ScienceInsider

by Greg Miller

The National Football League will require teams to consult an independent neurologist or neurosurgeon to determine when it's safe for a player to return to play after a concussion, FOX Sports reported yesterday. The move comes in the wake of growing evidence that head injuries suffered on the field can lead to dementia and other problems later in life, as well as an embarrassing Congressional hearing last month in which one representative compared the NFL's denial of the link between head injuries and dementia to the tobacco industry's initial denial that smoking is harmful. (Perhaps more disconcerting, from the NFL's perspective, was the suggestion that the government might want to reexamine exemptions to antitrust laws granted to the league if it doesn't start taking the issue seriously).

The details of the new plan have not yet been announced, but the American Academy of Neurology issued a statement earlier today saying it was encouraged by the news and would welcome the opportunity to work with the league.

by Constance Holden

Social and behavioral research is finally getting some of the high-level attention it has sought for years at the National Institutes of Health. Yesterday NIH Director Francis Collins announced that $10 million in recovery money will go to support the launch of the Basic Behavioral and Social Science Opportunity Network – they're calling it OppNet, an initiative to support and coordinate basic behavioral research throughout NIH.

The American Psychological Society  Association for Psychological Science (APS), which has been working with Congress for about a decade to get more behavioral science into NIH, is ecstatic about OppNet. APS Executive Director Alan Kraut says NIH's Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, which isn't a funding agency, "has had less and less impact over time." OppNet, to be led by Jeremy Berg, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and National Institute on Aging Director Richard Hodes, "is much higher visibility." It will be getting all institute directors together on a regular basis to talk about behavioral research needs. Although basic behavioral research already gets about $1 billion a year from NIH, Kraut says OppNet will funnel money into cross-disciplinary areas that have hitherto been ignored. NIH institutes and centers have committed to putting another $110 million into the initiative over the next 5 years.

by Constance Holden

Nebraska citizens don't like the open-ended new Obama policy on research with human embryonic stem cells. So in response to public pressure, the University of Nebraska board of regents will vote tomorrow on whether to limit its researchers to the cell lines allowed under President Bush:

... if it approves the restrictions — some opponents of the research say they have the votes, though others remain doubtful — the University of Nebraska would become the first such state institution in the country to impose limits on stem cell research that go beyond what state and federal laws allow, university officials say.

For weeks, the Nebraska board of regents has been the focus of a fierce campaign by opponents of embryonic stem cell research, most recently by a flood of e-mail and telephone calls, a petition drive and radio advertisements.

Nebraska law already prohibits state funding of research on non-Bush-approved lines.

by Jocelyn Kaiser

The National Institutes of Health is again being taken to task for doing too little to manage researchers' potential conflicts of interest, such as consulting for drug companies. This time federal investigators say NIH should tighten up rules that now give faculty with NIH funding too much leeway in what they must report.

The criticism comes from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General (IG), which in 2008 found that NIH wasn't paying enough attention to how its grantee institutions manage conflicts of interest. In a follow-on report dated 18 November, the IG has now examined the information that 41 grantee institutions filed with NIH in 2006 as well as documents kept by the institutions, such as disclosure forms. The most common conflict it found was equity ownership—111 of 165 researchers had equity such as stock in a company, and six had equity valued at more than $100,000.

by Constance Holden

Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) announced today that it has applied to the Food and Drug Administration to conduct a trial using embryonic stem cell–derived retinal pigment epithelial cells to treat Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy, a congenital eye disease. ACT, which has almost gone under several times in recent years, may now be on the verge of conducting the nation's first trial of an embryonic stem cell therapy, says Chief Scientific Officer Robert Lanza. Geron Corp., which earlier got permission to administer stem cell–derived oligodendrocyte progenitors to treat spinal injury, has been bogged down in delays and may not begin its trial until late next year.

Lanza says eye disease is a good place to start with such cell therapies because the eye doesn't reject foreign tissues, so no imunnosuppressive drugs are necessary. Because Stargardt's is an "orphan disease" with no treatment, he says it should get expedited review from FDA. Within the next few months the company also hopes to apply for permission to test the cells on macular degeneration.

by Elizabeth Pennisi

In 2 weeks, human geneticist Eric Green will take the reins of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the arm of the National Institutes of Health that spearheaded the sequencing of the human genome and leads the U.S. genomics effort. In doing so, this M.D./Ph.D. steps into shoes vacated by now NIH Director Francis Collins in August 2008 after 15 years.

