In the wee hours of a morning 11 years ago-around 1:00 a.m.-Richard E. Smalley slouched on a sofa. The lights were turned off. Sipping a beer, he mulled over his situation. A MORNING REVELATION: The model for buckyballs came to Richard Smalley as he cut and pasted paper pentagons. For a week, the Rice University chemist had been trying to make sense of an experiment. Using a laser, his lab team had zapped carbon to see how its atoms would split and then cluster. The supersonic laser kept pr

INDIVIDUALITY: James Perley has found that a small department enables a researcher to be "your own person." When biologist James Perley first began teaching at Ohio's Wooster College in 1967, he wasn't sure he'd like it. Wooster is a small place. Perley, however, had studied and worked in big schools, including the University of Michigan and Wayne State University. In a small department, would he feel content-or claustrophobic? Content, as it turns out. Nearly 20 years later, Perley is still

SIDEBAR: Online Career Information For Scientists Describing his career, Chris Fields invokes the cry of Civil War Admiral David Farragut: Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! Over the past 20 years, he has worked in physics, meteorology, and, now, genetics. Each career change presented new opportunities for Fields, who has a talent for data analysis. "I find it fascinating when people say they're bored with what they're doing," says Fields, chief scientific officer of newly formed Molecular

GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Joan Combie's small company finds microbes in Yellowstone National Park. A small yet growing opportunity exists for biochemists and engineers interested in turning "extremozymes" into industrial catalysts. In nature, these peculiar enzymes fuel microbes that live in scalding sea vents, hot springs, and other adverse locales. Such hardiness means extremozymes might function in hotter, more high-pressure manufacturing conditions than can today's industrial enzymes. As a res

SIDEBAR: Unraveling The Biochemistry Of Fat Metabolism Following research on obesity is a little like ordering ^È la carte. Current studies offer at least five weight-related genes, three brain proteins, and a half-dozen mutations. During the past six years, academic and industry researchers have blended these ingredients into at least 11 anti-obesity drugs now in development. Scientists hope to craft drugs that will travel the trail blazed by Redux (dexfenfluramine), the first weight-loss

Biotechnology Boom Molecular biologists find niche as new technologies are adapted to the animal health market. While the biotech boom resounds in human health research, the technology has made less of a roar in the animal health field. Uncertainty over product costs and regulatory approval has left some animal health companies hesitant to embrace biotechnology. But this situation could be changing. A growing number of vaccines for cats, dogs, and fish are based on recombinant DNA techniques.

Therapy Researchers Sidebar: Summary Table of Vectors PROGRESS: Forrest Anthony says some FDA concerns have been allayed. Despite safety questions from federal agencies, the gene therapy industry is hotly pursuing new vectors. Since 1990, dozens of biotech and gene therapy companies have hired life scientists and launched research programs to find safe, effective carriers to shuttle therapeutic genes into the body. According to the Pasteur Institute, a nonprofit research organization in Pari

Drug-Resistant Microbes As pesky pathogens continue to evolve, new technologies to combat them are emerging, spelling job opportunities for molecular biologists and chemists. OBSTINATE MICROBES: Margaret Rennels cites strains of pneumococcus resistence to two major drugs. At drug and biotech companies across the United States, scientists have set their sights on a most elusive target: drug-resistant microbes. Working in pharmaceutical- biotechnology partnerships, researchers are trying every

Vaccine Development Well-intentioned immunization efforts ignore economic realities, observers contend. By all accounts, the 1990s should be a monumental decade for pediatric vaccines. Wielding new molecular tools like genetic engineering, scientists can craft safer and more creative vaccines than ever imagined. Yet poor communication and disparate desires among industry players plague the vaccine pipeline, according to insiders. As a result, they say, vaccine R&D is taking a hit, investors

Combinatorial Chemistry An emerging chemical discovery method is proving to be a fruitful source of research and job opportunities. The technique-called combinatorial chemistry-has spawned a wave of in-house pharmaceutical research and new collaboration between drug firms and biotech companies. Similar programs may also be on the horizon for agrochemical and materials science researchers. EUREKA: Ronald Zuckerman recalls Chiron's success Combinatorial chemistry shifts compound design from a

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the first vaccine, which was developed against smallpox. As vaccine researchers launch a new century of challenging disease science, they might find inspiration in the simple beginnings of Edward Jenner's discovery. 

Concerns (The Scientist, Vol:10, #6, p. 1 & 8-9, March 18, 1996) The deluge of gene discovery has inspired hundreds of industry and academic research programs to develop tests for disease genes (see accompanying story). Meanwhile, basic scientists are seeking to explain how those genes work. Both sides have been expressing concern over looming disease gene issues. Open to question, for example, is how much researchers actually know about the cellular explanation for any disease gene's effect,