Biotechnology: Celltech loses its MRC deal

The Rea1 Tadpole Loses Its Tail

More than 170 assembly factors aid the construction and maturation of yeast ribosomes. After these factors' functions are completed, they must be released from preribosomes. In this issue, Ulbrich et al. (2009) describe a mechanochemical process through which the AAA ATPase Rea1 induces release of an assembly protein complex from preribosomes.

BIOTECHNOLOGY and its APPLICATIONS

Biotechnology can be broadly defined as "using organisms or their products for commercial purposes." As such, (traditional) biotechnology has been practices since he beginning of records history. (It has been used to:) bake bread, brew alcoholic beverages, and breed food crops or domestic animals (2). But recent developments in molecular biology have given biotechnology new meaning, new promine...

Tankyrase Loses Its Grip on SH3BP2 in Cherubism

Cherubism, a case of bone remodeling gone haywire, is associated with mutations in the adaptor protein SH3BP2. Two papers in this issue of Cell (Guettler et al. and Levaot et al.) demonstrate that these mutations disrupt the interaction between SH3BP2 and Tankyrase and describe rules for substrate recognition by this poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase. Establishing such rules paves the way to identify...

Amazon's One-Click Patent Loses Its Teeth (Micro Law)

The US Federal Circuit court of appeals has dissolved the preliminary injunction that for several years kept bar-nesandnoble.com from offering its Inter-net customers the one-click shopping that Amazon.com offers. The one-click patent, one of the most derided business-method patents, took a heavy thrashing from the Federal Circuit, but it hasn't been knocked out by complete invalidation yet. Th...

Juniors' new deal meets its first deadline.