Mass spec Laureate dies Chemist John Fenn, who shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for vastly improving the ability of mass spectrometry to identify large proteins, passed away on Friday at the age of 93. As a Yale professor, Fenn developed a technique called electrospray ionization, in which a strong electric field is used…
ASCB caught up in fraud scheme The American Society for Cell Biology was surprised to find out earlier this fall that con artists were using the ASCB name on fake checks to pay unsuspecting individuals caught up in a personal shopping scam. When one individual who received a fraudulent check became suspicious and contacted the ASCB,…
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),…
Greek scientists accused of stealing funds A group of Greek scientists are under investigation for misuse of government funds — no less than 150-200 million euros, in fact.
Price of peer review A new report estimates that peer review costs UK universities £165 million per year in terms of the time academics spend reviewing others’ manuscripts (roughly 3 million hours). The Value of UK HEIs’ Contribution to the Publishing Process: Summary Report further estimates that it costs another £30 million to employ editors…
Genes not patent-able The US government announced on Friday (October 29) that researchers should not be able to patent genes because they are “products of nature.” This decision, which overturns the long-standing policy that genes are eligible for patents, could have a “huge impact on medicine and on the biotechnology industry,” according to the New…
Cholera spreads in Haiti Five cases of cholera have been documented in Port-au-Prince, raising fears that a rural outbreak of the disease could spread into the post-earthquake slums in the capital city, according to the Boston Globe. Cholera in rural areas of Haiti has already killed 250 people and sickened more than 3,000. If measures…
Skip the postdoc? The National Institutes of Health has begun a new program that allows PhDs and MDs to become Principal Investigators — without doing a postdoc. The Early Independence Awards (DP5) offer up to $250,000 in annual direct costs for five years for the “pool of talented young scientists who have the intellect, scientific…
MacArthur Fellows announced Last week, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation named 23 new MacArthur Fellows for 2010. Among the winners of the nicknamed “genius” awards: Drew Berry, a biomedical animator at Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, who illustrates cellular and molecular processes (see his animation of…
Call for new ORI head The Department of Health and Human Services has posted the opening for the director of the Office of Research Integrity on usajobs.gov, more than a year after the departure of former director Chris Pascal. The job announcement was circulated within HHS on 23rd Sept., according to the monthly newsletter, Report…
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