Does the NIH have the ability to screen for U.S. security issues in its award of research grants? That question is at the heart of an April 2 letter the Republican leadership of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent to the Government Accountability Office in which it asked the government watchdog to examine the extent to which the NIH “adequately safeguards research funds from national security concerns related to the Chinese military or over the unethical use of human beings in research studies, especially from entities of concern in China.”
Swiss researchers have developed a battery powered device that directly activates gene expression in cell implants and as a proof of concept shown it is possible to stimulate insulin release and normalize blood sugar levels in a mouse model of type I diabetes.
A new study from Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Poland’s Medical University of Lodz suggests a simple blood test could detect ovarian and breast cancer without the need for genetic sequencing, paving the way for broader and less costly screening campaigns.
The U.S. NIH once again faces questions about its oversight of certain research. In the latest round, the U.S. Government Accountability Office called on the agency to do more to ensure that foreign facilities conducting NIH-funded animal research are compliant with U.S. standards and policy regarding animal care and use, as well as international standards.
U.S. lawmakers have been busy writing to government agencies demanding answers and explanations on a range of issues, including drug shortages, gain-of-function research and thickets of duplicative patents that extend patent protection well beyond 20 years for some prescription drugs.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services received low marks on its latest Government Accountability Office (GAO) report card for its oversight of high-risk research involving potential pandemic pathogens, but legislative fixes might be necessary to ensure that all the gaps are closed.
One of the snarkier ways to describe psychology – and unfortunately, not a completely incorrect one – is as the study of behavior in white rats and college sophomores. For a long time, biomedical research suffered a parallel problem: of white mice and white men. Things are slowly improving as far as diversity in clinical research is concerned, and there are a number of species other than mice that are widely used because they are well-suited to study certain processes.
After declarations from the World Health Organization and the U.S. government that monkeypox is a public health emergency, attention is turning to the pharma industry’s response to the disease. Vaccines look likely to play a crucial role in controlling monkeypox – but could antivirals play a significant part as they did in the COVID-19 pandemic?
With its focus on transformative high-risk, high-reward research to drive biomedical breakthroughs, the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) may be a good concept, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of increased investment in basic research at the NIH, according to the bipartisan leadership of U.S. House appropriators.
Policymakers shouldn’t look to march-in rights as a simple solution to make medical products more affordable, according to experts speaking at an Information Technology & Innovation Foundation discussion on how using the march-in provisions of the Bayh-Dole Act as price controls would threaten America’s research universities.
