Hey there biotech fans! Here’s the latest in biotech news! Did we miss an important story? Let us know!

VATICAN TO CONTRIBUTE RESOURCES FOR ADULT STEM CELL RESEARCH- Although the Catholic Church still considers embryonic stem cell research a sin, the Vatican may foresee potential blessings from their recent support to experts that are studying intestinal adult stem cell treatments.

“This research protects life,” Cardinal Renato Martino said during a meeting with Italian and American scientists and health officials to outline the project. “I want to stress that it doesn’t involve embryonic stem cells, where one helps oneself and then throws the embryo away and kills a human life.”

CANCER LINKED VIRUSES CHANGE CELLS INTO “VIRAL HOTELS”- A group of U.K. scientists discovered how some cancer-causing viruses can spread widely by sabotaging the tiny molecules existent in human DNA.

“The UK study found that some viruses can boost microRNA activity to suppress the immune system’s reaction to them. One herpes virus with this ability can trigger a cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma in susceptible individuals. Another is the herpes virus which causes cold sores. Scientists are investigating the role of microRNAs which, like the RNA molecules involved in protein synthesis, are derived from DNA. But instead of performing the usual RNA function of carrying protein-making instructions from the genetic code, they suppress the action of genes.”

PUSH TO POLICE CONFLICTS OF INTEREST- Iowa Republican, Sen. Charles Grassley, requested the CDC to outline how the agency is monitoring conflicts of interests among scientists serving on federal advisory committees.

“Grassley has been pushing to limit the influence drugmakers have over the practice of medicine in the United States, after investigations revealed that prominent Harvard University psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Biederman and others failed to fully disclose payments from drug companies.”

President and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), Jim Greenwood, officially kicked off the nomination process for the third annual George Washington Carver Award. The award recognizes significant contributions by an individual in the field of industrial biotechnology, including applications in biological engineering, environmental science, biorefining and biobased products. Know anyone that fits this criteria? Share their story and submit your nomination here.

The deadline for submitting nominations is April 12th and the award will be presented at the 2010 World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing, June 27-30, 2009 in Washington, D.C.

According to a recent poll conducted by Research!America, one of the nation’s largest non-profit public education and advocacy alliances, almost half of Americans say the review process for approving the latest medical breakthroughs takes too long. Mary Woolley, president of Research!America said:

“Americans have faith in our scientists and research institutions but think we can do more to speed up that process. In our latest poll, 72% of Americans say they are confident in our current system for reviewing the effectiveness and safety of new medicines and medical devices before making them available, but 41% say the approval process takes too long. Speeding up our process without sacrificing safety is clearly important for health and also for maintaining global leadership.”

John Edward Porter, former Illinois Congressman and chair of Research!America, added:

“To truly improve the health of all Americans, our health care system must have a stronger foundation of research. Investing in medical research brings hope for solutions to diseases that currently have none, and it controls costs by basing our health care on the best science, telling us which tests and treatments work best for which patients. It also gives us a stronger economic future by creating more knowledge-based jobs.”

This announcement comes just two days before the President’s health care summit on February 25.

With pop culture often offering negative portrayals of scientists (see: Eleventh Hour or District 9), author Dennis Meredith gives us a whole new perspective in his soon-to-be-released book Explaining Research. Namely, Meredith postulates that the situation isn’t all bad after all. Pairing up public support for scientists with his own statistical analysis of scientists in popular culture, Meredith concludes that scientists end up as heroes more often than not… and even when they are not the good guys, fictional scientists tend to become the ultimate hero in a story. One example Meredith cited in a recent article was Doctor Ock of Spiderman fame – where the good doctor saved the city from a fusion ball, not Spiderman.

Have you managed to sneak an advance copy? What do you think of the premise? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

I don’t know about you, but we’re pretty excited about the event on February 12th –
Now Serving: 9 Billion: Global Dialogue on Meeting Food Needs for the Next Generation.

If you’re as excited as we are to get answers to some of the most critical questions we face in meeting a growing global population’s food and water needs, here’s a site badge you can place on your blog, website, facebook page… just about anywhere. Click the “Get Widget” button to get started.

Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the 42nd and 43rd Presidents of the United States, will appear together as co-keynote speakers at the 2010 BIO International Convention on May 4th in Chicago, Ill. at McCormick Place. Presidents Clinton and Bush, who served in the White House for 16 years, will discuss a wide variety of issues relating to both domestic and foreign policy. Jim Greenwood, BIO’s president and CEO, will moderate the discussion between the two former Presidents on Tuesday, May 4th at 11:30 a.m.

In an interview this Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, Bill Gates highlights the biotech revolution as an innovative opportunity that, if taken advantage of, will help bail us out of our current economic situation. Full transcript after the video.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

MR. GREGORY: But what–when we talk about comeback and recovery, one of the questions that always comes up is come back to what? In other words, what does the economy look like, and how fundamentally different is it than what preceded it before this financial collapse?

MR. GATES: Well, there’s always, you know, new products, new ideas, and the U.S. is the best at having the economy adjust to new opportunities, you know, whether it’s taking advantage of the Internet or taking advantage of the, the biotech revolution. There were some excesses in that economy that, you know, people are thinking maybe should not be repeated. But consumption levels, the, the levels of consumer debt, the riskiness of, of some of the financial practices. By and large, though, we need to get people back spending. We need to have the benefits of innovation, which is really all–what always bails you out, always gets you back and going is that we do have the great universities, the great corporate research labs, and those were not cut off. Despite how scary the last year was, the key innovation, whether it’s Microsoft software or pharmaceuticals, that is, is at the center of this economy, and it was not, not shut down.

This op-ed in the Wall Street Journal shows that the answer isn’t so clear. Let’s hope Congress makes the right choice on healthcare reform and protects incentives for the innovation that will lead to future treatments and cures!

Washington’s Gift to European Biotech

With a little help from Congress, Europe may take the lead in biologic drugs.

By BENEDETTO DELLA VEDOVA

European researchers are on the cusp of overtaking their American counterparts in biotechnology innovation, especially when it comes to the development of cutting-edge medicines known as “biologics,” which are grown in living cells and consist of molecules thousands of times bigger than those in conventional drugs. In 2004, European biotech firms had access to only 20% the private equity financing that U.S. firms had. And yet today, the European Union has just about as many dedicated biotechnology firms as the U.S., according to OECD fugures.

It is therefore surprising that just as the European biotech industry’s substantial investments of about a third of revenues into research and development in recent years is beginning to pay off, U.S. policy makers are considering legislation that would hamstring biotech research in their own country. This would provide a welcome boost to Europe’s biopharmaceutical sector but hurt the U.S. industry and overall scientific progress.

A bill currently before U.S. Congress would allow drug companies to make knock-off versions of biologics much sooner than in Europe. To shepherd these most advanced drugs from the research lab to a patient’s bedside over the course of a decade can cost more than €800 million. To encourage this sort of expensive R&D, companies are typically allowed to keep their research data private for a set amount of time. Only after this “data exclusivity period” has passed can copycat drug makers use an innovator’s research data to make biosimilars. Firms manufacturing such knock-offs have of course much lower costs than the innovators because they don’t have to spend billions on drug discovery and development.

Without a significant exclusivity period, however, biotech companies won’t have enough time to recoup the hundreds of millions of euros they have invested. Instead, they’d immediately have to compete with biosimilars, which are less expensive than the brand-name biologics but have much the same medicinal effect.

A study released in September by Henry Grabowski, an economist at Duke University, pegs the ideal period for preserving innovation at 12 years. “If the data exclusivity period is too short,” Mr. Grabowski argued, “biotech firms may elect to invest in lower risk biosimilars rather than to pioneer innovative products.”

U.S law makers are considering a data exclusivity period half that long—between five and seven years. This will make it nearly impossible for American biologic makers to be globally competitive. Firms in the European Union, on the other hand, enjoy 10 years of exclusivity with the option of an additional year if a biologic shows particular promise. The EU adopted this standard in 2003 to increase the competitiveness of the Continent’s pharmaceutical and biotech firms. And it has paid off, as the recent success of European firms illustrates.

If the U.S. decides to handicap its drug makers, the task of creating the next generation of biologic drugs would fall primarily to Europe. This would mean more investment dollars, more jobs, and more research facilities on this side of the Atlantic.

This would be a historic shift. For much of the past few decades, American biotech researchers have left the Europeans in the dust. If American lawmakers proceed with their plan to undermine the U.S. biotech industry, Europe may again take the lead.

Mr. Della Vedova is a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and a former member of the European Parliament.