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Vectors in development seek to benefit from earlier trials The gene therapy field resembles a toolbox containing instruments researchers haven't quite mastered, and the number of devices--viral and nonviral vectors--in this toolbox keeps increasing. "There are all these different tools out there," notes A. Dusty Miller, researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. "People are still trying to figure out what tools to use for what diseases." Photo: Richard Lobell Photography

The logical outcome of gene mapping is nigh. Biotechnology companies are using genetic information to design new drugs that may go beyond merely slowing or stopping a disease process to inducing the regeneration or repair of damaged tissue. Looking past the conventional drug targets of enzymes and gene-coupled receptors, researchers are seeking out molecules in the pathways along which biochemical signals are transferred. In some cases, their work has led to compounds--now in clinical trials or

Photos courtesy of Engineering Animation, Inc. BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE: Among the tools to counter effects from biological weapons, bioengineered red blood cells (above) can patrol the circulatory system, sponging up viral particles and carrying them to the liver for destruction. Synthetic macromolecules, or dendrimers (right), can capture viral particles and prevent further viral destruction of healthy cells. Biological weapons have been around since medieval warriors hurled plague-ridden corp

BOUGHT OUT: Eileen Gorman lost her senior scientist position with DuPont when Dade International (now Dade Behring) purchased her research unit. She now runs her own consulting business. In retrospect, Eileen G. Gorman should have known. However, she had every reason not to worry. A chemist, she had survived constant restructuring--characterized by multiple name changes of her department--during her nearly 15 years with the Glasgow, Del.-based in vitro diagnostics unit of E.I. DuPont de Nemo

WHAT FOLLOWS TAMOXIFEN? Warnings accompanied recent announcements from the University of Pittsburgh-based National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project and the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., that tamoxifen achieved a 45 percent reduction in the incidence of breast cancer compared to women who took a placebo in the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial. The 25-year-old drug still carries the risk of serious side effects for women over 50, officials said. But the overall results were

Seven life scientists are among the 15 honorees for this year's National Academy of Sciences award ceremony set for today at the NAS's 135th annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The meeting also includes the induction of academy members elected last year (E.R. Silverman, The Scientist, 11[9]:1, April 28, 1997). The academy is presenting its highest honor, the Public Welfare Medal, to David A. Hamburg, president emeritus of the Carnegie Corp. of New York. Hamburg, 72, is being recognized "for his

PHASE III NEARS: Cubist Pharmaceuticals has a promising antibiotic--daptomycin--that the company hopes to have in Phase III clinical trials in late 1998 or early 1999. Bacteria are back. Following the discovery and introduction into medicine of penicillin in 1941, intense research in microbiology produced a potent armament of antibiotics that all but eliminated a variety of infectious diseases. With this success, many large pharmaceutical companies scaled back research and development of new

ACADEMIC EROSION: Although neither males nor females approach NSF's goals for attracting students to science and engineering careers (represented by dotted line), women tend to flee the sciences faster than men--particularly after high school. First came the age of intrepid female pioneer researchers. Then came the epoch of "supermom" scientists. So where do women in science stand today? Many presenters at the Conference on Women, Science, and Engineering held last month at the New York Acade

New machines and approaches are offering neuroscientists unprecedented access to the working human brain By Douglas Steinberg Photo: Neil Michel/Axiom Sylvia WIRED FOR AN IMAGE: Research associate Valerie Clark gets her brain waves recorded by Ron Mangun, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis. Mind-reading, that staple of science fiction, is inching closer to science fact, thanks to steady progress in the field of brain imaging. In the last few years, neuroimagers hav

SAFER CANCER GENE THERAPY A twist on a well-studied gene therapy may more safely melt tumors. In clinical trials, a herpes simplex gene encoding the enzyme thymidine kinase (TK) is delivered, via a retrovirus vector, to dividing brain cancer (glioma) cells. The infected cells produce TK, which kills them when the patient takes the anti-herpes drug ganciclovir. But viral vectors are risky--they can enter the nucleus during cell division and disrupt genes. Thomas Wagner, a distinguished professor

Swiss anthropologist Jeremy Narby counts himself among the relatively thin ranks of scientists willing to publicly announce their conviction that nature is "minded," that an intelligence lies behind the development of life. Such a position is heresy to the prevailing scientific view of naturalism, which holds that nature is self-sufficient and the result of undirected processes. These two differing viewpoints usually are framed in the context of a debate between theology and science--creationis

'BODY-COUNT BUDGETING'? Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.) is concerned that diseases that cost taxpayers the most money may not be getting a proportionate amount of NIH funds. For the third year in a row, the National Institutes of Health came under fire this month for slighting some diseases and favoring more politically correct ills when it parcels out its research-funding billions. "What this whole thing boils down to," NIH director Harold Varmus recently told a special Institute of Medicine (I