The Scientist - Home

Immunology Author: Neeraja Sankaran This year, the New York City-based Cancer Research Institute (CRI) honored three prominent scientists with its William B. Coley Awards for Distinguished Research, which recognize outstanding research in the field of cancer immunology. The awards were presented at a black-tie dinner on June 28. Malcolm A.S. Moore, a hematologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), New York, and Timothy A. Springer, a professor of pathology at the Center for Blo

Among the numerous events being commemorated that coincided with the end of World War II, the University of Pennsylvania is preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ENIAC, the world's first general-purpose electronic computer, built on campus to help the war effort. Although details of the celebration have not yet been finalized, university officials point to a number of projects under way, with festivities due to kick off on Feb. 14, 1996. On that date in 1946, ENIAC--Electronic Numerica

Panels Under The Axe Human-Embryo Research Opposition Telemedicine Delivers A Diagnosis Symposia Mark Pasteur's Passing Microbiologists Stake Home Page Dr. Seuss, Capitalist Tool Funding Novice Biomedical Faculty Math Medalists The AIDS Research Evaluation Working Group and six Area Review Panels currently charged with evaluating all National Institutes of Health-sponsored AIDS research (B. Goodman, The Scientist, July 10, 1995, page 1) find themselves facing a challenge they may not be abl

Because of its therapeutic promise, xenotransplantation is likely to go forward, despite fears of the introduction of new epidemics into the human population and other concerns. The question now being raised in several quarters is whether local or federal authorities should oversee the field, and whether voluntary guidelines or more formal regulations should be invoked. Stephen Morse, an assistant professor of virology at Rockefeller University, says that the issues raised by cross-species tra

Three times a year, in conference rooms at the National Institutes of Health's Bethesda, Md., campus, about 1,440 permanent members of 100 study sections (accompanied by an annual total of about 1,800 ad hoc members) meet for two days to review 9,000 grant proposals. Critics of the system charge that it is cumbersome; needlessly hard on both reviewers and the reviewed; and rife with the potential for incompetent decisions, abuse of power, and conflicts of interest. Even its supporters acknowled

Some basic tenets of the Clinton administration's science and technology policy - the encouragement of applied research and collaboration with industry to bring it to fruition - are colliding with traditional Republican values. These include long-standing opposition to such partnerships, a desire to give the states a greater voice in science matters, and a general urge for budget reductions on the part of the GOP-controlled Congress. IRONY: The Department of Commerce's Mary good notes that wh

And Future Ambitions Editor's Note: For the past four years, former National Institutes of Health researcher J. Craig Venter has been a major figure in the turbulent debates and scientific discoveries surrounding the study of genes and genomes. Events heated up in 1991, when NIH attempted to patent gene fragments, which were isolated using Venter's expressed sequence tag (EST)/complementary DNA (cDNA) approach for discovering human genes (M.A. Adams et al., Science, 252:1651-6, 1991). NIH's mo

Tissue engineers are working on a variety of proj-ects. Here are just a few candidates for future human replacement parts. Skin: Chemical engineers agree that skin will be the first engineered tissue commercially available as a medical device to treat the large market of severe burn patients and those suffering from diabetic ulcers and other nonhealing wounds. La Jolla, Calif.-based Advanced Tissue Sciences Inc. and Organogenesis in Canton, Mass., have engineered skin substitutes currently in

Following are Internet addresses for accessing the archives and programs mentioned in the accompanying article: Entrez ftp://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) BioCatalog ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/ gopher://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/ http://www.ebi.ac.uk/biocat/biocat.html Flow cytometry software at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst http://www.bio.umass.edu/mcbfacs/flowcat.html Bio Archive of biology software and data ftp://iubio.bio.indiana.edu/ gopher://iubio.bio.indian

With a powerful group of local backers to ease the transition, controversial virologist Robert Gallo hopes for a fresh start, both personally and scientifically, when his Institute of Human Virology opens its doors this fall. The new institute, intended to advance the fight against AIDS and other diseases, will be affiliated with the University of Maryland at Baltimore. And it appears that his fellow scientists -- with a few sharp exceptions -- are ready to let accusations of scientific miscon

Merck and Co. Inc., the pharmaceutical giant based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., announced on July 11 that it will fund a $20 million program to support African American science students. The program, to be administered by the Fairfax, Va.-based College Fund/United Negro College Fund (UNCF)--a consortium of 41 private, historically black colleges and universities will be called the Merck~UNCF Science Initiative. According to UNCF president and former Pennsylvania congressman William H. Gray III,

vote with bipartisan backing, but the true test is yet to come. ON SHAKY GROUND: Director Rodger Herman notes that the House plan to save OTA can still be undone in the Senate. Even as the United States House of Representatives moved toward what many viewed as inevitable - a vote to abolish the 23-year-old Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) - the agency's director, Roger Herdman, headed for the office of Sen. Arlen Specter (R- Pa.). Herdman hoped the presidential aspirant would help halt th