and is considered to be the least toxic alternative to chemical pesticides. But a new study has revealed adverse effects on the reproductive success of birds.
toxic proteins produced by Bti cause pores to form in the guts of the larvae,
The handful of previous field studies on its toxicity to vertebrate populations have not found significant adverse impacts.
where the aim is to reduce mosquito numbers for human comfort rather than for disease control.
Mosquito saliva may signal infection outbreaks: Nature Newsbaiting mosquito traps with cards soaked in honey,
may be a way of tracking the spread of some diseases. To assess whether mosquito populations are harbouring dangerous viruses,
such as chickens and pigs, for antibodies that signal the presence of pathogens. Both methods put people at risk of exposure to the viruses.
Andrew van den Hurk of the Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services in Coopers Plains, Australia,
which spreads dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever viruses, prefers blood meals over honey. The kinds of mosquitoes they trapped with this method are not necessarily the most important vectors for some viruses,
says Scott Weaver, who studies virus-mosquito interactions at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
The method does not indicate which species, or how many mosquitoes, deposited viruses on the cards.
As a result, it would be nearly impossible to quantify the risk of infection on the basis of the amount of VIRAL RNA on the cards
says Phil Lounibos, a medical entomologist at the University of Florida in Vero Beach. It would be more valuable for the quick and dirty detection of viruses,
and to calculate the infection rate in mosquitoes and assess the potential threat. Next, van den Hurk will compare the sensitivity of the approach with those of other standard methods,
Business Genzyme fined: On 24 may, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fined Genzyme US$175 million for poor oversight at one of its manufacturing plants.
Efforts by the biotechnology company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to clean the plant will cause shortages of three drugs,
including one used to treat thyroid cancer. But there was also good news for the beleaguered company:
on 25 may, after years of struggle, Genzyme won FDA approval to market Lumizyme (alglucosidase-Ã Â) for patients with late-onset Pompe disease, a muscle-weakening illness.
Biotech boost: Amgen has secured regulatory approval from the European commission for denosumab (Prolia), the California-based drug company's treatment for osteoporosis. The monoclonal antibody will be used to treat postmenopausal women who have increased an risk of fractures,
and men experiencing the side effects of prostate-cancer treatment. Last year, a US Food and Drug Administration committee recommended that the drug be approved for certain patients,
although it awaits full US approval. Analysts predict multibillion-dollar annual sales for the drug.
Pharma R&d shuffle: Astrazeneca has hired Pfizer's research and development (R&d) chief, Martin Mackay, to take the helm of its own R&d programme.
Pfizer and Astrazeneca are both restructuring their R&d programmes to replenish pipelines and cut costs.
Mackay became head of R&d at Pfizer, the world's biggest drug maker, in 2007,
but has shared the job with Mikael Dolsten since October 2009, when Pfizer completed its acquisition of rival Wyeth.
Dolsten will now lead Pfizer's R&d team alone. Business watch A growing need to cut pharmaceutical
and biotechnology research costs is fuelling a boom in the contract research organization (CRO) industry.
More than 1 000 CROS around the world provide outsourced research and clinical-trial services. According to an August 2009 report by London-based market analysts Business Insights, CROS accounted for 20%of the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology research and development budget in 2008.
Revenues are expected to reach US$24 billion in 2010, doubling 2004 earnings (see chart). Much of that growth will be in emerging markets,
as companies take advantage of the low costs and deep talent pools in countries such as India and China.
The 300 US-based CROS still generate about half of the industry's revenue, and are predicted to grow each year by 14%.
%But in China, where drug development is about 20%of the cost in the United states and Western europe,
the industry is expected to swell by 33%each year, reaching $791 million by 2012. Meanwhile, the proportion of global clinical trials conducted in India will grow from 2%in 2007 to 5%in 2012.
These trends have been highlighted by leading US CROS such as Quintiles in Durham, North carolina, and Charles river Laboratories in Wilmington, Massachusetts, shifting more of their operations to emerging markets.
Funding Mental health call: The UK Medical Research Council has called for greater investment to address the huge mismatch between the social and economic burden of mental illness and the relatively slow progress in research in the field.
Following a six-month review, a report published last week (Lancet 375,1854-1855; 2010) sets out a strategic plan for the next 5-10 years that would accelerate mental-health research for both prevention and treatment.
