Today's Globe: Novartis-MIT plan, smoky building ban, FDA clinical trials oversight, Rx drug safety, Roger Jeanloz, Edmund Sonnenblick

Drug giant Novartis AG says it will give its Cambridge neighbor, MIT, $65 million over 10 years to create a research program, likely to be the biggest in the world aimed at revolutionizing the way drugs are made.

There are smoke-free offices, smoke-free bars, smoke-free malls. Could smoke-free apartment houses and condo towers be next?

The Food and Drug Administration does very little to ensure the safety of the millions of people who participate in clinical trials, a federal investigator has found.

The Food and Drug Administration yesterday gained broad new powers to ensure the safety of prescription drugs used by millions of Americans under a bill signed by President Bush.

After a lengthy career at Harvard Medical School as a researcher and professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, Dr. Roger W.Jeanloz (left) became a tutor with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, retiring in June. He died of pneumonia Sept. 12 in a hospital in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, where he had been traveling with his wife along the Mediterranean.

Dr. Edmund H. Sonnenblick, a cardiologist whose research formed a basis for the modern treatment of heart failure, which has extended the lives of millions of people, died Saturday at his home in Darien, Conn. He was 74.