Science Market Update

When the American Medical Women's Association (AMWA) met in Washington DC for their annual meeting two weeks ago, they gave the 2011 Women in Science Award to Dr. Katherine L. Wisner of the University of Pittsburgh for her important work on perinatal mental health over the past 20+ years.   Dr. Wisner is one of over 200 faculty members of the Department of Psychiatry at Pitt and its affiliate hospital, the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC) of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). 

A recent ruling by a federal appeals court will allow the Obama Administration to continue funding embryonic stem cell research. The ruling reversed a previous injunction by a district court judge which would have frozen federal funding for stem cell science research. This new ruling ends months of uncertainty for numerous scientists who rely on federal funding for their stem cell research.

The University of California, Irvine runs a world-class academic Medical Center in Orange County, and it's getting even better with these recent research and facilities developments:

Until November of 2008, the State of Michigan had some of the most restrictive laws in the country governing stem cell research.  Dr. Eva Feldman of the University of Michigan went to California on a grant from philanthropist/benefactor Alfred Taubman to do her stem cell research toward treatment of Lou Gehrig's disease.  Then Michigan voters passed Proposal 2, allowing researchers to use human embryonic stem cell lines derived from surplus fertility clinic embryos.  After a year debating the ethical and legal angles of this new stem cell opportunity, UM came out with guidelines to direct and permit its researchers to move forward using cells from surplus blastocysts.  Dr. Feldman returned to UM, where she is Professor of Neurology and currently conducting the first human trial of a stem cell treatment for Lou Gehrig's disease.  [Photo of Dr. Feldman courtesy of Michigan Research Corridor]

New research led by IBM Research-Almaden and the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology has developed a new treatment for drug-resistant superbugs such as Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The new MRSA treatment uses tiny nanotechnology structures to attack the cell membrane of MRSA bacteria. 

Despite fears of massive cuts to vital Life Science and Bioscience research funding, the National Institutes of Health emerged relatively unscathed from the recent budget negotiations on Capitol Hill.

Despite calls to for massive cuts in the federal science funding budget, President Obama has remained committed to an increase in new biotechnology research funding for federal institutions such as the NIH, NSF, CDC, and FDA.

In 1995 Utah chemical industrialist Jon Huntsman donated $151M—$100M directly from family funds—to the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake City to create a top-notch cancer center bearing his family's name: The Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI).  Further contributions over the years brought Huntsman support to $300M. Now the family has made another gift to the Center in the amount of $41M, which HCI says will be used to hire more researchers and acquire new treatment technology.

“Plants are amazing biochemists as they make hundreds of thousands of compounds, yet we don’t know how most of these chemical compounds are produced by the plant or the role of these metabolites in the natural history of species across the kingdom.”

Michigan State University professor of molecular biology and biochemistry Robert Last (above photo and quote) and his team of researchers recently received a $4.1M grant from the National Science Foundation to study Andean Tomatoes and the chemicals they naturally produce.  Professor Last's research focuses on the tiny hairs on plants, called trichomes that are related to the plant's smell and taste through the sticky, pungent compounds they produce.