February 1997

Sidebar: Information for researchers who want to work with the African American community to promote health HIGH PAYOFF: Rev. Frank Tucker advises researchers who want to work with churches to "invest in the infrastructure of the church." CENTRAL LOCATION: Medical researcher Keith Norris notes that outreach to churches enables scientists to "reach a fairly broad audience." Today, many clinical researchers are in a bind. On one hand, the National Institutes of Health and other granting agencie

OVERCOMPENSATION: Atoning for wrongs led to exclusion of minorities, notes Robert F. Murray, Jr. Minority Americans' mistrust of science, fostered in large part by the notorious Tuskegee study and advanced by inequities in health care, continues today, according to observers. While hard evidence is lacking, many scientists believe that bad feelings make it difficult for them to recruit minorities as participants in biomedical research studies in such areas as cancer and AIDS. Others say that

Company officials cite an unfilled pipeline as an obstacle to recruitment; some observers see need for more aggressive recruiting. Sidebar: Helpful Resources For Minority Scientists TOO FEW: BIO president Carl Feldbaum cites the pipeline issue rather than discrimination as the main reason for small minority representation. Scientists who are members of racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in the biotechnology industry, according to a variety of industry observers. Minority resear

The minority researchers say that hard work and perseverance enabled them to overcome obstacles in their paths. SELF-SUFFICIENCY: Ciro Sumaya says, "what we do for ourselves has the strongest impact. Getting to the rarefied upper levels of scientific achievement is difficult for most researchers, but for many members of underrepresented minority groups, the road to success is littered with obstacles. While overcoming poverty or an inferior primary education are major hurdles themselves, many

American Indian Science and Engineering Society 5661 Airport Blvd., Boulder, Colo. 80301-2339 (303) 939-0023 - Fax: (303) 939-8150 aiseshq@spot.colorado.edu http://www.colorado.edu/AISES Executive director: Norbert S. Hill, Jr. 3,000 members Hispanic Engineers and Scientists 104 Naval Architecture Building, University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, Calif. 94720 (510) 643-8416 - Fax: (510) 644-1158 hes@uclink.berkeley.edu President: Hugo Ortiz 80 members National Network of Minority Women in

Information for promoting health education and research in African American community Date: February 17, 1997 Heart, Body and Soul Inc., offers information for researchers who want to work with the African American community to promote health education and research. The organization can be reached at 901 N. Broadway, Baltimore, Md. 21205; (410) 522-3430.

By Eric Albert Email: ealbert@world.std.com ACROSS 1 Suckling site 4 New tissue that forms over a wound 9 Polish place 10 Normal rhythmical contraction of the heart 11 Seed's first organ 12 Tar: Spanish 13 Call forth 15 75% of everything, by mass 16 Contaminate with germs 18 The brain's is gray or white 20 Embryo's umbilical connection 24 Digestive result 26 Reproductive cell 27 Parasite's source of nourishment 30 Down syndrome abnormality 31 Precious metal 32 DNA replication enzyme that untwi

Illustrator: John Overmyer Benign neglect, or ignoring an often undesirable situation rather than dealing with it, is an attitude with which minorities are quite familiar. Couple it with politics and racism, and you face a system that has been unresponsive to the educational, research, and health care needs of minorities and the poor in the United States. Few mainstream research institutions or government agencies have addressed minority health in a proactive manner. Most take a reactive appr

The scientific community is best equipped to identify the resources needed to find answers to pressing medical problems. Understandably, scientists have discharged this responsibility largely by highlighting the financial and facilities resources required to keep pace with modern scientific opportunities. And scientists lament loudly, as they should, that available resources are insufficient to exploit the unprecedented opportunities within easy reach of contemporary science. However, the scie

The Scientist Date: February 17, 1997 THE SCIENTIST® The Newspaper for the Life Sciences Professional (609)-786-7207 For Fast Service "Drenched by monsoons of fact, I rely on my umbrella, THE SCIENTIST, to shield me from all but the most useful news in my scientific pursuits." SHEILA MORIBER KATZ, Special Assistant to the President and CEO, Allegheny Health, Education, and Research Foundation (AHERF); Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Allegheny University of the Health Scie

This letter is in response to the article "AIDS Investigators Cautiously Applauding Recent Advances" (S. Benowitz, The Scientist, Sept. 30, 1996, page 1). We have shown that HIV-specific transfer factor (TF) produces a far more rapid decrease in viral load as measured by the "old" polymerase chain reaction-HIV-RNA than do the currently recommended protease inhibitors or reverse transcriptase inhibitors such as AZT. Viral loads dropped from 80,000/mm³ or higher to 0 in three to four months,

