The Broad Institute and the drug giant Novartis (whose research enterprise is headquartered in Cambridge) earlier this month released the results of its study on the genetics of type II diabetes.. It made headlines because Novartis agreed from the beginning that it would give away the results of this study for free online. Perhaps all the academic centers and people now surrounding Novartis (and infiltrating it…the head of Novartis research, Mark Fishman, was at MGH for years before signing on with the drug company) are having their effect.

Press reports were quite favorable of Novartis. Forbes and The Scientist say that other drug companies will likely follow Novartis’s lead in giving away results and the Scientist quoted some UK diabetes researchers saying how they’ve benefited from this free exchange with Novartis.

Indeed, this year could be the year that we’ll see lots of exciting results in diabetes genetics research. The Globe mentions three teams of scientists, including the Broad/Novartis one, getting ready to publish their studies. One’s already published, in Nature, the same week Novartis/Broad put out their results on the web.

#######################################

Mildred Dresselhaus, a long-time professor at MIT and materials science maven, was one of 5 women from around the world to receive a $100,000 L’Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science. We ran a profile of her last year. She’s definitely a pioneering woman in physics and nanoscience so the award didn’t come as a big surprise to me.

#############################

And finally, check out the discussions going on at Engineering Science. Some good discussions of how to cope with all the funding downturns. On interesting observation from one of the bloggers there: not only are more R01 grant applications at NIH being sent back for revisions, but also applications for postdoc fellowships.