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Clinical-Trial Recruitment 'PLEASANT SUPRISE': NCI's Otis Brawley notes the racial makeup of treatment-trial patients was not planned. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), the largest of the National Institutes of Health, proudly touts its record of recruiting minorities into clinical trials it supports. "We have incredibly good representation of minorities on treatment trials," maintains Otis Brawley, senior investigator in the Community Oncology and Rehabilitation Branch of NCI's Division o

Denizens Of The Deep Author: Karen Young Kreeger Stymied by drug-resistant tumors and antibiotic-outwitting microbes, researchers are taking the plunge and sifting through the largely unexplored biodiversity offered by marine organisms. Drugs and other products from the sea have been a steadily growing research interest for the last 20 years. Recently, however, backers from business and government have stepped up their involvement, opened up their wallets, and broadened their scope in the fiel

Let this be a warning to bosses and pompous big shots in labs around the United States: It's that time of year again when your students and your colleagues are busy devising devilish ways to prick your balloon. What's that? This article reached you too late? April Fool! FISHING FOR LAUGHS: Jeffrey Maynes, "troublemaker-in-chief" as a postdoc at U. Alabama, turned a colleague's lab into an undersea scene. The American Heritage Dictionary defines "practical joke" as "a mischievous trick playe

TAKING THE CROWN: Counterclockwise from top, Hugh Pelham, Günter Blobel, and James Rothman A trio of scientists separately researching proteins have won the 1996 King Faisal International Prize for Science. The prize, awarded this year for "outstanding achievements" in biology, goes to Gnter Blobel, John D. Rockefeller Pro- fessor at Rockefeller University in New York; James E. Rothman, program chairman in cellular biochemistry and biophysics at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Cen

But Caution Author: Steven Benowitz The human genome has become extremely big business. IN DEVELOPMENT: Myriad CEO Peter Meldrum sees increasing industry-academia ties in genetics Taking the lead from the Human Genome Project, an ambitious $3 billion, 15-year federal effort aimed at analyzing the entire human genetic heritage, industry has begun treading cautiously into the relatively uncharted waters of genetic testing. Several companies, often along with academic collaborators, have begun

A Last Resort Those alleging misconduct agree with administrators that the optimal way to settle cases is through institutions, not the press. (The Scientist, Vol:10, #6, p. 1 & 4, March 18, 1996) Scientists do not agree on what misconduct is. They do not agree on how much of it occurs. Nor do they agree on what should be done about it. Yet scientists and research administrators largely do concur that it would be better for all concerned-and for science itself-if the press never got involved i

Concerns (The Scientist, Vol:10, #6, p. 1 & 8-9, March 18, 1996) The deluge of gene discovery has inspired hundreds of industry and academic research programs to develop tests for disease genes (see accompanying story). Meanwhile, basic scientists are seeking to explain how those genes work. Both sides have been expressing concern over looming disease gene issues. Open to question, for example, is how much researchers actually know about the cellular explanation for any disease gene's effect,

Politics, Science (The Scientist, Vol:10, #6, p. 3 & 5, March 18, 1996) SIDEBAR : PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE OF ADVISERS ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY President Bill Clinton has expressed a strong interest in science and the environment. He has cited investments in these areas as critical if the United States is to remain the world's most advanced nation as a new millennium dawns. CONVENING WITH CLINTON: PCAST members have meet with President Bill Clinton only once, last July. At the meeting, from le

Table of Contents Up in Smoke Web Withdrawal? Women in Science Lauded Easy as Pi Do the Right Thing Break on Through For Deposit Only HERBAL HARM? New study warns of pot's effects Marijuana, long touted as a relatively harmless drug by those advocating its legalization, is the subject of a new study that suggests heavy users experience lapses in attention, memory, and learning skills even after the "high" wears off. The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and co

SENSE OF PROPORTION: "more needs to be done relative to the scale of the problem," remarks Stanford ecologist Gretchen Daily. The worldwide spate of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases in the first half of this decade has prompted a growing recognition of the connection between global climate change and human health. Individual researchers from such disparate disciplines as epidemiology and public health, ecology, virology, climatology, nutrition, and biomedicine have directly addresse

Optimism, Caution Date: March 4, 1996 (The Scientist, Vol:10, #5, pg.3 & 6, March 4, 1996) (Copyright ©, The Scientist, Inc.) When Oakland, Calif., AIDS activist-now patient-turned-guinea-pig-Jeff Getty received baboon bone marrow cells in December, doctors gave the daring cross-species experiment little chance of working. Now, three months later, scientists are debating not only whether or not the procedure was a success, but also if it was appropriate in the first place. In question also

Life Science Journals The career of nearly every scientist-male or female on a university faculty includes a stint reviewing papers for professional journals. But at the higher levels of editorial leadership-the editors-in-chief and other senior-level journal editors -- the number of men far outpaces the number of women. For example, Science, Nature, Cell, the Journal of Molecular Biology, Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology, the Journal of Immunology, and many others all have a male scien