Nautilus

The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) contains the most reliable and up-to-date genomic information available on the most widely used model organism in the plant kingdom. But TAIR now faces collapse: the US National Science Foundation (NSF) is phasing out funding after 10 years as the data resource's sole supporter.
According to an Editorial in Nature this week (462, 252; 2009), "TAIR's plight is emblematic of a broader crisis facing many of the world's biological databases and repositories. Research funding agencies recognize that such infrastructures are crucial to the ongoing conduct of science, yet few are willing to finance them indefinitely. Such agencies tend to support these resources during the development phase, but then expect them to find sustainable funding elsewhere. Unfortunately, that is not easy." Other funding agencies and private firms are not likely to step in to provide long-term support, even for relatively modest repositories and databases.
It is time for a whole new approach, argues the Editorial. "Front-line biology cannot function without these resources, so solutions must be found at both national and international levels.
Governments must ensure that at least one of their national funding agencies has money specifically set aside for the long-term support of bioresource infrastructures. A good model to emulate would be the United Kingdom's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, which allows databases and other such resources to apply for ring-fenced funding, saving them from having to compete with hypothesis-driven grants, which are the agencies' mainstay.
But action is also needed on the international front. The sharing of bioresources does not and should not stop at national borders. For example, only about a quarter of TAIR users are based in the United States. China is the second biggest user at around 12%, followed by Japan at around 10%. This is not atypical. Yet it is difficult for a single national agency to justify maintaining a resource for the rest of the world. What is required is an international cost-sharing organization that could fund competitively selected infrastructures, large and small.
An international solution may be a long time coming. In the meantime, bioresource infrastructures might be wise to invest some time in public relations, giving paymasters a greater understanding of the consequences of their decisions."

See also a related News story in the same issue of Nature (462, 258-259; 2009): Japanese science faces deep cuts.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on November 20, 2009
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Epigenetic mechanisms are increasingly appreciated to have an important role in immune cell functional diversity and adaptability, and understanding these mechanisms holds considerable potential for revealing new opportunities to therapeutically modulate the immune response in a range of diseases.
This Nature Reprint Collection provides a compilation of some of the research papers that have contributed to the advances in the field of immune cell epigenetics, as well as reviews discussing aspects of this new and exciting field. The collection brings together articles from Nature, Nature Immunology, Nature Reviews Immunology and Nature Reviews Drug Discovery that have contributed to advances and discussions in the field of immune cell epigenetics.
The articles in this collection are freely available online until 30 April 2010.

More Nature Collections.
Nature Immunology supplements and focuses.

See also: Epigenetic Dynamics in the Immune System, a conference organized by Nature Immunology and Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, 19 February 2010 in San Antonio, Texas.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on November 19, 2009
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In 2010, Nature Medicine will celebrate 15 years as the leading translational-research journal. To mark this anniversary, the journal has launched the Nature Medicine Classics Collection. This collection brings together some landmark articles published in Nature Medicine over the past 15 years, making them freely available to all readers together with a series of recent articles on different fields of biomedicine to illustrate the breadth of the journal.
The Nature Medicine editors write: Since 1995, our journal has been at the forefront of publishing translational medicine, way before the term was even coined. Our focus on publishing basic and preclinical work that has direct relevance to human disease has been a key characteristic of Nature Medicine that has helped establish the reputation of the journal in the translational research landscape.
To put together this sampler, we have chosen a series of recent articles from our pages, organized them by therapeutic area, and made them freely available in order to give you a glimpse of the breadth of Nature Medicine's coverage, as well as the quality of the science we publish.
In addition, we have chosen a few landmark articles that we had the privilege to publish over the past 15 years in an effort to illustrate why Nature Medicine is the home of translational research.
Nature Medicine Classics Collection by subject:
Classic articles
Cancer
Cardiovascular disease
Immunology
Infectious diseases
Metabolism
Neuroscience

See also:
Nature Medicine's free podcast.
Journal press releases.
Spoonful of Medicine, the journal's blog.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on November 18, 2009
Categories: Disciplines, NPG special content, Publications | Permalink | Comments (0)

Taken from the Editorial in the November issue of Nature Chemical Biology (5, 863; 2009):
In the past decade, chemical biology has expanded to embrace increasingly diverse research areas at the interface of chemistry and biology. Nature Chemical Biology has strived to highlight this aspect of chemical biology by publishing papers that apply chemical and biological approaches to achieving a greater mechanistic understanding of biological systems. The field also offers small molecules and tools that can be used to manipulate chemical and biological systems with unprecedented molecular precision. Given these basic and applied aspects, chemical biology has naturally resonated with fields that rely upon integrated chemical and biological insights. No field has been more affected than drug discovery.
This synergy was highlighted at the third Nature Chemical Biology symposium Chemical Biology in Drug Discovery, held on 19–20 September 2009 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The organizers were Paul Workman (Cancer Research UK Centre for Cancer Therapeutics at The Institute of Cancer Research, UK), Giulio Superti-Furga (Center for Molecular Medicine, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria), Brian Shoichet (University of California, San Francisco, USA), and Joanne Kotz (Nature Chemical Biology, USA)
Though the symposium focused primarily on the ways that chemical biology will shape the science of drug discovery, it was clear that chemical biologists, who are equipped with a substantial toolbox of 'pathfinder compounds', chemical methods and other technologies, represent a new generation of talented interdisciplinary scientists who will bring fresh insights to the drug discovery culture. Pharmaceutical companies should make every effort to integrate chemical biology programs and scientists into their portfolios to promote innovation in chemical biology for drug discovery.
A primary aim of the Nature Chemical Biology symposium series has been to nucleate discussions among scientists who share common interests but approach these scientific areas from different perspectives or with divergent tools. We look forward to bringing together other groups at the frontiers of chemical biology, and we welcome suggestions for future symposium topics.

