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Big merger at NIH

A merger of two major institutes at the U.S. National Institutes of Health is moving forward. Last Thursday (Nov 18), NIH director Francis Collins threw his support behind the September recommendation of an NIH advisory board to create a substance abuse and addiction research center by combining the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and other NIH research in the area. In a statement, Collins announced plans to form a task force to recommend what research should be moved into the currently unnamed new institute.

The move, however, is sparking concern in the scientific community. The NIAAA voted earlier this year against the merger, worrying that their smaller institute would be swallowed up, and that certain studies, such as non-brain related research, would be cut short, according to ScienceInsider. Extramural grant holders are also expressing concerns that funding to alcohol-related research, previously funded in the NIAAA portfolio, will diminish or be lost in the new institute, according to DrugMonkey.

2nd embryonic stem cell trial approved

The FDA has approved a second clinical trial using human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology will use hESCs in an experimental therapy for 12 people with Stargardt’s macular dystrophy, a progressive form of blindness for which there is currently no treatment, Reuters reports. The company has coaxed hESCs into an eye tissue called retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) that Stargardt’s patients lack, which will be infused into patients’ eyes. “We can generate a virtually unlimited supply of healthy RPE cells,” the company’s chief medical officer, Robert Lanza, told Reuters.

Geron initiated the first hESC trial last month, treating severe spinal injury with ESC-derived progenitors of neural support tissue.

Roche rejects RNAi

Roche is bringing down the budget axe on RNA interference (RNAi) research, reports FierceBiotech. The Swiss pharmaceutical company will end RNAi research, shuttering three R&D locations — Kulmbach, Germany; Nutley, New Jersey; and Madison, Wisconsin –because the science faces too many hurdles and is no longer a fit with the company’s strategic vision. “That’s the biggest vote of no-confidence yet for RNAi,” writes a biotech blogger at In the Pipeline. The overall company cuts will result in more than 4,000 pink slips, says Roche.

Boston bio-lab concerns continue

Seven years after the NIH awarded Boston University $128 million for a high-security biology lab to study pathogens such as anthrax and Ebola virus, the government is still not sufficiently assessing the risks of such a lab, according to a new report from the National Research Council. The NRC rejected an initial NIH risk assessment in 2007 as “not sound and credible,” so the NIH started again from scratch, and re-submitted a report. Unfortunately, the new assessment isn’t much better, according to a new report from the NRC released last Thursday (Nov 18). The NRC recommends a “mid-course correction,” urging the NIH to go back and sufficiently document the risk, according to ScienceInsider.

Despite critics, CIRM asks for more

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has been plagued with criticisms and doubts during its first six years in operation, yet the chairman of the institute plans to ask state voters for another $3 billion in bonds in 2014 to keep the institute up and running.

Government watchdogs have criticized the program for paying its president more than twice the governor’s salary and improperly managing conflicts of interest, by distributing more than $1 billion to universities with representatives on its board. Meanwhile, scientists have criticized CIRM for promising therapies for such diseases as cancer and Alzheimer’s when those treatments remain years, if not decades, away, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Bob Klein, chairman of the CIRM board, told the Times he is confident there will be “plenty of evidence” for voters to judge the value of the institute by the time they are asked to approve the additional funding.

New way to judge impact

A UK pilot study has demonstrated that using peer-review panels to assess the tangible societal impact of research is “workable” and “robust,” the study organizers told Nature News. The pilot study, run by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, assessed “impact” as the establishment of spin-out companies, influence on environmental policy, or the development of products, among other results. Thanks to the success, the new method may become a key part of the nation’s research review system to rate university research departments and distribute national funds by 2014.

Related articles:
Embryonic stem cell trial back on
[30th July 2010]
More support for RNAi in clinic
[21st March 2010]
Boston to regulate research
[11th September 2006]