A space biotech company hopes its __Salmonella__ vaccine project will pave the way for other lucrative space biotech projects. The company, SPACEHAB, launched its proof-of-concept experiment as part of the space shuttle Discovery's payload on Saturday (May 31). In linkurl:April,;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54609/ I reported that SPACEHAB's CEO Tom Pickens talked up the potential for space biotech at a Congressional hearing on the future of the linkurl:International Space Station.

Infographic: Three Obesity Drugs By Edyta Zielinska var FO = { movie:"http://images.the-scientist.com/content/images/articles/54718/drugs.swf", width:"520", height:"400", majorversion:"8", build:"0", xi:"false"}; UFO.create(FO, "ufoDemo"); Please download the Adobe Flash Player to view this content: Related Articles Diverting a Diet Drug The Good FatThe Future of the FDAThe Trouble with Tech Transfer var FO = { mov

Scientists have long known of the tumor suppressors and oncogenes that kick-start cancer. Now researchers report that downstream genes affected by such mutations act synergistically to further promote cancer progression, according to a study published online in linkurl:Nature;http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html on Sunday (May 25). "When cells convert from normal to cancer," said Hartmut Land from the University of Rochester Medical Center, an author of the study, "you have a forest of [gen

President Bush signed into law the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) yesterday (May 21). GINA, which passed the House and Senate linkurl:last month,;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54567/ prevents insurers and employers from using genetic test results to discriminate against employees.

New findings help resolve a long-standing debate in immunology over what type of cells are behind the progression of type-1 diabetes: attacker or protector cells. Scientists found that linkurl:autoimmune;http://www.the-scientist.com/supplement/2007-5-1/ destruction is likely due to a defect in levels of a cytokine within insulin-producing islets that reduce the numbers of protector cells. The research was published in today's online issue of linkurl:__Immunity.__;http://www.immunity.com/content

The discoverer of telomerase, Elizabeth Blackburn, and Joan Steitz, known for identifying small ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs) and elucidating their role in DNA transcription, were awarded the $500,000 Albany Medical Center Prize today (May 2). They are the first women to receive the prize, which has been awarded since the year 2000. Blackburn, at the University of California, San Francisco, was recognized for her work on telomeres with the 2006 linkurl:Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research;http

Can the biotech and pharma make money in space? That was the question Congress posed at a hearing on the International Space Station's linkurl:future,;http://science.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=2167 held on Thursday (April 24). "I think I can," Tom Pickens, CEO of a spaceflight services company-turned biotech called SPACEHAB, told Congress. SPACEHAB has been sending up science payloads for the past 23 years. The company has mostly worked with government scientists, but when Pickens j

SARS, avian flu, and other lung diseases destroy the lungs via a common mechanism, researcher report in __Cell__ today. That mechanism, based on innate immunity, could provide new targets for treating severe lung damage, the linkurl:researchers say.;http://www.cell.com/content/article/abstract?uid=PIIS0092867408003401 Joseph Penninger, from the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and colleagues set up an intensive care unit for mice in his lab in order t

Last August, I reported on Mohammad Sajid, a UK citizen who was barred from returning to the US pending several months of linkurl:background checks;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/53418/ - twice. On Monday I got an e-mail from Sajid saying he is leaving his lab in the US, where he works on anti-malarial drugs, to take a job at Leiden University in the Netherlands. "It's been a really tough choice," Sajid said. "The main reason is the travel. It's as simple as that." When I last spo

When I profiled Millennium Pharmaceuticals' chief scientific officer, Joe Bolen, in last month's issue of __The Scientist,__ he described some amusing airport foibles that had taken place during a linkurl:recent trip to Japan.;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54340/ Now the whole company is going to Japan - at least on paper. Today, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, one of the first genomics companies in the US, was linkurl:acquired;http://investor.millennium.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=80159&p=ir

The supply of scientists and engineers continues to grow in the US, and that unemployment rate, at 2.5 percent, is the lowest it's been since the early 1990s, the National Science Foundation linkurl:reported;http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111369&govDel=USNSF_51 last week. There's no need to worry about the US's ability to fill science jobs, the agency said in a press release which described a recent analysis of its 2006 science and engineering surveys. Not everyone ag

A Taconic animal care technician inspects a genetically engineered mouse model in a gnotobiotic isolator at the Germantown, NY facility. Credit: Courtesy of Taconic" />A Taconic animal care technician inspects a genetically engineered mouse model in a gnotobiotic isolator at the Germantown, NY facility. Credit: Courtesy of Taconic In the world of lab-mouse breeders, only a few players are in the big leagues. In re