Organized by Michael Weiner, Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases (CIND), UCSF, and Olga Brazhnik, NCRR

We are about to find out just how generous nature really is. On Tuesday, astronomers operating NASA’s Kepler spacecraft will release a list of about 350 stars newly suspected of harboring planets, including five systems with multiple candidate planets. That data could dramatically swell the inventory of alien worlds, which now stands at 461.

A new database of more than 4,000 Alzheimer’s disease patients who have participated in 11 industry-sponsored clinical trials will be released today by the Coalition Against Major Diseases (CAMD). This is the first database of combined clinical trials to be openly shared by pharmaceutical companies and made available to qualified researchers around the world.

NEWSWEEK Cover Story, May 24, 2010 – How the road from promising scientific breakthrough to real-world remedy has become all but a dead end. Private foundations have veered away from the NIH model, requiring scientists to share data and do the nonsexy development work required after a discovery is made.

Blog by Luke Timmerman – Sage Bionetworks, the Seattle-based nonprofit seeking to spark a movement toward open-source style sharing of biological data, is announcing today it has secured a partnership with Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company.
Financial terms, and the length of the collaboration, aren’t being disclosed. But the deal will bring in enough cash for Sage to add some [...]

BALTIMORE, MD (Oct. 1, 2009) – The Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries have been awarded $20 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to build a data research infrastructure for the management of the ever-increasing amounts of digital information created for teaching and research. The five-year award, announced today, was one of two for what is being called “data curation.”

UNIV. NEW MEXICO (Nov. 18, 2009) – The DataONE office, based within both the Office of the Vice President of Research and University Libraries at the University of New Mexico, has been awarded $20 million by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support its scientific research activities for the next five years. The project is under the direction of William Michener, professor and director of e-science initiatives at University Libraries.

WASHINGTON (Sep. 17, 2009) – A report released today by the National Research Council calls on the United States to launch a new multiagency, multiyear, and multidisciplinary initiative to capitalize on the extraordinary advances recently made in biology and to accelerate new breakthroughs.