Issue | July 1995 | July 1995 | The Scientist Magazine®

Genome Investigator Craig Venter Reflects On Turbulent Past And Future Ambitions

And Future Ambitions Editor's Note: For the past four years, former National Institutes of Health researcher J. Craig Venter has been a major figure in the turbulent debates and scientific discoveries surrounding the study of genes and genomes. Events heated up in 1991, when NIH attempted to patent gene fragments, which were isolated using Venter's expressed sequence tag (EST)/complementary DNA (cDNA) approach for discovering human genes (M.A. Adams et al., Science, 252:1651-6, 1991). NIH's mo

Clinton Administration Seeks New Model For Applied Research

Some basic tenets of the Clinton administration's science and technology policy - the encouragement of applied research and collaboration with industry to bring it to fruition - are colliding with traditional Republican values. These include long-standing opposition to such partnerships, a desire to give the states a greater voice in science matters, and a general urge for budget reductions on the part of the GOP-controlled Congress. IRONY: The Department of Commerce's Mary good notes that wh

With New Virology Institute, Gallo May Make A Fresh Start In Baltimore

With a powerful group of local backers to ease the transition, controversial virologist Robert Gallo hopes for a fresh start, both personally and scientifically, when his Institute of Human Virology opens its doors this fall. The new institute, intended to advance the fight against AIDS and other diseases, will be affiliated with the University of Maryland at Baltimore. And it appears that his fellow scientists -- with a few sharp exceptions -- are ready to let accusations of scientific miscon

OTA, Fighting For Its Life In Congress, Draws From Both Sides Of The Aisle

vote with bipartisan backing, but the true test is yet to come. ON SHAKY GROUND: Director Rodger Herman notes that the House plan to save OTA can still be undone in the Senate. Even as the United States House of Representatives moved toward what many viewed as inevitable - a vote to abolish the 23-year-old Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) - the agency's director, Roger Herdman, headed for the office of Sen. Arlen Specter (R- Pa.). Herdman hoped the presidential aspirant would help halt th

D Labs

Grow In Industrial R&D Labs Author: Neeraja Sankaran At a time when increasing numbers of Ph.D. researchers are facing a shortage of job opportunities, some scientists are finding productive and fulfilling careers before they ever reach that level -- in the pharmaceutical industry. MASTER OF MANY TRADES: As a senior research assistant, Walter Darbonne works independently on research projects. Drug companies "provide a great opportunity for people who want to do research," even without a doct

A Tissue Survey

Tissue engineers are working on a variety of proj-ects. Here are just a few candidates for future human replacement parts. Skin: Chemical engineers agree that skin will be the first engineered tissue commercially available as a medical device to treat the large market of severe burn patients and those suffering from diabetic ulcers and other nonhealing wounds. La Jolla, Calif.-based Advanced Tissue Sciences Inc. and Organogenesis in Canton, Mass., have engineered skin substitutes currently in

Access To Freeware And Shareware Archives

Following are Internet addresses for accessing the archives and programs mentioned in the accompanying article: Entrez ftp://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) BioCatalog ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/ gopher://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/ http://www.ebi.ac.uk/biocat/biocat.html Flow cytometry software at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst http://www.bio.umass.edu/mcbfacs/flowcat.html Bio Archive of biology software and data ftp://iubio.bio.indiana.edu/ gopher://iubio.bio.indian

The Scientist - Crossword Puzzle Answers- July 24, 1995

1. Largest class of the animal kingdom 5. Cell nuclear division method 9. Plasmid, perhaps 10. Elephant named after a planet 11. It carries the code to the cytoplasm: abbr. 12. Blood Group 13. Brain protector 15. Malignant connective tissue tumor 16. Kind of T Cell 18. Egg that has not yet undergone maturation 20. Hydrocarbon of the methane series 23. Chlrophyta, for example 24. Whale: pref 25. Sodium chloride 27. Sexual reproduction 28. Attraction toward or away from a stimulus 30. Release, a

Debra H. Cavalier

Debra H. Cavalier DEBRA H. CAVALIER, President Massachusetts Society for Medical Research, Waltham "THE SCIENTIST provides timely information that commands my immediate attention. I share it with all our member institutions." Debra H. Cavalier, president, Massachusetts Society for Medical Research, Waltham The mission of the Massachusetts Society for Medical Research (MSMR) is to educate the general public, the media, and the state legislature about the importance of and growing need for bio

NCRP, A Small Voluntary Organization, Makes Big Contributions To U.S. Science

Contributions To U.S. Science Author: Charles Meinhold In the popular press, there is a tendency to equate science with big-ticket items like space exploration and the Human Genome Project, so that "small" science is relegated to the science section, if mentioned at all. But the contribution made to the national welfare by small scientific organizations can, in fact, loom large. For example, essentially all of the United States standards for limiting exposure to ionizing radiation were origin

