February 1993

One big, happy family of firms is the goal; but skeptics foresee internal squabbling An impending merger of the Industrial Biotechnology Association and the Association of Biotechnology Companies will enable the biotech industry to speak with one voice, say those instrumental in forming the unified group. Observers say they expect the combined association to send a clearer message to Congress about what the industry hopes to accomplish, and to provide expanded networking opportunities for it

Investigations on aging lead the Long Island institute's efforts to combine the best traits of 'pure' and 'applied' research Just over a year after launch, the Picower Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y., is gathering momentum, and confidence among institute researchers is growing. The institute came into being Oct. 1, 1991--although it was created on paper July 31--with the near-total transplantation of top researcher Anthony Cerami's group from the Laboratory of Medical Bioc

Presidential science panel may have to change its ways -- if, that is, it continues to exist Science journalists who brought a federal lawsuit against the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) say the court action has resulted in an opening up of some meetings of the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST) and release of documents detailing PCAST's operations. They say they hope the case also will serve to send a warning to other federal scienc

As the Clinton administration establishes itself in Washington, D.C., action is heating up in the United States capital to raise the awareness of the general public--as well as lawmakers--about the disproportionately high unemployment rates and low salaries of women in scientific careers. Most noteworthy among these efforts, perhaps, is last month's reintroduction of federal legislation that would create a Commission on the Advancement of Women in Science and Engineering. Other efforts include

(The Scientist, Vol:7, #4, February 22, 1993) To the extent that the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST), established by the Bush administration, leaves any substantial legacy for the years ahead, it is likely to be identified as the major public policy questions presented in a 46-page report that was released less than a month before the administration left office. The report, "Renewing the Promise: Research-Intensive Universities and the Nation," takes a hard lo

Items: Among women chemists who are now college presidents, perhaps the most prominent is Linda Wilson, president of Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Mass. Another name to add is Jane Margaret O'Brien, biochemist and president of Hollins College in Roanoke, Va. In July 1991, O'Brien--who received a B.S. in biochemistry from Vassar College in 1975 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Delaware in 1981--became the eighth president of the small, all-women's school. She says the

NAS chief Frank Press says that John Gibbons will have to cope with a host of extremely burdensome social and economic issues Editor's Note: Members of the United States science establishment were generally pleased to hear that John H. Gibbons, former director of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), had been chosen to succeed D. Allan Bromley as White House science adviser. Among those who warmly endorsed the president's selection of Gibbons--whose appointment was confirmed on January

The article "Plasmas Show Promise As Next Step For Accelerators" (Tom Abate, The Scientist, Nov. 23, 1992, page 15) contained the sentence "He knew that a laser fired into a cloud of hydrogen-- chosen for its simple atomic structure--would superheat the gas, stripping the electrons from their nuclei and thus creating a plasma." The word superheat has a specific thermodynamic meaning. It means to raise the temperature of a substance above a transition temperature without the equilibrium phase f

In his call to arms against the animal rights movement (The Scientist, Nov. 23, 1992, page 12), Patrick Cleveland attempts to demonize the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) by lumping it with organizations and individuals that oppose all animal research, condone terrorism, and vilify scientists. As the person in charge of HSUS's programs on animal research issues, I would like to respond to this blatant mischaracterization. HSUS does not oppose all animal research. Our policy advocate

Linda Marsa's article on science at liberal arts colleges (The Scientist, Nov. 23, 1992, page 21) is quite thorough in outlining the problems and the rewards of teaching and doing research at smaller colleges. However, the accompanying list and comment by Sam Carrier, provost of Oberlin College, that there have been no major changes in the list of the best science-active liberal arts colleges, is short-sighted. An appreciable number of other small liberal arts colleges, besides those on the lis

A wide range of observers are concerned that science instructors at United States universities are inadequately stimulating, encouraging, and equipping their students--the potential future generation of researchers--to pursue their interests beyond the undergraduate level. Many of those concerned assert that the problem lies in an improper balance between what they consider mutually exclusive activities for professors: classroom instruction and research in the laboratory. On one hand, some co

Plant researchers appear to be catching up with the efforts of those scientists in the better-funded and more visible Human Genome Project. With a critical mass of information forming on the genome of a model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, including libraries of gene sequences and a number of important chromosome maps, molecular biologists working with plants are at the threshold of important breakthroughs on previously intractable problems. They are on the brink of understanding the mechanisms o

J.D. Hamilton, P.M. Hartigan, M.S. Simberkoff, P.L. Day, et al., "A controlled trial of early versus late treatment with zidovudine in symptomatic human immunodeficiency virus infection," New England Journal of Medicine, 326[7]:487, 1992. John D. Hamilton (Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center, Durham, N.C.): "The results of the V.A. Cooperative Study on AZT (zidovudine)--which compared early vs. later AZT treatment in patients with symptomatic HIV infection and demonstrated a delay in

S.J. Landry, L.M. Gierasch, "The chaperonin GroEL binds a polypeptide in an a-helical conformation," Biochemistry, 30:7359- 7362, 1991. Sam Landry (formerly with Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas; currently with Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans): "Biophysical chemists studying in vitro protein folding and molecular biologists studying diverse cellular processes, including DNA replication and the heat shock response, have converged on a set of proteins called molecular chaper

T.P. Walker, G. Steigman, D.N. Schramm, K.A. Olive, H.S. Kang, "Primordial nucleosynthesis redux," The Astrophysical Journal, 376:393, 1991. Terry Walker (Ohio State University, Columbus): "The standard model of the hot big bang assumes a homogeneous and isotropic universe with gravity described by general relativity and strong and electroweak interactions described by the standard model of particle physics. The hot big bang model makes two unavoidable predictions: (1) the presence of a low-ene

Statistical Navigator from The Idea Works Inc., Columbia, Mo., was designed not to perform analyses but to work as a supplement to existing statistical packages. It uses a type of artificial intelligence called expert systems to determine, from users' input, which statistical analyses are most appropriate for their data. (Statistica from StatSoft, Tulsa, Okla., uses similar technology in its module "Statistical Advisor.) "Expert systems are so named, explains Edward Brent, president of The Ide

Almost without exception, social events at scientific conferences are fertile ground for networking, veteran conference attendees say. Those who go to such activities are usually eager to meet people and are often more relaxed than during the tightly scheduled scientific sessions. Nevertheless, not all social events are created equal. Here is a guide to some of them. Mixers: Many societies hold a mixer or reception on the first night of a conference; others schedule a mixer later in the meetin

Ahmed H. Zewail, a chemical physics professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, has received the 1993 Wolf Prize in Chemistry from the Israel-based Wolf Foundation. Since 1978, the Wolf Foundation has been granting $100,000 prizes for individual achievements in the fields of agriculture, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, physics, and the arts. This year, the prizes will be presented on May 16 by Israeli President Chaim Herzog at the Knesset building in Jerusalem. Zew

Traditionally, basic scientists have kept to their lab experiments, clinical scientists have kept to their patient studies, and neither has much traffic with the other. But the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is seeking to turn this tradition around. Last year it handed out more than $17 million to the first recipients of its Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) grants. These grants are expressly designed to support collaborative ventures--or what NCI officials like to call "tra