Santiago is the place to be in 2011

We may not have the money or technology available in other research centers, but we have a kick-ass city!

Part of the new Gabriela Mistral Center, right next to my University, is to the right. The Lastarria neighborhood, filled with restaurants and bars is at the back (Image credit)

When science resources are scarce, you can always travel abroad as part of collaborations and do the experiments you can't do in your University. What you really wouldn't be able to get around of, is living in a boring city with nothing to do. Luckily, this is not our case.

Santiago, Chile, has been picked at the #1 place to visit in 2011 by the New York Times. Many things will go down here throughout the year, so if you have the opportunity to visit us, take it!

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Top 5 papers of 2010

Go and take a look at the selection made by Faculty of 1000, which includes the article describing the structure of a bacterial complex I enzyme.

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Nature Communications: a new journal from NPG

Nature Communications, a new online-only journal from NPG is now open for business:

Nature Communications is an online-only, multidisciplinary journal dedicated to publishing high-quality research in all areas of the biological, physical and chemical sciences. Papers published by the journal represent important advances of significance to specialists within each field.

Noteworthy is the fact that:

(...) papers published in Nature Communications will be of high quality, without necessarily having the scientific reach of papers published in Nature and the Nature research journals.

The journal will be launched in Spring 2010, but is now accepting submissions.

Learn more at the Journal's home page.

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Quick post: World University Rankings 2009

The Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings have recently been released.
No many surprises on the Top-10, still pretty much US-dominated. You can check the Top 200 Universities here.

Now, onto what's relevant to us: The Top Universities for life sciences & biomedicine (They too are US-dominated)

Here's the top 10:

Harvard University
University of Cambridge
University of Oxford
Stanford University
University of California, Berkeley
Johns Hopkins University
University of Tokyo
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Yale University
McGill University

You can check the whole ranking, here.

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Excellent!!: Nobel Prize for structure and function of the ribosome

It has been on everyone's list for number of years now, and this year it finally came true:

The 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".

Congratulations!!

Here's a pic I took in a meeting in Bariloche, Argentina in '07, at a Gene Expression and RNA Processing meeting.

You can see two Nobel prize recipients here: Tom Cech (1989) and Tom Steitz (2009), both in Chemistry.

From left to right: Tom Cech, Tom Steitz, Joan Steitz

More info here: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2009/index.html

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Quick post: Gurdon and Yamanaka win Lasker

The 2009 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, honored John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka

for discoveries concerning nuclear reprogramming, the process that instructs specialized adult cells to form early stem cells — creating the potential to become any type of mature cell for experimental or therapeutic purposes.

More here (Lasker Foundation) and here (news coverage, Bloomberg.com).

Here's a quote from the second link that's worth noting:

The awards include a cash prize of $250,000 for each category and often preview the Nobel Prize. In the 63-year history of the Lasker prizes, 76 winners also have won a Nobel.

[Images from Lasker Foundation]

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