The article "Scientific Journal Articles Say Polished Prose Clarifies Research" [K.S. Brown, The Scientist, Jan. 20, 1997, page 16] raised several points of interest. One point particularly caught my attention, because it repeatedly affects my reading of articles: the issue of abbreviations in journals. The article states: "[Peggy] Robinson at CBE [the Council of Biology Editors Inc.] agrees that abbreviations have gotten out of hand-and into titles, captions, and so forth. 'Scientists have got

Sidebar: Information on Minority Access to Research Careers In the United States, there are more than 100 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In the late 1860s, these institutions were designated by the federal government to educate African Americans as a result of a segregated educational system in the South. Science administrators at the majority of these schools view their mission differently from their counterparts at majority U.S. institutions. Rather than focus their eff

INFORMATION On Minority Access to Research Careers Date: February 17, 1997 Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology William A. Sibley and Bobby Wilson, Program Directors Room 815 National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, Va. 22230 (703) 306-1633 - Fax: (703) 306-0423 E-mail: wsibley@nsf.gov; bwilson@nsf.gov The Leadership Alliance James H. Wyche, Executive Director Associate Provost, Brown University Box 1963, Room 15, Sayles Hall Providence, R.I.

Edited by: Karen Young Kreeger "Bloody Hot" Field: Because the signaling protein Stat5 has been found to be active in numerous pathways, many researchers are engaged in studying its various roles, says James Ihle. M. Azam, H. Erdjument-Bromage, B.L. Kreider, M. Xia, F. Quelle, R. Basu, C. Saris, P. Tempst, J.N. Ihle, C. Schindler, "Interleukin-3 signals through multiple isoforms of Stat5," EMBO Journal, 14:1402-11, 1995. (Cited in nearly 70 publications as of December 1996) Comments by James N

Edited by: Karen Young Kreeger Exposing Adenoviruses: Inder Verma and colleagues used nude mice to study immune system and humoral responses during gene therapy. Y. Dai, E.M. Schwartz, D. Gu, W.-W. Zhang, N. Sarvetnick, I.M. Verma, "Cellular and humoral immune responses to adenoviral vectors containing factor IX gene: Tolerization of factor IX and vector antigens for long-term expression," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 92:1401-5, 1995. (Cited in nearly 60 publications as of

More Information - Diversity Training Date: February 17, 1997 Center of the American Experiment http://www.amexp.org Diversity Works http://www.inform.umd.edu:8080/DiversityWeb Diversity Training Group http://www.diversitydtg.com/ Dupont Corp. Bernard Scales Human Resources 1007 Market St., Wilmington, Del. 19898 (302) 774-5441 · Fax: (302) 773-1914 http://www.dupont.com/ Genentech Inc. Theresa Isaacs 460 Point San Bruno, South San Francisco, Calif. 94080 (415) 225-1000

Sidebar : For More Information on Diversity Training Groups February is Black History Month. To commemorate the occasion, employees at South San Francisco, Calif.-based Genentech Inc. have been taking part in activities that introduce them to African American culture. Members of African Americans in Biotechnology, one of the biotech firm's internal employee associations, have put together displays about the contribution of black scientists and sponsored lectures by prominent black investigators

Life science laboratories, with their chemicals, glassware, and occasional pathogens, can be dangerous places. Yet today’s life science lab is probably safer than ever before, researchers, lab instructors, and safety officers report. "People are making efforts now to plan research activities more than they used to. Most large universities and many small ones are putting more effort into safety," says Peter Ashbrook, head of hazardous waste management at the University of Illinois, Urbana

Knowing where safety equipment is located and checking safety supplies regularly can prevent or minimize accidents. Researchers and safety experts offer other tips: Know Chemical Characteristics: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provides information on material safety data sheets for all chemicals that list associated hazards and instructions on how to handle exposures. For radioisotopes, researchers should know the type of emitted particles, the half-life, and annual ex

CEA Instruments Inc. Colormetric Laboratories Inc. Connecticut Valley Biological Edvotek Inc. Geno Technology Inc. Hemco Corp. Hybaid Ltd. Labconco Corp. Lab Safety Supply Inc. Matheson Gas Products Inc. New Pig Corp. North Safety Products Inc. NuAire Inc. Card

Quantix is a cooled, charge-coupled device (CCD) camera designed to deliver low read noise at readout rates of 5 million pixels per second and provide the image quality, linearity, and sensitivity required for time-resolved and/or low light environments. Three imaging modes are offered: high sensitivity, to detect weak signals; high dynamic range, to measure bright and dim signals within the same image; and high signal-to-noise ratio, for bright-field imaging. The camera is cooled to eliminat