if (n == null) The Scientist - Sex Discrimination Controversies Continue To Plague Health Agency The Scientist 7[20]:1, Oct. 18, 1993 News Sex Discrimination Controversies Continue To Plague Health Agency By Franklin Hoke "The [NIH] administration has been very responsive," Kleinman says, citing Lance A. Liotta, the deputy director for intramural research, as particularly so. "But I would say that when you get down to the scientific directors

investigation that will carry advances forward The transfer of genetic materials into humans to correct diseases--gene therapy--is a new medical enterprise, barely three years old in the clinic. But in the short time since a research team at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., first treated a young girl's genetically compromised immune system with a transfusion of her own DNA-corrected white blood cells on Sept. 14, 1990, gene therapy has grown to command considerable public

Many of them argue that, without the SSC, the field of particle physics may lose its vitality--maybe even its future The struggle in Congress over funding for the superconducting supercollider (SSC)--now something of an annual event--is disrupting work at the laboratory and raising frustrations throughout the high-energy physics community, say physicists. Many of them also worry not only about the future of the multibillion-dollar Waxahachie, Texas, project, but also about that of part

Author: Franklin Hoke, pp.18 Since full-featured molecular-modeling packages began appearing on the chemist's desktop a few years ago, they have grown dramatically in sophistication and capability. Following in part on the availability of ever-more-powerful personal computer hardware, new software modules have been added regularly, often ported from workstation environments. At the same time, intuitive graphical user interfaces have helped make computer-aided chemistry increasingly accessibl

Report suggests that global `yardstick' be the key to framing funding policy questions that are more answerable in practice Despite some sharp critiques, scientists are giving serious audience to the proposals of a recent National Academy of Sciences report, Science, Technology, and the Federal Government: National Goals for a New Era (National Academy Press, Washington, 1993). The report lays out new guidelines for United States science research spending, including the recommendation t

Judith Rodin of Yale and UC-San Francisco's Harold Varmus are said to be strong contenders for the agency position Author: FRANKLIN HOKE, pp. 1, 3, 4 Sources close to the search for Bernadine Healy's successor as director of the National Institutes of Health say the list of candidates is down to three individuals, with a decision from the White House considered imminent. In the running at press time were Harold Varmus, a Nobel Prize- winning molecular biologist at the University of C

Capabilities AUTHOR : FRANKLIN HOKE, p.17 With roots in such age-old processes as wine, beer, and soy sauce fermentation, cell-culture technology has been well explored. Especially in the decades following World War II, sophisticated culturing systems--called fermenters or bioreactors-- made their appearance in many laboratories. But advances in just the past few years, especially in the areas of sensors and computerized control, are expanding the efficiency and range of research applicatio

Strong pressure is being brought to bear on Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials to reverse a May personnel action at the National Institutes of Health. That move, to reassign fraud investigators Walter Stewart and Ned Feder to new jobs, effectively ended the pair's controversial scientific misconduct research at the institutes. Tactics to influence administrators have included a 33-day protest fast by Stewart and letters supporting the two men and their work from prominent m

Scientists have tough demands when it comes to presenting their data graphically, whether for presentation or publication. To meet these demands, they used to call upon the skills of technical graphic artists, but the resulting cycles of corrections and alterations were often inefficient and taxing to both parties. "You handed a rough idea of what you wanted to a graphic artist," says former biologist Robert Simons, explaining how he came to write the graphing package CoPlot, from CoHort Sof

Commercial productivity is the payoff when firms provide scientists with a comfortably collegiate professional environment Recognizing the successful tradition of the university science environment, industry research directors are carrying over the academic spirit in their efforts toward building harmonious and productive labs. Their aim is to preserve the pursuit of pure discovery and the free exchange of ideas, while at the same time moving assertively toward the achievement of commer

Reaction in the science community has been impassioned and partisan over the April 9 decision at the National Institutes of Health to "reassign" scientists Walter Stewart and Ned Feder to new posts, effectively ending their independent scientific integrity research at the institutes. Stewart and Feder's self- initiated investigative work, conducted over the past decade, has sparked intense controversy at times and has been central to a number of high-profile misconduct cases. The pair's probe

At root, image analysis is the ability to convert a picture into hard data. Over the past few years, a family of versatile, easy- to-use software packages has emerged that promises to put that ability into the hands of more life sciences researchers than ever before. "If a picture's worth a thousand words, a number's worth a thousand pictures," says Paul Goodwin, explaining the technology's value to scientists. Goodwin is manager of the image analysis laboratory of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer R