Allen Roses: from 'street fighter' to corporate insider
Marshall, E.; Roses, A.
Science 280(5366): 1001-1004
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 9616077 Document Number: 497818
On June 17, the British-based pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Wellcome appointed controversial Alzheimer's disease researcher Allen Roses as head of its genetics research section. Skepticism about the neurologist's work goes back to the early 1980s, when he became director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Duke University without having any publications on Alzheimer's research. Nonetheless, even his critics concede that Roses made a major contribution to the field by discovering a gene that increases a carrier's risk of developing the common, late-onset form of Alzheimer's, a discovery that was initially ignored by many Alzheimer's researchers. Roses has moved quickly to set up a "network of clinicians" to research the complex genetics of common multigene diseases and intends to help Glaxo master "pharmacogenomics," the latest trend in drug development.