Entrepreneurs When Steve Sands was studying for his Ph.D. in neuroscience in the late 1970s, he planned to write his doctoral thesis on experiments matching brain function with behavior. However, a lack of good software or computerized methods for correlating brain activity with behavior eventually forced Sands to drop his idea. "I ended up doing a thesis on animal behavior [alone] rather than the neuroscience project I really wanted to do," he recalls. Like many scientists who are frustrated

Conduct Clinical Trials Clinical trials, an important step in drug development, require a diverse team of people to plan, conduct, monitor, analyze, and write about the detailed, multistep testing of new drugs in humans. For each of these functions, there are promising opportunities for anyone who has a solid life science or health care background, a "detail" orientation, and good interpersonal skills. Available positions on these trials include project managers, medical investigators and study

Opportunities For Scientists The number of biotechnology patent applications filed in the United States has grown about 10 percent per year since 1990, reaching 15,600 for fiscal 1995. In contrast, the total number of patent applications has risen only about 2 percent annually. As the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) scrambles to find qualified examiners to analyze and rule on the patentability of these biotech inventions, scientists in genetics, immunology, molecular biology, and rela

Prospects In Industry For the scientist who left graduate school holding a master's degree, career prospects in industry look good, according to those involved in corporate hiring. A primary reason for this, they note, is that industry openings at the master's level aren't suffering from a mismatch of supply and demand. Ph.D.'s, on the other hand, are graduating faster than university faculty positions are opening up, and the business world is not picking up the doctoral-level researchers left

Life Science Journals The career of nearly every scientist-male or female on a university faculty includes a stint reviewing papers for professional journals. But at the higher levels of editorial leadership-the editors-in-chief and other senior-level journal editors -- the number of men far outpaces the number of women. For example, Science, Nature, Cell, the Journal of Molecular Biology, Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology, the Journal of Immunology, and many others all have a male scien

Association for Women in Science members are making plans to celebrate the victories of the past and look ahead to future challenges. 

Women Nobel Prize winners will help the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) kick off its 25th anniversary celebration in February. Laureates Rosalyn Yalow and Gertrude Elion will speak at a symposium titled "Women Nobelists: Their Work, Their Lives, and Their Impact on Science and Technology" at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), slated for February 8-12 in Baltimore. Also presenting at the symposium, scheduled for the afternoon of February

Investigator-Initiated Basic Grants Author: Lee Katterman At a time when biotechnology and some pharmaceutical companies are working hard to finance research and product development, a small number of firms are tapping a pot of federal money generally thought to support only projects led by academic scientists. Some industry officials value this source of support for studies a company might not otherwise be able to afford, while others avoid it because of the strings that come with it. SEPAR

Research, Family Author: Lee Katterman Susan Verhoek and Stephen Williams have been doing it for 21 years. Andrew and Carol de Wet have been at it for five years. Jane Lubchenco and Bruce Menge did it from 1977 to 1987. And Natalie Adolphi and Andrew McDowell just started it in September. These married couples-and many more-have been involved in sharing a single tenure-track faculty position in the sciences. Most such arrangements, which also occasionally involve non-married pairs of scientist

Sidebar: Patent Primer MERCK SUES FOR LONGER PATENT TERM UNDER INTERIM GATT RULES Under a new definition of patent lifetimes in effect since June, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) hopes inventors who process their patent applications expeditiously can obtain an additional year or two of patent protection. But for scientists in the biotechnology industry, the question remains whether their inventions can be pushed through the system any faster. And even if PTO shortens the t

The goal of patent laws is to promote inventiveness and public disclosure of useful knowledge. In return, inventors are granted exclusive use of their inventions for a specified period. To obtain a typical patent, U.S. law requires proof that an invention is: a new and useful process, machine, manufactured item, or chemical substance; novel (never before described or existing in nature in the described form); and nonobvious. Patents are not allowed on ideas per se, only the application of a

Under interim rules included in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (P.L. 103-465), a number of pharmaceutical companies believed they stood to gain an extended patent term for some very profitable drugs. Initially, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) agreed with the drug-makers, then reversed its position and turned down about 80 of the hoped-for patent-term extensions. Now, Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck and Co. Inc. is suing PTO and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (