By Tia Ghose Quantum clearance Courtesy of Dr. Mingyong Han and Dr. Shuming Nie, Indiana University / Photo: Douglas A. Stuart The paper: H.S. Choi et al., "Renal clearance of quantum dots," Nat Biotech, 25:1165–70. (Cited in 74 papers) The finding: Hak Soo Choi and John Frangioni of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Mass., wanted to maximize the safety profile of quantum dots—nanoscale semiconductor parti

By Tia Ghose Friending Pharma With academic/pharma partnerships on the rise, how do academic scientists make the most of the deal? Here are tips from three kinds of collaborations with industry. © James Steinberg As pharma's pipeline dries out, companies are increasingly reaching out to university researchers—and not just for out-of-the-box licensing deals. Over the past three years, Washington University in St. Louis ha

Gerd Binnig of the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, Christoph Gerber of the University of Basel, and Calvin Quate of Stanford University puzzled over how they could accurately visualize biological material without destroying it.

Cross-Pollination Pioneer Hi-Bred — #1 (Large) By Tia Ghose Courtesy of Pioneer Hi-Bred Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont Company, was ranked the best large place to work this year, after taking the top spot last year and placing tenth in 2007. The agricultural company, founded in 1926 and now home to over 8500 employees worldwide, engineers products like drought-tolerant corn and rice, high oleic content corn, and improved weed and

Running (RNA) Interference Alnylam — #6 (Small) By Tia Ghose Courtesy of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals For the first time since we started our surveys in 2003, sixth-ranked Alnylam Pharmaceuticals placed among the top ten small companies. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company develops medicines that rely on RNA interference to increase or decrease gene activity. Research in RNA interference is booming, with over 25 companies entering the field

Sitting pretty in tough times Infinity Pharmaceuticals — #1 (Small) By Tia Ghose Courtesy of Infinity Pharma Infinity Pharmaceuticals, an 8-year-old pharmaceutical company in Cambridge, Mass., jumped from fifth place in 2008 to the top spot on our list of best small companies. With an anticancer drug that targets the heat shock promoter 90 (HSP90) in several Phase II clinical trials, and a seven-month-old marriage to Purdue Pharmaceuti

Back on top GeneDx — #2 (Small) By Tia Ghose GeneDx rocketed to second place among small companies this year after not making the rankings in 2008 or 2007, and placing tenth in 2006. The company develops genetic tests that help clinicians identify over 200 rare heritable disorders. In 2006, GeneDx was acquired by Bioreference Laboratories, a diagnostic company located in New Jersey. Although the two have "completely separate" day-to-day operations, the a

Molecular makeover By Tia Ghose Illustration of Lodamin 3-D structure When postdoc Don Ingber noticed strange fuzz contaminating one of his endothelial cell cultures in 1985, his first instinct was to hide it from his advisor, Judah Folkman. Ingber was studying the role of blood vessel cell shape in growth and survival at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass. He noticed that cells under the fungus died, while those a

Chromosomal complications By Tia Ghose Courtesy of Beth A. Weaver The paper: B.A. Weaver et al., "Aneuploidy acts both oncogenically and as a tumor suppressor," Cancer Cell, 11:25–36. (Cited in 70 papers) The finding: Beth Ann Weaver, a cell biologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, showed that mice with lower levels of centromere protein E (CENP-E), a motor protein that sorts chromosomes during mitosis, had higher r

Quantifying quadruplexes By Tia Ghose Courtesy of Julian Huppert The paper: J.L. Huppert and S. Balasubramanian, "G-quadruplexes in promoters throughout the human genome," Nucleic Acids Res, 35:406–13. (Cited in 56 papers) The finding: University of Cambridge computational biologists Julian Huppert and Shankar Balasubramanian scanned the human genome in search of the telltale sequences of guanine-rich, four-stranded structures tha

Scientists have used traces of retrovirus DNA to map ancient sheep migration across Asia, Europe, and Africa, a paper in this week's Science reports. The results may help settle a debate about where humans first bred sheep for their white, fleecy coats, the researchers say. Soay sheep on St. Kilda, Outer Hebrides Image: Arpat Ozgul "What's neat about [the study] is that you're learning something about humans indirectly by studying animals that they brought along with them," said Welkin Johnson

After weeks of eating nothing, a patient being treated at the National Institutes of Health was recently able to suck on a lifesaver for about 20 minutes. He has a rare condition that prevents him from eating for long stretches, but when art therapist Megan Robb asked him to paint a picture of what his experience was like, he painted that lifesaver. "He said it was really meaningful to think about what he is grateful for in his life, rather than thinking of complications of his illness," said Ro