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Editor's Note: In the previous issue of The Scientist (12[20]:7, 14, Oct. 12, 1998), we published the first part of an excerpt from NO by Carl Djerassi. We met the chief protagonist of the book, an Indian scientist named Renu Krishnan, who has developed a drug called NONO-2 and a delivery system called MUSA. Guided by Martin Gestler, a hard-charging expert on biotechnology start-up companies, Krishnan has left academic research to found a company called SURYA. The previous extract described t

You have probably heard more than your share of Viagra jokes; a whole Web site is devoted to them. But impotence, or erectile dysfunction (ED), is no joke. According to a survey (H.A. Feldman et al., Journal of Urology, 151:54-61, 1994), more than 50 percent of men between 40 and 70 suffer from some degree of ED. The figure climbs to 67 percent at age 70. That's 20 to 30 million men, according to the National Institutes of Health. FIRST IN LINE: Viagra is actually the second drug approved t

On September 25 at the Hotel Pierre in New York City, seven prominent scientists, representing a generation of landmark discoveries in biology and medicine, stepped to the podium to receive this year's Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards, a coveted honor bestowed annually since 1946 by The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. The research of six of this year's recipients made possible groundbreaking discoveries in the field of cancer research. The research of the seventh, who received his award

A plan to screen pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides for endocrine disruptor activity could be bad news for the manufacturers of those synthetics, but good news for research in biocontrols, a natural alternative to those chemicals. Recently, the Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Advisory Committee (EDSTAC) recommended that about 15,000 commercial chemicals be tested for their interaction with reproduction and development (P. Smaglik, The Scientist, 12[18]:1, Sept. 14, 1998). Although

LEAVING HOWARD HUGHES After serving as the president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1987, Purnell W. Choppin has announced his resignation. "While my enthusiasm for the position I have been privileged to hold and my dedication to the Institute remain as intense as ever, I believe that it will be time for someone to take up the reins and lead HHMI into the new millennium," Choppin wrote in a letter to the institute's staff. He will remain in the position through 1999. Under Choppin

EDITOR'S NOTE: Carl Djerassi's novel NO concerns the development of a fictional, though close-to-life, drug and delivery system for the relief of male impotence. While the science in the novel is accurate, the book is a work of fiction. Nevertheless, some real-life characters, including Djerassi himself (a professor in the chemistry department at Stanford University), and other more or less disguised fictional characters based on real people make appearances in the book. In this issue and in t

As drug companies downsize and research grants in big universities dry up, Chinese scientists in the United States are taking a more aggressive stance toward their own professional and economic development. Chris Pak As though taking the cue from President Bill Clinton and Premier Jiang Zemin, whose open TV debate a few months ago shocked and surprised many Chinese and Americans, Asian scientists in the United States are going after a base of political power. A few are adopting roles ranging

GENOME SYMBOL: DNA strands form the basis of a graphic symbol of the genome project. They said it wasn't a race. When a private venture announced plans in May to produce a version of the human genome four years ahead of the international nonprofit Human Genome Project's deadline, scientists associated with the public project insisted that the private effort wasn't really a challenge to theirs. The private effort would present, at best, a "rough draft" with many holes--if it worked at all, they

By In the early 1950s, when Jonas Salk produced the first inactivated polio vaccine and Albert Sabin later produced a live, attenuated, oral polio vaccine, the individual researchers' names were permanently linked to the products. But development of an HIV vaccine--a task President Bill Clinton has charged researchers to accomplish by 2007--requires the skills of so many scientists and so many laboratories worldwide that it would be impossible, and perhaps even improper, to link any vacci

BIOLOGY RULES ... Biology is becoming so popular, it may overtake the humanities as the foundation of American undergraduate education, claims Joseph G. Perpich, vice president for grants and special programs at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute of Chevy Chase, Md. The institute, America's largest philanthropy, recently announced the allocation of a record $91.1 million in four-year grants to help 58 research and doctoral universities to strengthen their undergraduate programs in biological

Let's say you want to build the best biomedical research facility, bar none. The catch is, it will be in Kansas City. Can you still hope to lure top scientists away from their prestigious postings in world capitals to an untested center in Missouri? Philanthropists Virginia Stowers and James Stowers Jr. think so. And they have a plan to make it happen. On 10 acres across the street from the University of Missouri, the foundations already are being laid for their six-story, 594,000-square-foot

The stream of life science students entering the graduate school pipeline should be frozen to prevent researcher job applicants from flooding the market, according to a recent National Research Council (NRC) report. However, just who will control the valves regulating enrollment--government, universities, or some combination--remains to be seen. "I don't think the federal government alone can provide the answer to this," explains Shirley Tilghman, chair of NRC's Commission on Life Sciences, whi