The Scientist - Home

The Department of Energy has kicked off a closely-watched competition to pick a team to manage the facility that will house the superconducting supercollider. More than 100 representatives of science-related companies and organizations showed up last month for a meeting in Washington to discuss the rules governing the selection of a contractor (two or more companies may submit a joint bid) to operate the new national laboratory that will be created once DOE picks a site for the SSC. Although

The Burroughs Wellcome Fund is considering the addition of a seventh “scholar program” comparable in magnitude to its current six. Each of the existing programs award outstanding researchers $300,000 grants over five years, according to Martha G. Peck, executive director of the fund, which is based in Research Triangle Park, N.C. “Our board is reviewing underfunded areas of basic medical research for new competitive awards,” she says, “and we expect to make an

Physicist Luis Walter Alvarez, a age 77, lost a long battle with can cer on September 1,1988—and the scientific community lost one of it most creative and feisty members Luie, as he was known by colleagues and castigators alike, won numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for his work in developing, and experimenting with, the hydrogen bubble chamber a device used to track the paths of, and thus identify, elementary particles. But long before that he bad been a k

That favorite Washington pastime—playing politics—threatens to disrupt the operations of the National Science Board, NSF’s oversight body. The board has a rotating membership appointed by the president. Every other May, eight of its 24 members complete their six-year terms. Replacements are routinely confirmed by the Senate, and the board has hardly missed a beat—except this year and in 1976. In each instance a Democrat- controlled Senate has refused to go along with a

WASHlNGTON—In less than six weeks, energy Secretary John Herrington will announce where he plans to build the $5.4 billion Superconducting Supercollider Will the decision be remembered as another flagrant example of pork-barrell science ? Or will the secretary actually manage to avoid politics and make his decision on technical and scientiftc merits. Most observers feel that the Department of Energy must avoid even the appearance of political patronage if it wants its decision to be ac

Entrepreneurial professors might want to set their sights on Texas: Its vigorous technology transfer community is working hard to get Lone Star State innovation to market. The Texas Technology Transfer Association, a grassroots group formed by venture capitalists and university officials earlier this year, was scheduled to hold its first conference in Houston last week. Meanwhile, the Texas A&M technology business development office has been touting its most recent success: a marriage between

The question in every one’s mind since Oct. 19, 1987, had been: ‘When would the market support an initial public offering in biotech— as it used to so enthusiastically before Black Monday? In the first nine months of 1987, for instance there had been no less than 16 initial public offerings of biotech firms that had raised a total of $263 million. But as the months dragged by into 1988, not a single offering had been acieved. Then along came NeoRx. The four-year-old Seattle

A sagging stock market and the lagging dollar have only served to add allure to overseas venture capital Ask any United States biotech executive about the industry’s problems and you’ll probably get a rousing speech on the dangers of offshore competition—especially from Japan. The U.S., you’ll be told, could lose out on biotechnology’s biggest payoffs. But nationalism sometimes bows to financial realism. At least, that was the case back in 1985 when Thousand O

Biotechnology has really hit the big time: big opportunity, big profits, and now—big crime. On August 11, former Amgen research associate John Stephen Wilson was arrested by the FBI in the first biotech “sting” operation. Wilson allegedly offered Genetics Institute, Cambridge, Mass., an explanation of how to manufacture erythropoietin, an anti-anemia drug that is Amgen’s lead product. He has been accused of trying to sell the information—valued at $50 million by

When the next Three Mile Island vents its deadly radioactive gas, when a Chernobyl threatens to melt its superheated core, who are you going to call? The Aged Team! This new group of 00 British scientists—whose average age is over 70—is now ready to tackle all future nuclear disasters. The team is the brainchild of Sir Frederick Warner, 78, visiting professor in the departments of chemistry and law at Essex University, who became alarmed by the number of young people sent into ar

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.—If Rainer Weiss doesn't reach his goal of staring God in the eye—or at least gazing back to the first moment of creation—it won't be for lack of trying. Over the past 16 years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist has appeared before a host of committees, flitted between coasts on red-eye flights to meet with collaborators, and even endured what some call a scientific version of a shotgun wedding with rival physicists at Caltech. For the pipe-smo

WILMINGTON, DEL.—When Du Pont executives first tried to recruit Mark Pearson back in 1982, he didn't take them seriously. After all, he reasoned, with no corporate history of ground-breaking work in molecular biology, what would the company do with a director of one of the National Cancer Institute's molecular biology laboratories? "Besides," he adds, "they were a chemical company." Not any longer. Within the past five years Du Pont has embarked upon new ventures in electronics, imaging, a