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Call it the angiogenesis inhibitor shuffle. Bristol-Myers Squibb of New York dropped clinical plans for the protein angiostatin, but is proceeding to Phase I with a small molecule. A National Cancer Institute lab that last fall questioned the viability of endostatin now confirms the protein can be synthesized and may be back on track for human tests. And a third, unnamed protein, not yet reported in the scientific literature, has been licensed to Genzyme Corp. of Framingham, Mass., with clinica

When J. Craig Venter proposed last May to use the "shotgun" technique to sequence Drosophila, many scientists doubted that blasting such a large genome into billions of base pairs, then reassembling it in one fell swoop would succeed.1 On the brink of the project's beginning, skepticism remains. But an agreement between Celera Genomics Corp. of Rockville, Md., and the University of California at Berkeley's Drosophila Genome Project Group, may render that uncertainty irrelevant. The Berkeley gr

David Holtzman and Friend SNAKE LOGIC David Holtzman, an assistant professor of brain and cognitive science at the University of Rochester, has loved snakes since childhood. But in college, when he wanted to investigate how snake brains develop, he found that serpents weren't exactly model organisms. "I wanted to devise a task that could show that snakes can learn as well as rodents--if you ask them to do the right thing," he recalls. Now Holtzman and his colleagues are doing just that (D.

Mildred Dresselhaus coauthored a report to be released Feb. 17. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) President Bruce M. Alberts was so concerned by the accountability provision buried in last year's "omnibus" budget legislation that on Jan. 26 he sent a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew in which he writes that he's "convinced that the new legislation will have serious, unintended consequences for the nation's research enterprise." Speaking at the recent American Associ

Using genomcs to develop new antibiotics and vaccines could help prepare for potential bioterrorist actions Although the Human Genome Project now draws more attention, the genomes of smaller organisms collectively contain more information. The American Association for the Advancement of Science's second annual Genome Seminar, held at this year's annual meeting in January in Anaheim, Calif., focused on analyzing that information for a myriad of purposes ranging from developing malaria vaccine s

President Bill Clinton's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) emphasized technology over science during the unveiling of the president's fiscal year (FY) 2000 budget request Feb. 1. The administration requested $78.42 billion for total civilian and military R&D--over $1 billion less than for FY1999. If Congress strictly adheres to that request next fall, most agencies that fund science would see their budgets at or below this year's level, after accounting for inflation. The two

Mae West said that anything worth doing is worth doing slowly. Plants would probably agree, if they could. Courtship in flowering plants begins when pollen lands on the receptive surface (stigma) of a carpel, the female part of the flower. The ensuing dance of biochemical signals and responses culminates in the flower's decision to accept or reject the suitor. A variety of molecules have been implicated in the recognition process, including flavanols, lipids, and receptor kinases.1,2 If the in

Editor's Note: The news items on this page all originated from the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., Jan. 21-26. Mars: Future homestead? NASA's Astrobiology Institute revealed its definition of astrobiology and a road map of research directions, about six months after its inaugural gathering.1 "Astrobiology is the study of life in the universe, an attempt to answer some of the fundamental questions that have been with us for a long time--ho

Editor's Note: The news items on this page all originated from the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., Jan. 21-26. PLAQUE ATTACK A host of studies have bitten off the task of linking periodontitis with coronary heart disease. But without more evidence, scientists may find any cause-and-effect relationship between tooth disease and heart attacks hard to swallow, admitted James D. Beck, professor of dental ecology, at the University of North Caro

Kits and chips will routinely screen for the genetic implications of new drugs within the next 10 years, and therapeutics is becoming a science as opposed to an art. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will expect pharmaceutical companies to have molecular insights into how drugs work and how they are metabolized. Such data will reduce idiosyncratic reactions to drugs. These were the opinions of panelists at a presentation called "Developing Prescriptions with a Personal Touch: The Human G

Discoveries in genomics will bring about enormous changes in the scientific community, but these changes have "caught many sectors of the biomedical academic community off guard," cautions Allen W. Cowley Jr., professor of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Cowley calls "scientific manpower preparedness" a hurdle science must overcome to fully benefit from the Human Genome Project. A shortage of scientists appropriately trained to define the physiological function of genes and expre

The problem and the solution seem obvious: Scientists are training many more graduate students than are needed for available academic positions, and science illiteracy in the United States is rampant. Newly trained scientists working outside academia might ease the glut, plus perhaps pass their enthusiasm and knowledge to the public. Statistics tell the story. According to the National Research Council (NRC), in 1985, 3,791 Ph.D.s were granted in life sciences, and the job market held 20,377 t