US auditors criticize NIH for poor deal over Taxol royalties, while patent row continues in Canada

Office of Research Integrity raises available funds from $200,000 to $750,000

Agency leans on researchers to be generous with laboratory mouse strains

Diana Lynn Boyle Win or lose, life scientists can profit from entering business plan competitions, according to participants in the events that are spring rites on many campuses. Some competitors find money to get businesses off the ground, others find investors for the future, some find jobs, and still others find that they are not cut out to be entrepreneurs. Each year at least 25 contests in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom offer an education in commercial survival that no

Future of university's aggressive research expansion in question after chief executive's sudden departure

Scientists starting out at the US patent office have a bright future, just not the same one it used to be

Transgenic critters not intended for food are still "drugs," subject to US FDA regulation

Can vacant research facilities at bargain prices solve universities' space crunch?

Anne MacNamara The sight of Texas researcher Thomas Butler led away in handcuffs, an image broadcast across America earlier this year, shows that US regulators are serious about stricter laboratory security.1 Colleagues describe Butler, chief of the infectious disease division in the Texas Tech University Department of Internal Medicine, as a talented scientist long devoted to defeating plague. But the September 2001 terrorist attacks transformed plague from a scourge of the Third World into

Photodisc Both sides claim partial victory in the latest phase of a long-running patent fight over a widely used DNA-replicating enzyme. The case presents fascinating legal issues, but the ultimate question is, what does it have to do with the price of Thermus aquaticus DNA polymerase, known as Taq?1 On March 31, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Court overturned a lower court ruling that effectively invalidated Roche's patent on Taq for PCR.2 By a 2-to-1 vote, the appellate co

B for disease cures

U.S. and Canadian agencies say patents will preserve access