Britain’s historically strong role in clinical trials seems to be diminishing. Slow returns on drug investment and poor relations between industry and the UK National Health Service (NHS) have been cited as two reasons for this decline.
Category Archives: Formats
Sacked drugs advisor launches private panel
The scientist fired from the British government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) last year has launched a privately funded scientific committee to advise the public on the risks of drug use.
David Nutt, a psychopharmacologist from Imperial College in London, was dropped from the ACMD in October after his remarks contradicting the government’s classification of marijuana reached the press. Last month he announced the launch of his group, the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD). Continue reading Sacked drugs advisor launches private panel
Genes for Speed
Thoroughbred horse owners now have a new tool to predict howtheir nags will perform on the track. Last week at the IrishThoroughbred Breeders’ Association Expo in County Kildare, anew company called Equinome rolled out a €1000 DNA test of amuscle factor derived from the Horse Genome Project.
Muscle growth is governed by myostatin, a protein that determineswhether an animal has compact muscles tuned for rapid sprintsor a leaner body suited for endurance. Company co-founder EmmelineHill, left, a genetics researcher at University College Dublin,and colleagues reported last month in PLoS ONE that horses withtwo copies of the myostatin-suppressing C variant of the genewere more likely to win short races up to 6.5 furlongs (1.3kilometers), whereas horses with two T variants did better inraces up to 13.5 furlongs.
Horse Genome Project coordinator Ernest Bailey of the Universityof Kentucky, Lexington, notes that breeders have adopted genetictests for paternity, coat color, and diseases but that performanceprediction is new ground. Hill says breeders have been askingabout genes for temperament. That’s not yet in the offing, shesays, but “we’re investigating gene associations with [other]parameters, such as aerobic capacity.”
See the original Random Sample on Science’s website: [html] or as it appeared in print: [pdf]
This story also appeared as a ScienceNOW: [html]
Haiti earthquake may have primed nearby faults for failure
Geophysicists studying the 12 January earthquake in Haiti met yesterday with United Nations representatives and Haitian president René Garcia Préval to discuss what the latest measurements of the Earth’s shape can tell policymakers about future earthquakes. Several such ongoing geodesy studies suggest that the magnitude 7.0 earthquake, which has killed over 170,000 people so far, caused a 30- to 50-kilometre stretch of the fault southwest of Port-au-Prince to slip — possibly adding tension along an unreleased stretch of the same fault that passes even closer to Haiti’s capital.
Read the rest of the story on Nature News [html] or here [pdf]