Geneticist new State Dept. advisor

Pennsylvania State University geneticist Nina Fedoroff, who next week will assume the position of science and technology advisor to the US Secretary of State, told The Scientist that she will use her new position to inject science into US foreign policy decisions and to encourage more international scientific collaboration.

Fedoroff, who studies plant stress response, transposons, and epigenetic mechanisms at Penn State's Huck Institutes of Life Sciences, was appointed by current Secretary Condoleezza Rice and will serve in the position for three years. She will become only the third person, and the first woman, to take the post since it was created in 2000, and she says that she's ready for the challenge."I think I've spent my life preparing for it," Fedoroff said. "Accurate information and good scientific information are enormously important ingredients of developing international policy."Fedoroff enters her new job at the State Department at a time when criticism of the Bush administration, and especially its stance on science, is widespread. Though she declined to comment directly on the Bush administration's record on scientific issues, she did say that one of the biggest challenges she'll face in her new post will be to emphasize scientific discussion early on in the sometimes short-sighted policymaking process. "Too often the long term perspective gets short shrift in policy making when there are very immediate goals coming up," said Fedoroff of US climate and energy policy. "The short term goals are generally the immediate economic well being."Norman Neureiter, the first scientist to serve in the position and now director of the AAAS Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy, told The Scientist that Fedoroff should expect to confront several key issues during her time at the State Department, such as AIDS and other pandemic diseases, export controls, security issues, and relations with countries like Iran and North Korea. "What you find is there's plenty to do," Neureiter said. "If you look at the issues that face us today, science and technology are a critical element in almost every one."Though she declined to get into her specific goals at the State Department before first assessing needs, Fedoroff said that her experience with plant genetics and biotechnology could help her address some of the agricultural problems that beset developing nations. "Helping the poorest countries that have been left behind by the Green Revolution is something that is very important to me," she said.Fedoroff has been involved with genetics research for the better part of three decades, and helped pioneer molecular approaches to studying and modifying plants. As a postdoc studying African clawed frogs in the late 1970s, she sequenced one of the first complete genes. Advancing the work of famed maize geneticist Barbara McClintock, Fedoroff cloned the first maize transposon in the early 1980s. Equally relevant to Fedoroff's new appointment are her experiences as a scientific policy advisor. She was on a science advisory committee to the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment in 1980, and later in that decade was a member of the National Institutes of Health Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, championing the role of molecular technology in food production. Last week, Federoff was awarded the 2006 National Medal of Science for her work with plant molecular biology and her policy contributions relating to recombinant plant technologies.Fedoroff said both her scientific accomplishments and her advisory experiences, which included serving on an international advisory board in the former Soviet Union, will help her encourage international growth through agricultural solvency. "When people can't even grow enough food to feed their own family, international development and education are difficult to accomplish, difficult to even get excited about," she said."Not only does she have the deep roots in her own discipline," Peter Hudson, current director of the Huck Institutes, told The Scientist, "but she's also worked across disciplines and understands how it works with the political aspects."The position of Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary (STAS) was created during the tenure of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Neureiter explained that the position grew out of a 1999 National Academy of Sciences study that assessed the role of science, technology and health in US foreign policy."What they said was that the State Department was weak in its technical dimension," Neureiter said. "The objective is to get the science dimension into the decision making."Hudson, who is also a personal friend to Fedoroff, said that her abilities will carry her far in her new post. "I think she has had great foresight in seeing the ways we can facilitate research to address important issues in health, agriculture, and society," he said, "She is somebody who just has a deep seated passion for science and understanding, but also the ability to take that to the people."Bob Grant mail@the-scientist.comImage courtesy of the Pennsylvania State UniversityLinks within this article:Nina Fedoroff http://www.lsc.psu.edu/lsc/fedoroff.htmlJ. Peirce, "A buyers' guide to transposon kits," The Scientist, December 2005. http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15904/Huck Institutes of Life Sciences http://www.lsc.psu.eduCondoleezza Rice http://www.state.gov/secretary/Pew Global Attitudes Project http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=256D. Wilkie, "Bush and science at loggerheads," The Scientist, August 2004. http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/14881/Norman Neureiter http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2004/0511neureiter.shtmlN.V. Fedoroff and D.D. Brown, "The nucleotide sequence of oocyte 5S DNA in Xenopus laevis. I. The AT-rich spacer," Cell, April 1978. http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/566163Anon., "Barbara McClintock, On Her Own," The Scientist, April 2003. http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/13699/N. Fedoroff et al., "Isolation of the transposable maize controlling elements Ac and Ds," Cell, November 1983. http://www.the-scientist.com/pubmed/6313225White House awards ceremony for 2005 and 2006 National Medal of Science and Technology Recipients, July 27, 2007. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070727-9.htmlB. Goodman, "Noted researchers laud donation to Russian science," The Scientist, January 1993. http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15938/Peter Hudson http://www.lsc.psu.edu/directorspage.htmlNational Academies Press, "The pervasive role of science, technology and health in foreign policy: Imperatives of the Department of State," 1999. http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9688

Geneticist new State Dept. advisor

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