The Scientist - Home

Research universities and federal funding agencies are taking a new approach to cutting-edge research in life sciences: multidisciplinary teams of scientists. Already in 1999, two Ivy League universities have announced plans for new institutes that will bring together physical and biological scientists to tackle problems. Other major universities have embarked on similar initiatives within the past year. And a research institute that will open a campus in the Midwest next year plans to carry ou

Mars' "Happy Face" crater On March 4--as the Mars Global Surveyor was locking into the red planet's orbit to begin its mapping mission, and two other spacecraft were hurtling toward Mars on other investigative missions--a multidisciplinary group of scientists, along with teachers, artists, writers, and a theologian, gathered to contemplate the Big Picture. During a long weekend in California's Silicon Valley, an estimated 200 people discussed, listened, and watched as future possibilities and p

NHGRI director Francis Collins speaks with students after participating in a panel discussion at Princeton's student-run bioethics conference. How might undergraduate students interested in discussing bioethics with the top people in the field get science superstars such as Francis Collins and Ian Wilmut to show up at their doorstep? Simple: E-mail them and ask. At least that's what worked for the group of Princeton University undergraduates who orchestrated the first-ever student-run nationa

Above is a photomicrograph of the spinal cord terminal of a sensory axon. The neuron's immunoreactivity for human preproenkephalin suggests that the preproenkephalin gene, which was delivered via a herpes virus vector, is being expressed in sensory neurons. TELOMERE TROUBLES Lack of telomerase makes mice old before their time, a new study shows, but what effect this might have on age-related disease remains uncertain (K.L. Rudolph et al., "Longevity, stress, response, and cancer in aging telom

University of Wisconsin biochemistry professor Ronald T. Raines nominates pancreatic ribonuclease A (RNase-A) as "probably the most-studied enzyme of the 20th century." But in the next breath, he admits, "There are ribonucleases floating through your bloodstream right now, and we don't really know [their function]." Raines and Richard Youle, director of the biochemistry section in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at Bethesda, Md., led two research groups that are fri

The Joint Steering Committee for Public Policy (JSC), a coalition of four basic biomedical research societies whose mission is to advocate federal funding for basic biomedical research, has asked scientists to respond to a recently proposed Fiscal Year 1999 Freedom of Information Act provision. The seemingly minor addition to last year's omnibus budget bill threatens to have a negative impact on scientific research (E. Russo, "Does accountability legislation threaten integrity of U.S. research

With private sector sequencing efforts nipping at its heels, the consortium directing the international Human Genome Project recently pushed up the deadline for completing a "working draft" of the human genetic blueprint from December 2001 to spring 2000. A "final draft" of the genome, with gaps closed and errors corrected, is scheduled for completion by 2003.1 The new deadline is based on a recent successfully completed three-year pilot phase of the project. Scientists will construct a worki

As the millennium approaches, spirituality is playing a more prominent role in medical practice. Many Americans believe that religious activity can promote health, and physicians report an increasing number of patients requesting at least discussion of religion in their treatment. In response, about 30 medical schools now offer courses in religion and spirituality.1 Support comes from other sectors too. "The Senate recently appropriated $50 million to set up five major centers to study mind-bo

Eugenics comes in many guises, from the fetal hatcheries of Aldous Huxley's 1931 vision of a brave new world, to films such as Gattaca, where parents pick and choose their future offspring's inherited traits. In the real world, eugenics is associated with the horrors of Nazi Germany, and more subtly with certain medical tests widely used in many nations today. The blurring of the lines between eugenics and genetic research has prompted the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) to release a

Be prepared. That was essentially the take-home message of a mid-February conference on bioterrorism held in Crystal City, Va., and sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American Society for Microbiology. Conference speakers addressed the following: Could a bioterrorist attack occur in the United States? The answer: absolutely--in fact, the chances are pretty good, given

Graphic: Marlene J. Viola Some say it takes a village to raise a child. Michael V. Sefton proposes that it will take a world to build a heart. Sefton, a University of Toronto chemical engineering professor, leads an international effort called the Living Implants from Engineering (L.I.F.E.) Initiative, whose goal is to create a bioengineered heart in 10 years. To meet that mark, participants must grapple with a host of scientific concerns and more mundane matters. Research questions that must b

Virologist Hans Wolf of the University of Regensburg in Germany has been working on the etiology of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in areas of China since 1979. Researchers from the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI), too, have been working with their Chinese colleagues on cancer epidemiology and etiology. The reasons for this cooperative research vary, but as Federico Welsch, associate director for international affairs at NCI, points out, "They have some cancers that are rare in the develop