With the help of directed evolution, scientists inch closer to developing viral vectors that can cross the human blood-brain barrier to deliver gene therapy.

The researchers who aided in the development of the ubiquitous green florescent protein as a tool for cell and molecular biology have taken home this year's chemistry prize.

In the introduction to the book, author Sean B. Carroll draws the parallels between ecological and physiological maladies.

HONORED ACHIEVERS: Anne and Paul Ehrlich, winners of this year's Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, have collaborated on ecological research since the 1960s. On Friday, April 17, at a black-tie dinner in Los Angeles, noted environmentalists Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich will receive the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. They will be awarded a gold medallion and $200,000 for a collaboration that began in the early 1960s with field work on butterflies, continued with

Allan R. Sandage, an astronomer at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution, in Pasadena, Calif., has been chosen to receive the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' 1991 Crafoord Prize. The $260,000 Crafoord Prize has been given annually, on a rotating basis, since 1982 for contributions in fields not recognized by the Nobel Prizes--mathematics, astronomy, geosciences, and biosciences. According to the award citation, Sandage was honored for his contributions to "the study of galaxies,

Chemical language has great asthetic beauty and links the physical sciences to the biological sciences. Unfortunately, the full use of this language to understand life processes is hindered by a gulf that separates chemistry from biology. This gulf is not nearly as wide as that between the humanities and and sciences, on which C.P. Snow focused attention. Yet, chemistry and biology are two distinctive cultures and the rift between them Is serious, generally unappreciated, and counterproductive.

Ron Vale has spent a career studying how molecular motors transport cargo within cells. He’s also developed tools to help scientists communicate their findings.

Illustration: Ned Shaw LIKE MOLECULAR TOY-MAKERS, ribozyme researchers create tools with evolutionary, diagnostic, and therapeutic applications. Nearly 20 years ago, Tom Cech and Sidney Altman discovered that some naturally occurring RNAs could perform enzymatic reactions, earning these researchers the 1989 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Scientists have now identified several examples of RNA enzymes, or ribozymes. Most make or break the phosphodiester bonds in nucleic acid backbones, but some

Leonard Hayflick has been unafraid to speak his mind, whether it is to upend a well-entrenched dogma or to challenge the federal government. At 86, he’s nowhere near retirement.

By Jeffrey M. Perkel Surpassing the Law of Averages How to expose the behaviors of genes, RNA, proteins, and metabolites in single cells. By necessity or convenience, almost everything we know about biochemistry and molecular biology derives from bulk behavior: From gene regulation to Michaelis-Menten kinetics, we understand biology in terms of what the “average” cell in a population does. But, as Jonathan Weissman of the University of Califo