Pfizer Inc. whistleblower Becky McClain’s legal battle to draw public attention to worker-safety issues came to an end Friday as an appeals court refused to overturn a $2.3 million verdict in favor of the former Groton-based scientist.   Pfizer said it is “evaluating its opt... [More]

Ominously referred to as "The Needle", the 192,000 square-foot National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratory (NEIDL) on the Boston University Medical Center (BUMC) campus stands inactive and empty, as it has since its completion in 2008. Research there cannot commence until a protracted ri... [More]

Boston University students expressed concerns about the intentions of the proposed National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories at the BU Biolab panel hosted by the Student Labor Action Project on Tuesday. College of Arts and Sciences senior Elisa Gill, who mediated the panel at Sargent Col... [More]

Synthetic biology — which includes the development of fuels, organ tissue and tumor-destroying bacteria — became a focus of government and law enforcement agencies after 9/11 and the anthrax attacks that quickly followed it. The field’s “extraordinary promise,” a ... [More]

A piece of lab machinery that killed a Yale University student when it ensnared her hair was missing required safeguards, and the accident exposed problems with the school's safety policies, federal safety investigators said in a letter to the school. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health A... [More]

A controversial Boston University laboratory building that has stood empty since construction finished in 2008 may open this fall to biomedical research involving pathogens less hazardous than those that sparked opposition to the project. BU officials plan to announce today that they will see... [More]

In April of this year, U.C. Berkeley researchers announced the creation of the U. C. Berkeley Synthetic Biology Institute (SBI), which will ramp up efforts to “engineer” cells and biological systems. Part of its research will include experiments that insert manufactured stretches... [More]

High-level containment laboratories and storage facilities that handle dangerous biological agents exist in Frederick County outside the secured gates of Fort Detrick, but state law mandates that the number and location of each remains confidential. That is making difficult the work of the fl... [More]

U.S. Senators Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) formally reintroduced legislation to the 112th Congress to ban genetically engineered salmon. The senators included a companion bill that would require labeling the fish as such in the event they are allowed on the shelves. ... [More]

The notion that Democrats and Republicans could come together and enact legislation that would protect American workers from on-the-job injury or death seems almost unthinkable today, but almost exactly 40 years ago, that is precisely what happened. On December 29, 1970, President Richard Nix... [More]