Wednesday Brain Dump: February 11, 2009

Deep Appreciation:for Phillip Terrence Ragon, founder and sole proprietor of database-software provider InterSystems who donated $100 million to establish a research institute that focuses on expediting the development of an AIDS vaccine, and to Pfizer Canada which contributed a further $2 million to British Columbia’s Center for Drug Research and Development (CDRD); and The State of Georgia is contemplating a $180 million bioscience research park.

Social Agitation: French scientists decided their street protests were their best approach to halting the government’s science and higher education reforms and rejected mediation.

Better Cogitation:Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) shows neuroprotective effects in animal models of Alzheimers’, but it won’t stop cries of ‘brain drain’ following Canada’s 2009 Budget.

Free Publication: ScienceInsider reports that Rep. Conyers’ (D-MI) bill that would eliminate free full-text publication of NIH-funded research is back on the table this session.

Self Regulation:More Pharma companies are implementing voluntary disclosure of physician payments (under threat of legislation); and some researchers are taking steps to prevent disclosures of potentially harmful research (under threat of annihilation).

Reconsideration: Researchers at Emory decided that flu pandemic deaths in 1918 may have been primarily from bacterial superinfections rather than the virus itself; Icahn decided to nominate another slate of Biogen-Idec directors; Everybody decided to take another look at their luciferase screening assay controls; and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) decided to take another look at payment for PSA testing for prostate cancer detection.