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WASHINGTON—Elections are supposed to bring change. But the November 8 vote that denied Sen. Lowell Weicker (R-Conn.) a fourth term in office was not the sort of change scientists had in mind. “I have to talk through my tears,” laments lobbyist Lynn Morrison of the American Federation for Clinical Research. “Losing Lowell Weicker from the Senate is going to be tough for the entire biomedical community.” Weicker’s narrow defeat at the hands of Connecticut&#

So which patents—along with their universities and scientists— are leading the race for royalties? An exact ranking is difficult, thanks to inflation and closely guarded revenue figures. But here are a few of the top contenders, along with notable also-rans. Number One Patent: The biggest income producer of all time is probably cisplatin, a cancer drug developed at Michigan State University and licensed to Bristol-Myers. Royalties for this drug have already topped $55 million̵

Cambridge Welcomes Entrepreneurs Cambridge University has traditionally lagged far behind its U.S counterparts in spawning a ring of high-tech industries (The Scientist, May 16, page 8), but now an “innovation center” founded by Trinity College in 1986 has been so successful that the college will open another this month. Meanwhile, St. John’s College has opened an incubator of its own on a 22-acre site owned by the college. To date, St. John’s has invested $9 million in

As university after university joined the patent chase, one academic institution stood out as a bulwark of ethical resolve—that is, until now. The university was Harvard, and even though the school began licensing inventions more than a decade ago, it earned its reputation as a bastion of purity because of landmark decision in 1981. At issue then was a controversial proposal involving molecular biologist Mark Ptashne, whose advances in recombinant DNA techniques were giving rise to new t

Beating The Japanese At Their Own Game You wouldn’t enter a fist fight with one hand tied behind your bad so why fight Japan’s technological prowess with the serious handicap of being thousands of miles away from the island nation A far better strategy, argues John R Stern, executive director of the U.S. Electronics Industry’s Japan office, is to set up shop in the Land of the Rising Sun. In a recent talk at the Industrial Biotechnology Association’s annual meeting, Ste

SAN DIEGO—It is a rare scientist at Mycogen Corp. who makes it through the day without checking a small, hand-scribbled sign posted in the main hallway of the startup’s laboratory. The unassuming notice lists the bid, ask, and closing prices of Mycogen’s over-the-counter stock—and everyone in the company owns stock. “There are a lot of people who have a lot of money riding on what those numbers do every day” says Kathryn Nette, director of fermentation for th

I’ll Bring The Ideas, You Bring The Cash What if you are an entrepreneur with a terrific prototype but without the cash to develop it further? Or maybe you are the head of R&D in a huge corporation and you need a few good ideas to jumpstart your division. In either case, the man you want is Ray Brill. His firm, Advanced Technology Innovations (ATI), has carved out a unique niche by matching the technological needs of large companies with the innovative solutions of small firms, universit

When she came to the University of California, San Francisco, last year, Nina Agabian foresaw a bright future for herself and her lab. A professor of pharmaceutical chemistry with a joint appointment at UC-Berkeley, Agabian headed one of the nation’s leading groups investigating the molecular biology of parasites. And UCSF had promised her a spanking new laboratory in a recently purchased building for her work on vaccines against malaria, schistosomiasis, and other deadly diseases. But

For Europe, a new and eagerly anticipated era begins in 1992. That’s the year in which the 12 nations of the European Economic Community (EEC) will abolish the last of the internal trade barriers that have made Europe an economic and technological hodge-podge ever since the EEC was created in 1957. Among other benefits, 1992 will harmonize the standards, specifications, and regulations that have governed virtually every European product or service—from new pharmaceuticals to life-

WASHINGTON—Drummond Rennie is a self-professed “fraudy”— his term for members of the coterie of journal editors, university administrators, science lobbyists, and government officials who are called on to affer testimony, give lectures, and attend meetings on science fraud. But that doesn’t mean that Rennie, deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, enjoys the title. In fact, he doesn’t think that fraud is very common within the resear

Erik Kiviat knows where the endangered Blanding’s turtle lives—and that has made him a popular man in Dutchess County, N.Y On the one hand, environmental groups opposed to a local housing development have offered to pay Kiviat, who is an environmental consultant, to say that the creature is threatened by the project, even though they know perfectly well that no turtles live in the area. On the other hand, the developers have suggested to Kiviat that if he somehow were to find a turt

The Freestone, Calif.-based C.S. Fund (the initials stand for “charitable source”) rejected about 570 proposals last year in the process of selecting recipients of $1.5 million in grants. And, out of the kindness of its institutional heart, it has some advice to offer scientists who are thinking about submitting proposais for the coming year’s round of awards. First of all, says the foundation’s executive director, Marty Teitel, applicants should take the time to learn w