Thomas Weller, who shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in Medicine for propagating polio virus in culture, passed away on Saturday, August 23rd. He was 93. "Thomas Weller was one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century," said Dyann Wirth in linkurl:statement;http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2008-releases/thomas-weller-nobel-laureate-professor-emeritus-dies.html released by the Harvard School of Public Health, where she is chair of the department of immunology and infectious dis

Step aside sound barrier: Chemical engineers at Johns Hopkins University have broken the mucus barrier, a long-standing adversary to drug delivery in diseases such as cystic fibrosis, lung cancer, and cervical cancer. "We get asked all the time, 'Why on Earth do you want to study mucus?'" said Samuel Lai, a postdoc at Hopkins who presented the work yesterday (August 20) at the annual American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia. Lai has an easy answer to that question: Mucus has evolved

The nose may know more than we think: New research suggests a poorly-understood structure in the tip of the nose may regulate a vital mammalian alarm system. According to a paper published in linkurl:Science;http://www.sciencemag.org/ tomorrow (August 22), mice detect alarm pheromones -- signals evoking behavioral reactions such as fear and anxiety -- through a bundle of cells on the roof of the nasal cavity. This cell structure, first described by Hans Grueneberg in 1973 and called the Gruene

In an industry known for backing Republicans, Sen. Barack Obama has emerged as a surprising pharma favorite in the US presidential election. In April, Obama won a mock election at the annual DTC national meeting, a drug advertising conference, with a 53% to 46% victory over Sen. John McCain. Drug companies have also put the money where their mouth is: Pharma has donated three times more to the Obama campaign than to McCain's. According to a linkurl:Bloomberg News report;http://www.bloomber

A previously unknown form of photosynthesis discovered in purple bacteria scooped from a Californian hot spring may be an ancient process that arose before the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis, according to a paper published on Friday (August 15) in linkurl:Science.;http://www.sciencemag.org/ The bacteria use arsenic instead of water for photosynthesis. "It's a fundamental, exciting observation," said linkurl:Tim McDermott,;http://tbi.montana.edu/facultystaff/mcdermott.html a professor of

With the help of a new mouse model for HIV infection, scientists have shown that gene silencing with RNA interference (RNAi) may be effective in preventing viral entry and replication in T-cells, according to a study published online today (August 7th) in linkurl:Cell.;http://www.cell.com/ Past studies have used RNAi to suppress HIV infection in cultured cells, but researchers did not have a good animal model simulating chronic HIV-infection in which to test the approach. Another challenge has

A graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University studying the psychology of decision-making falsified data in four studies funded by National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Mental Health grants, according to a notice published by the linkurl:Office of Research Integrity;http://ori.dhhs.gov/ (ORI), the misconduct watchdog of the Public Health Service, on July 23. Roxana Gonzalez, at the time an advanced doctoral student in the linkurl:Department of Social and Decision Sciences an

The unassuming cells of a sea sponge may hold a clue to the origin of the nervous system, according to a paper published next Tuesday, August 5th, in linkurl:Current Biology.;http://www.current-biology.com/ The detection of proneural pathways in the ancient organism suggests that genes for neurogenesis evolved earlier than previously believed. Researchers have widely believed that nerve cells evolved after the divergence of sponges, which lack organs and nervous systems, from the rest of the a

Engineers at the California Institute of Technology have designed a dime-sized lensless microscope able to capture high-resolution images of cells and pathogens. The low-cost, portable technology could be an ideal tool for use in developing countries, according to the linkurl:paper,;http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0804612105 published online today (July 28) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Despite the trend towards miniaturization evident in the popularity of l

After making a $43.7 billion offer linkurl:yesterday;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54841/ (July 21) to buy the 44% of Genentech stock it didn't already own, the Swiss pharmaceutical company announced another biotech purchase today. Roche will acquire linkurl:Mirus Bio Corporation;http://www.mirusbio.com/ for $125 million. Roche's half-year financial linkurl:results,;http://www.roche.com/home/figures/fig_halfyearrep_2008.htm released on Monday but eclipsed by the Genentech offer,

A team of researchers has completed human tests of the first plant-produced vaccine for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The successful linkurl:results;http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0803636105 of a phase I clinical trial suggest that plants could provide a safe, inexpensive reservoir to "grow" vaccines for the common human cancer, according to a study published tomorrow (July 22) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The trial "builds upon all the advances in immunology t

An ancient RNA molecule is the answer to a bacterial mystery, according to a study published in linkurl:Science;http://www.sciencemag.org/ tomorrow (July 18). Researchers have identified the binding molecule of a key messenger in bacteria, but to their surprise, the molecule was not a protein -- traditionally thought of as regulators of cellular processes -- but a unique RNA trigger. In the last six years, RNA triggers, called linkurl:riboswitches,;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/1