August 1997

A boom is under way in developing drugs for treating schizophrenia. Several new pharmaceuticals are now available or in trials, and research is continuing on even better compounds that will target particular symptoms while avoiding side effects. This approach is one of many recent advances in research on pharmacological treatments for mental illness. As sales of psychoactive drugs soar, opportunities abound for scientists who want to be involved in the creation of yet more of these compounds, w

As the agency overhauls its peer-review system, scientists assess the potential consequences. The peer-review system at the National Institutes of Health is in the midst of a critical series of reforms that will alter the way study sections judge and score grant applications. For the first time, reviewers will be required to consider five explicit criteria in judging grants, and one criterion will have the effect of placing a premium on innovative science. But NIH director Harold Varmus reject

Cases of potential scientific misconduct are rarely routine, and even those that seem to have the potential for a swift conclusion often metamorphose into highly contentious and confused proceedings. A recent case involving Philadelphia's Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC) illustrates some of the difficulties institutions face in responding to misconduct allegations-especially with regard to conflicts that arise when institutions must police themselves. THE FIRST TIME: Fox Chase president Robert

A photograph accompanying the article "Flow Cytometry: It's Not Just For Immunologists Anymore" (J. Kling, The Scientist, June 23, 1997, page 14) was incorrectly labeled as the EPICS XL-MCL from Miami-based Coulter Corp. The EPICS XL-MCL unit is shown above.

The world is becoming healthier. Since the end of World War II, life expectancy in most developed and developing countries has increased by almost 25 years. This increase is the greatest seen in the history of the world. It has been estimated that almost 24 years of the 25-year increase are the result of improvements in public health and disease prevention. Such activities include improving sanitation, immunizing more people, bettering maternal and child health, and promoting healthier lifestyl

In January 1995, a group of leading female Swiss academics identified the need for an organization to promote the interests of women in the universities of Western Europe. They felt that women scientists and technologists needed an organization to support them in their careers and to enable them to have the confidence to reach senior management positions, where women are seriously underrepresented. In Western Europe, women are to some extent integrated into politics from the local level up to t

Adrian Morrison and Jack Botting (Letters, The Scientist, May 26, 1997, page 10) disagree with the conclusions Neal Barnard and I draw in our Scientific American article (as reported by T.W. Durso, The Scientist, March 31, 1997, page 1), and they deride our references as "puffed-up." However, these were the articles supplied to the Scientific American editors, who demanded that we substantiate every claim. Regarding animal experimentation's role in medical science, we assert that it has been g

As a veterinarian with more than 20 years of institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) experience, I wish to comment on your article (R. Finn, The Scientist, May 26, 1997, page 1). I am perplexed by the statement by Harry Rozmiarek that "the research investigator is paying the bill." From a literal viewpoint, rarely if ever does the investigator pay for animal care and use. It is the public-through taxation for government-supported research, contributions to charitable foundations th

Karen Young Kreeger's article entitled "New Molecular Targets Reviving Anti-Inflammatory Therapeutics" in the July 7, 1997, issue of The Scientist (page 1) overlooked an important company that is devoted exclusively to research on selective anti-inflammatory agents. LeukoSite Inc., founded in 1993 and located in Cambridge Mass., is developing and commercializing novel therapeutics for the treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Using an approach that focuses on identifying the speci

Multiple sclerosis (MS) continues to baffle those who seek to understand it. The cause of the disease remains obscure, as does the mechanism of the drugs used to ameliorate its symptoms. Affecting 0.1 percent of the population, the neurodegenerative disease is marked by demyelination, or the destruction of the myelin sheath on neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Researchers have been scrutinizing the proteins and lipids composing myelin, studying genetics of patients, exploring links between

Edited by: Eugene Russo C. Deng, P. Zhang, J.W. Harper, S.J. Elledge, P. Leder, "Mice lacking p21CIP1/WAF1 undergo normal development, but are defective in G1 checkpoint control," Cell, 82, 675-84, 1995. (Cited in more than 170 papers through June 1997) Comments by Philip Leder, Harvard Medical School The gene p21CIP1/WAF1 inhibits the proper functioning of cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs), molecules that help to control cellular duplication. Although p21CIP1/WAF1 is known to be regulated by

