NEWS OF THE WEEK SCIENTIFIC
PUBLISHING
NIH UNVEILS DRAFT OPEN-ACCESS PLAN Agency's policy closely resembles one proposed by Congress
A
DRAFT POLICY FOR OPEN
access to NIH-funded research was officially released by the health agency on Sept. 3 and posted for comment on its website. As released, the plan closely resembles one that had been suggested by Congress (C&EN, Sept. 6, page 14). Under the proposed plan, once manuscripts describing research supported in whole or in part by NIH funds have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication, they would have to be submitted to PubMed Central, the agency's free digital archive of
biomedical research. The manuscripts would then be posted on PubMed Central six months after journal publication. Final edits by the publisher might not be reflected in the NIH Web posting. Reactions to the proposal were guarded; many groups still hope to influence the final plan. For example, the Association ofAmerican Publishers wasn't commenting, but arepresentative noted that the organization planned to ask Congress to study the situation. The American Chemical Society—the publisher of 32 journals plus C&EN—is also looking
MICROBIOLOGY
STAPH FAVORS HEME Given a choice, pathogen prefers to get its iron from iron porphyrin in blood The researchers also identified even for bacteria. Staphylo- anewgene cluster dubbedte that coccus aureus, a bacterial spe- accounts for 5. aureus' fondness cies that causes a wide range of for heme iron. The gene cluster "staph" infections, includingpneu- codes for heme-uptake proteins monia, requires iron to thrive in that will provide new targets for an animal host. It could obtain iron developing therapeutic agents from heme (the iron-containing against staph infections, Schneepoiphyrin ofhemoglobin) or from wind tells C&EN. transferrin (an iron-transporting The team grew S. aureus in the protein). Now, researchers at the presence of equal amounts of University of Chicago have found heme and transferrin-iron. Each that, during the initial phases of of these iron sources was labeled infection, S. aureus displays astrong with a different iron isotope. By preference forgetting its iron from using inductively coupled plasmaheme [Science, 305,1626 (2004)}. mass spectrometry to measure The work provides thefirstev- the isotope content of the bacteidence that a microorganism can rial cells, the researchers were able select a specific source of iron to discern that the bacteria take from a menu of choices, says Olaf up most of their ironfromheme. Schneewind, the microbiology When Schneewind and coprofessor who led the team. workers infected worms and mice
L
IFE IS FULL O F C H O I C E S ,
HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
at the draft policy closely 'ACS is pleased that N I H shares our long-standing mission of broadening online access to scientific information," the society said in a statement. "Serious issues, however, must be raised about NIH's current proposal. We support the call for a thorough, independent study of the possible consequences of this proposal before NIH makes an irrevocable commitment to its implementation." RichardJ. Roberts, research director at New England Biolabs and author of a letter to NIH on behalf of 24 fellow Nobel Laureates, calls the plan "acceptable" but thinks it could have gone further. "I would have preferred to see a plan that called for no delay rather than the six months in the current proposal," he tells C&EN. NIH will accept comments on the plan for 60 days, after which it intends to release afinalplan. — SUSAN MORRISSEY
with S. aureus that had mutations in hts genes, they found evidence that the bacteria's pathogenicity was markedly diminished early on, compared to unmutated staph. — RON DAGANI
1
Free hemoglobin
Hemoglobin Ruptures red blood cell
. Free heme
Hemll
^Bacterial growth
SCAVENGER 5. aureus attacks red blood cells, breaks down hemoglobin to heme, and then catabolizes heme to get iron for its own growth.
C & E N / S E P T E M B E R 13, 2004
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