An energizer bunny among scientists, Green will have to turn his energy and enthusiasm toward dealing both with the post stimulus-money funding decline and with the ever more pressing need to turn sequencing information into relevant biological and biomedical information. Continued advances in DNA sequencing technology will make sequencing a routine biological assay. “The biggest challenges are to figure out how to ensure biological insights and functional studies keep pace with an ever accelerating pace in our ability to generate sequence,” says Claire Fraser-Liggett from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. “Green is a very forward-looking thinker and has the ability to begin to strategize about what all of this new technology will allow us to do.”

by Jocelyn Kaiser

The genomics company deCODE genetics Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today, but that doesn't mean it is disappearing. The company will keep going with a loan from an investment firm that has offered to buy its assets.

Founded in 1996, deCODE blazed a new—and controversial—path by collecting genetics data on Iceland's citizens and mining it for disease markers. While the company has published many papers, it has never turned a profit. For the past year it has been restructuring and searching for buyers for some of its components. Now deCODE has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States and has an offer from a company called Saga Investments for its drug programs and for an Iceland-based subsidiary, Islensk Erfdagreining, that runs the company's research and genetic testing services.

deCODE will continue operations with a loan from Saga during the bankruptcy process—a court has to approve the deal, and other companies can offer bids, a company press release says. According to the Genetic Future blog, deCODE is telling customers that its genotyping service will continue and that the company has enough money for 2 years. But the bankruptcy filing is bad news for investors: "any recovery for stockholders of deCODE would be highly unlikely," the press release says.

A few months ago, rumors were afoot that the Wellcome Trust would pick up the company's biobank, perhaps by supporting a deCODE academic spinoff in Iceland. But a Wellcome official now tells ScienceInsider that no such deal is in the works.

by Jocelyn Kaiser

A new group is adding its voice to the furor over the influence of drug money on medical research and practice, saying there should be more money to study the problem. In a letter today to National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, 100 physicians, medical ethicists, and others call for funding: 

The recent disclosure of ghostwritten articles, physician payoffs, and the use of academic opinion leaders to increase markets for FDA-regulated products indicate that ethical lapses may permeate biomedical research. ...

In your role as the director of “the steward of medical and behavioral research for the Nation,” we ask that you acknowledge the research gap on the effect of conflicts of interest and commercial influence on medical decisionmaking ...

Between bench and bedside lies a path treacherous with ethical quandaries. NIH is the best place to launch and support a scientifically rigorous inquiry into the state of research ethics, industry-academic relationships, and the effect of these relationships on human health. There is currently no identifiable mechanism through which NIH would fund this research.

by Martin Enserink

Mention global health, and everybody thinks of HIV, malaria, and a host of other infectious diseases rampant in developing countries. But a group of research institutes says it's time that chronic, non-infectious diseases that afflict people in poor countries get a more prominent place on the global scientific agenda—and yesterday they announced three new priorities for their own research. The targets are hypertension, tobacco use, and the crude stoves polluting indoor air in developing countries.

The Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases, founded in June, unites public research institutes in nine countries, including powerhouses like the U.K.' s Medical Research Council and the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The group picked the three health problems—which they say cause 11 million premature deaths annually—at a meeting in New Delhi earlier this month.

It has long been known that noninfectious diseases are on the rise in developing countries for a number of complex reasons, including urbanization, increasing wealth, pollution, and changing nutrition patterns. Recently, some researchers even proposed making cancer a priority in global health.

The research needed to tackle the three new targets is diverse.

by Constance Holden

Temple University psychologist Laurence Steinberg has been awarded the first Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize. The new award, worth $1 million, comes from the Zurich-based Jacobs Foundation, founded by chocolate magnate Klaus Jacobs. It's designed to further "groundbreaking contributions to the improvement of the living conditions of young people."

Steinberg is well known for his research on adolescent brain development. He's a former director of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice. And he was one of the experts who wrote a U.S. Supreme Court brief arguing that 16- and 17-year-olds are too immature to be executed for capital crimes (Science, 30 July 2004, p. 596). In 2005, the court abolished the death penalty for these juveniles.