January 2000

Graphic: Cathleen Heard It's what the government doesn't know about food that can kill you, says a federal science-policy analyst. "We do rely on Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention (CDC)] data, and the new numbers on foodborne illness are certainly something we didn't want to see," the analyst says. She is referring to a disturbing CDC report issued in September1 that ups the ante for foodborne diseases to an estimated 76 million incidents per year--twice the number reported in a widely

One measure of the rising interest in mind-body medicine is the increasing entry of young physicians into specialties that focus on the interface between mental and physical disorders. Yet there is a dire need for controlled, clinical trials of treatments that address this interface in a variety of complex disorders. Such evidence-based support is especially important to doctors who specialize in psychosomatic medicine, because they face a cost-cutting threat from managed care groups. These were

©1999 Myrna WatanabeMeeting attendees at the Great Wall A 30-yuan (about $3.60) card will admit you to the Badaling entrance of China's Great Wall. But you don't just swipe it through a slot as you might at a gasoline pump or cash machine. You place the card in the slot of the magnetic strip reader and a real, live attendant will retrieve the card and hand it back to you. This is the conundrum that is China: It is using cutting-edge technologies but clinging to the old ways. This, according

In its bitter, seven-year-old lawsuit against Promega Corp., the Roche Group has just been deprived of one of its patents covering Taq DNA polymerase, the enzyme crucial to automating PCR. The federal judge hearing the case decided last month that the inventors of a method for purifying this enzyme had dealt dishonestly with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) in applying for the patent in 1988 and 1989. Because of the inventors' "inequitable conduct," Judge Vaughn R. Walker of the Northe

The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) meeting in Washington, D.C., Dec. 8-10 delved into every aspect of Jesse Gelsinger's death. Gelsinger, a teenager from Arizona, had ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency, a liver disorder in which the body cannot eliminate ammonia through the urea cycle. He died four days after receiving an experimental gene therapy drug during a University of Pennsylvania clinical trial. After hearing hours of clinical data from researchers involved in t

Researchers in Georgia began field-testing in November a device they say can greatly improve the efficiency of testing for foodborne pathogens and lower processors' costs for such tests. The biosensor, as the device is called, can cut testing time from up to 72 hours down to about two hours while reducing lab-equipment costs from $12,000-$20,000 to $1,000-$5,000, the researchers say. But first the biosensor must prove itself with the chickens in a Carrollton, Ga., processing plant. ©1999 Ge

Raven Advances at AAAS The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) will ring in the millennium with a new president-elect: Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and Engelmann professor of botany at Washington University in St. Louis. Raven succeeds Mary Good, who moves up to president at the end of Stephen J. Gould's term. Raven told The Scientist, "I'm very proud to have been elected. I'm impressed by the way AAAS has developed, and I want to do what I can to

Those who have read The Scientist for more than a few years have witnessed changes both great and small in the publication. The change from newsprint to glossy paper, the introduction of controlled unpaid circulation to qualified life scientists, and the increased focus on life scientists can all be counted as major changes. With this issue, we are introducing a new look to The Scientist, in both size and design. Our page size is now two inches shorter than previously, making a more compa

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Chimeraplasty Diagram If single-gene disorders are akin to minor misspellings in the human genome, then it stands to reason that the biological equivalent of a word processor's search-and-replace function could correct them. Some researchers are hoping that chimeraplasty can be that tool. The biological software--a chimeric oligonucleotide constructed from both DNA and RNA--was invented and first tested in vitro in 1994. But before it can be "shipped" to the clinic, its developers and others mu

Mounting evidence of estrogen's role in preventing cognitive decline is affecting women's decisions on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), a symposium panel recently told attendees of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine's annual meeting in New Orleans. But causes of variability among women in estrogen's impact on cognition have not yet been identified. Moreover, the continuing emergence of selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), drugs that can imitate the hormone's positive effects whil

Disease and Telomerase Telomerase, the ribonucleoprotein, uses part of itself as a template to tack six-base repeats onto the tips of chromosomes in cells of highly proliferative tissues. Compromised telomerase, then, is likely to affect tissues with high turnover rates. University of California, Berkeley, researchers recently tightened that link (J.R. Mitchell et al., "A telomerase component is defective in the human disease dyskeratosis congenita," Nature, 402:551-5, Dec. 2, 1999). Dyskeratosi

In the past, researchers seeking to quantify or detect small amounts of DNA in a sample have relied on techniques such as ultraviolet spectroscopy and agarose gels. While these techniques continue to be useful for a variety of molecular biology applications, they are highly sensitive to contamination by proteins, buffers, and detergents. In addition, these techniques are best suited to the analysis of microgram amounts of DNA. In September of 1999, Promega introduced the DNAQuant DNA Quantitati

Researchers no longer need the time and skill required to prepare tissue-specific RNA if they want to study developmental gene expression. Quantum Biotechnologies of Montreal has recently launched two new products under the Embryonics trademark that address the molecular needs of developmental biologists. EmbryoRNA™ is a series of kits (called panels) of murine total RNA prepared from different tissues at different gestational stages. For example, the embryogenesis panel, designed t

IPGphor Isoelectroc Focusing System Until recently, there have been a number of problems associated with immobilized pH gradient-isoelectric focusing (IPG-IEF) for 2-D electrophoresis. Numerous manipulations of the IPG strips introduce opportunity for contamination and shuffling of strips. In addition, focusing units typically require lengthy set-up and operation times of up to two days. Furthermore, special electrophoresis power supplies and temperature control systems can consume valuable benc

Ph.D. Production Table How many science and engineering Ph.D.s can a nation use and support? Does the United States have a glut, or is it about to have one? What price is a nation able and willing to pay for producing Ph.D.s? What is the relationship between a nation's economy and its production of Ph.D.s? In trying to answer such questions, I examined 1998 data in a variety of countries from three perspectives: * Total number of Ph.D.s produced, * Per capita production of Ph.D.s, * Per cap