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Buoyed by enabling legislation and scientific advances, institutions are aggressively shopping their faculties' `blue-sky' investigations. In just the past year, patents on the genes implicated in obesity, breast cancer, and other disorders have generated headlines in newspapers across the United States. In several of these cases, scientists have turned their patented discoveries into lucrative commercial deals worth several times their funding from other sources--crucial money in light of pro

Government and private labs are springing up to accommodate expanded use of genetic evidence, but retraining existing workers. In less than a decade since DNA analysis brought forensic science into a new era, the growth of the discipline--as an evidentiary tool as well as an industry--has been massive, as more and more high-profile cases hinge upon the evidence it provides. Yet the phenomenal expansion of its use in courts around the United States is not translating into new entreprene

Buoyed by enabling legislationand scientific advances, institutions are aggressively shopping their facultiese 'blue-sky' investigations. In the past decade, university technology transfer has moved into the spotlight. Several hundred schools are now participating in what was once a relatively obscure function at a few institutions. Government, industry, and venture capitalists, in seeking successful commercial products to develop, are keenly interested in what researchers are creating today.

Sixteen individuals--one woman and 15 men--from a variety of disciplines in science, engineering, and mathematics are being honored for their scientific and humanitarian achievements at the 132nd annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), scheduled for April 24 in Washington, D.C. Five of the 16 are already NAS members. Also taking place at the convocation will be the election of new academy members and the induction of new members elected last year (N. Sankaran, The Scientist, J

Self-starting science fraud investigators Walter Stewart and Ned Feder at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) appear to have received something like an apology from their supervisor, L. Earl Laurence. Laurence had written the two men a stern reprimand concerning an incident of alleged misuse of NIDDK letterhead. After a November appearance before the federal Commission on Research Integrity--previously approved by Laurence--Stewart and Feder in January s

Computer compatibility and investigator reluctance blamed for the long delay in agency's move into the digital age. The Internal Revenue Service began accepting electronic transmission of federal income tax forms in 1986. This time-saving option has become quite popular, and by 1994 was used by some 14 million taxpayers. Yet at the National Institutes of Health--which funds some of the most scientifically sophisticated researchers in the world--grant proposals are, for the most part, still bei

PUSHED ASIDE: E. Loren Buhle was a cofounder of OncoLink, but later battled with Penn administrators over its content. University's move to rein in a junior professor raises questions about responsibility for patient-care advice and the appropriate role of experts on the Internet. A recent struggle for control of a popular Internet cancer-information service at the University of Pennsylvania represents more than just an M.D.-vs.-Ph.D. rivalry in an academic department, according to physicians

Document questions conduct of HIV researcher and NIH,but many grass-roots scientistssay they are tiring of the case. ROBERT GALLO: The NIH researcher calls the subcommittee report "bizarre" and a personal attack on him. Grass-roots scientists have had a muted response to the underground release of an investigative report on alleged misconduct by National Institutes of Health HIV researcher Robert C. Gallo prepared by a former majority congressman's staff. Notwithstanding the relative lack of

Using the immune system to fight the deadly disease shows promise, executives say, but vaccines may take years to bring to market. Biotech executives and cancer researchers are excited about a resurgence in basic studies and clinical trials involving immunotherapeutic approaches to fighting the disease. They caution, however, that because cancer is so poorly understood, products in the marketplace may still be years away. FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT: A technician from Cytel, one of the many immun

A growing number of researchers contend that the traditional scientific journal--with its peer-review gatekeeping and relatively high printing and mailing costs--is seeing its last days. From now on, they predict, researchers will use the Internet to directly disseminate their papers to each other as part of a more flexible system that will progressively replace print journals--and, perhaps, their publishers. But publishers, while acknowledging the power of Internet distribution, insist they wi

A Cell-abration At Rockefeller SEC Alleges Cyberspace Scam An Upholsterer's Dream Underendowed Stealth Stethoscope Heat-Seeking Enzymes Self-Improvement, Writ Large No Barneys Here Extinction for the Masses Shipping Science Rockefeller University (RU) marked the 50th anniversary of the use of the electron microscope in cell biology with a symposium, entitled "Journey Into the Cell," March 16-18. Lectures and special events highlighted the past, pres-ent, and future of the discipline. The pro

NIH Grant Submission Computer compatibility and investigator reluctance blamed for the long delay in agency's move into the digital age. The Internal Revenue Service began accepting electronic transmission of federal income tax forms in 1986. This time- saving option has become quite popular, and by 1994 was used by some 14 million taxpayers. Yet at the National Institutes of Health--which funds some of the most scientifically sophisticated researchers in the world--grant proposals are, for the