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Berg out as NIGMS director to support wife
Jeremy Berg, who has directed the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) for 7 years, is stepping down to accept a position at the University of Pittsburgh. He didn’t plan on leaving so soon, he said in a statement — but when his wife, a breast imaging researcher, experienced a “change in her situation,” the university offered both of them “tremendous opportunities.”

At NIGMS, Berg oversaw a $2 billion budget, which supported more than 4,500 grants, or 1 out of 10 funded by the NIH. He also contributed to the NIGMS Feedback Loop blog, which illuminated many aspects of the grant decision-making process.

At the University of Pittsburgh, Berg will assume the position of associate senior vice chancellor for science strategy and planning in the health sciences, and take on a faculty post in the computational and systems biology department at the university’s medical school.

Peer review opened up at EMBO
The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is expanding an experiment it began 2 years ago with The EMBO Journal–including with most published papers the referee comments, author responses, and editorial decision letters for each round of peer review, as well as a timeline showing how long each step took. The more transparent review process will be continued at The EMBO Journal, and instituted in EMBO’s other journals, EMBO Reports, Molecular Systems Biology and EMBO Molecular Medicine.

According to Chief Editor Bernd Pulverer, these extra documents have become very popular among EMBO readers. Only 5.3 percent of authors have opted out of releasing these files, and the referee acceptance rate hasn’t changed, nor have their comments appeared any less critical. Among readers, the feedback is “overwhelmingly positive,” Pulverer writes in a recent editorial, and approximately 10 percent of readers look at the peer review material. “Peer review is much maligned, and we hope systematically showcasing the reports may quell some of these concerns,” said Pulverer. “Furthermore, these files can serve as educational tools: peer review is very much at the core of the research process and yet it is rarely formally taught.” See how other journals are experimenting with peer review in an August, 2010 feature.

Geneticist to head Tufts
In a move designed to enhance its science profile, Tufts University has chosen Anthony Monaco, who studies the genetics of neurological disorders at the University of Oxford, as its next president. He led the team that found the first gene that plays a key role in speech and language in humans, and helped identify part of the gene underlying X-linked Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the Boston Globe reports. Until 2007, he directed the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, after which he became the pro-vice-chancellor, planning and resources, at the university.

Monaco, 51, has nearly 300 publications, which have accumulated more than 18,000 citations.

And in stem cells…
Oral arguments begin today in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, as lawyers seek to appeal a lower court’s ruling that federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research is illegal. Meanwhile, Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) has filed an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the US Food and Drug Administration to use human embryonic stem cells to treat people with Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration, which reportedly affects 30 million people worldwide.

Red Cross nixes blood from people with chronic fatigue
While scientists continue to muddle over whether chronic fatigue syndrome has any link to the retrovirus XMRV, the American Red Cross has announced it will no longer allow people with CFS to donate blood, according to the Wall Street Journal Health Blog. “In the interest of patient and donor safety, the American Red Cross will defer indefinitely any donor who reveals during the donor interview that they have been diagnosed with CFS,” the organization said in a statement released last week.

Noah’s ark? No thanks
Scientists in Kentucky are upset by the governor’s decision to create a $150 million amusement park with a “full-scale” ark and dinosaur models. Read more at ScienceInsider.

Correction (posted December 7): When originally posted, the article cited Monaco’s publication record according to ISI. However, there is more than one A.P. Monaco, so the citation data were originally inflated. Tufts has provided the correct citation data. The Scientist regrets the error, and has updated the story.

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News in a nutshell

[8th March 2010]

Q&A: Why I delayed XMRV paper

[23rd August 2010]

Viral cause for chronic fatigue?

[8th October 2009]