If you want to know why drug research remains a slow and frustrating business even in this golden age of molecular biology, look at the troubles Vertex Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: VRTX - news - people ) has gone through to devise a new drug to combat hepatitis C.

FORBES: Viral Vertigo

That was the news over the weekend from the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Boston, where a team of researchers from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Kansas City and the University of Kansas Medical Center presented evidence demonstrating the effects of aspirin against two types of breast cancer.

FORBES: New Evidence That Aspirin May Prevent Cancer