NIH Suspends Grant to Emory University

jerry submitted, created time 2 months 3 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has suspended a $9 million grant for a depression study led by psychiatrist Charles Nemeroff at Emory University in Atlanta. The punishment, imposed in August but only made public today, is apparently the most severe reaction by NIH so far to a Senate investigation of NIH-funded researchers who may have failed to report all of their income from drug companies.

Recipients of NIH grants are required to report income from industry consulting activities

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Outcry at scale of inheritance project

jerry submitted, created time 2 months 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) handed out the first payments in a multi-million-dollar project to explore epigenomics last month. But some researchers are voicing concerns about the scientific and economic justification for this latest "big biology" venture.

Epigenetics is the study of usually-inherited factors that are not directly coded in the genes. The biggest objection to this massive project seems to be the belief that it is a waste of money that could be going to other strapped labs

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NIH director steps down, hoping that president will step up

Darkfrog submitted, created time 3 months 1 week (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

Over the past several years, Dr. Elias Zerhouni has seen the U.S.'s National Institutes of Health through funding caps and Bush's ban on funding for embryonic stem cell research. He defended sexual research to a conservative Congress and he forbade NIH scientists from doing industrial consulting, a situation that had created some conflicts of interest.

And now he's off.

Zerhouni says that he's chosen now to depart because he wants the next presidential administration to focus on NIH as quickly as possible. Choosing a new director would force the new president to do that.

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Genomic medicine sector "needs government backing"