Articles Written by:    ALLA KATSNELSON     

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Insect traffic cop

Audrey Dussutour never had a special fondness for ants, but over the last decade, she’s gotten to know them very well—especially their propensity to act as a single organism though hundreds or thousands of individuals may comprise a single colony. ...

From ALLA KATSNELSON, The Scientist,  19 Oct 2009

Research loss in Pfizer-Wyeth deal

Pfizer's $68 billion merger with Wyeth, which officially commences today, will mean the loss of almost 20,000 jobs, the company has said, and analysts predict research could take a hard hit. The deal involves combining laboratories of the ...

From ALLA KATSNELSON, The Scientist,  16 Oct 2009
Related Topics: Pfizer Inc.,  Bloomberg News,  Wall Street Journal,  Merck & Company, Inc.,  Schering Plough Corp

Disputed patent rules dropped

A two-year battle between the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and biopharma over a much-contested set of patent rules ended yesterday (October 8) when the USPTO rescinded the rules altogether. "These regulations have been highly unpopular from ...

From ALLA KATSNELSON, The Scientist,  12 Oct 2009
Related Topics: GlaxoSmithKline Inc

Lab toys

n a room full of clinical veterinarians and animal-care technicians, everybody is about to play a game. Gina Savastano, a bubbly-voiced senior supervisor of facility operations at Merck, explains the rules: Each of the 15 or 20 teams will receive a ...

From ALLA KATSNELSON, The Scientist,  5 Oct 2009
Related Topics: Novo Nordisk,  Merck & Company, Inc.,  European Union

Centralize biolab oversight: GAO

A new government body should be formed to oversee the increasing number of high-containment laboratories that work with dangerous pathogens, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday (September 21). In the ...

From ALLA KATSNELSON, The Scientist,  22 Sep 2009

A biotech's battle lost

Altus Pharmaceuticals, a 17-year-old Boston-area biotech whose struggle for survival we profiled last month, will join the boneyard of companies that have not made it through the current economic crisis. "Very simply, we have not been able to ...

From ALLA KATSNELSON, The Scientist,  16 Sep 2009
Related Topics: Securities and Exchange Commission

Transcription surprise

An enzyme separating two strands of DNA According to the textbook model of gene transcription, the process is sparked by the recruitment of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) to a gene’s promoter. But a 2007 Cell paper from Richard Young’s lab at the Whitehead ...

From ALLA KATSNELSON, The Scientist,  15 Sep 2009
Related Topics: Richard Young,  Cornell University

Critter cams

What happens in the far corners of the animal kingdom when no one is looking? A lot, as you might imagine. Armadillos scamper, tripod fish sit at the bottom of the ocean, waiting for prey to pass by, laughing kookaburras nest in gum trees. And you can ...

From ALLA KATSNELSON, The Scientist,  11 Sep 2009
Related Topics: Google Inc.,  National Geographic,  Flickr

Trial registries not working

Clinical trial registries -- set up in the last few years to ensure trial data see the light of day -- are a long ways from correcting the problem, says a report to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) tomorrow ...

From ALLA KATSNELSON, The Scientist,  2 Sep 2009
Related Topics: American Medical Association

Building better bacteria

Researchers from the J. Craig Venter Institute have developed a technique for generating modified strains of bacteria with novel, genetically engineered properties, they report online today (August 20) in Science. The advance could help scientists ...

From ALLA KATSNELSON, The Scientist,  20 Aug 2009
Related Topics: James Collins,  J. Craig Venter

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