Volume 27 Issue 11, November 2009

Steve Reed believes the organization he has founded has the potential to radically increase the developing world's access to vaccines for neglected diseases. The efforts of the Seattle-based Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI), which operates as a not-for-profit biotech company, may start to pay off during the H1N1 'swine' flu pandemic. IDRI developed an adjuvant to boost the effectiveness and supplies of flu vaccines and is making the technology available to vaccine manufacturers in developing nations. Charlotte Schubert talks to Reed about how IDRI, a 90-person operation with a $19 million annual budget, could have such a big impact.

Agribusiness is taking another run at transgenic wheat after shelving its programs five years ago because of concerns from farmers, trade organizations and even state governments about market acceptance. Will there be a market this time? Jeffrey Fox investigates.

As the first commercial ventures are formed around induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell research, who will have the freedom to operate commercially remains a big unknown. Sarah Webb reports.

Most drugs withdrawn from the market because of serious toxicities never make it back. But Biogen Idec succeeded in getting its multiple sclerosis (MS) drug Tysabri reintroduced in less than 16 months.

Despite the global economic slowdown, biologics managed single-digit growth in 2008, driven mainly by continued high growth in sales of antibodies and insulins. Novel biologics in development look promising, but crowding, pricing and reimbursement are emerging as longer-term concerns.

Patents may not establish clear property and use rights and this may promote biodiversity destruction and decline. What is needed are schemes for patents to suit conservation and sustainable-use objectives.

As a differentiated cell proceeds toward the pluripotent state, markers turn on and off in an orderly fashion.

Combining microdroplet PCR with flow-cell technologies provides a novel approach for sequencing thousands of genomic targets.

Large-scale perturbations unravel the complex networks of activated dendritic cells.

Duplicated genomic regions are accurately resolved using an optimized algorithm for mapping reads from next-generation sequencers.

With a flood of cancer genome sequences expected soon, distinguishing 'driver' from 'passenger' mutations will be an important task. Wang et al. describe a bioinformatic method for identifying cancer-associated fusions and apply it to discover a recurrent rearrangement in lung cancer.

In many sequencing applications, it is sufficient to sequence selected portions of a genome rather than the complete genome. Tewhey et al. describe an approach for massively parallel genome targeting that relies on PCR in microdroplets generated by a microfluidic device.

Methods for reprogramming human cells are unable to prospectively distinguish bona fide induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from partially reprogrammed cells. Using live imaging to monitor cell fate, Chan et al. identify a set of markers that allows identification of rare iPS cells within a heterogeneous cell population.

Cells that have been purified by FACS using intracellular markers are not amenable to gene expression analysis by conventional methods. Pechhold et al. solve this problem with the quantitative nuclease protection assay and apply the approach to study subsets of islet cells.

Cho et al. reconstruct the regulatory and functional architecture of the E. coli genome by integrating data from several high-throughput measurements. The detailed map will allow the development of improved models of the networks that control the bacterium's transcription and translation.

Cytochrome P450 enzymes metabolize drugs and contribute to harmful drug-drug interactions. To decipher p450 activities, Veith et al. screen ∼17,000 compounds, including >1,000 FDA-approved drugs, against five important P450 isozymes and identify chemical structures that are enriched in compounds active against specific isozymes.