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Courtesy of Alan Whanger Facial image of the Man of the Shroud surrounded by "the ghost of flowers past." The topic of the last press conference on Monday, August 2, at the XVI International Botanical Congress in St. Louis seemed to have a nice mix of classical scientific observation, image analysis, and palynology (pollen identification), as well as great historical interest. A team led by Avinoam Danin, a professor of evolution, systematics, and ecology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Neuronal precursors from a particular region of the ventral forebrain--the medial ganglionic eminence (MGE)--are capable of migrating extensively in both the embryonic and adult brain and differentiating into neurons in several brain regions, researchers at Rockefeller University reported recently. The study adds more evidence to the viability of cell transplantation as a treatment for neurogenerative disorders and brain damage.1 "We are for the first time identifying a new population of cells

HARDWIRED HUNGER Two distinct but adjacent sets of cells in the same part of the brain respond in opposite ways to the same hormone: leptin, which, when lacking in the bloodstream, results in a voracious appetite. A group led by Joel K. Elmquist, neuroendocrinology researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and assistant professor of neurology and medicine at Harvard Medical School, set out to understand the leptin pathway by injecting the hormone into rats and following its progress to

For about a decade, Susan Swedo, chief of the Pediatric and Developmental Neuropsychiatry Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), has been investigating how an ordinary strep infection can trigger an autoimmune response leading to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). She, her colleagues at NIMH, and other researchers have been exploring this link with a goal of better understanding the role of the brain in mental disorders and developing better OCD treatments. Though strep is

At the recent theme symposium of the 1999 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks held in Washington, D.C., neurobiologists, psychologists, and engineers presented a wide variety of research projects attempting to make sense of the human brain. But despite the variance among disciplines and approaches, the symposium, entitled "Neuronal Ensembles: Paradigm Shifts in Cognitive Modeling," had a common thread: elucidating brain function by examining the behavior of groups of neurons rathe

Brain development is an awesome feat. Over a trillion neurons make connections with thousands of target cells to create coherent circuits for vision, language, movement, and memory. Most neurons migrate from their birthplace to their permanent home in the developing brain. Once they find a home, some cells send growth cones to different parts of the brain, creating networks with their axons. Corey Goodman, professor of molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, elaborates, "Th

J. Craig Venter is no stranger to contradiction and controversy. He seems to thrive on it. In 1991, when the National Institutes of Health was haggling over patenting expressed sequence tags (ESTs)--a shortcut to identifying protein-encoding genes--Venter the inventor accepted a private offer to found The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Md. TIGR would discover ESTs and give most of them to a commercial sibling, Human Genome Sciences (HGS), to market. ESTs are now a standard

On Dec. 17, 1998, Iceland's parliament, the Althing, gave the go-ahead for a Delaware-based biotechnology company, deCODE Genetics Inc., to use existing health and genealogy records to establish a nationwide "health sector database ... with the aim of increasing knowledge in order to improve health and health services."1 The public's participation was presumed--citizens were given six months to "opt out" of the plan. By June 17, 1999, with only about 9,000 of the country's 270,000 residents of

SNP CENTRAL: A genetics researcher takes to the bench at the Wellcome Trust's Sanger Centre in Cambridge, England. The sequencing center and its London sponsor provided key leadership in the SNP Consortium, a public-private venture to find and map 300,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms. The Wellcome Trust helped entice 10 pharmaceutical firms to join the consortium by putting up $14 million of the project's estimated $45 million price tag. The Sanger Centre will provide much of the radiation h

The 1997 resurrection of a snippet of Neandertal mitochondrial DNA electrified human paleontology and attracted wide media attention.1 By comparing the number of base changes in that Neandertal sample to variability in modern humans, scientists concluded that a common African ancestor existed about 600,000 years ago, far earlier than the generally accepted origin of modern humans about 150,000 years ago. And while Neandertals were still around as late as 30,000 years ago, it's unlikely that mod

if (n == null) The Scientist - Are We There Yet? Researchers Differ on When a Genome Sequence Is 'Complete' The Scientist 13[15]:12, Jul. 19, 1999 News Are We There Yet? Researchers Differ on When a Genome Sequence Is Complete By: Karen Hopkin A great deal of fanfare and much celebration greeted the publication of the C. elegans sequence in Science this past December.1,2 "Caenorhabditis elegans made it big today as Human Genome Project researchers in

if (n == null) The Scientist - Promise and Problems Loom for Stem Cell Gene Therapy The Scientist 13[15]:0, Jul. 19, 1999 News Promise and Problems Loom for Stem Cell Gene Therapy By Paul Smaglik Photo courtesy of Harry Malech A network of gas-permeable plastic bags connected by tubing helps make ex vivo stem cell gene therapy more feasible. The insides of the bags are coated with recombinant human fibronectin fragments. That protein helps more r