— The UK’s Wellcome Trust released its ten-year strategic plan for medical research yesterday. The five challenges it mentions include applying genetics to improve health and investigating the development of chronic disease. Last month, the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council outlined its five-year plan, noting among it priorities further basic research into health.

— A survey of almost 250 clinical research projects in the UK found that investigators believe their efforts are hampered by a lengthy drug approval process. The survey suggests that these conditions could lead some scientists to leave the UK in search of more research-friendly environments. (ScienceDaily)

— An anesthesiologist accused of fabricating data for trials of painkillers Vioxx and Celebrex entered a guilty plea yesterday. Scott Reuben, a former chief at Baystate Medical Center in Massachusetts, now faces a different set of hard numbers: repaying over $300,000 in research grants, along with up to ten years in prison. (Pharmalot)

— An investigation into more than 5 million newborn blood samples collected by the Texas government between 2002 and 2009 found that the state gave 800 of the samples to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Washington, DC. The blood samples, which were embroiled in a legal battle over parental consent last December, added to a national mitochondrial DNA database for use in forensics. (Texas Tribune)

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