While a workable policy for modified organisms stays unresolved, scientists laud recent developments WASHINGTON--Congress and the Bush administration are moving along parallel tracks in search of a more efficient and comprehensive system to regulate the testing and mass production of genetically modified organisms. Most industrial scientists, academics, and environ- mentalists hail this movement as a sign of progress toward resolving this major obstacle for the biotechnology industry. At the s

WASHINGTON--Walter Massey, poised to become the next director of the National Science Foundation, has succeeded in a series of tough jobs with an approach built on quiet attention to details and a commitment to reaching a consensus before taking action. It's a style of leadership that differs sharply from the outspoken and authoritarian method of Erich Bloch, whose six-year term ended August 31. And it's one that many scientists who know Massey say will serve him well as the foundation tries to

NEW CAUCUS IS NOT QUITE ONE FOR ALL Author: Jeffrey Mervis WASHINGTON--The latest battlefield in the ongoing war over priorities within the biomedical research community is the congressional Biomedical Research Caucus. The caucus, which has signed up 18 members of Congress as of the first of October, made its debut earlier this month at an afternoon symposium and reception on Capitol Hill that featured Harold Varmus, a microbiologist at the University of California, San Francisco

WASHINGTON--A new report from the Institute of Medicine on how to fund health sciences research doesn't take the easy way out by asking the United States government for more money. But what it does recommend--that the government redistribute existing funds by shifting some money from research grants into training the next generation of scientists and improving research facilities--seems likely to aggravate rather than end the heated debate about how to allocate scarce federal resources. The me

Florida State's victory over MIT in gaining a new lab makes it clear that NSF is inclined to reward fresh vision and determination The National Science Foundation wants universities to know that it takes more than technical excellence and a good reputation to win a large grant. What's required are hard work, a long-range vision, a commitment to training the next generation of scientists, and a knack for obtaining outside funding to augment whatever the federal government can provide. What NSF

WASHINGTON-The Bush administration last month shaped the course of the two most important agencies for academic science within the federal bureaucracy by identifying its candidates for the directorships of the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Its choices also suggest that presidential science adviser Allan Bromley has gained the upper hand in such personnel decisions over a range of competing interests within the White House. The selection of cardiologist Berna

A House panel, demanding changes in the way grants are managed, accuses scientists of overstating the crisis in research funding WASHINGTON--In a report that has left National Institutes of Health officials "a little shell-shocked," a House committee has laid out an unprecedentedly specific set of spending guidelines in an effort to fix what it sees as a longstanding problem in the way NIH has handled its rapidly growing budget. In blunt language, the House report says its members are tired o

A routine hearing turns explosive when a critic of the program finds himself under attack by a prominent senator WASHINGTON - On the morning of July 11, in the rear of Room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, health policy analyst Robert Cook-Degan was pacing anxiously. It was supposed to be a routine hearing, a chance for officials from the government's Human Genome Project to explain to a very sympathetic audience how well two federal agencies - the National Institutes of Health and t

WASHINGTON -- A Boston University computer scientist and a Baltimore software company have put an unusual twist on United States firms' practice of going abroad in search of cheap labor. For Yuri Shestov and Intelligent Resources International (IRI) Inc., the underdeveloped world is the Soviet Union. "A lot of companies don't realize how much scientific talent is available in Russia," says Shestov, vice president of research and development at IRI. "And it's unbelievable what you can pay for l

Bush's science adviser says he'd like to see government bolster financial support, urges more consideration for individual researchers WASHINGTON--The Bush administration wants to do more for "small science," says presidential science adviser D. Allan Bromley. But the type of support Bromley has in mind appears to be more psychological than financial. "The small investigator needs to have a feeling of being paid attention to," Bromley told The Scientist. "There's a feeling that the large proj

WASHINGTON--NIH has balked at what would have been unprecedented funding of the Soviet component of collaborative research with a Soviet émigré now in the United States (The Scientist, April 2, 1990, page 1). But the scientist, geneticist Valery Soyfer, says that he'll be able to carry out most of the work by having his collaborator, molecular biologist Maxim Frank-Kamenet-skii, spend time in Soyfer's new laboratory at George Mason University. Persecuted and penniless in the Sovi

Despite praise from Congress, others charge that his single-minded drive for bigger budgets alienated many scientists WASHINGTON - Muted by the uproar following the removal of Bassam Shakhashiri as head of the directorate for science and engineering education at the National Science Foundation is the applause of many scientists who are glad to see him gone. "There aren't any tears being shed around here, I can promise you that," says one NSF program officer. "Most of us see it as a chance to