NEWS OF THE WEEK
REPORT SLAMS SCIENCE AGENCY CONGRESS: Senator alleges wasteful spending at NSF, which the agency and others reject ASTE AND mismanagement at the National Science Foundation have cost taxpayers $3 billion, according to a report issued by Sen. Tom A. Coburn (R-Okla.) late last month. In the 73-page report, Coburn, a strong proponent of cutting the federal budget, rebukes the agency. The wasteful spending “includes tens of millions of dollars spent on questionable studies, excessive amounts of expired funds that have not been returned to the Treasury, and inadequate contracting practices that increase costs,” Coburn wrote in a letter to taxpayers prefacing his report. NSF’s response to Coburn’s allegations was swift and unapologetic: “NSF has been diligent about addressing concerns from members of Congress about workforce and grant management issues. We believe no other funding agency in the world comes close to NSF for giving tax-
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Sen. Tom Coburn wants NSF to cut waste and duplication.
COMPOUND PREVENTS NEURODEGENERATION NEUROCHEMISTRY: Small molecule alleviates Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s symptoms in animals
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ESEARCHERS HAVE identified and tested a
compound that reverses and prevents symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s in animal models (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2011.05.020; Curr. Biol., DOI: 10.1016/j. cub.2011.04.028). Neurodegeneration, the breakO down or death of neurons, causes N losses in one’s ability to think, S OCH3 move, and communicate, often N S H O leading to death. OCH3 The compound, JM6, offers new hope for treating these diseases, for JM6 which new medications are urgently needed. Still, JM6’s safety and efficacy have yet to be confirmed in clinical trials. The work was carried out by neuropharmacologist Robert Schwarcz of the University of Maryland WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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payers the best return on their investment,” the agency said in a statement. NSF’s 2011 budget is $6.8 billion. Coburn’s report lists a number of NSF grants, mostly in social science fields, that he claims have “little, if any, scientific benefit.” It also includes numerous examples of alleged NSF management problems, most of which come from NSF Inspector General reports issued over the past several years. The largest waste that Coburn alleges is $1.7 billion in “expired, undisbursed grant accounts.” However, “the $1.7 billion is undisbursed grant balances as of Sept. 30, 2010, and represents the amount NSF grantees have been awarded and have not yet spent,” NSF spokeswoman Maria Zacharias says. The funds are being handled appropriately under federal appropriations laws, she says. Others familiar with NSF staunchly defend the agency. “NSF is one of the crown jewels of our country,” says Bart Gordon, former chairman of the House Committee on Science & Technology and now a partner at the law firm K&L Gates. “Most of the problems pointed out by Coburn have already been addressed. This great institution shouldn’t be tainted by this.” Rita R. Colwell, who headed NSF from 1998 to 2004, says she has heard this type of claim before. “My concern is that the allegations are taken out of context and do not represent NSF fairly,” she tells C&EN. “The attempt to eliminate the social and behavioral sciences at NSF reappears over the years and is evidence of a serious lack of understanding of these programs.”—DAVID HANSON
School of Medicine; neurodegeneration specialist Paul J. Muchowski and his father, synthetic chemist Joseph M. Muchowski, both of Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease; neurogeneticist Flaviano Giorgini of the University of Leicester, England; and coworkers. The research team hopes to have JM6 in human trials within two years, sponsored by a major drug firm or by a biotech company they are thinking about starting. In animals, JM6 converts to an inhibitor of kynuren ine 3-monooxygenase, an enzyme that controls the kynurenine pathway, long believed to be implicated in neurodegeneration. This link was established to a large degree by Schwarcz’s group. Levels of nerve-damaging kynurenine metabolites are elevated, and those of a neuroprotective one are lowered, in the blood of patients with neurodegenerative diseases. The researchers show that administering JM6 to animals with neurodegenerative diseases causes levels of the damaging and protective metabolites to normalize, leading to reversal and prevention of neuron damage. JM6’s activity “seems like a fairy tale—almost too good to be true,” says Stephen Snyder, a deputy division director at the National Institute on Aging. “But intuitively you want JM6 to work out because it is simple and elegant, it’s good for the brain, and it appears to be nontoxic.”—STU BORMAN
JUNE 6, 2011
