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A proposal to elevate the National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) into an institute fell short during the appropriations process, but a 60 percent increase in funding represents a victory of sorts for the office. The $8-million boost proposed by a conference committee would raise OAM's current $12-million budget to $20 million for FY1998. The conference committee's decision was a surprise considering earlier requests. The House and the Clinton administration both so

Since January of this year, graduate students at Virginia Tech have faced an experience unlike any encountered by their peers in other universities. They must submit their master's degree theses or doctoral dissertations in formats capable of being posted on the World Wide Web. "What we're doing is putting theses and dissertations in our library in an electronic format so that they can be found in a search," explains John Eaton, associate vice provost for graduate studies at Virginia Tech. "We'

The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation honored three medical researchers at an awards luncheon on September 26 in New York. According to a foundation official, the 1997 award winners represent the distinct approaches and scientific perspectives that must combine in the fight against disease. Victor A. McKusick, a professor of genetics at Johns Hopkins University, was given the Special Achievement in Medical Science Award; Mark S. Ptashne, the Ludwig Professor of Molecular Biology at the Mem

'GREAT SHOCK': The June 1997 death of Karen Wetterhahn from an accident that had occurred months earlier stunned the scientific community. Like any profession, life science research has dangers, but fortunately, deaths are rare. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reported only six fatalities in biological and life sciences, and 17 fatalities in all natural sciences, for 1994, the most recent year for which data are available. So when Dartmouth College chemist Karen Wetter

Table of Contents Priviledged Information The Appeal of Creation Hungry for Life Petit Moues Model Women in Trials Keep on Smiling New-Look FDA? The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed an insider trading complaint against a Columbia University professor on September 28. The complaint names Dale J. Lange, a professor of neurology at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons, and six others for trading in Cephalon Inc. securities prior to the West Chester, Pa.-base

Efforts are under way to develop a vaccine against one of the world's deadliest illnesses, cervical cancer. Along with a number of university research laboratories, at least a half-dozen biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies are beginning clinical trials or are in preclinical development of such drugs. Efficacy in humans remains to be firmly established, but if the vaccines progress to later-phase trials, challenging jobs for immunologists, microbiologists, and biochemists will multiply. "

FROM LAB TO FIELD: Florida's Marjorie Hoy holds a dish containing several hundred Western predatory mites, which she transformed by injecting a plasmid containing a gene directly into females' ovaries. Creating transgenic insects is seen by some scientists as a new way to manage and possibly eradicate enduring problems such as malaria and agricultural damage from the Mediterranean fruit fly. Researchers appear to be making significant strides in refining the technique. Meanwhile, critics are r

The medical use of electricity dates back at least to the ancient Greeks, who used shocks from electric fish to treat gout. Modern medical researchers are more cautious about applying electrical energy to patients' bodies. Nevertheless, one electrically based technology, called iontophoresis, is growing in popularity, particularly among anesthesiologists and physical therapists. Increasing interest in the technique, which uses electric current to deliver drugs through the skin, has given rise t

Most Americans say that cancer is one of the most feared diseases, and they fully support research that advances the march to a cure, recent marketing studies by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) show. But the studies also suggest that most people know little about what science has achieved, how research is done, or why certain projects are funded. OUTREACH: NCI director Richard Klausner has won praise for defending the peer-review system to the public and politicians. Concerned about resear

HARD NUMBERS: Penn's Fergus Couch evaluated the "actual prevelance of BRCA1 mutations" among 263 women with a family history of the disease. In the early days of the Human Genome Project, attention focused on rare disorders that strictly follow Mendel's laws of inheritance, recurring in predictable patterns within families. With many of these genes identified and mapped as the finish line nears, emphasis has shifted to genes that cause more common ills, particularly cancers, and the public has

Table of Contents NRC Denies Poisened Postdoc's Request No Human Clones A Funny Spin to Science Anti-Obesity Drug Withdrawn Haverford Finds Friend in Science More Than Padded Cells Cancer Checkpoint Super Grant STILL A MYSTERY: The identity of the person who poisoned Maryann Wenli Ma and Bill Wenling Zheng, shown here with their son, remains unknown. On September 17, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) turned down a petition by Maryann Wenli Ma, the visiting Chinese postdoc at the Natio

Scientists are racing to find the grail of diabetes research, a therapy that will eliminate the need for insulin injection. New products, innovative clinical trials, and a boost in federal funding all are contributing to a multifaceted effort to control one of America's most complex and dangerous ailments. With research getting promising results in several different fields, skilled people are in demand. TRANSPLANT SUCCESS: Transplantation of the whole pancreas should be performed more often, s