Nature Chemical Biology:
Journal home page.
About the journal's web site.
Focuses and supplements.
Guide for authors and peer-reviewers.
About the editors.
Contact the journal.

Nature Conferences main index.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on November 17, 2009
Categories: Author benefits, Communication, Conferences | Permalink | Comments (0)

Q: Dear Nature: I am considering sending a presubmission enquiry for a Letter, and in the process, noticed your comment that, "The editors would prefer to read the full paper even if it isn’t in journal format, than to read a presub." If, (hypothetically!) I had a paper written in the format of another journal which that journal has not offered to publish, is there a mechanism by which I could submit this paper, rather than a presubmission enquiry, to Nature with the understanding that it would be rewritten to conform to your format if it were to be formally submitted? Would this be preferable? It would certainly be easier for me, and presumably would give you better information.

A: Thank you for your message. Yes, you can submit a paper to Nature in the same format that you've used for another journal. We aren't too concerned about the precise details of format at the submission stage as long as the manuscript is not excessively over-length. As you say, a full manuscript that isn't quite in the journal format is more informative for the editors than a brief presubmission enquiry.
All manuscripts that are sent for peer-review go through at least two rounds of revision, so there is opportunity at the first revision stage for format issues to be addressed. The editor will send specific guidelines then.
We recommend to authors who wish to submit a manuscript that has previously been formatted for another journal that that they note in their covering letter that their manuscript is currently not in Nature's precise format as specified in our guidelines, and that they are willing to revise the manuscript to Nature's format during the peer-review process.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on November 16, 2009
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The proportion of the public that knows about nanotechnology has reached a plateau, which means that it is now necessary to develop new approaches to explore public perceptions in greater detail than before, according to the November Editorial in Nature Nanotechnology (4, 695; 2009). The Editorial draws attention to "the publication of the first meta-analysis of survey data on public attitudes towards the risks and benefits associated with nanotechnology (see page 752 of this issue). Terre Satterfield and colleagues looked at 22 publications reporting the results of surveys and found that the public response to nanotechnology has, so far, been different to the responses to previous new technologies in a number of ways. In particular, and contrary to expectations, unfamiliarity with nanotechnology is not strongly associated with risk aversion. The meta-analysis also reveals that twice as many people think that the benefits will outweigh risks as vice versa, but the authors caution that "a large minority of those surveyed (44%) is unsure, suggesting that risk judgments are highly malleable." Satterfield and colleagues also call for the development of new methods to understand public responses to nanotechnologies. In an accompanying News & Views on page 705 Dan Kahan concludes that "the meta-analysis suggests that public attitudes toward nanotechnology remain open to the guidance of sound science, but that it would be a serious error to take such receptivity for granted.".... It is important that the nanotechnology community — researchers, funders, regulators and others — continues to work hard to ensure that nano does not become the next GM, all the time accepting that there might always be new questions to answer and new challenges to address."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on November 13, 2009
Categories: Ethics, Public and media | Permalink | Comments (0)

Intellectual-property protection is a key driver of innovation, and researchers are always keen to file patents to shield their discoveries. Yet scientists often have an uninformed view of the value of their intellectual property. This naiveté slows down translational research. So concludes the November Editorial in Nature Medicine (15, 1229; 2009).
An informal poll conducted by the Nature Medicine editors revealed that "about two-thirds of scientists, particularly in Europe, don't know who owns the intellectual rights to the discoveries made in their labs. A similarly high proportion don't know if there are any provisions in their job contracts assigning them any rights over their discovery. And roughly half don't even know whether they are legally entitled to open a company based on their research." Ironically, states the Editorial, these are the very same scientists who dream of patenting their work and reaping the financial benefits. Before thinking about licenses (the essential first step), the Editorial continues, "it's important to realize that the decision to file a patent seldom rests with the scientists, but rather with the technology transfer office (TTO) of their institution. Strangely enough, although most of the scientists we surveyed were interested in patenting their work and knew about the importance of the TTO to this end, over 60% admitted to never having interacted with that office." After highlighting some of the problems concerning technology transfer offices and investor caution, the Editorial concludes:
"Translational researchers never shy away from the chance to present their science to anyone who might want to invest in it. But they would be well advised to start listening to companies, investors and their own TTOs to develop a better understanding of what they must bring to the table in order to attract financial support. Admittedly, there are very few places where scientists can learn how to engage in this dialogue, but the excuse that provides should be cold comfort given how important this is to the progress of translational research. The creation of forums of this sort should therefore become a priority for universities and research centers alike. A high-profile paper may allow you to get your foot in the door, but it won't be enough to open it."

See also the free Nature Medicine podcast, this month looking at the law in the context of the "patent cliff" which pharmaceutical companies are facing.

In other Nature Medicine news, the journal is organizing a colloquium on Systems Biology and HIV Vaccine Development on 8-10 February 2010 in Peachtree City, Georgia, USA. Participants will include HIV researchers and scientists using systems approaches in other areas of biomedical research, who will address how systems biology has provided insight into the immune response and into other areas of medicine, such as cancer and autoimmunity. Also on the agenda for discussion are the technical and bioinformatic challenges associated with using systems biology approaches; the gaps in HIV immunology that need to be resolved to develop an HIV vaccine; whether systems approaches can help to address these questions; and how 'systems vaccinology' approaches can be implemented in HIV vaccine development and clinical trial monitoring.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on November 12, 2009
Categories: Authorship, Communication, Conferences, Education | Permalink | Comments (0)