A new patent on disease treatments that operate through a key biological trigger, the NF-kB messenger protein, has lawyers, university researchers, and technology transfer officers bracing for an intellectual property crackdown that they fear could reach into academia. Issued June 25, 2002, to a dozen researchers including David Baltimore, who identified the NF-kB signaling pathway, the patent was granted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Rese

Image: Anne MacNamara Sophisticated European and UK investors seek potentially profitable deals with US biotechnology startups, which opens opportunities for American scientists at a time of caution in US capital markets. Between January 2001 and the end of March 2002, venture capitalists (VCs) based outside the United States raised 36 new funds to invest wholly or significantly in the life sciences. In the aggregate, those new funds represent $12 billion (US) for the life sciences and other t

Before Sept. 11, academic research managers could easily run labs without running afoul of export controls. Talking to foreign-born students, chatting with overseas colleagues, and publishing the results of research presented few regulatory obstacles. But managers now may be required to reassess their research styles when it comes to such diurnal tasks. Regulations under consideration in Washington, DC, could narrow exemptions that allow free international information exchanges, experts on US s

Science magazine's controversial decision to publish the Syngenta draft rice genome sequence without requiring the company to deposit its data in a public database is getting less than rave reviews from scientists who need to use the genome map in their work. Over the objections of leading scientists who warn that scientific publishing principles have been sacrificed to commercial gain, Science allowed the agrochemical giant based in Basel, Switzerland, to maintain control of its data when it un

Matthew S. Meselson waited quietly in the car while female associates handled the delicate work of questioning families of people who had died of anthrax. The scientist had charmed, wrangled, and nagged politicians on two continents from 1979 to 1992 for permission to probe a strange outbreak of the disease in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk 1979. But just days before Meselson boarded a plane for Moscow to conduct the interviews, former President Boris Yeltsin, a Sverdlovsk official during the out

To a life scientist who has emerged from a struggle to master a recalcitrant compound, an elusive ion flux, or an important gene sequence, launching a company might seem not just simple, but also natural. Think up a catchy name, take the CEO title, and shepherd a discovery from the laboratory to the market where profits lie. After all, don't thousands of folks—even those who think mass spectrometry may be a technical point in football—run companies and make millions from other people

A Dec. 10 ruling from the US Supreme Court that validates patents on genetically engineered plants re-ignited the debate over the politics of property rights in the life sciences. In a case involving the leading seed-corn producer, Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. of Des Moines, Iowa, the Court endorsed the US Patent and Trademark Office's 1985 decision to issue broad utility patents on plants.1 The patent office based its decision on earlier rulings that "anything under the sun made by man" i

Herman Sintim, a graduate student at Oxford University in England, tried his hand at a simple molecular-synthesis project. When he solved it, he not only won $2,000 (US), but also became one of the first scientists to participate in a unique incentive program sponsored by an offshoot of Eli Lilly and Co. This past summer, the pharmaceutical giant launched InnoCentive.com, a Web site where scientists from Big Pharma and start-up biotechs post problems for outside researchers to solve. Companies s

A year in management overwhelmed microbiologist Dennis J. Henner, and he retreated to the bench. The time was the mid-1980s. The company: Genentech Inc. in South San Francisco, a biotechnology pioneer that had vowed to make recombinant DNA technology a commercial success. The young bench scientist scaled the career ladder by steering a team of company scientists. But after only a year as a department manager, he decided he had his fill of leadership. "One, I wasn't ready. I was more focused on

Researchers in a hurry to get their ideas off the drawing board and into the new defense race may take advantage of a special provision in U.S. patent law that allows rush treatment for anti-terrorism inventions. Scientists working in the areas of AIDS and cancer may already know about the rush rule; it has long allowed inventions in those areas to jump to the front of the line of applications awaiting review from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. After the crash of T.W.A. Flight 800 in 19

The rigors of proper intellectual property protections go against the grain of many researchers, but lawyers who clash over ownership of ideas urge scientists to learn some basic legal principles. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies forage university labs for new discoveries in medicines and therapies, for which they will make available big research bucks. But if a scientist's ideas can't be patented, the corporate coffers close. Courtesy of UCLA, School of MedicineStanley G. Korenman "Unive

Laboratory managers who ban calls from executive search firms make it easier for recruiters to lure top talent, according to Al DiPalo vice president of Searchforce Inc., a Clearwater, Fla.-based executive recruiting firm that specializes in life scientists. "I love companies that tell people if they're talking to a recruiter, they'll lose their jobs on the spot," he exclaims. "All I have to say is, 'Do you really want to work for a company that is so afraid of you looking for a better opportuni