Analytical Chemistry Faculty Shortage Haunts PittCon Amid bustle of meeting, participants worry about a growing need for professors to train the next generation. Many of the more than 35,000 analytical chemists streaming into New York this week for the 41st annual PittCon meeting know that not enough of them are teaching the next generation of researchers. They also know the problem is likely to worsen as industrial demand for their skills continues to climb. But that's not why they come to th

As the science professions face a future marked by a widely predicted personnel shortage, attention has focused on the relative scarcity of women who choose technical fields as a vocation. An example of the recent upsurge of interest in this problem is the scheduling of a plenary talk on the subject at this week's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (see story on page 1). One area of science that has been particularly slow in attracting women is aerospace, a field

PHILADELPHIA--In a move that surprises many observers, the University of Pennsylvania has sued one of its own professors and a pharmaceutical firm over the ownership of a patent on Retin-A, an anti-acne drug also said to reduce wrinkles on the skin. The case is likely to be watched closely by administrators at other universities because it demonstrates a willingness on the part of a major research institution to seek legal recourse against a faculty member - a strategy usually reserved for case

Many scientists once denied emigration have now left the USSR, but others are still unable to obtain exit visas. Yuri Magarshack is doing science again. Today, he is an assistant researcher in the chemistry department at New York University. Yet for an 11-year period that ended last spring, the theoretical physicist was struggling to endure life as a refusenik - a Soviet citizen, usually Jewish, who is denied permission to emigrate. Dismissed from his job as head of a laboratory in Leningrad's

Last spring, the British pharmaceutical firm Glaxo Inc. launched an ambitious $10 million Cardiovascular Discovery Grants Program. The company, whose United States office is located in Research Triangle Park, N.C., announced 20 grants, each providing a maximum of $250,000 per year for three years to a researcher or team (see accompanying table). The proclaimed purpose of the program: to support research that may lead to the discovery of therapeutic agents for treatment or prevention of cardiova

Membership in scientific societies can offer a lot—meetings, newsletters, dialogue with peers, and so forth—to working scientists firmly ensconced in their careers. But what about the nonworking scientists— those who are finishing graduate school and seeking employment— or discontented researchers in hot pursuit of a career change? For them as well, professional associations can be the source of significant assistance and support as they take on the odious task of job

Since 1972, the National Science Foundation’s Industry University Cooperative Research Center program has been uniting private firms and academic institutions in setting up university centers that aim to conduct industrially relevant research. While over the years new products occasionally have resulted from these collaborations, until six weeks ago no IUCRC had ever spun off an entirely new manufacturing facility. But on October 30, a Philadelphia-based firm opened a plastics-recycling

A consumer-products company had the formula for hairstyling mousse in its files nearly two years before the product was introduced on the market by a competitor. When the company finally brought out its own mousse, a year after the competitor’s product debuted, it was able to garner only about 15% of the market share. Industrial psychologist Bernard Rosenbaum remembers being told by the head of research and development that the firm’s failure to be the first on the market “w

Why would a major pharmaceutical company like Bristol-Myers give half a million dollars to a neuroscientist without requiring him to submit a grant application? And why would the grant be unrestricted, with no spending guidelines? Why wouldn’t the principal investigator be required to offer the company first right of refusal to any patent resulting from the research—or even to write up periodic reports? “It’s seed money for good science,” says Davis L. Temple, Jr

In the past 11 years, the number of California Institute of Technology undergraduates who spend their summers SURFing has increased more than 1 0-fold. The rapid rise is attributable not to the legendary lure of California’s beaches, but to growth in funding support for CalTech’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF). The program, inaugurated in 1979, offers undergraduates the opportunity to research a project that they themselves have developed. Each student pursues his

Marvin L. Speck was a professor of food science and microbiology at North Carolina State University when he developed a new process to help people digest milk. Speck recognized that his discovery, which he called SweetAcidophilus in honor of the fact that it improved on the unpleasant taste of the existing process, had commercial possibilities. So in 1972 he convinced the university to assign the trademark to a state dairy foundation, which then signed agreements with two companies, one to manuf

The U.S. Department of Energy may well have expected applause when it announced in June that it would allow independent researchers to analyze the health records of workers at the nation's nuclear reactors and weapons facilities. After all, the decision was meant to address the public's growing concern about the environmental impact of the nation's 45-year experience with nuclear materials. At the same time, the decision would reverse a long-time DOE policy of restricting access to its employees