By Katherine Bagley Home-Base Biotech African and international efforts are boosting the continent’s biotech industry—for now. Employees of Aspen Pharmaceutical Research Laboratories, which produce generic drugs including AIDS medicines, sort tablets in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. © AP Photo / John MCconnico As H1N1 spread from continent to continent in 2009, there was growing concern over the severity of swine

From budgets padded with stimulus funding to advancements in stem cell legislation, 2009 has been an all around big year for research. But in The Scientist's mind, a few individuals have stuck out in terms of their contributions, support, and leadership in the life sciences. Here are our picks for the top five most influential people of the year, presented in alphabetical order: Francis Collins Unless you have been living under a rock this year, you know that linkurl:Collins;http://www.nih.

Despite linkurl:promising early trial results,;http://www.ipmglobal.org/news_room/english/press_releases/2009/20090209_pro2000_buffergel_study.htm another microbicide for the prevention of HIV transmission was deemed ineffective, scientists at the UK Medical Research Council's Microbicides Development Programme (MDP) linkurl:announced;http://www.mdp.mrc.ac.uk/archive.html Monday (December 14). The failure of the PRO 2000 gel is part of a decade-long history of unsuccessful attempts to develop va

In the months leading up to Copenhagen, developing world leaders met multiple times to strategize and solidify their position on climate change. Because of their poverty levels, populations in developing regions are generally seen as the most vulnerable to changes in climate and subsequent extreme weather, such as droughts, flood, heat waves and rising sea levels. Calestous Juma Image: Harvard University, Belfer Center But since arriving at the conference, these developing world negotiators hav

Scientists have discovered a new family of giant viruses -- created within amoebae, they linkurl:report;http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0911354106 in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Structural analysis of giant virus Image: Xiao C, Kuznetsov YG, Sun S, Hafenstein SL, Kostyuchenko VA, et al. (2009) The new virus type is uniquely comprised of genes from a variety of origins, including bacteria, eukaryotes and viruses. Amoebae are not an uncomm

By Katherine Bagley Addressing Cultural Caveats Tips for mentoring underrepresented groups © Matt Foster As an undergraduate student at the University of New Mexico, Esa La Beau was on her way to a promising research career. She joined a lab, presented her work at three national conferences, and contributed a significant amount of data to the project’s findings. But when it came time to publish, there was an issue over the

An immunologist duplicated images and falsified data in a study on regulating factors of autoimmune disease published in Nature Medicine in 2006, the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) reported. Image: FlickrCreativeCommons/Julo According to ORI's linkurl:statement,;http://ori.dhhs.gov/misconduct/cases/Deng_Zhong_Bin.shtml released this fall, Zhong-Bin Deng, then a postdoc at the linkurl:Medical College of Georgia,;http://www.mcg.edu/ manipulated data to show that the autoimmune regulator (AIRE

Scientists have found a new way to manipulate the direction of snail shell coiling, altering the animal's left-right asymmetry. The research, published linkurl:online;http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html today (November 25) in Nature, may offer clues as to how "handedness" develops in invertebrates, which could improve scientists' understanding of the mechanics that drive cell regeneration and embryonic development. 'Left-handed' and 'right-handed' shells of L. stagnali

At the World Summit on Food Security in Rome last week, hosted by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, global leaders, not surprisingly, called for additional aid to improve farming systems and help in mitigating the effects of climate change to solve the world's food crisis. But among all the speeches and discussions, one issue was noticeably absent from the meeting's agenda: genetically modified crops. Image: Flickr/expatwelsh "The FAO appeared eager to avoid any controversy at last we

The lifeblood of theatre pulses with love, hardship, and self-discovery. But with science... not so much. Laboratory-borne concepts, scientific jargon, and nitty-gritty details can sometimes seem impossible to translate into art, especially on the stage. Image: Pearson Scott Foresman Wikimedia Commons But boom, a one-act piece from playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb now in its second season of performances, does just that. boom addresses ecological succession and evolutionary biology while the pla

National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins today (November 17) announced a successor to fill his vacant post as head of NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). linkurl:Eric Green,;http://www.genome.gov/10000452 who has served as NHGRI's scientific director since 2002, will take over the top spot. Eric Green Image: NIH It's the first time in NIH's history that an institute's director has appointed his own successor. "Green is the perfect choice to be NHGRI director,"

China took on a new role in African science last weekend (November 8), announcing plans to promote research in agriculture, medicine, and clean energy as part of its $10 billion investment in the region. Image: US AID At the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Egypt, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told attendees that the country would create a science and technology partnership with Africa, which would entail carrying out 100 joint research projects and training 100 African postdocs in China, link