Des Plaines, U.S.A. — The following is a statement by Gail Lenehan, EdD, MSN, RN FAEN, FAAN, President of the Emergency Nurses Association, on the National Institutes of Health’s New Office of Emergency Care Research: ”As the national organization representing more than 40,000 emergency nurses, the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) applauds the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for establishing the new Office of Emergency Care Research (OECR).

“This investment in emergency care research underscores NIH’s commitment to this important field and is an historic step toward strengthening and expanding the field of emergency care research. We are extremely excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for all health care researchers in emergency care to further their research goals and improve the quality of their work, and, in turn, the quality of care we are all able to provide to our patients.”

“In addition to providing support for innovation and improvement in emergency care, and training future researchers, OECR will give us an opportunity to work collaboratively with our colleagues at the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine on interprofessional research initiatives that address the needs of patients and the clinicians who work as a team in the emergency care setting.

“Emergency nurses believe strongly in the importance of evidence-based practice. ENA’s Institute for Emergency Nursing Research has conducted crucial studies that have provided evidence supporting a variety of practices and policies that have improved emergency nursing practice and the care of our patients.

“As emergency departments across the country deliver care to exponentially increasing numbers of patients with unprecedented challenges in terms of the complexity and acuity of their problems, this is welcomed news indeed!”

About the Emergency Nurses Association:

ENA is the only professional nursing association dedicated to defining the future of emergency nursing and emergency care through advocacy, expertise, innovation and leadership. Founded in 1970, Additional information is available at ENA’s Web site www.ena.org

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In the wake of SOPA and PIPA’s defeat, a new online boycott, some 8,209 researchers strong, is beginning to gain momentum.  The protest focuses on Elsevier, a publisher of renowned scientific journals such as Cell or The Lancet, whose aggressive business tactics have for years have been a thorn in scientists’ sides.

The main problem for scientists (or anyone interested in reading articles from the journals) is that in order to have access to the whole text- and not just the abstract or the first few paragraphs- they must pay upwards of forty dollars to rent them for a few days. They can also pay a few hundred dollars to own a copy.

In addition, many scientific articles in the U.S. are produced by government-sponsored organizations, which means that while taxpayers’ money funded the experiments, they do not get to see the articles without paying more money. This includes even the authors of the article.

While these outrageous prices are not anything new, the cause of the protest, a new bill titled the Research Works Act (RWA), is relatively recent.  The bill, designed to negate the effects of the Open Access Policy created by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2008, that allowed the public to view any article that is the result of NIH-funded research, was submitted to Congress last December.

A little more than a month later, Timothy Gowers, a mathematics professor at Cambridge University, posted a short article about his difficulties with Elsevier and his frustrations at the RWA.  A few days later, he launched the boycott, calling on colleagues to boycott Elsevier.

While there are cheaper, alternative journals researchers can publish their work in, such as those run by professional societies, these do not come without their own can of worms.

Patricia Kelley, a Geology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, says, “Societies… tend to require authors to pay charges to publish their articles.  For instance, Journal of Paleontology editorial policy states:  ‘Authors are asked to pay as much page charges as they can for articles of all lengths. Paying extra page charges is mandatory for articles that run 26-40 pages.’”

Elsevier, despite costly subscription, can help get researchers around these problems.  “The benefits to the authors are that publication is rapid and they don’t require page charges,” says Kelley.

Some previously “high cost” journals are beginning to make the switch.  The Open Directory keeps a list of journals that have made the jump and are now free-for-all, or are trying out new payment methods. Elsevier, though, still stands strong.  Despite its aggressive moneymaking tactics, the benefits of publishing through the company are obvious.

Says Kelley, “So authors find themselves in a tight spot.  Do we pay a non-for-profit journal to publish our work, or do we publish for free with a company such as Elsevier?”

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New anti-tumor compounds produced by Dr.Aleem Gangjee, Distinguished Professor of Medicinal Pharmacy at Duquesne University’s Mylan Schoolof Pharmacy, show such promise for fighting hard-to-treat tumors that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has placed them on its fast track for development.

These agents fight breast and other cancers that become resistant to Taxol and other medications. Preliminary data show that the compounds kill tumor cells without toxicity to normal cells—avoiding the sickness that accompanies most existing cancer-fighters.

“One of the limitations of current cancer treatment is drug toxicity; it necessitates discontinuation of the drug, even if it is effective,” Gangjee said. “Because our compounds are not expected to sicken patients and normal cells, it could be continued without toxicity.”

The NIH’s National Cancer Institute checks hundreds of promising compounds and those showing the greatest potential are fast tracked. Three compounds from Gangjee are in this category.

These water-soluble compounds are easy to make and inhibit tumor cells at low concentrations. The agents are like Trojan horses, effective at tricking cancer cells into accepting them as a building block used to feed tumors.

With more than 1.5 million new cases of cancer diagnosed a year, Gangjee’s compounds could positively impact many lives.

Gangjee, who holds four concurrent NIH grants, has received more than 25 patents in 20 years of research at Duquesne, including a recent patent for treatment of ovarian cancer. Ovarian, lung and pancreatic cancers are difficult to detect until later stages—and this drug works particularly well in late-stage treatment, unlike many current therapies.

During the past 40 years, Gangjee’s research has sprung from the inspiration of his family’s own experience. When Gangjee was 20 years old, his grandmother died from breast cancer. The loss turned Gangjee away from a corporate future as an industrial chemist and propelled him into medicinal chemistry and a career focused on fighting cancer.

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