The Scientist - Home

While prominent scientists plead with legislators to reconsider their conservative stance on funding human embryonic stem (ES) cell research, a six-year-old company in Baltimore is quietly making the matter moot. In a just-released tour-de-force research report, it is no longer quite so quiet.1 Researchers at Osiris Therapeutics and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine coaxed human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) from adults' bone marrow to develop into cartilage, fat, and bone cells

As the role of college and university president increasingly becomes that of chief fundraiser, the trend is to fill the post with an individual whose administrative experience outweighs his or her academic credentials. Politicians and business leaders--people with an eye on sources of money, from legislatures or bottom-line savings--also fit the fundraising requirements. David Baltimore Despite this trend, a small number of people trained in the biological sciences have become college preside

Anger, uncertainty, and confusion followed in the wake of the unprecedented suspension of research March 26 at the Veterans Administration Greater Los Angeles Health Care System (VAGLAHS), the largest center of its kind in the country. "Everything has come to a screeching halt," said VAGLAHS spokeswoman Marianne Davis, who estimated some 1,200 protocols and hundreds of researchers were stopped in their tracks. The order--which applies to the five Los Angeles-area facilities and seven outpatien

When Herbert Boyer of the University of California and Stanley Cohen of Stanford University found a way to recombine DNA molecules in test tubes using restriction enzymes,1 they crossed the ultimate milestone in genetic engineering in the early 1970s. They also set the stage for a firestorm of controversy. Scientists and nonscientists feared that the new technology could be used to create hazardous biological materials. Could, for example, pathogenic genes cloned into E.coli plasmids transform

Peanuts may be losing their bite PEANUT ALLERGY VACCINE Peanuts are more than just an annoyance on airplanes--for a few dozen people each year, they cause deadly anaphylactic shock. The only protection is knowledge of one's allergy and avoidance of the offending food. But most peanut-associated allergic deaths occur from peanut extracts added to prepared foods--additives that sometimes remain unlisted on labels. A peanut allergy vaccine could prevent such deaths. Kam Leong, a professor of biom

With news about Dolly and embryonic stem cells the stuff of cocktail party conversation, cloning a transgenic sheep or cow seems like child's play. The recipe is simple: Insert a pet gene into the nucleus of a cultured cell, fuse it with an enucleated egg, and voilà--a cow with high-octane milk. But incorporating genes into nuclear chromosomes isn't the only road to fame and fortune. Animals and plants have other sources of genetic information--their respiratory mitochondria and photosy

During the advent of gene therapy, fixing single-gene disorders seemed the most obvious application. But early vectors failed to transfect enough targeted cells long enough to have more than a transient effect. Recent animal studies using adeno-associated virus (AAV) may provide renewed hope for treating single-gene disorders. Two groups recently took advantage of AAV's ability to infect nondividing muscle cells--something that most other vectors cannot provide.1 And both used clever techniques

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