Awards Winning millions: Five US-based researchers will share three Shaw prizes worth US$1 million apiece.
and medicine for his work on molecular mechanisms of pain. The mathematics prize went to Jean Bourgain of Princeton university for his work in mathematical analysis.
27 may News maker William Bishaithe tuberculosis expert will head South africa's Kwazulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV,
the first Howard Hughes Medical Institute research lab outside the United states. See go. nature. com/Uhiftr for more.
regardless of whether the EFSA has determined they pose no risk to human health or the environment and whether they have been approved by the European commission.
This is research that will contribute to the xenophobia that is already running amok in our country today.
and he developed health problems. Eventually, he couldn't find anything to catch because fish were dying
They may take decades to regain their health. Jernelã v says that other features of Ixtoc I may foreshadow what the coming months
including schools, clinics and utilities for rural communities. She is an exemplary citizen says Kanpolat.
Pandemic over: The World health organization (WHO) announced on 10 august that the world is no longer experiencing an H1n1 influenza virus pandemic.
An emergency committee, which convened that day, said that countries were generally not reporting out-of-season outbreaks of the flu strain,
and that H1n1 would probably take on the behaviour of a seasonal flu virus. Margaret Chan,
director-general of THE WHO, said the pandemic had turned out better than feared because the virus hadn't mutated into a more lethal form
and drug resistance hadn't developed. We have been aided by pure good luck she said. Research Student gene-testing dropped:
The University of California, Berkeley, has been barred from providing incoming students with personal analyses of three common genetic variants.
) California's health department ruled on 11 august that such analyses constitute medical information, so must be conducted under a doctor's order
and at a clinically certified lab. The university will now not release individual results, but will still analyse some 700 student samples received,
Events Disease follows deluge in Pakistan As nearly three weeks of floods in Pakistan displaced tens of millions of people
500, the United nations this week warned of the spread of acute diarrhoea and waterborne diseases such as dysentery and cholera.
The chief executive of India's biggest drug maker, Ranbaxy, resigned unexpectedly last week, citing differences of opinion with parent company Daiichi Sankyo,
a major player in the generic drugs market and headquartered in Gurgaon, for little more than a year.
and Drug Administration accused the company of falsifying safety data. Ranbaxy announced net profits of 3. 3 billion rupees (US$71 million) for the year's second quarter, down 50%on the previous year but above analysts'expectations.
Pharma deal: Generic drugs maker Aspen Pharmacare, based in Durban, South africa, will buy the drugs manufacturing unit of Australian company Sigma Pharmaceuticals for Aus$900 million (US$806 million).
Aspen, which is owned 19 by pharmaceutical giant Glaxosmithkline, headquartered in London, and is Africa's largest drugs manufacturer,
wanted to expand its position in the Australian generics market. It announced the deal on 16 august.
Gene-sequencing IPO: Pacific Biosciences, a gene-sequencing technology company in Menlo Park, California, aims to raise US$200 million in an initial public offering.
In a US Securities and exchange commission filing dated 16 august, the company says that it would use the proceeds for further research and development relating to its sequencing technology,
Business watch A generation of drugs with the potential to cure hepatitis C is set to flood the market.
This month, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and drug behemoth Merck, headquartered in Whitehouse Station, New jersey, both released promising results from late-stage clinical trials of their leading drugs against the hepatitis C virus (HCV).
The virus, which infects liver cells and can cause cirrhosis and liver cancer, affects about 3%of the world's population.
Currently, half of the patients with HCV are cured by a course of an immune-boosting protein and a general antiviral,
although the treatment can have serious side effects. Merck's drug boceprevir and Vertex's telaprevir both block HCV's protease enzyme and 墉 combined with the standard treatment 墉 cured 66%and 72%of patients respectively in phase
III trials. If the drugs are approved by mid-2011, as their manufacturers hope, they will take the early lead in an HCV-drug field that could grow to be worth US$15 billion by 2017, according to Irena Melnikova, a life-sciences analyst at TVM Capital in Boston, Massachusetts.
Competitors in a crowded field (see chart) are developing other protease inhibitors, as well as drugs that target HCV's polymerase enzyme,
and its NS5A protein, which is involved in replication and viral assembly. See go. nature. com/rknczt for more.
with the theme of chemistry for combating disease. ¢go. nature. com/AD8G6E 22 28 august The 28th International Ornithological Congress discusses all things bird-related in Campos do Jord ae'£o, S ae'£o
the country is facing a multitude of public-health and environmental disasters including the risk of radioactive particles being released from contaminated land around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
According to ITAR TASS, the Russian state media, the ministry of health and social development says the death toll from the fires has risen to 53,
with 806 people having requested medical attention. is unprecedented this? No. Wildfires often occur in Russia.
