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$500,000 Gruber Neuroscience Prize Awarded To Hall, Rosbash And Young
The 2009 Neuroscience Prize of The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation is being awarded to Jeffrey Hall, professor of neurogenetics at the University of Maine; Michael Rosbash, professor and director of the National Center for Behavioral Genomics at Brandeis University; and Michael Young, professor and head of the Laboratory of Genetics at Rockefeller University. On October 18, at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, Illinois, these three distinguished scientists will receive this prestigious international award for their groundbreaking discoveries of the molecular mechanisms that control circadian (daily) rhythms in the nervous system. Their research was the first to establish a simple relationship between single genes and a complex behavior.
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New York State Compensation Policy For Egg Donors 'Seems Justifiable,' New York Times Editorial States
Although New York state"s decision to allow state-funded embryonic stem cell researchers to compensate women for donating their eggs "has provoked criticism from some ethicists and runs counter to guidelines issued by" NIH and the National Academy of Sciences, it still "seems justifiable" to pay the women "for undergoing an arduous procedure and to spur progress on potentially important research that has been slowed because of a lack of human eggs," a New York Times editorial states. The state"s Empire State Stem Cell Board last month made the decision to allow researchers to pay women up to $10,000 as compensation.According to the editorial, "[w]omen already get paid comparable sums to donate their eggs to help infertile women have a child through in vitro fertilization," so it "is hard to see why they should not be paid for contributing their eggs for research." The editorial notes that the "money is meant as reimbursement for travel, housing, child care or medical expenses," and it also would "compensate the women for the considerable time, burden and inconvenience of harvesting their eggs, a process that can take 56 hours spread out over many weeks.""The board set reasonable constraints, insisting that the research be rigorously reviewed and approved by oversight committees, that donors be fully informed of potential physical and psychological risks and that they give informed consent to the procedure," the editorial states. It adds, "One concern has been that payments could induce women, especially poor women, to provide eggs without fully considering potential risks." The editorial continues, "In an effort to mitigate that possibility, the stem cell board will follow the guidelines of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, which require justification for payments of $5,000 or more and deem sums above $10,000 inappropriate."The editorial adds, "Human eggs are highly prized for some of the most promising research, notably studies that require matching embryonic stem cells to a particular patient with a particular disease," concluding, "It has proved almost impossible to recruit women to go through the arduous process for free," so the "board was right to allow fair compensation" (New York Times, 7/11). Purchase zoloft to treat depression.
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Researchers Develop Questions To Determine Risk Of HIV/AIDS Drug Resistance
Researchers from the Makerere University hospital in Uganda, the U.S. and Belgium have developed a formula, based on a set of questions, for determining HIV-positive people"s risk of treatment failure and drug resistance, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the International AIDS Society, the New York Times reports. According to the Times, most HIV-positive people in Africa rarely have access to viral load tests to determine if they are developing resistance to first-line antiretroviral drugs because the testing is expensive and complicated.The researchers questioned 496 HIV-positive people about:
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LATITUDE Pharmaceuticals Initiates Two More Collaboration Studies For Its PG Depot

LATITUDE Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (LPI), a San Diego-based drug formulation developer, announced today that it has initiated two new collaboration programs for its Phospholipid Gel (PG) Depot drug delivery platform. The programs are designed to provide prolonged and peak-free pharmacokinetic profiles for 3 and 7 days following a subcutaneous injection for an antibiotic and a protein drug, respectively. The new studies bring the total to seven feasibility/license agreements that are applying the PG Depot to deliver small molecules, peptides, and proteins for pain, metabolic disease, anti-bacterial, and cardiovascular applications. Andrew Chen, PhD, LPI"s president, noted, "Our newest feasibility studies represent a growing validation of our PG Depot technology. Like our ongoing collaborations, the new programs aim to transform a cumbersome routine of multiple injections each day into a convenient once-daily or once-weekly format. Both pharma and biotech companies definitely see high value in simplifying parenteral drug administration and extending or resurrecting IP protection through novel delivery technology. The protein-friendly nature of the PG Depot will create many opportunities to convert biologics from daily to weekly injections." About PG Depot LPI"s proprietary PG Depot technology is a versatile parenteral drug delivery platform for small molecules and biological therapeutics that delivers 1-7 days of low burst, peak-free sustained drug release following a subcutaneous or intramuscular injection. The PG Depot is provided as a single-phase, ready-to-use, self-administration-capable gel that is injectable through fine (27G or smaller) needles. The gel is compatible with hydrophilic and hydrophobic small molecule drugs as well as peptides and proteins and can be manufactured using conventional processes. Because it is composed of FDA-approved injectable and biodegradable ingredients, the PG Depot has key advantages over other depot systems, which use new polymers or animal-derived materials and face ever-increasing safety hurdles at the FDA and other regulatory agencies. LATITUDE Pharmaceuticals, Inc.


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