The $4.18 billion National Cancer Institute budget request submitted by the Bush administration to Congress in April for fiscal year 2002 amounts to an 11.7 percent boost of $439 million over the current year's appropriation. The package, however, falls $850 million short of the amount NCI sought in its own "bypass budget" proposal. NCI requested $5.03 billion, a whopping 34 percent boost of $1.27 billion. The bypass budget is so-called because, under the National Cancer Act of 1971, NCI's bud

The pharmaceutical industry is cautiously optimistic that the new Bush administration and Congress will continue efforts to streamline the drug discovery and approval process. But the federal regulatory and licensing landscape will also be shaped this year by patent reform and gene therapy issues. In addition, two major pieces of legislation--one affecting drug approval times and the other market exclusivity--will either be phased out or reauthorized in the coming 18 months. "We really c

How will startups get needed capital if the licenses they grant can be voided during court proceedings? WASHINGTON—Steven Mendell says he isn’t worried about the future of his company, Xoma Corp. The seven-year-old Berkeley, California, biotechnology startup firmed up its funding by going public in 1986 and has an agreement with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. to help it develop a line of monoclonal antibody-based products to treat septic shock infections. But Mendell, Xoma&

WASHINGTON-Congress has several options to strengthen the effectiveness of the White House science adviser and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). But a hearing last month, more tame than some had expected, made clear that no changes are contemplated before the next president takes office. Part of the perception of weakness was attributed to the relatively low profile of the current adviser, William R. Graham; OSTP's modest budget of less than $2 million, and its small staff o

Volume 2, #3The Scientist February 08, 1988 Law Sets Nonmilitary Data Rules AUTHOR:TED AGRES Date: FEBRUARY 08, 1988 Washington - A new law gives a civilian agency the authority to set standards on access to unclassified data, including scientific and technical information. The law ends a long debate over how to protect certain types of computerized data and wrests control of such decisions from the military. "We're very pleased," said Kenneth B. Allen, senior vice president

WASHINGTON - Terry B. Kinney Jr., administrator of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), hopes that his retirement this spring will be accompanied by an end to the criticism that the agency has lagged behind other federal science agencies in its use of peer review for awarding grants. The issue, which has dogged the U.S. Department of Agriculture's food and agricultural research programs for years, came into sharp focus last year in a National Research Council report that criticized several

Agres is assitant managing editor of The Washington Times

WASHINGTON—A quiet battle is being waged here to win control over certain types of unclassified information, including scientific data, despite the Reagan administration’s decision earlier this year not to broaden such control. The decision last March not to create a new category of “sensitive hut unclassified” information has not stopped the Pentagon’s National Security Agency from continuing to set policies for defining and protecting classified information. No

WASHINGTON—Two recent public opinion surveys indicate that a substantial majority of adult Americans do not know what genetic engineering is and are ignorant of the ethical and scientific issues surrounding it. Nearly two in five people (39 percent) had not heard of genetic engineering, according to a survey conducted last spring for Novo Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company. The poll also found that nearly two-thirds of the remaining group—representing a total of 80 percent o

WASHINGTON—Scientists and staff at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) do not understand the proper role of peer review and do notagree on its purpose, its use and the effect it has on scientific research projects, a new National Academy of Sciences report has found. The ARS, the principal in-house research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, employs more than 8,500 scientists, engineers and technicians at 127 locations. It distributes its $500 million annual budget̵

WASHINGTON—The Reagan administration has barred the Soviet Union from participating in an international scientific program to which the Soviets had already accepted an invitation. The decision was made by President Reagan late last month on national security grounds, after the Defense Department objected to the Soviets' participation in the project, which will analyze the composition of the ocean floor. The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) is supported by the United States, the United Kingdom,

WASHINGTON—The congressional General Accounting Office, in a major overview of U.S. science policy, has urged the Reagan administration to re-examine its priorities and methods for funding research. The GAO report, dated March 25, also questions the bureaucratic mechanisms surrounding the annual federal budget process and the "institutional framework" used by the executive branch to set national science policies. The study was begun as an internal review of the subject, but GAO officials d