Long-term health effects from inhaling the smoke are another concern, he adds. Carbon monoxide pollution has risen to 10 times above the maximum permitted levels,
as we know little about the health effects of a carbon monoxide and low-dose radiation combination, said Vladimir Chouprov, an energy campaigner for Greenpeace Russia,
and one resistant to Bayer Crop science's Liberty herbicide (gluphosinate). They also found some plants that were resistant to both herbicides,
Zhang Fusuo, a plant nutritionist at the China Agricultural University in Beijing, says China has 9%of the world's arable land
and can release toxins that are poisonous to humans and animals. A study led by Liang Tao
a variety of aubergine modified to produce a protein from the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacterium that is toxic to insect pests.
after an outcry from farmers and activists, environment minister Jairam Ramesh put a moratorium on planting the vegetable, pending the interacademy assessment of its safety to human health and the environment.
has been subjected to a rigorous biosafety regulatory process encompassing all aspects of toxicity, allergenicity, environmental safety, socioeconomic assessment etc.
How stress shapes ecosystems: Nature Newsyou are tense and wary, alert to every rustle and snapped twig.
an ecologist at Yale university in New haven, Connecticut, has been teasing out the ecological ramifications of this predation stress in meadows.
whether the physiological effects of stress on grasshoppers scale up to plants, soil, bacteria and onwards,
Cancer-gene testing ramps up: Nature Newsin an approach that many doctors and scientists hope will form the medical care of the future,
Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston has for the past year and a half been offering people with cancer a novel diagnostic test.
Instead of assessing tumours for a single mutation that will indicate whether a drug is likely to work or not, the hospital tests patients for some 150 mutations in more than a dozen cancer-causing genes,
with the results being used to guide novel treatments, clinical trials and basic research. This form of personalized medicine tailors treatments on the basis of the molecular and genetic characteristics of a patient's cancer cells
potentially improving the treatment's outcome. Now Britain is set to test whether an entire health-care system is ready for the approach.
Plans were unveiled this week to deploy broad genetic testing for selected cancer patients in Britain's government-run health-care provider, the National Health Service (NHS.
This form of'stratified medicine'uses genetic information to group patients according to their likely response to a particular treatment.
The United kingdom is really the ideal place to do this, says James Peach, who heads the programme for Cancer Research UK,
the charity that is leading the effort. As the NHS treats millions of people each year, unprecedented numbers of suitable patients could be enrolled in the genetic-profiling programme.
The idea is to scale this up to every patient in the NHS, says Peach. In its first phase, the programme will be rolled out to as many as 12
000 NHS cancer patients over two years, beginning in early 2011. By contrast, Massachusetts General has tested about 1, 600 patients,
and other hospitals'efforts each number in the hundreds. The tests, which will look for several dozen mutations in about a dozen genes linked to cancer,
will be carried out on people with lung, breast, colorectal, prostate or ovarian cancers, or metastatic melanoma, who are being treated at six NHS hospitals.
Therapies that target specific tumour-causing mutations have already been approved, or are on the verge of approval, for most of these conditions, says Peach.
Testing a clinical sample for so many mutations at once is a challenge in itself. Because most existing clinical tests probe individual genes
the NHS programme is working with the Technology Strategy Board, a government agency that supports technology development,
and several companies to design a customized test that detects all of these mutations in one go.
The partnership, which includes the pharmaceutical multinationals Pfizer and Astrazeneca, will also design software to make the results useful to researchers and clinicians.
By genotyping patients for a broad array of cancer-causing mutations, the new tests will make it easier to assign subjects to clinical trials,
Peach says. That is already happening at Massachusetts General, where the test is helping to establish clinical trials that wouldn't otherwise have happened
says Leif Ellisen, a geneticist who helps lead the hospital's cancer testing programme. For example, its broad genetic test detects a mutation in a gene called BRAF that is already known to be mutated commonly in metastatic melanoma.
