January 1997

BIDDING ADIEU: David Kessler, who headed FDA for more than six years, says he is pleased with his record. When David Kessler, the commissioner of the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA), announced his resignation in late November, many people were surprised. The controversial FDA head was in the middle of waging war against the United States tobacco industry when he decided to step down after more than six years in the job. His supporters, including public health advocates, contend tha

A MATTER OF PERCEPTION: While T.A. union officials at UC-Berkeley say that 30 percent of T.A.-classes in the natural sciences were shut down, an associate dean calls the union's figures, "wildly exaggerated." Teaching assistants (T.A.'s) boycotted their classes and set up picket lines at three campuses of the University of California (UC) for a week in November in an unsuccessful bid to pressure the administration to engage in collective bargaining with their unions. While estimates of the st

Amid mixed reputation, the organization, known as SHER, focuses on ending discrimination and providing support. Twenty-five years ago, a group of women at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., began meeting every Wednesday at noon to work together to combat sex discrimination at NIH. Today, a group of women meets every Wednesday at noon to work together to combat sex discrimination at NIH. Little more than the faces have changed, according to members of the organization, known as

Sidebar: For Further Information - Alternative Medicine With consumer interest in "natural" remedies on the rise, some academic and corporate researchers have begun to look for new drugs among ancient remedies. Several such efforts focus on the rich, detailed pharmacopoeia of Chinese herbal medicine, which has been painstakingly recorded and passed on for generations. In contemporary China-as in much of the world-herbal concoctions remain the predominant form of medication. In the hands of West

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION - Alternative Medicine Date: January 6, 1997 Internet Resources: Alternative Medicine Home Page: http://www.pitt.edu/~cbw/altm.html AYSL Corp.: http://www.ayslcorp.com Paracelsian Inc.: http://www.paracelsian.com Pfizer Inc.: http://www.pfizer.com NIH Office: Office of Alternative Medicine OAM Information Center 9000 Rockville Pike, Room 5B-38 Bethesda, Md. 20892 (301) 402-2466 Fax: (301) 402-4741

By Eric Albert Email: ealbert@world.std.com ACROSS 1 Middle membrane covering the brain and spinal cord 9 Innermost ear ossicle 10 Bursa, for example 11 Granting org. 12 Portion of an interrupted gene represented in the RNA product 13 Abnormal respireatory sound 14 Person with Y chromosome 16 More than 50% of the dry weight of most cells 17 Element discovered in 1751 20 Sort of sample 22 Gum 25 Certain immunoglobulins 27 Neurotransmitter 28 Phloem + periderm 31 Start codon 32 Initial object? 3

The Scientist Date: January 6, 1997 THE SCIENTIST® The Newspaper for the Life Sciences Professional (609)-786-7207 For Fast Service I read THE SCIENTIST because it keeps me up to date on issues important to my business -- research funding trends, science policy, and oversight, advocacy, and more. I also learn more about research innovations from The Scientist and find that the publication influences my clients' opinions." April Burke, principal Lewis-Burke Associates Washington DC Was

The disintegration of the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and a divisive civil war has disrupted many local social, cultural, and scientific activities in this Balkan state. Relationships among various ethnic groups are in turmoil. Violence, forced migration, and ethnic cleansing have undermined any attempt at peaceful reconciliation. Yet, despite disruption of communication among the three major cultural groups during the conflict, scientific research and publication have managed to survive in many

Like most Americans who are not scientists, I have been relatively ignorant of how science is conducted and funded until recently. In 1992 I founded a nonprofit organization to help women who have chronic vulvar pain. Directing a grass-roots patient-advocacy organization has brought my attention to the critical lack of funds available for basic research. Although urging scientists to lobby Congress themselves is certainly a reasonable strategy for obtaining more funds, I have a suggestion. Wh

I am not a scientist and scholar at the level of those who disagreed with Irving Klotz's evaluation of postmodernist criticism (I.M. Klotz, The Scientist, July 22, 1996, page 9). My biochemistry career was mainly working at a brewery. But I know when I smell garbage. Postmodernist criticism is a variation of political correctness. I don't agree with Judy Din's conclusion that the scientific method was inadequate for understanding chronic fatigue syndrome (Letters, The Scientist, Sept. 30, 1996,

Your recent review of sleep research [A. Mack, The Scientist, Oct. 28, 1996, page 13] fails to mention the public interest in melatonin as a sleep inducer. Melatonin has been an over-the-counter "dietary additive" since its escape from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) control for more than one year, with an estimated 15 million to 20 million people having tried it and a significant number using it on a regular basis to induce sleep. The sleep-induction activity of melatonin has been elegantl

