Author Archives: Michael Eisen

The Immortal Consenting of Henrietta Lacks

By Michael Eisen | Published: March 23, 2013

Rebecca Skloot has an essay in today’s New York Times discussing the recent publication of the genome sequence of a widely used human cell line. Skloot, as most of you already know, wrote a book about the history this cell line  – known as HeLa for Henrietta Lacks, the woman from whom they were obtained. In […]

Posted in bioethics, publishing, race, science | Comments closed

Another paper ready for open review: comparative ChIP-seq and RNA-seq in Drosophila embryos

By Michael Eisen | Published: March 1, 2013

As I wrote about for our last paper, I hate the way scientific publishing works today, especially the insane delays (average is about 9 months) between when a lab is ready to share its work and when the work is actually available. So, from now on we are going to post all of our papers online when […]

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No celebrations here: why the White House public access policy is bad for open access

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 24, 2013

I am taking a lot of flak from my friends in the open access community about my sour response to the White House’s statement on public access to papers arising from federally-funded scientific research. While virtually everyone in the open access movement is calling for “celebration” of this “landmark” event, I see a huge missed […]

Posted in open access, politics, science | Comments closed

Please review our new paper: Sequencing mRNA from cryo-sliced Drosophila embryos to determine genome-wide spatial patterns of gene expression

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 19, 2013

It’s no secret to people who read this blog that I hate the way scientific publishing works today. Most of my efforts in this domain have focused on removing barriers to the access and reuse of published papers. But there are other things that are broken with the way scientists communicate with each other, and […]

Posted in EisenLab, gene regulation, My lab, open access, science | Comments closed

For patents, against open access: The sad state of university leadership

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 15, 2013

Quick. Name a leader of a major research university who has taken a courageous stand on any important issue in the last decade. I know they’re out there. They must be. But I can’t think of one. Instead, I’m left dumfounded reading this amicus brief filed in a case – Bowman v. Monsanto – about […]

Posted in GMO, intellectual property, open access, politics | Comments closed

The Association of American Publishers are a bunch of complete and total fu*kheads

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 15, 2013

It didn’t take long following the introduction of the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act of 2013 (FASTR) for Dr. Evil The Association of American Publishers to respond. As if trying to outdo themselves, this latest anti-open access screed contains more misleading statements and outright lies than their previous efforts to undermine public […]

Posted in open access, politics | Comments closed

Let’s make 2013 the year of legislative access on open access

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 15, 2013

Yesterday a bi-partisan group of legislatures – Rep. Doyle (D-PA), Rep. Lofgren (D-CA), Rep. Yoder (R-KS), Sen. Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) – introduced legislation that would require federal agencies that fund scientific and medical research to make works they fund available to the public. This bill – known as the Fair Access to […]

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My father, Aaron Swartz, and assigning blame for suicide

By Michael Eisen | Published: February 8, 2013

Twenty-six years ago, on February 7th, 1987, my father killed himself, and this day is always a complicated one for me. It is something I have never talked or written about in public. But I am moved to say something this year because of the suicide of Aaron Swartz. My brother had the same reaction, and wrote […]

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Restructuring the NIH and its grant programs to ensure stable careers in science

By Michael Eisen | Published: January 28, 2013

It is an amazing time to do science, but an incredibly difficult time to be a scientist. There is so much cool stuff going on. Everywhere I go – my lab, seminar visits, meetings, Twitter – there are biologists young and old are bursting with ideas, eager to take advantage of powerful new ways to […]

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How academia betrayed and continues to betray Aaron Swartz

By Michael Eisen | Published: January 22, 2013

As news spread last week that digital rights activist Aaron Swartz had killed himself ahead of a federal trial on charges that he illegally downloaded a large database of scholarly articles with the intent to freely disseminate its contents, thousands of academics began posting free copies of their work online, coalescing around the Twitter hashtag […]

Posted in open access, PLoS, science | Comments closed