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A Platform For Animal Cell Technology West European biotechnology companies are getting together to establish a mechanism to ensure that they reap the benefits of European Community-funded research on animal cell technology. The firms plan to establish in a Dublin meeting on June 6 an Animal Cell Technology Industry Platform, which will organize technology transfer from a three-year EC initiative. Brussels has earmarked about $4 million for the initiative, a sum to be matched by private enterpr

WASHINGTON -- Medical devices have been the most trouble-free of biotechnology's products; they have sailed smoothly through U.S. Food and Drug Administration review. But that situation is changing. These genetically engineered materials and technologies for treating and diagnosing disease are getting more complex. At the same time, Congress and the public are increasingly concerned that FDA is not being tough enough and that technology is inflating health care costs. Last month, FDA and the S

FASEB speakers teach scientists about drug development and urge researchers to shape the regulatory process WASHINGTON--Biochemists isolating novel chemical compounds could use a bit more street smarts if they want to raise the profile - and budgets - of their research, according to university and industry scientists attending this month's annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Speaking at a symposium on the "Impact of Federal Agencies on Drug Develop

New Psychology Journal In 1988, the American Psychological Society split from the American Psychological Association because many APA members believed that their former association's interest in psychological science was diminishing. According to James L. McGaugh, APS president and professor of psychobiology at the University of California, Irvine, he and other members had fought APA's growing trend toward an "applied clinical interest," but could not win that battle and eventually decided to f

Analysts say the Roche deal blunts the impact of a report in which the firm's top product fares poorly against its competition Genentech took it on the chin last month when a massive study by Italian scientists found that tPA, tissue plasminogen activator, was no more effective in treating heart attacks than streptokinase, a bacterial enzyme that costs one tenth as much. But the stock price of the South San Francisco, Calif., company, which manufactures the drug, hardly budged. Although tPA i

WASHINGTON -- The South shall rise again - along with states from the Midwest, Southwest, Rocky Mountains, Pacific Northwest, and Great Plains. At least, that's the hope of supporters of a National Science Foundation program to help states whose scientists receive dispropor-tionately little federal support. They are trying to use that program as a model for a government-wide effort at geographic self-help. "We have a common problem - poverty and bad politics," says biochemist Kenneth Pruitt, a

As this week's rallies approach, four tell how their concern for the environment has changed their lives and careers Chemical physicist Michael Oppenheimer remembers staring for hours at the poster in his bedroom. The vertical cliffs of granite that had once been Colorado's Glen Canyon shimmered down pink and orange from the wall of his Cambridge, Mass., apartment. Several years earlier, in 1967, a dam had been built and the canyon flooded, its beauty lost forever. "It blew me away," says the

WASHINGTON -- Last month 10 scientists got to keep their labs open, thanks to a new policy at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The policy lets NIGMS edge further away from scientific merit in funding decisions and ration support so smaller laboratories can survive the increased competition for NIH funds. The beneficiaries are those scientists - like the 10 who didn't make the initial cutoff - who have no other sources of support or who are first-time applicants. The potential

Soviets Bump Up Against NIH Ceiling The Fogarty International Center's exchange program with the Soviet Union is oversubscribed for the first time in its 18-year history. "In the past, we didn't have a ceiling on the program because we could always count on the Soviets to limit themselves," says Gray Handley, director of international coordination and liaison for the NIH-based exchanges. But perestroika has increased demand for the short-term visits, in which the Soviets pay for the flight over

A flood of applications for small amounts of money reflects the problem of financing needed repairs to academic laboratories WASHINGTON -- New programs at the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation offer overwhelming evidence that the demand for federal funds to replace crumbling academic research facilities is substantial. Defying odds that would scare off any self-respecting bettor, university administrators are expected to shower NIH with more than 100 requests f

Wellcome Welcomes Visiting Professors Universities interested in hosting leading research scientists can tap the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Each year, Wellcome Visiting Professorships in the Basic Medical Sciences are presented to 21 scientists - three each in physiology, biochemistry/molecular biology, pharmacology, pathology, nutrition, immunology, and cell biology - for visits of two to five days at U.S. institutions. The Wellcome Visiting Professors teach, confer with students and faculty,

Don L. Anderson, professor of geophysics at the California Institute of Technology, has been named the first Eleanor and John R. McMillan Professor of Geophysics. The professorship in Caltech's Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences was endowed by Caltech alumnus John R. McMillan to honor the memory of his wife, Eleanor McMillan, who died in 1988. Anderson's research has focused on the study of planetary interiors, seismology, the structure of the earth, and the origin and evolution of o