Stem cell researchers slammed with funding freeze

The fallout from yesterday's startling preliminary injunction against federal support for embryonic stem cell work hit within a matter of hours as the NIH quickly hit the brakes on plans to issue up to $74 million in fresh R&D funding. And scientists as well as biotech executives around the country were left pondering what work could continue and what would have to wait until the situation was resolved. "This decision has just poured sand into this engine of discovery,'' said...

NIH chief lobbies for $500M fund to back clinical trials

NIH chief Francis Collins (photo) is lobbying Congress to set aside a half-billion dollar fund that will give start-up biotechs up to $15 million to bankroll clinical trials for new drugs that treat neglected diseases. The initiative marks a strategic shift for the NIH, which has played a big role sponsoring the academic research that often winds up in developers' hands. "We have the chance now to make progress in therapeutics that we really could not have done five or six years ago; we just...