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Prostate cancer can be detected early, thanks to digital rectal exams and serum measurements of prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Although the role of PSA in cancer is poorly understood, high PSA levels are usually interpreted as bad news about cancer progression. But now scientists at EntreMed, a biotechnology company in Rockville, Md., offer a more optimistic interpretation--one that may explain some paradoxical observations about PSA and cancer. Tumor-secreted proteins called tumor angio

Mouse Modelers' Marriage To unite the efforts of scientists working to develop mouse models of human cancers, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently formed a consortium of 19 top-tier groups of cancer investigators hailing from more than 30 institutions. Driven by NCI funds, $4.5 million for the first six months and a total commitment of $15 million, it's an experimental arrangement that could become a model for future programs. The consortium will establish a repository for mouse models,

Life science researchers planning future projects that involve contact with people via the Internet can benefit from a new report based on experiences of sociologists, psychologists, and others. The World Wide Web can be a virtual candy store for research into numerous topics. However, online researchers are discovering that the brave new world of research on the Web challenges them to define more specific frameworks for answering ethical questions of consent and privacy in cyberspace stud

The emergence of biology-based commercial enterprises is not only fostering difficulties between the private and public sectors regarding access to research resources; it may even affect the way basic science is conducted. A letter report issued recently by the National Research Council (NRC) identifies the most pressing issues of this multifaceted problem and recommends how to begin solving it. The report, by a 26-member life sciences commission, derives from an NRC conference held in early 199

One measure of the rising interest in mind-body medicine is the increasing entry of young physicians into specialties that focus on the interface between mental and physical disorders. Yet there is a dire need for controlled, clinical trials of treatments that address this interface in a variety of complex disorders. Such evidence-based support is especially important to doctors who specialize in psychosomatic medicine, because they face a cost-cutting threat from managed care groups. These were

Graphic: Cathleen Heard It's what the government doesn't know about food that can kill you, says a federal science-policy analyst. "We do rely on Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention (CDC)] data, and the new numbers on foodborne illness are certainly something we didn't want to see," the analyst says. She is referring to a disturbing CDC report issued in September1 that ups the ante for foodborne diseases to an estimated 76 million incidents per year--twice the number reported in a widely

©1999 Myrna WatanabeMeeting attendees at the Great Wall A 30-yuan (about $3.60) card will admit you to the Badaling entrance of China's Great Wall. But you don't just swipe it through a slot as you might at a gasoline pump or cash machine. You place the card in the slot of the magnetic strip reader and a real, live attendant will retrieve the card and hand it back to you. This is the conundrum that is China: It is using cutting-edge technologies but clinging to the old ways. This, according

Researchers in Georgia began field-testing in November a device they say can greatly improve the efficiency of testing for foodborne pathogens and lower processors' costs for such tests. The biosensor, as the device is called, can cut testing time from up to 72 hours down to about two hours while reducing lab-equipment costs from $12,000-$20,000 to $1,000-$5,000, the researchers say. But first the biosensor must prove itself with the chickens in a Carrollton, Ga., processing plant. ©1999 Ge

Raven Advances at AAAS The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) will ring in the millennium with a new president-elect: Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and Engelmann professor of botany at Washington University in St. Louis. Raven succeeds Mary Good, who moves up to president at the end of Stephen J. Gould's term. Raven told The Scientist, "I'm very proud to have been elected. I'm impressed by the way AAAS has developed, and I want to do what I can to

The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) meeting in Washington, D.C., Dec. 8-10 delved into every aspect of Jesse Gelsinger's death. Gelsinger, a teenager from Arizona, had ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency, a liver disorder in which the body cannot eliminate ammonia through the urea cycle. He died four days after receiving an experimental gene therapy drug during a University of Pennsylvania clinical trial. After hearing hours of clinical data from researchers involved in t

In its bitter, seven-year-old lawsuit against Promega Corp., the Roche Group has just been deprived of one of its patents covering Taq DNA polymerase, the enzyme crucial to automating PCR. The federal judge hearing the case decided last month that the inventors of a method for purifying this enzyme had dealt dishonestly with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) in applying for the patent in 1988 and 1989. Because of the inventors' "inequitable conduct," Judge Vaughn R. Walker of the Northe

Amazing investigations into the life sciences abound under the sponsorship of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the U.S. Department of Defense. Under program director Alan Rudolph, more than 25 projects around the nation and overseas will receive a total through 2004 of about $84 million. Launched in 1998, the research efforts are divided into three broad categories: Controlled Biological Systems that deal directly with living organisms; Tissue-Based Biosensors that are b