The Drosophila melanogaster Genetic Reference Panel
Mackay, Richards et al., Nature
North Carolina State University's Trudy Mackay and her colleagues present the Drosophila melanogaster Genetic Reference Panel, "a community resource for analysis of population genomics and quantitative traits."
Throwing a Little Sunshine on Conflicts of Interest
July 20, 2009
Vivian Cheng at Science Progress writes that there is widespread knowledge of financial conflicts among researchers with some instances that go so far as to affect patient safety or well-being. Recommendations to reduce these conflicts have been to standardize financial disclosure requirements and requiring disclosure for journal articles and studies. "The IOM [Institute of Medicine] advises that Congress create a national program that requires pharmaceutical, medicine device, and biotechnology companies and their foundations to publicly report payments to researchers, physicians, institutions, professional societies, patient advocacy groups, and continuing medical education providers," Cheng writes. Two US senators also introduced a bill, The Physician Payment Sunshine Act, that if passed would require companies to report payments greater than $500 made to physicians.