'NO GENE IS AN ISLAND': A paper coauthored by MIT's Robert Horvitz describes genetic similarities between mammals and worms. This paper is one of the many to have been published in the last few years that have added to the growing understanding of what factors control cell death. "We have for some years been attempting to understand the mechanisms that control programmed cell death by studying the genetics of cell death in the nematode C. elegans," says H. Robert Horvitz, an investigator with

WEST-COAST COURSE: Nearly a third of the new TB cases in San Francisco were from recent transmissions, relates Stanford University's Peter Small. P.M. Small, P.C. Hopewell, S.P. Singh, A. Paz, J. Parsonnet, D.C. Ruston, G.F. Schecter, C.L. Daley, G.K. Schoolnik, "The epidemiology of tuberculosis in San Francisco: A population-based study using conventional and molecular methods," N. Engl. J. Med., 330:1703-9, 1994. (Cited in more than 50 publications through November 1995) Comments by David A

Hype Editor's Note: In late 1990, the first gene therapy was administered to a young patient with the hopes of correcting a defective gene that normally produces adenosine deaminase, a key immune-system enzyme. In the more than five years since then, gene therapy has grown in scope and notoriety. To date, in excess of 100 gene therapy trials-involving nearly 600 patients and dozens of diseases, including some types of cancer-are under way. Despite this multimillion-dollar effort and the much-hy

Sidebar: Plugging into Pugwash It would be reasonable to assume that last month's awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and Pugwash president and cofounder Joseph Rotblat represents something of a glorious swan song. The conferences and Polish-born physicist Rotblat, 87, were honored by the Nobel Committee last month in Oslo, Norway, for their nearly 40-year effort "to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics" (K.Y. K

Sidebar: A Checklist for Evaluating Forecasts With the year 2000 approaching, scientific, environmental, technology, and health organizations have been making predictions about the state of science and technology in the next five years and beyond, as have some individuals. Many such agencies and associations are also using the approaching turn of the century to set goals for themselves. Should the predictions come true and the goals be met by the start of the next century, forecasters anticipa

Study Author: Karen Young Kreeger Researchers have been comparing parts of genomes at the individual gene level for years. Portions of the genomes of tens of thousands of species-from bacteria to humans-reside in private and public databases around the world. Pharmaceutical scientists sift through these collections, panning for potential drugs and therapies, while basic investigators in an array of fields search for similarities and differences in the species' blueprints for life. But what re

Peace Prizes Author: Karen Young Kreeger Sidebar: 1995 Scientific Laureates Last month's announcements of the 1995 Nobel Prize recipients in the sciences were greeted with hearty approval by scientists from various sectors of the research community. Many of these investigators felt a sense of validation for their fields in the selection committees' choices. In physiology or medicine, the burgeoning discipline of developmental biology was recognized, and the subdiscipline of atmospheric chemi

F. Sherwood Rowland - Chemistry Mario J. Molina - Chemistry Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard - Physiology or Medicine Frederick Reines - Physics Joseph Rotblat - Peace Paul Crutzen - Chemistry Martin L. Perl - Physics Eric F. Wieschaus - Physiology or Medicine

Strategies Author: Karen Young Kreeger SIDEBAR: Significant Recent Biotech Product Approvals Amid a year of continuing hostile capital markets and product failures, biotech executives are retrenching, planning, and implementing scaled-down business plans they hope will sustain their industry into the next century. Their primary strategy to endure is to adopt tactics that are less reliant on public financing and the drug-approval process, according to the 10th annual Ernst and Young report on

Association Of Independent Research Institutes Honors Retired Director Of NIH Grants Division With New Award Author: Karen Young Kreeger Jerome Green, director of the National Institutes of Health's Division of Research Grants from 1986 to his retirement in June, was honored last month by the Association of Independent Research Institutes (AIRI) for distinguished service to the grantee community. Green received the $2,000 award, which was given for the first time, at the association's annual me

Contributions To Research, Education In The Field Ho-Leung Fung, 52, chairman of the pharmaceutics department at the University of Buffalo, has been honored with the Takeru and Aya Higuchi Memorial Award from the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technology in Japan. Fung was given the $10,000 award last month at the national meeting of the academy, which was held in Kobe. LEGACY: University of Buffalo's Ho-Leung Fung was honored with an award named for his mentor. The prize is presented

Echoing the centuries-old debate among scientists over how to organize and name Earth's species, authors of National Research Council (NRC) reports rating research-doctorate programs have also struggled over the "taxonomy" of disciplines within the biosciences. Allan Cartter, in his 1966 report An Assessment of Quality In Graduate Education (Washington, D.C., American Council on Education), observed that grouping programs within the biological sciences represented a challenge, owing to the vari