The Reproducibility Initiative is Open
Looks like the Reproducibility Initiative might be getting off the ground. This press release from the Center for Open Science says that they have a $1.3 million grant to start validating high-profile results in the oncology research literature. This will be done through the Science Exchange site, with results freely available to all comers.
I'm happy to see something like this coming together, but I don't know how far that money's going to go. The press release talks about 50 key papers that they'd like to reproduce, and I don't see how 1.3 million dollars will be enough to get through that list. (Is there a list of the ...
Source: In the Pipeline - October 17, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: The Scientific Literature Source Type: blogs
Holding Back Experimental Details, With Reason
There's a lot of worry these days about the reproducibility of scientific papers (a topic that's come up here many times). And there's reason to believe that the sharing of data, protocols, and materials is not going so well, either.
. . . authors seem less willing to share these additional details about their study protocols than they have been in the past, according to a survey of 389 authors who published studies in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The findings, presented on 9 September at the International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication in Chicago, found that over the five years studied the percent...
Source: In the Pipeline - October 16, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: The Scientific Literature Source Type: blogs
Microwave Synthesis
I wanted to mention a new blog, Totally Microwave, that's set up to cover all sorts of developments in microwave-assisted chemistry. Full disclosure: it's from a former colleague of mine. I don't know of another site that's working this area, so it could be a good addition to the list - have a look! (Source: In the Pipeline)
Source: In the Pipeline - October 16, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Chemical News Source Type: blogs
The First PCSK9 Phase III
Some long-awaited clinical data has appeared in the cardiovascular area: Sanofi and Regeneron have the first Phase III numbers for their PCSK9-blocking antibody alirocumab. (Here's some background on this area from John LaMattina).
This was a monotherapy trial, run head-to-head against Merck/Schering-Plough's Zetia (ezetimibe). Patients in the alirocumab arm started at a low dose, injected every two weeks, and had to the option to increase it if their LDL had not hit the target levels. Three quarters of them didn't have to. Their LDL levels went down 47% on average, compared to 15.6% in the daily Zetia group, so I think w...
Source: In the Pipeline - October 16, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Cardiovascular Disease Source Type: blogs
The Big Boston Biotech Boom
After recent posts on how hot the biotech IPO market has been, and on how the Boston/Cambridge area has so many companies these days, here's the article that sits right in the Venn diagram intersection, from the Boston Globe. It ends on what I think is an accurately cautionary note:
Some biotech companies will surely deliver on the promise in their labs. But an entire industry is being rewarded in advance by investors. That’s going to disappoint a lot of people. (Source: In the Pipeline)
Source: In the Pipeline - October 15, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Business and Markets Source Type: blogs
Good News in Hiring, Maybe?
I've heard from several sources that one of the large pharma companies is about to do something that none of them have been doing for a while now: hire some scientists. More concrete news should be out shortly, but the word is that a number of med-chem positions will be opening up. And when was the last time you heard that phrase? (Source: In the Pipeline)
Source: In the Pipeline - October 15, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Business and Markets Source Type: blogs
Where Are the Biopharma Clusters, Really?
Here's a look at where the biopharma companies really congregate, courtesy of Luke Timmerman at Xconomy. There's also a revealing comparison to the situation ten years ago.
His cutoff is for a company to have at least $100 million in cash (and short term investments) on hand to fund its operations. Companies with less than that, he says, rarely end up making an impact without crossing that threshold along the way (and I'd agree with that assessment). The most notable thing about the list is the degree to which things have proliferated in the Boston/Cambridge area. It was already a strong list in 2003, but in 2013 it outdi...
Source: In the Pipeline - October 15, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Business and Markets Source Type: blogs
An Alzheimer's Cure? Not So Fast.
The British press (and to a lesser extent, the US one) was full of reports the other day about some startling breakthrough in Alzheimer's research. We could certainly use one, but is this it? What would an Alzheimer's breakthrough look like, anyway?
Given the complexity of the disease, and the difficulty of extrapolating from its putative animal models, I think that the only way you can be sure that there's been a breakthrough in Alzheimer's is when you see things happening in human clinical trials. Until then, things are interesting, or suggestive, or opening up new possibilities, what have you. But in this disease, brea...
