Cellcor's new approach to immunotherapy links patient and lab; the firm's success is tied to skirting the FDA bottleneck BOSTON--What do you get when you cross research with clinical care? The answer, immunologist Michael Osband says emphatically, is a new industry--"biocare." His Boston-based company, Cellcor Therapies Inc., is one of about a half-dozen firms worldwide that are developing therapies tailor-made in the laboratory for individual patients. It's been eight years since Michael Osb

Gary Alpert strayed from his career track, but at Harvard he found he could still do good research as well as make good money BOSTON--When Gary Alpert arrived at Harvard 15 years ago as a graduate student, he was eager to pursue an academic career in insect behavior. Then the Pharaoh ant got in his way. Lots of them, actually. They were all over the place, running rampant through the biology labs and hallways and showing up in lunch bags and research preparations. Years earlier, the bugs had h

SNOWBIRD, UTAH--Time was when five ecologists couldn't sit in a room without arguing about what exactly their field was and where it was headed. Last month, however, about 2,000 of these scientists agreed on precisely those issues. The result is a document that commits ecologists to examine topics important to both science and society. Although the document summarizing that consensus has a long title, The Sustainable Biosphere Initiative: An Ecological Research Agenda for the Nineties, its mes

As part of its University Research Initiative, the Department of Defense is awarding grants for projects in smart materials and structures, synthesis of novel materials based on biological models and chemical routes, environmental toxicology, and high speed/high density digital electronic packaging. Smart materials includes materials science, electronics, biosystems, earth sciences, and mathematical modeling. The programs are handled through the Army Research Office, Office of Naval Research,

After spending $200,000 in assistance for each Ph.D., the government offers long odds to researchers setting up on their own WASHINGTON - In her youth, Patricia McGraw studied music and as a teenager was a concert pianist. These past nine years, though, she has studied science and now is an assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Maryland Baltimore County Campus. As a pianist she worried about improving her musical prowess. As a scientist, she sometimes wonders whether

Lab aides, though crucial to research, discover that it takes union campaigns to get their bosses' attention BOSTON -- Fifteen years ago, Kristine Rondeau wore a white lab coat and spent her day doing experiments in the physiology and biochemistry departments of Harvard Medical School. Today, her place of work is 67 Winthrop Street in Cambridge, headquarters of the two-year-old Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, which she now heads. Rondeau's career progression parallels an equa

WASHINGTON -- Federal agencies are opening their computer lines to provide scientists with easier and quicker access to information about grants. But even though the Bush administration generally wants its research agencies to coordinate their efforts, each agency has taken a different approach. The result is a smorgasbord of services. At least three agencies - the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy - are setting up grants-by-electronic

WASHINGTON--The lessons from the past tell a chilling tale about the warming of the future, according to paleontologists and anthropologists at the Smithsonian Institution. And now they too have joined in the debate about global change. Concerned that their institution, the National Museum of Natural History, has been overlooked by the nation's global change policymakers, they have exchanged lab coats for suit jackets and lab benches for podiums to let Washington know they want a larger role in

Consortium's technology for synthetic protein engineering offers access to one of the next hot fields in biotechnology WASHINGTON -- Proteins! That's what his elders would tell Dustin Hoffman to pursue instead of plastics if the 1960s movie The Graduate were set in the 1990s. That's where the next revolution in man-made materials will be. And that's why the federal government, the University of Maryland, and local politicians have invested $8 million to set up a protein engineering laboratory,

WASHINGTON -- Medical devices have been the most trouble-free of biotechnology's products; they have sailed smoothly through U.S. Food and Drug Administration review. But that situation is changing. These genetically engineered materials and technologies for treating and diagnosing disease are getting more complex. At the same time, Congress and the public are increasingly concerned that FDA is not being tough enough and that technology is inflating health care costs. Last month, FDA and the S

WASHINGTON -- Last month 10 scientists got to keep their labs open, thanks to a new policy at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The policy lets NIGMS edge further away from scientific merit in funding decisions and ration support so smaller laboratories can survive the increased competition for NIH funds. The beneficiaries are those scientists - like the 10 who didn't make the initial cutoff - who have no other sources of support or who are first-time applicants. The potential

While Japan is bearish on the potentially lucrative field, American government and industry fail to show enthusiasm or backing WASHINGTON -- To promoters of U.S. competitiveness, Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry sometimes seems invincible. MITI has an enviable reputation for helping industry develop new products - often based on United States discoveries - that eventually dominate global markets. So MITI's decision to spend almost $200 million in the next decade on marine b