Ira Mellman is chair of the Yale School of Medicine's department of Cellular Biology and an affiliate investigator at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. He says that while "the idea that one can manipulate a patient's immune system to help combat cancer" is promising - the subject of his piece on page 47 - "it's simply that we don't know enough," he says. As a "lab guy," Mellman lobbies in Washington, DC, to bring industry, academia, bench research, and clinical research together. "Your work isn't really over until you've tested if your ideas are correct," he says.
West coast correspondent Melissa Lee Philips began moonlighting as a freelancer for The Scientist in July 2004 while working in a neurobiology lab; she switched to science writing full time a year later. She has also written for New Scientist, ScienceNOW, and BBC News, among other publications. In writing this month's feature ...
