Articles in 2010

The Obama administration's $1 billion tax program at the very least signals a continued commitment to innovative biotech. The same cannot be said of plans afoot by the French government.

Two approaches for selecting oligonucleotides from complex mixtures improve the fidelity and scalability of DNA synthesis.

China is presenting the pharmaceutical world with unprecedented opportunity. Here is what is happening there and how you can be a part of it.

The list of drug companies forced into several hundred million dollar settlements for making fraudulent product claims continues to lengthen. And the signs are that the US government will continue to ramp up its efforts, using new theories of liability and handing out even stiffer penalties. Mark Ratner investigates.

Action needs to be taken to prevent anti-biotech activists from co-opting environmental law to derail the planting of transgenic crops that have already received regulatory approval.

The antiquated legal standard that natural laws and products are not eligible for patent protection is ill-suited for gene and diagnostics patents. Here, I propose a new, technology-agnostic framework for determining patent eligibility that is tailored to the meet the US Constitutional objective of promoting innovation.

The development of generic therapeutic nanoparticles faces a combination of scientific, patent and regulatory challenges.

Only one drug targeting the proteasome protein degradation pathway has been approved, but several second-generation inhibitors are making progress in trials. Jim Kling reports.

First-generation epigenetic drugs have proven clinically useful in several hematological cancers. But newer enzyme inhibitors in the pipeline aim to be more selective and promise to broaden the portfolio of therapeutic uses.

DNA molecules that are read by a next-generation sequencer have been discarded after the sequencing reaction, until now. By retrieving oil-emulsified beads encapsulating DNA with a known sequence, Matzas et al. obtain high-quality input material for DNA synthesis.

Long DNA molecules, such as those encoding genes, can be assembled from short oligonucleotides created on a microarray. Kosuri et al. improve the fidelity and scalability of this process, enabling synthesis of 40 antibody fragments having repetitive regions and other challenging sequence features.

Minicircle DNA vectors are superior to plasmids for long-term transgene expression but are not in widespread use because of a laborious production process. Kay et al. present an improved protocol for generating minicircles that makes them a viable alternative to plasmids for gene transfer studies.

The metabolism of tissues often involves interactions between several types of cell. Lewis et al. model metabolism within and between neurons in the human brain, gaining insight into energy metabolism and Alzheimer's disease.

Nanoparticles are under study for pulmonary drug delivery and are continually in contact with the lungs through air pollution. Choi et al. study the effects of size, charge and chemical composition on the behavior of nanoparticles in the rat lung.