Finding such mutations in people with lung and colon cancer made it possible to put them in a trial of an experimental treatment targeting that gene,
Ellisen explains. Basic research should also benefit from the NHS programme, says Peach. Researchers will have access to consenting patients'genetic data as well as to medical records of the outcomes of the treatment.
These data could reveal how drugs targeting one molecular pathway are affected by mutations in another gene
says Andy Futreal, a cancer geneticist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK,
and an adviser to the programme. Peach hopes that the first phase of the cancer programme will pave the way for expanding genetic testing to more patients and other conditions, such as diabetes, AIDS and even psychiatric disorders.
Cancer offers a good testing ground for personalized medicine, because numerous targeted therapies already exist, but there's no reason why this should be restricted to cancer,
says Peach. Fabrice Andrã, who runs a similar cancer diagnostic programme that has so far been offered to about 100 patients at the Gustave Roussy Institute in Villejuif
France, says the NHS programme could point the way to implementing personalized medicine across an entire population. It can really change the landscape of how molecular testing is being done for cancer,
he says. If they succeed, then it's going to be a major step forward.
GM maize offers windfall for conventional farms: Nature Newsgenetically modified (GM CROPS can save farmers using conventional seeds even more money than those using the transgenic varieties,
according to an analysis published in Science this week1. And ensuring that some fields are kept free of the GM CROPS seems to be key to the overall success of the transgenic variety.
Researchers, led by entomologist William Hutchison of the University of Minnesota in St paul, assessed the effects of planting maize (corn) genetically modified to produce Bt toxin,
which kills the European corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis). They found that since the crop was introduced in 1996, US farmers in the key maize-growing states of Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois,
Wisconsin and Nebraska (see map below) had saved nearly $6. 9 billion. Of that, conventional farmers saved just over $4. 3 billion, some 62%of the total.
We were surprised to find that a higher proportion of the total benefit is actually going to the non-Bt farmers,
says Hutchison. The reason for the conventional farmers'windfall is tied up in the effectiveness of the transgenic crop.
Not only does Bt maize suppress the corn-borer population in fields planted with the GM crop
it exerts a'halo effect, 'lowering the pest population in conventional maize fields too. As a result, farmers planting non-GM CROPS benefit from fewer pests,
but don't have to pay the higher prices for the GM seeds. Overall, Hutchison's team found that corn-borer populations have declined by between 27%and 73%across the five states in the 14 years
since the transgenic crop was introduced. This work provides strong evidence for the reduced pest burden for non-Bt corn caused by the Bt corn, based on a reduction in overall pest-population size
Conventional growers also help to stop corn borers becoming resistant to the Bt toxin by hosting pest populations that are susceptible to it, according to the team's research.
the corn earworm (Helicoverpa zea), has evolved resistance to Bt toxin in situations where GM-crop coverage is 100%.
Nature Newsscientists in Uganda will next week start field trials of a banana variety genetically engineered to resist a bacterial disease that has been decimating crops across Central africa.
The disease was originally found in Ethiopia, but was discovered in Uganda in 2001 and has rapidly spread to the Democratic Republic of congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi.
where it has been shown to improve the disease resistance of vegetables including as broccoli, tomatoes and potatoes.
Six of the eight GM banana strains developed with the green pepper gene showed 100%resistance to BXW in the lab1.
The field trials will also screen GM banana varieties with resistance to BXW for resistance to fungal diseases
and iron to help to combat blindness and anaemia in rural areas. But the future of Uganda's biotechnology advances remains uncertain.
There is an anxiety, which must be alleviated, he says.
Chemists help archaeologists to probe biblical history: Nature News TEL MEGIDDO Fabled as a site of biblical battles and spectacular palaces,
Tel Megiddo today is a dusty mound overlooking Israel's Jezreel valley. It is also host to one of the hottest debates in archaeology a controversy over the historical truth of the Bible's account of the first United kingdom of Israel.
Chemists make up half of the two dozen excavators on the team, which is being led by Finkelstein and Steve Weiner,
But chemical analysis can add many more details to the picture. When Nature visited Tel Megiddo in October,
Chemical analysis can distinguish between soil layers that look identical to the naked eye explains Weiner.
preventing contamination that could otherwise cast doubt on the analysis. Boaretto explains that she is on site
such as finding the cause of the bumblebee disease thought to be behind the population crashes.