Regarding the article on managed care and clinical trials [M.E. Watanabe, The Scientist, June 24, 1996, page 1]: There is no question that this is a complex problem with roots in the fee-for-service system and the definition of what, for a patient, is treatment and what is research. If one's life is threatened, the line between treatment and research can become blurred if no proven treatment is available. It may be research for the academic institution, but I believe that most patients in this

The October 14 issue of The Scientist reporting on the controversy plaguing the proposed Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) [K.Y. Kreeger, page 1] gives the mistaken impression that the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) has "softened" its views in opposition to the proposed HGDP. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I said in testimony before the National Academy of Sciences committee on September 16: "RAFI believes that moral, ethical, and legal issues have not been a

In reference to your Nov. 11, 1996 article about the anti-tenure wave [R. Finn, The Scientist, page 1], I have one observation regarding tenure: If you need it, you don't deserve it; if you deserve it, you don't need it. N.A. Halasz V.A. Medical Center, #112 3350 La Jolla Village Dr. San Diego, Calif. 92161 E-mail: nhalasz@ucsd.edu

Editor's Note: Last month, Sir Harold Kroto, the Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Sussex in Brighton, U.K., along with Richard E. Smalley, the Hackerman Professor of Chemistry at Rice University and Robert F. Curl, Jr., also a professor of chemistry at Rice, received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in Stockholm. They were honored for their discovery of buckyballs, the now-famous soccer-ball-shaped molecules named for architect R. Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic domes. The

Edited by: Karen Young Kreeger T. Blunt, N.J. Finnie, G.E. Taccioli, G.C.M. Smith, J. Demengeot, T.M. Gottlieb, R. Mizuta, A.J. Varghese, F.W. Alt, P.A. Jeggo, S.P. Jackson, "Defective DNA-dependent protein kinase activity is linked to V(D)J recombination and DNA repair defects associated with the murine SCID mutation," Cell, 80:813-23, 1995. (Cited in almost 120 publications as of December 1996) Comments by Frederick W. Alt, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Children's Hospital, Boston, and Harv

Edited by Karen Young Kreeger J.A. Bennett, R. Dingledine, "Topology profile for a glutamate receptor: Three transmembrane domains and a channel-lining reentrant membrane loop," Neuron, 14:373-84, 1995. (Cited in more than 50 publications as of December 1996) Comments by Julie A. Bennett-Desmelik, Emory University INS AND OUTS: Julie Bennett-Desmelik of Emory studied the topology of glutamate receptor domains. A nerve cell's membrane contains the machinery that allows cell-to-cell communicat

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION - Retiring Scientists Date: January 6, 1997 American Association of University Professors: 1012 14th St., N.W. Suite 500 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 737-5900 http://www.igc.apc.org/aaup/ Fidelity Investments: 82 Devonshire St. Boston, Mass. 02109 (617) 570-7000 http://www.fidelity.com Scudder, Stevens & Clark: 345 Park Ave. New York, N.Y. 10154 (212) 326-6200 http://www.scudder.com Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equiti

Sidebar: For Further Information - Retiring Scientists Retirement, like many other facets of employment, has changed greatly over the last generation. Rare are the employees-researchers included-who spend 40 years at the same job and retire at age 65, living the remainder of their years off Social Security benefits and traditional company pensions. Instead, today's workers often switch jobs several times during the course of their careers, and when they retire, they are more likely to pay the

Sidebar: Selected Suppliers of Liquid-Handling Equipment Liquid-handling equipment has always been central to biomedical research. Pipettes and pumps must be accurate and resist contamination, yet work quickly and comfortably in repetitive procedures. While pipettes and pumps will remain key components of experimental protocols, new types of large-scale research will require more automation and miniaturization in liquid-handling capabilities. Both the Human Genome Project and combinatorial che

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The Model 211D incubator, with a 1.6-cubic-foot chamber, is the smallest in the company's line. It has a temperature range of ambient 5°C to 95°C, making it useful for a variety of applications, including growing cultures and hybridization. The Smart Chek Temperature Control system regulates the incubator's temperature with a claimed accuracy and stability of 0.1°C. The user can adjust an independent safety thermostat to take control if the interior temperature rises as little

The National Science Foundation has joined the National Institutes of Health in considering changes to its peer-review system of rating grant applications (T.W. Durso, The Scientist, Dec. 9, 1996, page 1). NSF's current four-criteria system-assessing research performance and competence, intrinsic merit, utility or relevance, and the research's effect on science and engineering infrastructure-has been in place since 1981. NSF officials say it's time to revisit the criteria and that the proposed