Staying on Top of Science Yale University announced last month that it will invest $500 million in science and engineering buildings, one of the largest one-time building plans in academic history. About 40 percent is earmarked for new buildings and the rest for remodeling existing space. Yale's president, Richard C. Levin, has indicated that this will probably result in more hiring and spending in the scientific disciplines. The university has already committed to adding four positions in engin

More Efficient Cloning Scientists at the University of Connecticut have made a conceptual breakthrough in cloning by culturing nuclear donor cells for up to three months. Cloning had previously been successful only with fresh or short-term cultured cells. "It is shocking to us that we found long-term cultured cells not only can support development of offspring, but their efficiency for cloning is actually better than short-term culturing," comments Xiangzhong Yang, head of the University of Conn

Biomedical Research Funding Government and private agencies are supporting biomedical research in the face of managed care cutbacks and changes in traditional funding. Forty-one medical schools will receive a total of $92 million over the next four years from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). The awards will help the schools find new ways to combine basic research and clinical treatment of patients, as well as support bioinformatics programs. This follows an $80 million award granted b

The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) meeting in Washington, D.C., Dec. 8-10 delved into every aspect of Jesse Gelsinger's death. Gelsinger, a teenager from Arizona, had ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency, a liver disorder in which the body cannot eliminate ammonia through the urea cycle. He died four days after receiving an experimental gene therapy drug during a University of Pennsylvania clinical trial. After hearing hours of clinical data from researchers involved in t

Courtesy of Richard Roberts, New England BiolabsModel methylation reaction: Cytosine nucleotide (red) is flipped out of the DNA double helix by a methyltransferase (white), so it can be methylated. The end product after the methyl group has been transferred to the DNA is pictured in green. A tenuous link between DNA methylation and development has existed for several years. Now findings substantiate the connection. Researchers have found the first human diseases caused by defects in the DNA meth

One way to encourage women to stay in science and move up to prominent positions is to reward them for their accomplishments. A small percentage of women are being nominated for and winning prizes at the highest levels, such as Nobel or Lasker awards. However, women may be overlooked at earlier stages of their careers, and that has a negative effect on their scientific futures. Brigid Hogan, professor of cell biology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and one of four women on the Lask

H. Groux, A. O'Garra, M. Bigler, M. Rouleau, S. Antoneko, J.E. de Vries, M.G. Roncarolo, "A CD4+ T-cell subset inhibits antigen-specific T-cell responses and prevents colitis," Nature, 389:737-42, Oct. 16, 1997. (Cited in more than 210 papers since publication) Comments by Maria Grazia Roncarolo, codirector of the Telethon Institute of Gene Therapy, Milano, Italy Maria Grazia Roncarolo has searched for more than 10 years for a way to overcome a major complication in bone marrow transplants: graf

When Günter Blobel and David Sabatini first proposed the signal hypothesis in 1971, the whole thing was simply ignored.  

Graphic: Leza Berardone Everybody wants a piece of the pie, especially when that pie is worth $206 billion. That is the total amount the states won from the tobacco companies last November in the largest civil settlement in U.S. history. Florida, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Texas had settled individually for a combined amount of $40 billion earlier. The payments will be made over the next 25 years, and even though the money is still not available to the states, a scramble over how to spend it is

N. Rampino, H. Yamamoto, Y. Ionov, Y. Li, H. Sawai, J.C. Reed, M. Perucho, "Somatic frameshift mutations in the BAX gene in colon cancers of the microsatellite mutator phenotype," Science, 275:967-9, Feb. 14, 1997. (Cited in more than 218 papers since publication) Comments by Manuel Perucho, director of the oncogene and tumor suppressor gene program at the Burnham Institute, La Jolla, Calif., and Nicholas Rampino, associate professor at the Burnham Institute Manuel Perucho Though healthy cells d

Graphic: Cathleen Heard Researchers are used to stepping out of their labs to collaborate with colleagues across the hall. But with the advent of Internet technology, researchers are crisscrossing states--even oceans--to collaborate without leaving their labs.1 Nicolas Bazan, director of the Louisiana State University Neuroscience Center, New Orleans, started such an endeavor with Julio Alvarez-Builla, professor of organic chemistry at the Universidad de Alcala in Spain, six years ago. Bazan de

Drug and alcohol addiction costs the United States more than $100 billion a year. Neither law enforcement nor therapy has been able to adequately combat this problem, so it continues to grow. Some researchers are taking a new approach: Instead of looking at addiction as lack of self-control or escape, why not see it as a chronic, reoccurring disease? Research substantiates that there are fundamental biological processes at work in the brain of a drug user. Long-term changes occur there, predisp