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November 13, 2009 12:07 PM |

Psychologist Wins Million-Dollar Prize for Work on the Adolescent Brain

by Constance Holden

Temple University psychologist Laurence Steinberg has been awarded the first Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize. The new award, worth $1 million, comes from the Zurich-based Jacobs Foundation, founded by...

November 12, 2009 12:19 PM |

Drug Companies Flagged for Biased Reporting

by Sam Kean

The drug companies Pfizer and Parke-Davis (now a subsidiary of Pfizer) shaded clinical trial results in at least 12 studies in order to make the drug gabapentin appear more...

November 12, 2009 11:20 AM |

In Asia, A Debate Over Making Cancer a Global Health Priority

by Dennis Normile

Not surprisingly, cancer researchers in Asia think their specialty deserves to be a higher global health priority. Today at an Asia Cancer Forum discussion in Tsukuba, Japan, one speaker...

November 5, 2009 3:46 PM |

Swine Flu Vaccine Distribution Dilemmas: Hey, You, No Cuts!

by Jon Cohen

Concern appears to be rising at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about people in lower risk groups cutting in line to receive the limited supplies of...

November 5, 2009 3:37 PM |

Sick of Swine Flu? Here Comes H3N2

by Jon Cohen

With reporting by Martin Enserink. Although the world’s attention is focused on the novel H1N1 virus causing the swine flu pandemic, H3N2, a seasonal strain of influenza, has popped...

November 4, 2009 1:46 PM |

Why Are Drug Companies Funding Less Academic Research?

by Jocelyn Kaiser

Fewer academic biomedical scientists are relying on industry support for their research than in the mid-'90s, according to a study highlighted today in The Boston Globe. That's the most...

November 3, 2009 4:18 PM |

When Will U.S. Give Up Vaccine for the Poor?

by Martin Enserink

It's a promise: 10% of the 250 million doses of H1N1 vaccine purchased by the United States will be donated to help poor countries. But when is still unclear....

November 3, 2009 3:22 PM |

The Challenge of Getting Swine Flu Vaccine to Poor Nations

by Martin Enserink

As the H1N1 swine flu pandemic marches on, western countries have begun vaccinating their most vulnerable populations against the virus. But many countries in the developing world lack the...

November 2, 2009 4:21 PM |

Could a Drug Reverse Mental Retardation?

by Greg Miller

Can a genetic disorder that derails brain development be cured with a drug? A clinical trial announced today represents the first step towards testing a drug therapy for Fragile...

November 2, 2009 4:14 PM |

Two Shots for Kids, One for Preggers: U.S. Clarifies Swine Flu Vaccine Doses, Addresses Vaccine Safety Fears

by Jon Cohen

U.S. policymakers erred on the side of caution in September when they recommended that children under 10 need two doses of the swine flu vaccine to develop a strong...

October 30, 2009 5:46 PM |

Swine Flu Spread Continues to Outpace Efforts to Treat and Prevent Disease

by Jon Cohen and Martin Enserink

Health officials today reiterated that the novel H1N1 virus continues to spread rapidly around temperate zones of the Northern Hemisphere, hospitalizing and killing an unusual number of children, young adults,...

October 30, 2009 2:22 PM |

Top U.K. Drug Adviser Out

by John Travis

Illicit drugs, science and politics can be a volatile mix, no doubt. So it's not a total surprise that David Nutt, a respected psychopharmacologist at the Bristol outpost of...

October 29, 2009 6:04 PM |

In Celebrated Reversal, a South African President Finally Confronts Country's HIV/AIDS Epidemic

by Jon Cohen

South African President Jacob Zuma unequivocally declared today that his country had to step up its efforts against HIV/AIDS. "We need to do more, and we need to do...

October 29, 2009 12:14 PM |

Where NIH's Stimulus Money Went

by Jocelyn Kaiser

The results are in for National Institutes of Health's much-discussed Challenge Grants, and the news is only slightly better than expected: The agency funded 840 projects, which puts the...

October 28, 2009 1:46 PM |

How Swine Flu Vaccines Are Like Disco

by Jon Cohen

Pandemics make strange bedfellows—in this case, public health advocates and defense hawks....

October 28, 2009 1:28 PM |

Judge Throws Out Stem Cell Lawsuit

by Jocelyn Kaiser

A federal judge has rejected a lawsuit challenging the Obama Administration's policy lifting restrictions on using federal funds to study human embryonic stem cells. Christian groups had sued the...

October 23, 2009 6:07 PM |

Roundup 10/23: The Future's So Bright Edition

by Erik Stokstad

President Barack Obama didn't launch any new initiatives in his visit today to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he highlighted clean energy technology and the need for climate...

October 23, 2009 1:11 PM |

Cancer Center Stumbled on Clinical Trials, Ex-Employee Charges

by Eliot Marshall

Molecular biologist Suzanne Stratton was working to improve clinical trials at the Carle Cancer Center of Urbana, Illinois, when she was fired late last year—prompting an investigation of the...

October 22, 2009 3:08 PM |

NIH Heart Institute Director Heading for Harvard

by Jocelyn Kaiser

Elizabeth Nabel; director of the $3 billion National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; told staff in a memo today that with "bittersweet emotions" she is leaving at the end of...