Source: In the Pipeline - October 11, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: The Central Nervous System Source Type: blogs
Unpacking a JACS Total Synthesis Paper
If you're in the mood for some truly 100-proof synthetic organic chemistry, this post from Mark Peczuh at UConn is going to be just what you need. He's going through the 2002 synthesis of ingenol from the Winkler group, line by line, in an effort to show his own students how to read such highly compressed reports. Here's a bit of it, to give you the idea:
Paragraph 7: The payment for using 6 in place of 5 has come due. In paragraph 7, the authors quickly move through a series of transformations that convert 16 to 22. The key player that enables these transformations is the hydroxymethyl group attached to C6. Oxidation of ...
Source: In the Pipeline - October 10, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Chemical News Source Type: blogs
Cambridge Meetup Final Plans: Noon by Broad Canal Way
OK, after investigating several options, I think that we'll stick with the courtyard down by the kayaks/parking kiosk on Broad Canal Way. It'll be a bit on the cool and cloudy side, but it is October. I'll be there at noon, and everyone should just round up whatever lunch they like and bring it along with them. Looking forward to seeing what sort of crowd turns up! (Source: In the Pipeline)
Source: In the Pipeline - October 10, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Blog Housekeeping Source Type: blogs
A Leak at Lilly
The Indianapolis Business Journal has reported that two ex-Lilly employees have been indicted on charges of stealing trade secrets:
The indictment charges two Carmel residents, Guoqing Cao and Shuyu Li, with seven counts of theft and conspiracy to commit theft. It also describes the actions of a third man, referred to only as Individual #1, who also played a part in the alleged crime.
According to the indictment, Cao and Li, both of whom are scientists with doctoral degrees, e-mailed sensitive information about nine experimental drug research programs at Lilly to Individual #1, who is employed by Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine...
Source: In the Pipeline - October 10, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: The Dark Side Source Type: blogs
Ariad's Ponatinib Runs Into Big Trouble
Just a note, in case any investors didn't realize it: no, drugs (and a drug companies) are not out of the woods after a compound has been approved and is on the market. Take a look at what's happening to Ariad and their BCR-ABL compound Iclusig (ponatinib). This is used to treat patients that have become resistant to Gleevec, and it's a very big deal for both those patients and for Ariad as a company.
But the percentage of patients on the drug showing serious complications from blood clots has been rising, and that's prompted a number of moves: enrollment in further clinical trials is on hold, dosages are being lowered fo...
Source: In the Pipeline - October 9, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Regulatory Affairs Source Type: blogs
The 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
has gone to Martin Karplus of Harvard, Michael Levitt of Stanford, and Arieh Warshel of USC. This year's prize is one of those that covers a field by recognizing some of its most prominent developers, and this one (for computational methods) has been anticipated for some time. It's good to see it come along, though, since Karplus is now 83, and his name has been on the "Could easily win a Nobel" lists for some years now. (Anyone who's interpreted an NMR spectrum of an organic molecule will know him for a contribution that he's not even cited for by the Nobel committee, the relationship between coupling constants and dihed...
Source: In the Pipeline - October 9, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Chemical News Source Type: blogs
36 Basic Types of Reactions?
Does anyone know what the MIT Press Office is getting at with this intro?
In all the centuries that humans have studied chemical reactions, just 36 basic types of reactions have been found. Now, thanks to the work of researchers at MIT and the University of Minnesota, a 37th type of reaction can be added to the list.
I don't think I've ever heard of any scheme quite like that. Looking over the paper itself, it's an interesting piece of computational work on low-temperature oxidation pathways. It shows that gamma-keto hydroperoxides (as had been hypothesized) can form a cyclic peroxide intermediate, which then fragments i...
Source: In the Pipeline - October 8, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Chemical News Source Type: blogs
Did the Biotech IPO Window Just Close?
Way back when, in late August, I wrote a post wondering if there were perhaps too many small biopharma companies going public. That took no magic powers; everyone looking at the market has been wondering that. Well, today an awful lot of biotech stocks seem to be diving - is that the signal for everyone to get out of the water? If so, then (as usual) a lot of people would have preferred that it went off a bit less abruptly. People at the companies in the IPO queue for the next couple of weeks are going to be a bit irritable and distracted today, I think. . . (Source: In the Pipeline)
Source: In the Pipeline - October 8, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Business and Markets Source Type: blogs
