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A husband-and-wife team and their biotech firm rush to develop medicine that will stop allergic reactions before they even begin The allergy market is nothing to sneeze at. Consumers spend millions of dollars annually on medications to treat symptoms of allergic reactions. But at least one small biotechnology company is hoping to make this market disappear. Nancy and Tse Wen Chang and their Houston company, Tanox Biosystems Inc., appear to be front-runners in this first leg of a race to creat

Although $12 billion a year is spent in the U.S. for pet food and care, research funding for companion animal health falls short Three-year-old Jessie, her gums white from blood loss, was rushed, hemorrhaging and near death, to the emergency room of a Canadian hospital. Test results showed that she was suffering from massive ulcers brought on by an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medication she had been given to treat a hip condition. After a surgeon at the hospital removed the largest ulce

Howard A. Schneiderman, 63, chief scientist and senior vice president of the St. Louis-based Monsanto Co., died December 5 of complications associated with leukemia. Schneiderman came to Monsanto in 1979 from the University of California, Irvine, where he was dean of the school of biological sciences and director of the Center for Pathobiology. He conducted research in developmental biology and genetics, including growth control, congenital malformations, and cancer. Under Schneiderman's direc

Orville Vogel, professor emeritus of agronomy and soil at Washington State University, and Hilary Koprowski, director of the Wistar Institute, received the 1990 John Scott Awards at a November 27 ceremony. The awards, given by the city of Philadelphia's Board of Directors of City Trusts, recognize men and women whose inventions have contributed to the "comfort, welfare and happiness" of mankind. Vogel, 82, was honored for his breeding of semidwarf wheats, which helped spawn the "green revoluti

The Inamori Foundation of Japan has awarded the 1990 Kyoto Prize for Advanced Technology to Sydney Brenner, director of the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, for lifetime achievements in molecular biology research. The Kyoto Prizes, Japan's highest international awards, are given each year in three categories: advanced technology, basic sciences, and creative arts and moral sciences. The latter two were won by British primate researcher Jane Gooda

Joseph Prospero has been named director of the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (CIMAS) at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Prospero, an atmospheric chemist who formerly was chairman of Rosenstiel's Division of Marine and Atmospheric Chemistry, is a specialist in the global-scale properties of aerosols. CIMAS, a joint program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Miami, brings together

Ronald C. Davidson, professor of physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1978, has been named director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Funded by the United States Department of Energy, PPPL operates on an annual budget of nearly $100 million. Research at the laboratory focuses on the creation of energy from the fusion of hydrogen nuclei confined by magnetic fields. Davidson's new position began on January 1. Davidson joined the physics faculty of MIT in 1978,

An epidemiologist's move to attend a closed meeting spurs debate over freedom of information versus the right to privacy WASHINGTON--No grant applicant had ever tried to breach the sanctity of an advisory council at the National Institutes of Health--until last summer, when University of Texas epidemiologist Darwin Labarthe knocked on the door. Notwithstanding the closed-door policy of the outside panel that advises the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, Labarthe told the NHLBI directo

Drug Firms Tackle Drug Abuse Conflicting Conferences Fun With Numbers DOE Inspectors: No Paper Tigers Rowland Voted In At AAAS The pharmaceutical industry is finally picking up the ball on the development of medicines to treat drug abuse (The Scientist, Nov. 26, 1990, page 1). The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association has established a nine-member Commission on Medicines for the Treatment of Drug Dependence and Abuse to work with the National Institute of Drug Abuse to develop scree

Minorities at the agency work largely on their own to help their peers land high-level science jobs BETHESDA, Md.--Ron King wants to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. But King, an intramural research fellow in the laboratory of molecular biology at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, thinks that it's even more important to encourage other blacks to enter science fields. That's why he takes precious time out from his work in the lab

Bioscientist Royston turns his attention to creating a center in San Diego's crowded research community WASHINGTON--The debate is over, says presidential science adviser Allan Bromley. The federal science budget is a question of priorities. And for members of the United States scientific community, this means that from now on they must persuade the politically powerful that their cause is more worthy of precious federal dollars than the other domestic needs facing the country. Throughout the

The Scientist 4[24]:0, Dec. 10, 1990 News Profiles of Black Scientists JOHN DIGGS Background: Raised in rural Tennessee. B.S. in biology, Lane College, Jackson, Tenn., 1956; Ph.D. in physiology, Howard University, 1972. Came to NIH extramural program in 1974, spent eight years as director of extramural activities, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Current position: NIH deputy director for extramural research. "When I first came to NIH, there were a