NEWS OF THE WEEK
EUROPE’S PINCHED INNOVATION POLICY: Chemical regulations, science funding cuts viewed as threat to chemistry R&D HEMISTRY-RELATED businesses in Europe
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say they are being hit by innovation-quashing regulation on the one hand and research funding cuts on the other. A recent European Commission survey of 1,500 small to medium-sized chemical companies shows that Europe’s chemicals regulation, known as the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation & Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), is hampering innovation. Of the firms surveyed, 35% stated that REACH has negatively affected their ability to innovate. Just 10% of companies said the law has had a positive impact on innovation. REACH was designed to control hazardous chemicals and promote the development of safer substances. Its role in enhancing innovation “has not been as convincing as we would like to have seen,” agrees Antti Peltomäki, the deputy director-general of the commission’s industry unit. He concludes that “regulation may be undermining the chemicals sector in Europe.” The European Environmental Bureau (EEB), which represents European environmental organizations, rejects Peltomäki’s assertion. “It is, to say the least, disturbing to hear the commission imply that REACH may be undermining innovation and the chemicals sector in Europe without any proof beyond a survey sent to companies,” states Jeremy Wates, EEB’s secretary general, in a letter to the commission. “On the contrary, evidence suggests that REACH is stimulating innovation,” Wates states. “Substances of very high concern are no longer used in the European
Union market and are likely to have been substituted with alternatives.” “Overall, REACH is working to achieve all its aims,” says Wates, who describes Peltomäki’s comments as “ill-founded.” The survey, which was conducted in February and March, focuses on the period 2010 to 2013. A full survey report is due to be published in the fall. A related concern of several chemistry-related organizations is the European Commission’s decision to cut $2.5 billion from the $90 billion budget for its flagship science research program, Horizon 2020. Projects include research into pharmaceuticals, biomaterials, and clean energy. The commission will redirect the funds to public-private projects encouraging private investment. The planned cuts could cost 1,000 research projects, 7,000 jobs, and “countless other lost commercialization opportunities,” claims David Cole-Hamilton, president of the European Association for Chemical & Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS), an organization that brings together European chemical societies (see page 34). The cuts are “misguided,” leading European pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry associations argue in INVENTION STYMIED a joint statement. They warn Survey indicates that REACH is that the cuts “will have a negahampering innovation at small tive impact on patient health companies, but benefits emerge too outcomes, the EU economy, and the overall sustainability 35% say innovation is adversely affected of health care systems.” 10% say innovation is enhanced Research institutes across 75% say competitiveness is weakened Europe are also smarting at 50% have improved risk management “particularly concerned by the >60% have increased knowledge of signal that this development chemicals sends to public authorities in NOTE: Survey of 1,500 small to medium-sized Europe with regard to the imchemical firms and users in the European Union. portance of funding university SOURCE: European Commission research.”—ALEX SCOTT
SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY Researchers transplant part of a 24-hour biological clock into E. coli In a synthetic biology first, researchers have transplanted a component of a photosynthetic cyanobacterium’s biological clock into Escherichia coli, a bacterium not known to keep track of time. The feat could enable biological computing and reprogramming of a jet-lagged person’s gut bacteria to align digestion with a new time zone, says Pamela A. Silver of Harvard Medical School in Boston, who led the research (Sci. Adv. 2015, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500358). “The field of circadian biology has
been waiting for this result,” comments Andrew J. Millar of Scotland’s University of Edinburgh. Other teams have engineered synthetic rhythmic circuits into organisms, but this is the first team to transfer part of an existing circadian clock between organisms. It is also the first engineered system to operate on a 24-hour cycle, Millar explains. To achieve the feat, Silver’s team inserted into E. coli three cyanobacterium genes that code for a biological circuit. In this circadian circuit, one of the proteins,
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called KaiC, is phosphorylated at night and dephosphorylated during the day. The team also appended KaiC to a subunit of E. coli’s RNA polymerase. Then they capitalized on the fact that phosphorylated KaiC, with RNA polymerase in tow, binds to a region in E. coli’s DNA that activates the production of green fluorescent protein (GFP), which they also engineered into E. coli. The cells produced GFP in tune with KaiC’s 24-hour phosphorylation-dephosphorylation cycle, analogous to a day-night cycle.—SARAH EVERTS
