Independent Lab Briefs

Deep Sea Vents Overshadow manic John H. Steele, director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for the past 10 years, has announced that he will resign next year. Steele presided over the venerable institution during a headline-grabbing era, in which Woods Hole scientists ventured into the ocean depths to discover strange forms of life and spy on the remains of the Titanic. But the most important find during his tenure, Steele says, "was the discovery of hydrothermal vents in the Pacific.

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Long frustrated by regulatory roadblocks to field-tests of its genetically-engineered rabies vaccine, the Wistar Institute is trying again. The Philadelphia lab has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for permission to strew vaccine-containing bait on an island off Virginia or South Carolina this fall. The experiment, designed to eradicate rabies in racoons, would be the first trial of a genetically engineered virus with wild animals in the U.S. In its effort to perfect vaccines, the Wistar Institute has already conducted tests in Argentina and Belgium.

Genentech has just spun off the surest sign of the biotech company’s growing prosperity: its very own foundation. Created last month, the Genentech Research Foundation will give away at least $1 million to non-profit research institutes and universities for basic biotech research over the next four years. Funds will come from royalties on patents held by the South San Francisco

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