April 2001

Three dozen scientists, officials, and executives from academia, government, and business are speaking this week at a conference in McLean, Va., titled "Human Proteome Project: Genes Were Easy." This event, which is expected to draw at least 400 other participants, is the first sizable public meeting devoted to the possibility and advisability of a proteome project, according to organizer Chris Spivey, a conference director at Cambridge Healthtech Institute in Newton Upper Falls, Mass. The Vir

Graphic: Leza Berardone Researchers in Canada and Denmark are employing mass spectrometry, three-dimensional tissue biology, and supercomputing to blaze a trail in functional proteomics research. In the process, they're putting their company, MDS Proteomics Inc., on the fast track in the latest race to develop new drug targets and eventually better treatments for all kinds of diseases. By using this combination of technologies, MDS Proteomics is accelerating the process of identifying, analyzin

Graphic: Leza BerardoneOne recent morning at the Applied Biosystems proteomics research center in Framingham, Mass., scientist Jason Marchese patiently used a pipettor to place tiny samples onto a 2-inch-by-2-inch plate. He was surrounded by technology as simple as 2-D gel electrophoresis apparatus and as cutting-edge as a high-throughput system that uses automated robotics for multidimensional liquid chromatography separation of proteins and an automated workstation that uses the latest in mass

Graphic: Leza BerardoneA technique not deemed "sexy" enough for commercialization a decade ago may finally find its niche in proteomics. SomaLogic Inc. of Boulder, Colo. is pioneering aptamers, which are modified DNA molecules that bind specific proteins in body fluid samples. Aptamers are initially selected for specific binding activities from a huge starting pool, then variants are obtained during subsequent rounds of amplification. The technology builds on the ability of aptamers to bind tena

Sentiments expressed at a March 12 National Academy of Sciences workshop suggest that scientists and policy-makers remain very concerned about data access issues related to the now infamous Shelby Amendment. The amendment, a two-line provision added by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) to an omnibus appropriations law for fiscal year 1999, subjects federally funded scientific research to requests for data made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).1 Its inclusion sparked a debate between indust

When a research team led by Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg in Germany announced last year that they had produced beta carotene, or provitamin A, in rice grains,1 the news created quite a stir.2 For one thing, getting "golden rice," as it was quickly dubbed (for its color, not its monetary value) required a biotech tour de force. Potrykus and Beyer inserted two genes from daffodil and one from a bacterium into ri

The Federal government's Interagency Task Force on Microbial Resistance has issued an 84-item plan to combat the growing public health problem presented by microbes' increasing ability to shrug off antibiotics. This recently released first part of the plan is aimed at domestic concerns, including the use of antibiotics and other drugs in agriculture (H. Black, "Agricultural antibiotics scrutinized," The Scientist, 14[12]:1, June 12, 2000). The Food and Drug Administration is proposing to withdra

"So intricate and inscrutable a mystery is the origin of language that in 1866 the French Society of Linguistics formally banned further research on the subject." --J. H. Dirckx, 1977. (Dx + Rx: A Physician's Guide to Medical Writing) Genomics and Proteomics are the buzzwords of the dawning millennium. There is no counting of www.-ics.com and www.-ix.com sites to be found on the Web. That most of these terms, old and new, have been contrived as slogans to attract attention, does not diminish t

Regarding "Fighting Darwin's Battles,"1 I spent a day discussing creationism in my science classroom last year. It was right after the controversy in Kansas, and the Channel One news program was highlighting it for a time. I made the point to my kids that I thought that creationism should be taught in the social studies classroom, and should include creation stories from all cultures and religious traditions. I went so far as to read to them, creation stories from Hindu, Native American, and J

Graphic: Leza BerardoneApplied Biosystems will soon begin testing new mass spectrometry machines designed to identify proteins in as many as 1,000 samples per hour. For the machines to work as planned, however, each sample must be prefractionated down to just a handful of proteins, according to Stephen A. Martin, director of the company's proteomics research center in Framingham, Mass. This example suggests how the slower protocols leading to mass spec are as important to the progress of proteom

Researchers have discovered that transgenic mice previously shown to outperform their normal counterparts on learning and memory tests1 are also more sensitive to chronic pain.2 This finding suggests that memory formation and pain sensation might share components of a common physiological pathway in mice, and therefore, possibly in other vertebrates such as humans. These "Doogie" mice (scientifically manipulated mice that make more than the usual amount of the NR2B subunit of the NMDA [N-methy

There may be more significance to the color of one's eyes than cues to wardrobe selections. One study links dark eyes to lower incidence of noise-associated hearing loss (M.-L. Barrenas, F. Lindgren. "The influence of inner ear melanin on susceptibility to TTS in humans," Scandinavian Audiology, 19:97-102, 1990), and another indicates that having brown eyes raises the risk of hearing loss following cisplatin chemotherapy (T.N. Wendell et al., "Cisplatin in children: hearing loss correlates with

If the expression products of a large number of different genes need to be rapidly analyzed, for instance during functional genomic research, consider the Transcriptionally Active PCR (TAP) Express™ Rapid Gene Expression kit from Gene Therapy Systems (GTS) Inc. of San Diego. TAP Express is the first commercially available system for the construction of transcriptionally active PCR fragments that can be expressed in mammalian cells. In this approach, researchers use nested PCR to generate t

Courtesy of BioCrystalThe OptiCell culture systemDespite the explosion in cell biology research, the practice of cell culture has changed very little since the 1940s. However, with the OptiCell™ system, BioCrystal Ltd. of Westerville, Ohio, takes a bold step to simplify and streamline the cell culture process. OptiCell offers a complete cell culture system built around the OptiDyne™ membrane, a novel gas-permeable, optically clear substrate. Each sterile OptiCell is composed of two m

Possibly the most difficult aspect of manual histopathological staining is maintaining consistency. BioGenex of San Ramon, Calif., has overcome this problem with the introduction of the i6000 Automated Tissue and Cell Staining System, the successor to the OptiMax Plus.1 Philipp Novales-Li, director of scientific affairs at BioGenex, states that the i6000 "allows for industrial-scale and high-throughput walkaway automation, while bringing about standardized, accurate, and reliable results." At 30

Graphic: Leza BerardoneThis is the beginning," pronounced J. Craig Venter, president of Celera Genomics in Rockville, Md., at a press conference at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in February. "There [are] 30,000 genes, and up to one-quarter of a million proteins [encoded by them] in 100 trillion different combinations--that's how many cells we have. That's why we don't think this is the blueprint for humanity; it's the starting point of understanding how t

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The experts agree: "Publish or Perish" is still alive and well in the research community. "The cardinal rule is, 'A scientific experiment is not complete until the results have been published,'" notes Bob Day, professor emeritus, department of English, University of Delaware, and author of a book on scientific paper publishing.1 In addition to "completing an experiment," publication in scientific literature serves as a means to secure knowledge ownership claims and is an efficient vehicle for

While the social sciences have devoted much attention to the origin and prevention of violence, relatively little biomedical study has been conducted. Human behavior is determined by a combination of genetic and environmental influences governing brain structure and function. Violence, therefore, ultimately derives from the operations of the brain, and recognizing the importance of neurobiology will inform and invigorate study of this urgent problem. A working group under the auspices of the A