Call it the angiogenesis inhibitor shuffle. Bristol-Myers Squibb of New York dropped clinical plans for the protein angiostatin, but is proceeding to Phase I with a small molecule. A National Cancer Institute lab that last fall questioned the viability of endostatin now confirms the protein can be synthesized and may be back on track for human tests. And a third, unnamed protein, not yet reported in the scientific literature, has been licensed to Genzyme Corp. of Framingham, Mass., with clinica

When J. Craig Venter proposed last May to use the "shotgun" technique to sequence Drosophila, many scientists doubted that blasting such a large genome into billions of base pairs, then reassembling it in one fell swoop would succeed.1 On the brink of the project's beginning, skepticism remains. But an agreement between Celera Genomics Corp. of Rockville, Md., and the University of California at Berkeley's Drosophila Genome Project Group, may render that uncertainty irrelevant. The Berkeley gr

President Bill Clinton's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) emphasized technology over science during the unveiling of the president's fiscal year (FY) 2000 budget request Feb. 1. The administration requested $78.42 billion for total civilian and military R&D--over $1 billion less than for FY1999. If Congress strictly adheres to that request next fall, most agencies that fund science would see their budgets at or below this year's level, after accounting for inflation. The two

Postdocs supported by National Institutes of Health training grants will soon see their funding increase by about 25 percent, but even NIH officials agree that the boost alone won't fix a program that has set stagnant stipends for years. In 1996, new postdocs received $20,292 under NIH's National Research Service Awards (NRSA), an amount that increased $708 for the 1998 fiscal year. The new entry-level salary of $26,256 for the 1999 fiscal year--and the new senior level of $41,268, up from $33

Editor's Note: In this issue, The Scientist focuses on the status of cancer research in the United States. The articles below and on pages 6-9 present glimpses of the latest advances. The article beginning at right describes how cancer and AIDS research are related. The article on page 10 offers a look at thyroid cancer treatments from the perspectives of patient and scientist. Commentary (12) and Opinion (13) are by prominent cancer experts. Profession (14-15) assesses the outlook for cancer

p53 has emerged as one of the top targets in the war against cancer.

Even the most commonly mutated tumor suppressor genes, such as p53 and Rb, malfunction in only about half of all tumor types. However, excess telomerase appears in all major cancers. So why don't more pharmaceutical strategies exist to block the enzyme that, in excess, dictates cells to divide ad infinitum? The answer may be twofold, Serge Lichtsteiner, a researcher at Menlo Park, Calif.-based Geron Corp., reported during an interview following his presentation at a recent New York Academy of

Protein structure information from X-ray crystallography and bioinformatics has given biochemists a potentially potent anticancer target: specific segments of DNA's double helix. But, as a group of biochemists at a fall conference sponsored by the National Foundation for Cancer Research agreed, knowing the structure of proteins and protein complexes that bind to DNA segments and turn genes off and on may be only half the battle. Proteins or large synthetic molecules should, in theory, be able t

PHOTO CREDIT: Lori Desantis, Children's Hospital of Boston ANGIOGENESIS HONORS: Children's Hospital of Boston researcher Judah Folkman (far right) received the 1998 John Scott Award from the Philadelphia Board of Directors of City Trusts for his work in studying angiogenesis and angiogenesis inhibitors. Folkman, who refuses to be photographed alone, is joined by Harvard Medical School colleagues (from right) Donald Ingber, Michael O'Reilly, and Robert D'Amato. After being built up by a New York

PHOTO CREDIT: Thomas Gottin BIOINFORMATICS PROGRAMMING: Rensselaer's John Salerno (shown with biologist Jane Koretz) has been piecing together courses for the institute's new bioinformatics offerings. "Bioinformatics," the buzzword, seems unavoidable. But, for life scientists, is learning the related skills unavoidable, too? Acquiring that software savvy may not be absolutely necessary, notes W. Graham Richards, professor of physical and theoretical chemistry at Oxford University. But it may

Develop PHOTO CREDIT: Graham G. Ramsay DO IT YOURSELF: Harvard Medical School's George Church (back) thinks the best way to learn cutting-edge bioinformatics techniques is through constant self-education. Church and research assistants (from right) Jason Hughes, Preston Estep, and Fritz Roth (now with Millennium) stand near an RNA chip scanner, which helps determine changes in gene expression due to a given stimulus. Date: December 7, 1998 Asking five people to define bioinformatic

Photo: © Science VARIOUS STAGES: Human embryonic stem cell colonies, shown here in different states of development, sometimes include a core of undifferentiated cells surrounded by a margin of differentiated cells, such as the small colony at right in figure B. Gene therapy researchers call them the "ultimate target." Tissue transplant specialists refer to them as the "Holy Grail." Stem cells, perhaps because they play such a fundamental role in the developmental chain, tend to draw hyper