February 1994

Bench scientists will play a major role in an ambitious effort to streamline the campaign against HIV The soon-to-be-appointed National Task Force on AIDS Drug Development may have a strong, positive impact on the research and development of antiviral therapies to counter HIV infection, say industry and academic scientists, government officials organizing the task force, and members of the AIDS-affected community. Key to the task

However, it remains to be seen whether the report and operations at NBS in the next year will completely allay the concerns of critics. Before A Biological Survey for the Nation, the independent report by NRC's Committee on the Formation of the National Biological Survey, came out in late September, they questioned the wisdom of creating the survey (R. Kaufman, The Scientist, Sept. 20, 1993, page 3), saying it would not be an improv

With projects on hold and downsizings, mergers, and acquisitions on rise, only firms with products in clinical trials can progress Among the myriad issues confronting the biotech industry in 1994, the most pressing problem companies will face is a lack of adequate financing, say industry observers. Fueled by concerns over potential drug-pricing controls related to national health care reform and two highly publicized biotech prod

On Monday, March 14, the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society will feature a day-long symposium on the legal aspects of chemistry and biotechnology. This session is jointly sponsored by the Division of Chemistry and the Law, the Biotechnology Secretariat, and the ACS Committee on Patents and Related Matters. Following is a list of topics to be covered in the symposium: Patenting -- why bother? Recent patent law developm

About 5,000 scientists are expected to attend the 1994 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to be held in San Francisco February 18-23. * John Gibbons, Assistant to the President of the United States for Science and Technology, and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy: "Science, Technology, and the Clinton Administration." * "Health Care Reform and Advances in Medicine":

Bound For Glory Scientific Responsibility Bully For Herman Expanded Wellcome Funding "You Are Getting Healthy..." When More Is Less Following Women's Footsteps Date: February 7, 1994, pp.4 Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen, New York State Department of Health researchers who collaborated in the 1940s and 1950s on the world's first antibiotic against fungal infection--nystatin, named after the department--were

Editor's Note: Jesse H. Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at New York's Rockefeller University, is concerned about the challenges facing the international science community as it moves toward the 21st century and beyond. He expressed these concerns last month in a Washington, D.C., address before the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP), a panel created by the national academies of

The Scientist, Nov.15, 1993, page 12) concerning the recent commentary by Frederick K. Goodwin and Adrian R. Morrison (The Scientist, Sept.6, 1993, page 12) is telling. Once again, Barnard cleverly zooms in on grains of truth and uses highly selective data, ignoring completely the vast body of information that does not support his ideological bias. While Barnard comments on anecdotal evidence relating to several cases in which data

The Scientist gave the report coverage and called attention to animal rights extremists' attempts to target researchers with vandalism, death threats, and other acts of intimidation. Readers may be interested to know that in response to the DoJ report and recent animal rights attacks in Montgomery County, Md., Congressman George Gekas (R-Pa.) has introduced legislation that would further protect researchers. Called the Animal Enterp

The Scientist, Nov. 15, 1993, page 1), a good one indeed, omitted what I think is an important aspect of science history. If one examines many biology or biochemistry textbooks, one finds a woeful omission of the historical aspects of any particular subject. The student comes away feeling that, all of a sudden, insight sprung from Zeus's head, knowledge without a precedent. There is nothing to indicate that many past discoveries, som

"Medical research is a slow and painstaking process, but the fulfillment that comes when one is able to save lives and alleviate suffering makes it all worthwhile." This statement by Nobelist Gertrude Elion, gracing the cover of Research!America's 1993 annual report, sums up our organization's fundamental mission. Research!America is determined to increase public awareness of medical research's value--of its role in improving the qu

Editor's Note: The newsletter Science Watch, published by the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), last year decided to devote more attention to a research arena that, clearly, was attracting more attention among scientists worldwide: ecology and environmental science. After analyzing ISI's Science Indicators Database, the newsletter published last November (Science Watch, 4[9]:7-8, 1993) its first-ever l

W.O. Spitzer, S. Suissa, P. Ernst, R.I. Horwitz, B. Habbick, D. Cockcroft, J.-F. Boivin, M. McNutt, A.S. Buist, A.S. Rebuck, "The use of bETA-agonists and the risk of death and near death from asthma," New England Journal of Medicine, 326:501-6, 1992. Samy Suissa (Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McGill University, Montreal): "Asthma is a common disease that affects 5 percent to 10 percent of people. Numerous effective

L.A. Donehower, M. Harvey, B.L. Slagle, M.J. McArthur, C.A. Montgomery, Jr., J.S. Butel, A. Bradley, "Mice deficient for p53 are developmentally normal but susceptible to spontaneous tumours," Nature, 356:215-21, 1992. Larry Donehower (Division of Molecular Virology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston): "The p53 tumor suppressor gene has recently received a great deal of attention because its loss or mutation occurs in more than ha

E. Lopez-Juez, A. Nagatani, K.-I. Tomizawa, M. Deak, R. Kern, R.E. Kendrick, M. Furuya, "The cucumber long hypocotyl mutant lacks a light-stable PHYB-like phytochrome," Plant Cell, 4:241-51, 1992. Enrique Lopez-Juez (Laboratory of Plant Biological Regulation, Frontier Research Program, Riken Institute, Wako, Japan): "Through light signals, plants can decide when to germinate, to stop elongating underground and start expressing gene

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