Edited by: Eugene Russo A. Merlo, J.G. Herman, L. Mao, D.J. Lee, E. Gabrielson, P.C. Burger, S.B. Baylin, D. Sidransky, "5´ CpG island methylation is associated with transcriptional silencing of the tumour suppressor p16/CDKN2/MTS1 in human cancers," Nature Medicine, 1:686-92, 1995. (Cited in more than 170 papers through June 1997) Comments by David Sidransky, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine GAINING CREDIBILITY: David Sidransky's lab showed that methylation is an important mec

The graduate school years are the best of times and the worst of times. Scientists often look back at these years as a period when they could finally focus on their favorite subject. Yet graduate school in a life science requires such time-consuming and intense research efforts that life can include little else. This can create difficulties for students over age 30, who are more likely than their younger counterparts to have families. FAMILY TIES: Elizabeth Luna, who has mentored older Ph.D.

Ready. Lab Consumer gladly accepted an invitation to the University of California, San Diego, where graduate students demonstrated Bio-Rad's versatile Helios Gene Gun System. The Helios Gene Gun System (commercially introduced in late 1996) allows rapid and direct transfer of DNA- or RNA-coated gold microcarriers into a range of targets under in vivo conditions. According to Bio-Rad Program Manager James Wong, "Applications of this product are turning out to be very diverse. Researchers have bo

Cozap: Destaining gels without changing solutions. How do you remove the Coomassie blue from your acrylamide gel destain solution? Add more solution? Toss in a piece of foam? Maybe you rely on a mushy wad of disposable lab tissues? Or perhaps you've tried some activated charcoal tied inside a piece of cheesecloth? While these old standby methods work, I always thought that there had to be a better way. Now there is. Sialomed, Inc. of Columbia, Maryland, has introduced a Coomassie blue dye rem

Photo: Courtesy of Affymetrix Affymatrix Hybridization Pattern, the human p53 Gene Affymetrix, the Santa Clara-based DNA chip company, has partnered with Hewlett Packard in the development of the HP GeneArray Scanner, a high resolution, high throughput scanner for use with GeneChip¨ probe arrays. The GeneChip Probe Array, a technology pioneered by scientists at Affymetrix, is a marriage between the computer and biotechnology industries which provides access to genetic information on minia

What better way to create the ideal in vivo environment, in vitro, than via CO2 incubation? In 1885, Wilhelm Roux kept the medullary plate of a chicken embryo alive for several days in saline solution. Since CO2 incubators became commercially available in the late 1960s, manufacturers have been given the opportunity to improve their incubators and introduce cell culturing to the age of high-tech biotechnology. With numerous options available for most CO2 incubators, it is important to determine

GeniePrepTM Kit Ambion’s GeniePrep Kit demonstrates versatility in purifying DNA away from different buffers and contaminants including proteins, carbohydrates, RNA, oligonucleotides and DNA linkers. This one kit is designed to isolate linear and circular double-stranded DNA from a variety of sources: from E. coli, from a variety of enzyme reactions, such as restriction digestions and PCR, and DNA fragments can be isolated directly from low-melt agarose. DNA purified by GeniePrep is suitab

And Fixation/Permeabilization Kits Pharmingen (San Diego, CA) provides a wide variety of cytokine and chemokine specific antibodies directly labeled with FITC or PE for detection of intracellular cytokines or chemokines by Flow Cytometry. These antibodies are valuable tools for analysis of the roles played by different cytokines in mediation of inflammatory and specific immune responses. To enhance the utility of these cytokine or chemokine specific antibodies, Pharmingen has recently introdu

Table of Contents Push for Drug Policy Change FASEB's New President Neandertal R NOT US Brought to you by . . . Nerve-Wracking Procedure Leptin's Role Bulks Up Summer Reading Gene Causes Migraine -- And More SEEKING SOLUTIONS: Physician Leadership on National Drug Policy members Louis Sullivan, left, and David Lewis Pointing out, "Drug abuse is a public health problem; addiction is a chronic illness," David Lewis, director of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University