Sedentary people who enjoy high-caloric diets—adults and children alike—are getting dangerously fat.1 Along with the increased weight comes complications. Take obesity, for example. It is a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes. Once considered a strictly adult disease, Type 2 diabetes is now diagnosed in both preadolescents and adolescents.2 Some researchers believe that the interaction between obesity-related genes and society's increasingly sedentary lifestyle and fat-filled diet is to

Maria Sippola-Thiele journeyed from her native Finland with the goal of obtaining her doctoral degree in biochemistry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) and then returning home. But she met Dennis Thiele, a graduate student in microbiology, and her life took a different course. "He changed my plans to go back to Finland," Sippola-Thiele says. Her husband started his postdoctorate training at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and Sippola-Thiele soon followed him

It may still be winter, but the United States is already girding for a resurgence of human West Nile virus infections. This year, the sentinels for the advent of West Nile season will be not only dead crows on city streets or in suburban backyards, but animals at zoos nationwide, thanks to a program that is the brainchild of veterinary pathologist Tracey McNamara of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, NY. McNamara, who, in 1999, first realized that the dead birds found on the grounds of th

As some researchers pursue cloning and stem cell work, attracting media attention along the way, others concentrate on embryonic research that will help produce healthier babies. From esoteric work on genetic control mechanisms to studies of fetal nutrition, human genetics, and the effects of toxic substances on the fetus, scientists are trying to formulate a fuller picture of what occurs in utero. For example, scientists like Dennis Thiele and colleagues in the biological chemistry department a

When Abigail Salyers, professor of microbiology at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, arrived at a scheduled talk, she found the building locked. Behind it, police cars flashed their lights. Workers in biohazard jumpsuits and respirators inspected the building's interior as the audience she had expected to address looked on. But Salyers hadn't happened onto a cleanup from a biohazard spill at a university laboratory. The biohazard team was evaluating a suspicious powder at a customari

In June, word leaked out that something terrible went wrong with a clinical trial at Johns Hopkins University. A healthy, 24-year-old employee of one of the clinics died while participating in a research study on asthma. Such negative events are not unheard of: in 1993, half the participants in a 10-person trial of the anti-hepatitis B drug, fialuridine (FIAU), carried out at the National Institutes of Health, died. Two others became severely ill.1 In the ensuing investigations of the Johns Ho

To many people, the term seaweeds refers to the yucky brown or green stuff that sticks to your legs at the beach. To others, however, it means big business, and to some researchers, seaweeds equals big science. Marine biologist Thierry Chopin, University of New Brunswick in St. John, Canada, citing United Nations statistics, says that in 1998, 21.7 percent of the 39.4 million metric tons of aquaculture products sold worldwide consisted of seaweeds, totaling $5.9 billion. Moreover, seaweeds accou

Connecticut will introduce elementary, middle, and high school students to a state-of-the-art molecular biology learning experience aboard a specially outfitted bus (M. E. Watanabe, "Filling the pipeline: training people to work in bioscience gets new emphasis," The Scientist, 14[10]:1, May 15, 2000). On Sept. 5, Connecticut United for Research Excellence Inc. (CURE), the not-for-profit membership organization promoting bioscience in the state, unveiled Connecticut's BioBus. The bus will travel

While touting its support for large increases in research funds for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Bush administration engaged in a backhanded slap to scientists in all divisions of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In mid-March, Ed Sontag, deputy chief of staff for operations in HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson's office, issued a memo to all HHS divisional staff heads requiring that they "must clear all domestic travel" with his office. International travel for certai

Editor's Note: This is the second of two articles that looks at the progression of AIDS research over the 20 years since its identification. The first part: M.E. Watanabe, "AIDS, 20 years later," The Scientist, 15[12]:1, June 11, 2001. Despite billions of dollars spent in research funds and a brief reprieve in Western nations after the introduction of multidrug therapy, AIDS continues to win its battle against humankind. First diagnosed 20 years ago, there are still no cures and no vaccines. Pre

On June 5, 1981, a one-and-a-half page paper in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) noted cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in five gay men in Los Angeles. The men also suffered from cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections and candidal infections of the mucosa,1 and they used recreational inhalant drugs. The editorial note pointed out: "Pneumocystis pneumonia in the United States is almost exclusively limited to severely immunosuppressed patients." "I was sitting in my office in Buildi

Image courtesy of Eyewire ©2001, Graphic: Cathleen Heard The economy may be chasing the bear rather than the bull, but short-term economic downturns are not affecting pharmaceutical firms' expansion--at least, not yet. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that AstraZeneca PLC's profits were up,1 and those who know the industry see the human lifestyle as more of a factor in drug company growth than the economy. "Although you may see peaks and valleys in bioscience growth and development