Fans, Critics Author: Karen Young Kreeger SIDEBAR: Bioscience Make-Over Top Five Institutions in Biological Sciences Doctorate Program In the last couple of weeks, university public relations departments have been issuing press releases and campus newspapers have been publishing front-page articles extolling how well their graduate programs fared in a long-awaited National Research Council (NRC) report rating doctoral research programs. Scientists, higher-education observers, and university

Programs Author: Karen Young Kreeger (Ranked by scores on a survey of scholarly quality of program faculty among peers. Scores on a scale of 0 to 5*") Rank Institution Score Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 1 University of California, San Francisco 4.84 2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.83 Stanford University 4.83 3 University of California, Berkeley 4.81 4 Harvard University 4.80 5 Yale University 4.59 Cell and Developmental Biology 1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.86 2 Ro

California Biotech Firm Author: KAREN YOUNG KREEGER Igor Gonda, 47, assumed the newly created position of vice president of research and development at Aradigm Corp., a privately held biotech firm in Hayward, Calif., on September 25. Gonda is leaving his post as senior scientist and group leader of pharmaceutics at South San Francisco, Calif., biotech giant Genentech Inc. in order to develop new drug-delivery systems at the company. Aradigm currently employs about 25 scientists. Gonda will be

Efforts Author: KAREN YOUNG KREEGER Sidebar: Sequence of Events A $20 million federal civil suit filed by a biotechnology startup charges that a Columbia University researcher associated with the company breached his duties as a corporate official by helping to place complementary DNA (cDNA) libraries he developed into the public domain rather than with the firm. The case, which at press time had been scheduled for trial November 17, adds another chapter to the often-tumultuous saga of these

The following time line, detailing events relating to Genome Technologies' suit against Bento Soares and cDNA sequencing efforts in general, was culled from interviews conducted by The Scientist as well as information contained in court pleadings, statements, and media reports. The Integrated Molecular Analysis of Genome Expression (IMAGE) Consortium forms as an informal, ad hoc collaboration among colleagues to freely share complementary DNA (cDNA) libraries. The consortium is started by Greg

if (n == null) The Scientist - Beyond the Fruit Fly The Scientist 9[18]:13, Sep. 18, 1995 Research Beyond the Fruit Fly By Karen Young Kreeger Of all the animal species described thus far by scientists, insects account for nearly five-sixths. Nearly 1 million are already identified, with taxonomists estimating another 1 million to go. Despite their ubiquity on Earth, the study of insects has only recently been married to the explosion of molecular biologic

Berta Vogel Scharrer, who, with her late husband, Ernst Scharrer, is considered a pioneer in the field of neuroendocrinology--the study of the interaction between the nervous and endocrine systems--died of natural causes at her home in the Bronx on July 23.

Tracing its origin back 60 years to the Research Division of the United States Narcotics Farm--a treatment facility for opiate addicts located in Lexington, Ky.--the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has grown into the world's largest drug addiction research facility. Sidebar: DISCUSSING THE SCIENCE BEHIND DRUG ADDICTION "This institute intramurally and extramurally provides 85 percent of the world support for research on drug abuse and addiction," remark

And Future Ambitions Editor's Note: For the past four years, former National Institutes of Health researcher J. Craig Venter has been a major figure in the turbulent debates and scientific discoveries surrounding the study of genes and genomes. Events heated up in 1991, when NIH attempted to patent gene fragments, which were isolated using Venter's expressed sequence tag (EST)/complementary DNA (cDNA) approach for discovering human genes (M.A. Adams et al., Science, 252:1651-6, 1991). NIH's mo

Late last month, the Detroit-based General Motors Cancer Research Foundation recognized four scientists for their investigations in the fight against cancer with its three annual awards. The cash amount of the three prizes totaled $300,000. AWARDEES: From left, Joseph F. Fraumeni, Edward E. Hartlow, Jr., GM foundation president Joseph G. Fortner, Freerick P. Li. and Norbert Brock. The Charles F. Kettering medal for outstanding contributions to the treatment of cancer was awarded to Norbert

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has named organic chemist Ernest L. Eliel, W.R. Kenan Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, as the 1996 recipient of the Priestley Medal. He will receive the solid gold medal--the United States' highest award in chemistry--at the ACS national meeting in New Orleans next March. Eliel, 73, who was ACS president in 1992, says he has been overwhelmed by well-wishers since the announcement of the award was made in late May: "I've received letters

With Wall Street investment rapidly drying up for small United States biotechnology companies and large foreign drug firms eying lucrative overseas markets for American biotech products, partnerships between the two may be the wave of the future, biotech executives and industry analysts say. OBSERVER: Formatech president and AAPS official Benjamin Isaacs notes benefits of the increase in alliances. These international alliances generally include a combination of R&D collaborations; product ma