April 1998

PHASE III NEARS: Cubist Pharmaceuticals has a promising antibiotic--daptomycin--that the company hopes to have in Phase III clinical trials in late 1998 or early 1999. Bacteria are back. Following the discovery and introduction into medicine of penicillin in 1941, intense research in microbiology produced a potent armament of antibiotics that all but eliminated a variety of infectious diseases. With this success, many large pharmaceutical companies scaled back research and development of new

ACADEMIC EROSION: Although neither males nor females approach NSF's goals for attracting students to science and engineering careers (represented by dotted line), women tend to flee the sciences faster than men--particularly after high school. First came the age of intrepid female pioneer researchers. Then came the epoch of "supermom" scientists. So where do women in science stand today? Many presenters at the Conference on Women, Science, and Engineering held last month at the New York Acade

New machines and approaches are offering neuroscientists unprecedented access to the working human brain By Douglas Steinberg Photo: Neil Michel/Axiom Sylvia WIRED FOR AN IMAGE: Research associate Valerie Clark gets her brain waves recorded by Ron Mangun, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis. Mind-reading, that staple of science fiction, is inching closer to science fact, thanks to steady progress in the field of brain imaging. In the last few years, neuroimagers hav

Swiss anthropologist Jeremy Narby counts himself among the relatively thin ranks of scientists willing to publicly announce their conviction that nature is "minded," that an intelligence lies behind the development of life. Such a position is heresy to the prevailing scientific view of naturalism, which holds that nature is self-sufficient and the result of undirected processes. These two differing viewpoints usually are framed in the context of a debate between theology and science--creationis

During the past 150 years, the study of brain function has enlisted an increasing number of scientific disciplines in its service, beginning with anatomy and continuing with physiology, psychology, pharmacology, and molecular biology. Within the past 15 years, brain imaging has emerged as a tool that can integrate findings from these diverse disciplines through its intimate access to the working brain. Positron-emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are the i

C.L. Hanis, E. Boerwinkle, R. Chakraborty, D.L. Ellsworth, P. Concannon, B. Stirling, V.A. Morrison, B. Wapelhorst, R.S. Spielman, K.J. Gogolin-Ewens, J.M. Shephard, S.R. Williams, N. Risch, D. Hinds, N. Iwasaki, M. Ogata, Y. Omori, C. Petzold, H. Rietzsch, H.E. Schroder, J. Schulze, N.J. Cox, S. Menzel, V.V. Boriraj, X. Chen, L.R. Lim, T. Lindner, L.E. Mereu, Y.Q. Wang, K. Xiang, K. Yamagata, Y. Yang, G.I. Bell, "A genome-wide search for human non-insulin dependent (Type 2) diabetes genes reve

CELLULAR CLOCK: From left, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas investigators Michel Ouellette, Woodring Wright, Jerry Shay, and Shawn Holt continue to investigate how telomerase regulates human cell division. S.E. Holt, W.E. Wright, J.W. Shay, "Regulation of telomerase activity in immortal cell lines," Molecular and Cellular Biology, 16:2932-9, 1996. (Cited in more than 70 publications to date) Comments by Jerry W. Shay and Woodring E. Wright, department of cell biolog

HONORED ACHIEVERS: Anne and Paul Ehrlich, winners of this year's Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, have collaborated on ecological research since the 1960s. On Friday, April 17, at a black-tie dinner in Los Angeles, noted environmentalists Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich will receive the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. They will be awarded a gold medallion and $200,000 for a collaboration that began in the early 1960s with field work on butterflies, continued with

Protein yield and ease of purification are two important criteria in choosing a system for the expression/ purification of recombinant proteins. The IMPACT (Intein Mediated Purification with an Affinity Chitin- binding Tag) T7 System from New England BioLabs, Inc., enables the purification of recombinant fusion proteins in a single chromatographic step. A major advantage of the IMPACT system is that a self-cleavage reaction is used to release the affinity tag from the protein of interest. Thus,

The challenge for many laboratories growing hybridoma cell lines is producing adequate amounts of monoclonal antibody (MAb) given the constraints of space, time, and money. Large volumes of antibody typically require an investment in expensive bioreactors, space allocated to a multitude of tissue culture flasks stacked in incubators, or very large mice. "Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door," or so the saying goes. With that thought in mind, INTEGRA Biosciences

Date: April 13, 1998pH Electrodes from 10 Companies (PDF Format) Did you know it is possible to measure the hydrogen ion concentration (pH) of almost any substance today? You name it--buffers, sludge, meat, or mud--companies are designing electrodes to tackle what may seem like the strangest of tasks. And yet, for the most part, electrodes today appear strikingly similar to electrodes manufactured years ago. So what has changed? "Electrodes themselves are pretty much unchanged," remarks Peter

Date: April 13, 1998PCR Based Cloning Kits Table The End Table (PDF Format) PCR has found applications in almost every imaginable facet of molecular biology, and for many applications, looking at a band on a gel is not enough. Sequencing, expressing, mutating--all require cloning. And as it happens, cloning strategies that work for other types of DNA fragments don't work at all well, or require inordinate effort, with PCR fragments. For example, the most commonly used cloning strategy requires

"You call this cloning?"

SAFER CANCER GENE THERAPY A twist on a well-studied gene therapy may more safely melt tumors. In clinical trials, a herpes simplex gene encoding the enzyme thymidine kinase (TK) is delivered, via a retrovirus vector, to dividing brain cancer (glioma) cells. The infected cells produce TK, which kills them when the patient takes the anti-herpes drug ganciclovir. But viral vectors are risky--they can enter the nucleus during cell division and disrupt genes. Thomas Wagner, a distinguished professor

Recently, I ran into a colleague I hadn't seen in five years. We quickly caught up with each other's careers and then started to discuss employment opportunities in the sciences. I told her that in my opinion, there are opportunities outside of primary research for scientists. She replied rather sarcastically, "Oh, there are jobs for scientists?" This is a question asked by graduate students and postdocs every day around the departmental coffee pot. The good news is that there are indeed jobs

Investigators are often a key to success in the expanding world of collaborations between industry and universities. Yet, unlike the company and the university, the investigator is rarely represented by legal counsel. This is often the case whether the investigator serves as an independent consultant to the company or engages in company-funded research performed at the university. This situation may help to explain why university-industry relationships are plagued with controversies, includi

The following was written in response to a Notebook item in your March 2, 1998 issue [The Scientist, 12[5]:27, March 2, 1998]: Jeff Getty may be the brunt of gauche humor regarding his primate blood relatives. His assessment of the anti- xenotransplantation sentiment among scientific and medical professionals and the lay public, however, is simply wrong. There is no "deep-seated psychological barrier" to using animal cells, tissues, and organs in human patients. What exists instead is a very r

Since January 1996, manuscript submission to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has been changed to three tracks: an academy member may "communicate" manuscripts for others that are within the member's area of expertise; authors may submit their manuscripts directly to the Proceedings office and the office will choose an academy member to "edit" the manuscripts; an academy member may "contribute" his or her own manuscripts for publication. The manuscripts submitted through