articles, their citations over the past 50 years, and t

A surprising linkurl:new open access policy;http://www.apa.org/journals/authors/pubmed-deposit.html issued this week by the American Psychological Association (APA) is being reconsidered and will not be implemented at this time, according to a statement by the publisher. In contrast to Nature Publishing Group's announcement last week that it was taking a step toward aiding open access, the APA announced this week that it will charge authors' institutions a $2500 fee for accepted manuscripts to

Can a New Jersey initiative that aims to tap Wall Street money reinvigorate the state's once-ambitious plans for stem cell research? The stem cell research community once had high hopes that New Jersey would become the next California or New York. But in November of last year, the state linkurl:voted against;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53843/ a linkurl:referendum;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53836/ that would have boosted stem cell research funding by $450 million. N

Nature Publishing Group will begin depositing manuscripts into PubMed Central six months after publication on behalf of authors, starting later this summer, according to a release. But some open access publishing advocates say this is just a way for the publisher to maintain an embargo period, rather than making content immediately available. Earlier this year the National Institutes of Health linkurl:issued a mandate;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54028/ that required all biomedical