Some researchers have pinned the die off of native bumblebees on a fungal pathogen, Nosema bombi, which could have been introduced into the United states
The researchers suggested organizing efforts to determine the pathogen's transmission rate and identify any other diseases possibly infecting the bumblebees.
Other attendees concentrated on climate-change impacts that could be exacerbating the decline. For instance, flowers may bloom one
Dengue control The release of male mosquitoes genetically engineered to be sterile can control dengue fever by suppressing the population of the insects that carry the disease, scientists at Oxitec,
Events Cholera in Haiti The escalating cholera epidemic in Haiti had claimed more than 900 lives and caused close to 15,000 infections by the start of this week, according to the Haitian Ministry of Public health and Population.
The cholera strain is most closely related to one from south Asia the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, has said,
although it has pinpointed not the source. Business Genome market Complete Genomics, one of the handful of young US companies offering fast, cheap genome sequencing,
completed its initial public offering (IPO) on 11 november 墉 raising US$54 million at $9 per share, short of the $86-million target it set when first filing for an IPO in July.
This breaks from the traditional biomedical model, in which basic science is separate from the application of the discoveries,
Growth factor makes a comeback in cystic fibrosis: Nature Newsthe stunted development common to cystic fibrosis begins at birth
and could be a direct consequence of a growth-hormone deficiency caused by the disease. In both people and pigs, newborns with cystic fibrosis tend to have abnormally low levels of a hormone called insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1),
according to a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1.
Unlike in healthy controls, in mutant pigs IGF1 levels do not increase over time. The blood concentration of IGF1 could one day be used as a marker to predict
whether a patient with cystic fibrosis will have growth problems later in life, says David Stoltz, a physician in the Department of Internal medicine at the University of Iowa, Iowa City,
who led the study. We know there's variability some people progress quickly, some progress slowly.
There might be a subpopulation of patients where IGF1 is really important. Cystic fibrosis is a deadly genetic disease:
many patients don't live past the age of 30. Scientists identified the culprit gene some two decades ago (see'Human genetics:
One gene, twenty years'.'But the field is still struggling to understand how this glitch causes the disease's range of symptoms,
which include scarring and mucus in the lungs and pancreas, diabetes, infertility, weak bones and impeded growth.
In the 1990s, researchers found that individuals with cystic fibrosis have low levels of IGF1 in their blood2,
driving speculation that this was at least partly responsible for their stunted growth. In 2001, researchers reported on a small trial that tested
says Robert Wilmott, a paediatrics expert at Saint louis University in Missouri, who led that trial.
and growth problems are caused not directly by the cystic fibrosis gene, but rather are by-products of malnutrition and lung inflammation.
The new study challenges that idea by showing signatures of underdevelopment even at birth. Stoltz and his collaborators took advantage of a pig model of cystic fibrosis that they debuted in 20084.
The model has been the subject of much excitement among researchers because unlike the mouse version, it develops symptoms similar to those seen in humans with the disease, such as infection and inflammation in the lungs.
Compared with controls, the team found that newborn mutant pigs had significantly less IGF1 in their blood at birth.
The researchers then screened for IGF1 in samples of dried blood from 23 human newborns with cystic fibrosis.
The cystic fibrosis gene CFTR codes for a protein called the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator, which helps to move chloride ions across cell membranes.
that problems with insulin secretion associated with cystic fibrosis are stalled responsible for the IGF1 production in newborns insulin regulates the production of IGF1 in the liver in utero and throughout life.
In any case, the findings point to IGF1 as a potential therapy for cystic fibrosis particularly because regulators in the United states and Europe have approved already synthetic IGF1 for the treatment of severely short stature.
Researchers at Stony Brook University Medical center in New york are conducting a Phase I trial in
which IGF1 is being administered to adults with cystic fibrosis. But before rushing to treat infants with the hormone,
and genetically modified cotton crops, engineered to produce a toxin deadly to pinkies, would put an end to farmers'costly struggle against the caterpillars.
The strategy was intended to restrict the spread of toxin-resistant pink bollworms by flooding the population with sterile moths.
Arizona farmers had to give up the strategies normally used to suppress toxin-resistant bollworms so
The crops produce a toxin that is made naturally by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis called Bt toxin.
To prevent the spread of Bt resistance, farmers are required to plant nearby'refuges'of conventional crops.
The factory treated the moths with just enough radiation to damage the chromosomes in their reproductive cells without causing injuries that would prevent their survival in the wild.
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