Issue | July 1993 | July 1993 | The Scientist Magazine®

News

Some Lingering Controversies Confront Bruce Alberts As He Succeeds Frank Press At National Academy Helm

Editor's Note: This article, which discusses the legacy left to new National Academy of Sciences president Bruce Alberts by his predecessor, Frank Press, is the second part of a two- part series. The first part, which appeared in the June 28, 1993, issue, dealt with Alberts's plans for the academy. The new NAS president may have to deal with sensitive issues that some members consider not fully resolved As Bruce M. Alberts settles into the president's office at the National Academy of S

Scientific Merit, Rather Than Morals, Guides Use Of Animals In Lab Research

Those who now experiment on living creatures say alternative methods may eventually diminish their reliance on animals Author: RON KAUFMAN, pp. 1, 8 Despite increasing and frequently violent protests by animal rights activists, biomedical researchers throughout the United States say they have no intention of curtailing their use of whole-animal subjects as they deem them necessary. For these researchers--even as the development of such alternatives to animal subjects as cell cultures

White House Keeping Low Profile As Hunt For Healy's Successor At NIH Appears To Be Reaching Final Stage

Judith Rodin of Yale and UC-San Francisco's Harold Varmus are said to be strong contenders for the agency position Author: FRANKLIN HOKE, pp. 1, 3, 4 Sources close to the search for Bernadine Healy's successor as director of the National Institutes of Health say the list of candidates is down to three individuals, with a decision from the White House considered imminent. In the running at press time were Harold Varmus, a Nobel Prize- winning molecular biologist at the University of C

Career Opportunities For Toxicologists On The Rise, With Demand For Their Expertise Rapidly Growing

Demand For Their Expertise Rapidly Growing Environmental awareness is a major factor in creating job openings in all employment markets for these specialists AUTHOR :MARCIA CLEMMITT, pp. 1, 9, 22 Young scientists emerging from graduate training programs in toxicology are having an easier time than most other science graduates in today's grueling job market, say toxicologists at universities throughout the United States. "Most--virtually all--[graduate students] have jobs six months b

Columbia Emeritus Chemistry Professor Receives $225,000 Robert A. Welch Award, UC-Berkeley Neurobiologist Gets Prize Honoring Silvio Conte

The Houston-based Robert A. Welch Foundation has selected Gilbert Stork, a professor, emeritus, of chemistry at Columbia University, to receive its 1993 award in chemistry. The 39-year- old foundation presents the award annually to a chemist credited with significant research contributions that have had a positive influence on humankind. Stork will receive $225,000 and a gold medallion at a formal ceremony in Houston on October 25. Stork's research has involved the organic synthesis of c

Notebook

Correspondence Precautions Science Imitates Science Fiction.. ...But Science Fiction Isn't Science A High-Minded Undertaking E-Male Ah, But What A Way To Go Two mail bomb incidents last month have put scientists on pins and needles at many schools across the country. Charles Epstein, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco, and David Gelernter, the director of Yale's undergraduate computer science program, were seriously injured in bomb blasts. At som

Opinion

AIDS Pandemic Provokes Alarming Reassessments Of Infectious Disease

In 1900, infectious disease was the leading cause of mortality in the United States, accounting for at least 37 percent of deaths. By 1950, this had been mitigated to 6.8 percent and, by 1989, to 2.8 percent, with corresponding improvements in life expectancy. These numbers, of course, must be taken with a grain of salt, given the eventual preemptive role of infection in chronic illness, and many disorders whose infectious etiology is still to be recognized. Further, the relative importance

Letter

Mass Mailings

In his letter in the Feb. 8, 1993, issue of The Scientist [page 12], Stephen R. Kaufman of the Medical Research Modernization Committee (an antivivisectionist animal rights organization) effectively admits that the animal "protection" movement does very little to help animals in any way with the tens of millions of contributions received from misguided supporters. His statement that "the movement...wastes much of its resources on mass mailings, and commits only a small fraction of its resou

A 'Thriving Discipline'

Author:RICHARD F. BROWNER, pp. 12 As a reader of your publication from its inception, I enjoy and appreciate the coverage of current political and sociological, as well as purely technical, issues related to academic, governmental, and industrial science. Reading an article dedicated to high-performance liquid chromatography in the March 8 issue of The Scientist [Franklin Hoke, page 18] reminded me, however, what relatively niggardly attention you generally devote to analytical instrumentation.

Commentary

Scientists Should Understand The Limitations As Well As The Virtues Of Citation Analysis

Two letters challenging the function and value of citation analysis arrived in my office recently, and I believe they merit a response for all of The Scientist's readers to ponder. Monitoring the scientific literature and developing statistics on the extent to which articles are referenced by subsequent authors have been consuming interests of mine for more than 30 years. I have consistently maintained that it is both intellectually worthwhile and professionally beneficial for scientists to und

Research

With Scientific Research Papers, Balance Of Trade Now Favors The U.S.

Editor's Note: While the latest reports out of Washington, D.C., reveal that the United States continues to import far more goods from foreign nations than it exports to them, the trade balance is much more favorable to the U.S. in terms of its science products--the research papers that are, so to speak, made in America. This conclusion was arrived at late last year by the monthly newsletter Science Watch, which compared the frequency with which U.S. papers and those from all other nations w

Hot Paper

Pharmacology

D.J. Mangelsdorf, U. Borgmeyer, R.A. Heyman, et al., "Characterization of three RXR genes that mediate the action of 9-cis retinoic acid," Genes & Development, 6:329-44, 1992. David J. Mangelsdorf (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas): "Nuclear hormone receptors are a family of related transcription factors that are activated by binding small hydrophobic hormones like the steroids, thyroxin, vitamin D3, and all-trans retinoic acid. One intri

Cell Biology

K.W. Wood, C. Sarnecki, T.M. Roberts, J. Blenis, "ras mediates nerve growth factor receptor modulation of three signal- transducing protein kinases: MAP kinase, Raf-1, and RSK," Cell, 68:1041-50, 1992. Kenneth W. Wood (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston): "RAS plays a central role in receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK)-stimulated signaling pathways, including those stimulated by nerve growth factor (NGF). "This paper shows that RAS functions to regulate a cascade of serine/threonine kinases,

Biochemistry

G.I. Evan, A.H. Wyllie, C.S. Gilbert, et al., "Induction of apoptosis in fibroblasts by c-myc protein," Cell, 63:119-25, 1992. Gerard Evan (Biochemistry of the Cell Nucleus Laboratory, Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London): "Although cancer is a common disease, the cancer cell is extremely rare. We know this because it takes only one fully malignant cell (and its progeny) to form a lethal tumor, yet cancer afflicts only one in three individuals during the entire course of their lives. This is

Technology

Advanced Lab Bioreactors Extend Cell And Tissue Culture Capabilities

Capabilities AUTHOR : FRANKLIN HOKE, p.17 With roots in such age-old processes as wine, beer, and soy sauce fermentation, cell-culture technology has been well explored. Especially in the decades following World War II, sophisticated culturing systems--called fermenters or bioreactors-- made their appearance in many laboratories. But advances in just the past few years, especially in the areas of sensors and computerized control, are expanding the efficiency and range of research applicatio

Profession

Girl Scouting Teaches Youngsters To `Act Like Scientists'

Dale McCreedy enjoyed the job she had from 1978 to 1988 as a research assistant in immunology at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. In her current position, she is working with the Girl Scouts of the United States of America to ensure that a new generation of young women has similar positive scientific experiences. McCreedy is one of several researchers throughout the U.S. who are joining forces with the Girl Scouts to change the way young women view science and, consequently, to increase