The Agenda

HOOKWORMS AND FRIENDS>> Peter Hotez, the director of the Sabin Institute's Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative, is prominent in Merrill Goozner's feature on the initiative's trials now getting underway in Brazil (see story). He also appears in a new book by Gerald Esch, Parasites and Infectious Disease: Discovery by Serendipity and Otherwise (Cambridge University Press), which comes out this month.

INTEREST ON INNOVATION>> In this article, Kerry Grens looks into whether science pays a return on investment. To learn more about the economic impact of health discoveries and pharmaceutical innovation, attend the 6th World Congress on Health Economics in Copenhagen, July 8-11. For more, visit http://www.healtheconomics.org/congress/2007.

SYSTEMS SPEAKER>> In this article, Edyta Zielinska highlights the unique way the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, Calif. conducts systems biology research. Hear MSI president Roger Brent speak about his work at the Gordon Research Conference on bioinformatics on July 15-20 in Andover, NH. For a full list of talks go to http://tinyurl.com/2s65gp.

NOBELS EVERYWHERE>> Andrea Gawrylewski finds out what Nobel Prize officials think of the all-too-common practice by others of calling themselves "the Nobel Prize of..." here. Find out what Nobel winners think of that practice along with several hundred other young scientists at the Lindau Meetings of Nobel Laureates in Lake Constance, Bavaria, July 1-6. Read more at http://www.lindau-nobel.de.