Science - USA (2020-02-07)

sciencemag.org SCIENCE

PHOTO: RISEUP/J. LAWRENCE

NEWS | IN BRIEF

note the paper cited. The addition of

Wiley’s articles will expand Scite’s current

trove of more than 14 million papers from

other publishers, most in the biomedical

sciences. Nicholson expects his company to

sign agreements with additional publishers

to analyze their articles.

Rare disease grants awarded

BIOMEDICINE | The Chan Zuckerberg

Initiative (CZI) said this week it will award

$13.5 million to 30 patient advocacy

groups to support their work find-

ing treatments for rare diseases. Of an

estimated 7000 rare diseases, fewer than

5% have treatments approved by the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration. Each

group will receive $450,000 over 2 years

as well as training and mentoring as part

of the foundation’s Rare As One Project,

launched last year to help advocates

develop networks of patients, clinicians,

and scientists. Most of the diseases are

autoimmune, neurodegenerative, and

other inherited disorders, but the list of

diseases also includes rare cancers. CZI,

founded by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg

and pediatrician Priscilla Chan, his wife,

has made a few other awards to rare

disease groups. The initiative expected

to make just 10 Rare As One awards

but tripled the number after receiving

275 applications.

Easing of bird fines proposed

CONSERVATION | The Trump administra-

tion proposed last week to end penalties

on owners of open oil storage ponds and

other industrial operations that kill birds

accidentally. The administration will

instead encourage voluntary efforts to

protect birds. Conservation groups cried

foul, saying the change to the Migratory

Bird Treaty Act of 1918 will only embolden

companies to take actions that threaten

vulnerable species.

GLACIOLOGY

Warm waters revealed at base of menacing glacier

A

fter dropping sensors and a torpedo-shaped robot through a 700-meter hole in

the ice, scientists in Antarctica last week revealed the first direct evidence that

warm ocean temperatures around the rapidly retreating Thwaites Glacier could

destabilize the key ice sheet. Researchers are worried because Thwaites—larger

than the state of Illinois—helps block the ocean from reaching and warming the

even bigger, unstable West Antarctic Ice Sheet, whose melting could eventually drive

meters of sea level rise. Battling 2 months of stormy conditions, the team measured

ocean waters beneath Thwaites at more than 2°C above the freezing point. The robot,

Icefin (above, shown operating elsewhere in Antarctica), provided the first images of

the glacier’s grounding zone, the mysterious boundary where the floating coastal ice

sheet attaches to bedrock. The project is part of the International Thwaites Glacier

Collaboration, a multiyear effort by the United States and the United Kingdom that is

wrapping up its first full field season.

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Read more news from Science online.

THREE QS

BRAIN Initiative gets leader

Since its launch in 2013, the U.S. Brain
Research through Advancing Innovative
Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative
has doled out about $1.3 billion to
develop tools that map and manipulate
the brain. Until now, the multiagency
ef ort has had no formal director. But
last week, neurobiologist John Ngai of
the University of California, Berkeley,
was named to take the helm in March.
(A longer version of the interview is at
https://scim.ag/BRAINdirector.)

Q: Why is BRAIN getting a director?
A: The initiative has been run day to
day by a terrif c team of senior program
directors and staf with oversight from
the 10 [U.S. National Institutes of Health
(NIH)] institutes and centers that are
involved in BRAIN. I think as enterprises
emerge from their startup phase, the
question is how do you translate this
into a sustainable enterprise, and yet
maintain this cutting-edge innovation?
... The initiative really will benef t from
somebody thinking about this 24/7.

Q: What distinguishes this second
phase of BRAIN?
A: In the f rst phase, there was a very
intentional and concentrated focus on
tool development. As we learn more about
how neural circuits drive behavior ... we
can start implementing that knowledge,
in terms of treating human diseases. I am
hopeful that BRAIN, with other ef orts
in NIH and in partnership with industry,
[can create] technology platforms that
could be applied across multiple disease
applications. For example: a toolkit of
dif erent types of viral delivery vectors
[for gene therapy] that could be applied
to dif erent parts of the brain, dif erent cell
types in the brain, and so on.

Q: What do you see as the initiative’s
shortcomings?
A: We have a lot of f guring out to do
in terms of how to balance the unique
potential of individual investigator-initiated
research versus the power of large-scale
projects. ... [And] there is a diversity issue
in terms of ethnic diversity as well as
gender diversity [among applicants and
funded investigators]. It’s a hard problem.
It just kills me that we’re leaving all this
talent on the table.

608 7 FEBRUARY 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6478

Published by AAAS