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STANFORD-- CALIF—Irving Weissman is a risk taker. He doesn’t mind losing bets: A bottle of wine here, a beer there. It’s a small price to pay for the progress of science. The last bet the Stanford University immunologist lost was with postdoc Mike McCune over whether a complete human immune system could be transplanted into a mouse. “I said, ‘Great idea, fantastic, but I’ll bet it doesn’t work,’ “ Weissman recalls. “Well, I was wrong

LA JOLLA, CALIF.—Donald Mosier and Darcy Wilson credit their latest success to what they call “interactive science,” which occurs when experienced researchers with fertile ‘minds get together and new concepts and approaches arise spontaneously. It even occurs, they add, when ideas are exchanged by scientists who do not agree. In fact, as the result of a serendipitous argument, Wilson and Mosier recently made the front page of the New York Times and dozens of other newspap

Perhaps the kindest thing to say about the recent report from the National Academy of Sciences on the controversial topic of laboratory animals is that it’s finished. The 73-page report, which cost $315,000 and took three years to write, breaks little new ground, coming out in support of the continued use of animals in research and urging Congress not to pass any more laws regulating their use until the current rules have been digested. The report’s most striking features are its ra

The two principal Charles Bluestone and Erdem Cantekin, key members of a group, that began a major clinical trial in 1981 to measure the efficacy of drugs used to treat diseases in the middle ear in children. Bluestone, an otolaryngologist, is director of the Otitis Media Research Center and principal investigator on the $5.6 million NIH grant that supported the work at Children's Hospital. Cantekin, a biomedical engineer was the center's director of research. Cantekin, whose paper remains unp

NIH should take an active role in this process, , but I don’t think we should tell instituions what to do." The 46-year-old biochemist took up the challenge, on October 10. On that day she became the second NIH employee—and the first scientist direct NIH’s efforst on misconduct. The office she leads was created six years ago as part of effort to codify research practices by those who receive federal funds. But its work relating misconduct, which includes investigating allegati

Sending Corporate Scientists To School When Robert E. Gee arrived at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Interfacial Engineering in February as director of technology transfer, he discovered four visiting researchers who were busy transferring technology. Unfortunately, they were all from Japan, and the flow of information westward across the Pacific was not exactly the type of transfer that Gee had been hired to promote. So Gee came up with a new strategy to get U.S. industry more

Who does Congress remember when it passes laws benefiting research? Caltech, Princeton, Johns Hopkins—you get the idea— but not Jackson Lab, not the Worcester Foundation, not the Medical Foundation of Buffalo. That’s how the independent labs see it. They feel uncelebrated, often overlooked not only by legislators but by foundation officials as well, and they’re fighting back. At the annual meeting of the Association of Independent Research Institutes in Buffalo, N.Y., ea

Make no mistake, the race to develop and manufacture a safe alternative to chlorofluorocarbons (CECs) is a hotly contested one. But fierce competition notwithstanding, the contenders in the race have banded together to shorten one key leg of what promises to be a marathon. Eight CFC producers from around the world—Du Pont, AKZO, Allied-Signal, Atochem, Daikin, ISC Chemicals, Pennwalt, and Solvay and Co—have agreed to share toxicity test information on HCFC-1 41 b, one CFC alternativ

By Febrauary Talbot’s travel schedule was full His first trip took him to San Francisco to visit UCSF and Stanford to visit Since neither school had yet issued him a formal acceptance he was a little nervous about how his in terviews would go. At UCSF he pressed with the friendliness of the faculty and their apparent interest in him. "They asked me what I wanted to talk about," he recalls. At Stanford Talbot liked the biochemistry departments small close-knit feeling. And he hit it off w

You’ve seen research institutions spin off commercial companies; now the reverse is beginning to happen. Stratagene Cloning Systems, a four-year-old, 35-scientist biotechnology firm based in La Jolla, Calif., is one of the most recent entrepreneurial firms to set up its own nonprofit institute, the California Institute of Biological Research. Such an institute has certain advantages over companies when attracting scientists: It has none of the for-profit taint” to which some researc

EMERYVILLE, CALIF.—Six-packs of Budweiser and individual bottles of Coors, Michelob, and Miller line a laboratory shelf in the Aquanautics corporate headquarters. But they’re for work, not play. Scientists at the young firm hope that the beers will prove to be Aquanautics’ savior—transforming a company founded on a pipedream to a company thriving on innovation. If they have their way, Aquanautics’ 14 scientists will guarantee us fresher-tasting beers. Why do we ca

Citing the intellectual stimulation of collaboration, the American Society for Cell Biology and the American Society for Biochemistry arid Molecular Biology will hold their annual meetings together for the first time ever next year. After all, notes president Tom Pollard of the ASOB, the two groups share many members and a desire to understand life processes at the molecular level. The 28th annual meeting of ASCB and the 80th annual meeting of ASBMB is scheduled for January 29 through February