October 21, 2009 10:57 AM |

Childhood Vaccinations at All-Time High

by Jocelyn Kaiser

There's good news today for global health: More children than ever before are being vaccinated against deadly childhood diseases, and vaccine production is up, according to a report from...

October 20, 2009 4:38 PM |

AIDS Vaccine Study Reassures Skeptics

by Martin Enserink and Jon Cohen

PARIS—The fog around the largest AIDS vaccine study ever conducted began to lift today, as Thai and U.S. researchers for the first time publicly presented a detailed analysis of their...

October 20, 2009 3:49 PM |

Novel H1N1 Continues to Wallop Younger U.S. Population

by Jon Cohen

A new analysis from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of severe disease caused by the novel H1N1 virus again emphasizes that people under 65 suffer...

October 16, 2009 3:24 PM |

Mouse Lab Getting Personal, Sniffs Florida Digs

by Jocelyn Kaiser

The Jackson Laboratory, the mouse-research powerhouse in Bar Harbor, Maine, is thinking about building a branch in south Florida as part of a move into personalized medicine. The nonprofit...

October 9, 2009 3:40 PM |

CDC: Get Your Swine Flu Shots

by Jon Cohen

As the availability of swine flu vaccine steadily increases, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is stepping up its efforts to combat a growing sense of complacency...

October 8, 2009 11:20 AM |

Hurry Up and Wait for Kansas Agro-Bio Lab

by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

A Homeland Security spending bill that received final approval from Congress yesterday will grant the Department of Homeland Security $32 million the next fiscal year to continue planning the...

October 7, 2009 2:18 PM |

A New Journal for Translating Biomedical Discoveries

by Jocelyn Kaiser

Moving discoveries out of the lab and into clinics has become one of the top goals of biomedical research leaders. They've called for programs to deploy research findings more rapidly...

October 6, 2009 4:25 PM |

Slowly But Surely, U.S. Swine Flu Vaccination Begins

by Jon Cohen

As predicted, the U.S. government has started to deliver a small amount of swine flu vaccines to states this week, and states are wrestling with how to decide who...

October 1, 2009 11:27 AM |

Signs of Dementia a Growing Headache for the NFL

by Greg Miller

Yesterday, The New York Times broke a story about a study that seems to add to mounting evidence that playing in the National Football League increases the risk of...

September 30, 2009 2:11 PM |

Obama Announces $5 Billion in NIH Grants; Cancer, Autism, Heart Disease Named as Targets

by Jocelyn Kaiser

President Barack Obama paid a visit to the National Institutes of Health this morning to announce that the agency has given out $5 billion in stimulus money for over 12,000...

September 30, 2009 12:16 PM |

Big Progress, Daunting Challenges in HIV/AIDS Treatment and Prevention

by Jon Cohen

The push to deliver antiretroviral drugs to all HIV-infected people who need them made another step forward last year, but still has a long ways to go. As of...

September 29, 2009 5:05 PM |

Bio-Containment Labs Urged to Report Accidents, Train Personnel

by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

How can safety be improved at biocontainment labs, where researchers work with dangerous pathogens and toxins? A new report from an interagency task force that has been studying the topic...

September 25, 2009 11:53 AM |

FDA Admits Politics Trumped Science on Knee Device

by Sam Kean

For the first time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has publicly admitted that politics has trumped science. The agency acknowledged yesterday that it approved a device to help...

September 24, 2009 12:18 AM |

Massive AIDS Vaccine Study a "Modest" Success

by Jon Cohen

A large clinical trial of an AIDS vaccine has, for the first time, yielded positive results. But researchers immediately questioned the relevance of the data, which indicated that the...

September 23, 2009 4:10 PM |

Rethinking the Ingredients of Influenza Vaccines for 2010

by Jon Cohen

Next winter in the Southern Hemisphere, influenza vaccines should no longer be designed to protect against the seasonal H1N1 strain as the pandemic H1N1 strain has replaced it, according...

September 22, 2009 9:52 AM |

To Help Young Scientists, NIH Bends Quality Rules

by Jocelyn Kaiser

A new analysis of the grantsmaking process at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) lifts the veil on how many grant proposals are funded even though they fall below...

September 21, 2009 6:01 PM |

Plague Samples Suspected In Scientist Death

by Sam Kean

An autopsy last week revealed that a geneticist who died mysteriously might have succumbed to the plague. Malcolm Casadaban, 60, studied a weakened and reportedly benign form of the...

September 21, 2009 2:05 PM |

Mixed Results of Swine Flu Vaccine in Kids

by Jon Cohen

Early results from clinical trials suggest that healthy children under the age of 9 will likely need two doses of the swine flu vaccine, but those between 10 and...

September 21, 2009 11:40 AM |

Get Your Cells Vetted

by Constance Holden

The National Institutes of Health took a step today toward facilitating the new Administration policy on use of human embryonic stem cells, opening a Web site where NIH-funded scientists...

September 18, 2009 4:19 PM |

New Date for First U.S. Swine Flu Vaccine Arrival

by Jon Cohen

At least 3.4 million doses of swine flu vaccine will become available the first week in October, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today. In one...

September 18, 2009 1:54 PM |

Roundup 9/18: Playing a New Tune Edition

by Science News Staff

The University of California, San Francisco, appointed pediatrician Sam Hagwood yesterday as dean of its medical school. Hagwood was named interim dean in December 2007 after the abrupt dismissal of...