— The US National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration announced today a partnership to advance regulatory science and better integrate the drug research and approval processes. The three-year initiative includes the creation of a joint council and a public hearing this spring on how the FDA and NIH can bring safer products to market sooner.

— Researchers have developed a new method for detecting whether drug candidates hit their targets. The process, called ‘microscale thermophoresis’, registers the energy released when two compounds combine to determine the binding effectiveness of a drug candidate. The creators of the test say it can be performed in blood samples, not just buffer solutions.

— Pull out the Purell and slide on your surgical masks. Well, not really. Scientists have created three new virulent strains of flu in test tubes. Genes were shuffled between avian and seasonal strains, yielding more than 250 combinations. When these strains were tested among mice, 22 proved more easily transmittable than seasonal flu, and three of these were also more fatal. (Reuters)

— Scientists have found that a human protein implicated in cancer can also revive dying arabidopsis plants. The protein, insulin responsive aminopeptidase (IRAP), is a human analog of aminopeptidase M1 (APM1), which contributes to root development in plants. Lab animals, hold back your squeaks of celebration, but according to the authors of this study, arabidopsis might prove to be a plant model for cancer. (ScienceDaily)

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