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This Week in Science

In news this week, scientists and universities are asking US Congress "not to expand a $2 billion research program for small businesses" because it would likely cut money that could otherwise go toward research projects.

In a policy forum article, lead author Sandra Soo-Jin Lee from Stanford looks at quality standards in genetic ancestry testing, ultimately calling for government regulation of this field. Blogger Blaine Bettinger offers his thoughts on the article here.

A paper from EMBL researchers looks at Polycomb group proteins in Drosophila, finding a significant role for O-GlcNAc glycosylation in gene silencing performed by these proteins. Jeffrey Simon at the University of Minnesota has a perspectives piece on the work.

Scripps' Reza Ghadiri is senior author on a paper introducing a family of oligomers that "efficiently self-assembles by means of reversible covalent anchoring of nucleobase recognition units onto simple oligo-dipeptide backbones [thioester peptide nucleic acids (tPNAs)] and undergoes dynamic sequence modification in response to changing templates in solution," according to the abstract. The team notes that the characteristics of the peptide nucleic acids "might prove advantageous for the design or selection of catalytic constructs or biomaterials that are capable of dynamic sequence repair and adaptation."

July 03, 2009

In Brief This Week: Roche NimbleGen; Aushon BioSystems; Saladax Biomedical; Mobidiag; Enigma Diagnostics

In Brief This Week is a Friday column containing news items that our readers may have missed during the week.

July 03, 2009

People In The News

Christopher Gleeson was named non-executive chairman at Osmetech, while Genome Canada tapped Thomas Caskey to serve as chair of its board, and more.

July 03, 2009

Cardiff Univ. Uses $6.6M for Neuro-Genetics and Genomics Center

The university will use funding from sources within the UK and its own funds for a center for neuropsychiatric gene-based and translational research.

July 03, 2009

Science and Religion, Science and Atheism

John Hawks has a post linking out to a survey published in the Guardian and conducted by the British Council, which polled 10,000 people in 10 countries to determine whether they believe in evolution, whether it should be taught, and whether beliefs in religion and evolution can be held simultaneously. Hawks notes that "China has the greatest percentage who 'agree that the scientific evidence for evolution exists,' at 55 percent. But they also have a surprising number (19 percent) who think that 'evolution should NOT be taught, only other theories.'" According to the survey, 33 percent of Americans said there's evidence for evolution, while 51 percent of Brits and 8 percent of Egyptians and South Africans said the same.

Meanwhile, Larry Moran at Sandwalk considers whether science leads to atheism, and specifically, whether science education would convert previously religious students to atheism. While he acknowledges that "a good science education will threaten most religious beliefs and in some cases will cause students to abandon those beliefs," he says that "it is not true that exposing students to good science teaching will inevitably make them abandon their religion."

July 03, 2009 / 1 comment

S. Brenner on C. elegans

Over at Flies & Bikes, GrumpyBob has a post on a perspectives piece from Sydney Brenner in the latest issue of Genetics. "This brief article ... presents an account of the origins of Caenorhabditis elegans research, by the beast's main man," the blogger writes. What he found most interesting was Brenner's view on how the culture of science has shifted in the last several decades. For one thing, Brenner writes, scientists back in the day spent much more time in discussions and social settings (such as morning coffee or afternoon tea); "it was only after dinner that the real work started and the lab then filled up with the owls," he says.

July 03, 2009

Open Science's Greatest Need Is ... Non-Scientists?

Pawel Szczesny at Freelancing Science has a post considering models of open science, and how best to encourage it. For one thing, he says, it would be helpful to test various models outside the scientific arena: "Principles of Open Source software did not prove to be useful in open drug development. ... Crowdsourcing will not advance quantum physics," he writes. "Open Science in its fullest form is not an issue that scientists can truly solve by themselves."

In a post he advises readers to "take with a pinch of salt," Neil Saunders has a post on social bookmarking options offered on journal websites. PLoS and BioMed Central clearly get it, he says, but a snapshot of the bookmarks available at Nature (limited to Connotea) leaves Saunders asking, "So NPG: is it 'we promote sharing' or 'we promote sharing so long as you use our service?'"

July 03, 2009

No, This Is Not About Paternity Testing

Misha Angrist alerts readers about an upcoming conference at NIH focused on improving accuracy and standards for family histories. The meeting's open to anyone and will be held August 24-26 at NIH, and will also be webcast. "I applaud the organizers for (presumably) holding family history to the same evidence-based criteria they so often demand of direct-to-consumer genetic testing," Angrist writes.

July 03, 2009

Genome-Wide Screen Turns Up Primate-Specific Genes

A team of researchers from the US and Singapore used comparative genomics to find genes that are present in the genomes of primates but absent from those of non-primates.

July 03, 2009

CFI's 'Omics Grants Broad in Scope

Some of the $577 million is going to cancer genomics, DNA barcoding, and interactome studies.

July 03, 2009

Osmetech Raises $8.6M Through Private Placement

Osmetech placed roughly 262 million shares of stock at a price of 2p per share.

July 02, 2009

UK's MRC Funds Fourth High-Throughput Sequencing Hub in Oxford with Over $3M

MRC is funding a high-throughput sequencing center based at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford, adding to three other UK-based sequencing hubs that it announced this spring.

July 02, 2009

CDRH, on the Move in Maryland, Limits Days for Test Submissions

By Kirell Lakhman

The FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health expects to complete relocating to its new Maryland digs Aug. 3, and is urging researchers not to file regulatory submissions on certain days.

Because the center will be moving on all Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays other than holiday weekends, it "will not officially receive premarket submissions on the Friday of a move … and the Monday after a move weekend."

In a statement, CDRH says that until it finishes its move "the best way" to reach its staff is by e-mail "because all office addresses, phone and fax numbers will change." Accompanying the statement is a list of phone numbers and two e-mail addresses.

Researchers looking to submit tests for 510(k), IDE, PMA, 513(g), Pre-IDE, PDP, HDE, and CLIA review should use these snail-mail addresses.

Since mid-May, CDRH has been moving from various Rockville, Md., locations to the FDA's main White Oak campus at 10903 New Hampshire Avenue in Silver Spring, Md.

The center says questions should be addressed to Marjorie Shulman at 240-276-4186 or Marjorie.shulman@fda.hhs.gov.

July 02, 2009