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A Rocky Mountain biotech firm proves that success requires something more than strong management and top-notch research For 10-year-old biotech company Synergen, 1991 was a banner year indeed. The Boulder, Colo.-based firm raised $52.5 million in an R&D limited partnership and $95 million in a stock offering. Stock zoomed from $12 per share in January to $69 in November, and seven of its protein-based pharmaceuticals entered or advanced further in clinical testing. Moreover, the company broke g

Udall Fellowships Support Federal Service The congressional board of the Office of Technology Assessment has renamed its fellowship program to honor Morris K. Udall, the Arizona Democrat and longtime OTA board member who recently retired from Congress. The Udall Fellowships support up to six technical experts annually in one-year appointments to the OTA staff. Those who have completed doctoral-level research in some technical field related to OTA's mission are eligible to apply. Relevant discipl

John Guckenheimer, a professor of mathematics and of theoretical and applied mathematics at Cornell University and director of Cornell's Center for Applied Mathematics since 1989, has been named the first director of research programs at the Cornell Theory Center. The Theory Center is one of four National Science Foundation-funded supercomputer centers. It provides advanced computational tools to approximately 2,000 scientists. Guckenheimer, 46, received his B.A. in 1966 from Harvard University

Mikulski Supports Change at NIH Nuclear Engineering Program Gets Boost Industry Expects to Spend Less on R & D Finding Room for Innovative Research Speaking in an NIH auditorium as both a legislator concerned about science and an incumbent seeking reelection, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) told a crowd of more than 500 scientists that federal laws must be changed to meet the needs of the agency's 10,000 intramural scientists and support staff. Mikulski promised her audience, many of wh

Publishing books on or about science presents unique challenges, academic press directors say. First among these challenges, says Susan Abrams, executive editor for the natural sciences at the University of Chicago Press, is the fact "that some scientists just won't write them--it's not their style. And, of course, [finding the] time is a problem. With the state of grant support being what it is, people are spending more and more time just trying to get their work funded." Unlike scholars

David Sanchez presides over a $600 million budget as assistant National Science Foundation director for the mathematical and physical sciences. But even with steady growth each year in that budget, he says he's hard-pressed to find the money next year to continue work on, among other projects, a $211 million laser interferometer gravity wave observatory (LIGO), a $192 million eight-meter telescope, and a $120 million high magnetic field laboratory. "If we put in much less than what the proje

National Institutes of Health director Bernadine Healy says she is trying to shift the debate over adequate funding for biomedical research away from scientists and toward health as she sells the idea of a larger NIH budget to Congress and the public. But sometimes it's hard to separate the needs of her colleagues and the needs of the country. "I'm not talking about a full-employment program for scientists," she told a recent meeting of the director's advisory committee that was focusing on

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences has added a new predoctoral fellowship program for minority students and has expanded its honors undergraduate research training program in biomedicine. The honors program, founded in 1977, offers support for institutions with substantial minority enrollments to provide biomedical research training. It also provides tuition for qualified students. Previously, tuition support was offered only to juniors and seniors. Under the expanded program,

Controversy over propriety is rekindled as new physics and marine biotech centers make their respective moves to gain federal allocations WASHINGTON--Buried within the 1992 appropriations bill signed last month by President Bush for NASA, the National Science Foundation, and several other federal agencies is an allocation of $43 million to start the building of two new academic research facilities. One--a $211 million observatory to measure gravity waves, to be built at two sites thousands of

Where academic research and commercial enterprise converge, this new breed of college official serves as science's gatekeeper When Katharine Ku took on the directorship of the Office of Technology Licensing at Stanford University earlier this fall, she inherited quite a legacy from her predecessor, Neils Rimers. Her professional endowment included royalties totaling $25.6 million last year; a portfolio of patents and licenses that includes one of the most lucrative and commercially successful

OTA study contends that intellectual, financial, and regulatory challenges from other nations could erode America's global domination The United States is the world's front-runner in biotechnology because of its strong basic research structure and its ability to convert research into pharmaceutical and agricultural products, according to a report published by Congress' Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) last month. But the 283-page study, "Biotechnology in a Global Economy," warns that sev

VOLUME 5, No:23 The Scientist November 25, 1991 Research FUNDING BRIEFS   ONR Funds Young Researchers The Office of Naval Research will offer grant support this year to approximately 14 young academic researchers through its Young Investigator Program. ONR receives approximately 300 applications for the program annually. The Young Investigator Program is open to any United States citizen holding a tenure-track position at a U.S. university or college who received a P