SCIENCE science.orgPHOTO: RYAN DICKIE
and several low-income countries have also
authorized it; the vaccine is easier for them
to distribute than messenger RNA vaccines
because it does not need to be stored at
low temperatures.Biomedical agency lands at NIH
POLICY | President Joe Biden’s new
biomedical research agency for high-risk,
cutting-edge research won’t have the full
autonomy many backers had sought.
Instead, the Advanced Research Projects
Agency for Health (ARPA-H) will sit
within the National Institutes of Health’s
organizational chart—but, to promote its
independence, its director will report to
the NIH director’s boss, Secretary of Health
and Human Services Xavier Becerra, who
announced that compromise in a letter to
Congress last week. Many ARPA-H support-
ers argued it needed to be independent of
NIH and its grantmaking culture, which
they see as insufficiently innovative. Becerra
testified at a House of Representatives
hearing last week that NIH’s role will be
to provide administrative support, such as
human resources and payroll. Becerra also
said ARPA-H will not be housed on NIH’s
main campus in Bethesda, Maryland.Max Planck director fired, again
LEADERSHIP | For a second time, archae-
ologist Nicole Boivin has been removed
as director of the Max Planck Institute for
the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH),
following a vote last month by a governing
board of the Max Planck Society (MPG). Its
president first removed her in October 2021,
citing evidence of bullying and scientific
misconduct. Boivin, who has denied the alle-
gations, sued, and a Berlin court reinstated
her, saying the removal violated procedures.
But on 25 March, MPI-SHH’s Senate voted
overwhelmingly to dismiss her as director,
pointing to a confidential report whose sum-
mary supported the allegations. She remains
a researcher at MPG. The case has drawn
wide attention in Germany and from women
scientists elsewhere, who noted that recent
demotions at MPG have disproportionately
affected women. Others said Boivin created
an abusive work environment that harmed
young women scholars.Kyoto shutters primate institute
PRIMATOLOGY | One of the world’s leading
groups that studies primate behavior, Kyoto
University’s Primate Research Institute
(PRI), closed last week following a scan-
dal. A new Human Behavior Evolution
Research Center is taking over the institute’sfacilities and animals; researchers within
and outside the institute fear the scientific
focus will shift from the lab-based cognitive
studies and field observations that earned
PRI international recognition to genetics,
neuroscience, and biomedicine. The univer-
sity made the move after investigations in
2020 uncovered mishandling of $9.7 million
provided to build a chimpanzee enclosure
at the institute’s campus in Inuyama, near
Nagoya. As a result, the university dismissed
then-Director Tetsuro Matsuzawa, known for
work documenting the cognitive abilities of
captive chimps.Law aims at research dog breeder
RESEARCH ANIMALS | Virginia Governor
Glenn Youngkin (R) this week signed into
law a first-of-its-kind statute that would
shut down research animal breeders that
commit a single serious violation of the
U.S. Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The law
was prompted by complaints about mis-
treatment at Envigo, a contract researchcompany that has housed more than
4000 beagles at a facility in Cumberland,
Virginia; between July 2021 and last
month, U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) inspectors documented 73 AWA
violations there. Thirty-five were in the
most serious categories, including a finding
of more than 300 uninvestigated puppy
deaths. In recent years, Envigo has sup-
plied beagles to labs at the U.S. National
Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug
Administration, research universities, and
pharmaceutical companies. The new law,
which takes effect on 1 July 2023, prohibits
organizations that breed dogs and cats for
research from selling them for 2 years if
they sustain a single USDA citation in the
most serious categories.Mexico harassment cases dropped
WORKPLACE | A government office in
Mexico has drawn criticism for dismissing
allegations of sexual harassment against
a leading plant geneticist. The complaintsCONSERVATIONProtections give woodland caribou a boost
A
rescue effort led by Indigenous First Nations has roughly tripled the size of a British
Columbia caribou herd in less than 10 years, one of the few examples of success
at reversing declines of this species. The Klinse-Za herd grew from 38 animals
in 2013 to more than 100 by 2021, after wildlife officials authorized the killing of
hundreds of wolves that prey on the caribou, and housed female caribou in fenced
enclosures while they give birth, scientists reported last month in Ecological Applications.
Researchers highlight the leadership of the West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations
in the work and for pressuring Canadian federal and provincial governments to agree
to protect 8000 square kilometers of forestland. Since 2000, nearly one-third of
38 caribou herds in southwestern Canada have disappeared, largely because logging
and oil and gas exploration drove predators into caribou habitat.Workers wait for a sedated female caribou to wake up in a maternal enclosure that keeps out predators.8 APRIL 2022 • VOL 376 ISSUE 6589 117