OncoLink

Thank you so much for publishing an article on OncoLink [F. Hoke, The Scientist, April 3, 1995, page 1]. I thought it was a good, balanced report. I believe that a quality future for OncoLink, or OncoLink by another name, will happen only if discussion concerning OncoLink has a good media forum. Thank you for providing such a forum. I don't believe that the present editors of OncoLink understand the dynamics necessary to keep OncoLink current and responsive to patients' needs. They envisioned

Molecular Modeling

In her report on page 18 of The Scientist, March 20, 1995, issue ["Molecular Modeling Software Manufacturers Improve Functionality"], Holly Ahern writes: "It has been less than a decade since the first researchers in the fledgling field of structural biology created three-dimensional images of macromolecules on a computer screen." Research on interactive three-dimensional molecular graphics began more than 30 years ago, on the unique Project MAC display at the Massachusetts Institute of Techno

Tissue Engineering Now Coming Into Its Own As A Scientific Field

Field Author: Ricki Lewis Sidebars: A Tissue Survey Over the past decade, tissue engineering has evolved from a hodgepodge of different disciplines to a biotechnology field in its own right. A marriage of chemical engineering and cell biology, with input from genetics and surgery, tissue engineering combines living cells, biochemicals, and synthetic materials into implants that can function in the human body. Some 30 companies and dozens of academic laboratories are pursuing tissue engineeri

Medical Informatics

D.A.B. Lindberg, B.L. Humphreys, A.T. McCray, "The Unified Medical Language System," Methods of Information in Medicine, 32:281-91, 1993. (Cited in 31 publications through May 1995) Comments by Donald Lindberg, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md. "Since 1986, there has been an attempt to create knowledge sources on computers to be used by 'intelligent' programs and subsequently by intelligent people," recounts Donald Lindberg, director of the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda,

Immunology

G.J. Freeman, F. Borriello, R.J. Hodes, H. Resier, K.S. Hathcock, G. Laszlo, A.J. McKnight, J. Kim, L. Du, D.B. Lombard, G.S. Gray, L.M. Nadler, A.H. Sharpe, "Uncovering of functional alternative CTLA-4 counter-receptor in B-7 deficient mice," Science, 202:907- 9, 1993. (Cited in 81 publications through May 1995) G.J. Freeman, J.G. Gribben, V.A. Boussiotis, J.W. Ng, V.A. Restivo, Jr., L.A. Lombard, G.S. Gray, L.M. Nadler, "Cloning of B7-2: A CTLA-4 counter receptor that costimulates human T ce

Finding Full-Featured Free Software For Biologists On The Internet

Internet Author: Robert Finn Sidebars: Access to Freeware and Shareware Archives With the life sciences becoming ever more reliant on computers, biologists find themselves constantly on the lookout for useful software. While there's no shortage of commercial vendors willing to sell full-featured packages that will perform tasks such as modeling a protein or running a flow cytometer, this software can cost many hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Fortunately, an impressive array of free or

Obituary: End Of An Era: Polio Vaccine Pioneer Jonas Salk Dies

Colleagues remember Jonas Salk for carrying the courage of his scientific conviction.

The Scientist - Crossword Puzzle - July 24, 1995

1. Largest class of the animal kingdom 5. Cell nuclear division method 9. Plasmid, perhaps 10. Elephant named after a planet 11. It carries the code to the cytoplasm: abbr. 12. Blood Group 13. Brain protector 15. Malignant connective tissue tumor 16. Kind of T Cell 18. Egg that has not yet undergone maturation 20. Hydrocarbon of the methane series 23. Chlrophyta, for example 24. Whale: pref 25. Sodium chloride 27. Sexual reproduction 28. Attraction toward or away from a stimulus 30. Release, a

Four Researchers Garner Annual GM Foundation Prizes

Late last month, the Detroit-based General Motors Cancer Research Foundation recognized four scientists for their investigations in the fight against cancer with its three annual awards. The cash amount of the three prizes totaled $300,000. AWARDEES: From left, Joseph F. Fraumeni, Edward E. Hartlow, Jr., GM foundation president Joseph G. Fortner, Freerick P. Li. and Norbert Brock. The Charles F. Kettering medal for outstanding contributions to the treatment of cancer was awarded to Norbert

Biochemical, Reagents Kits Offer Scientists Good Return On Investment

Investment Author:Holly Ahern If you were to ask several life scientists to name a particular biochemical product that they simply could not do without, you'd probably get a myriad of answers that would mirror the research interests of the group you questioned. A molecular evolutionist trying to differentiate two closely related species of monkeys by restriction fragment-length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis might cite restriction enzymes, which can cut DNA into pieces of varying length. A cell b

Notebook

Merck and Co. Inc., the pharmaceutical giant based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., announced on July 11 that it will fund a $20 million program to support African American science students. The program, to be administered by the Fairfax, Va.-based College Fund/United Negro College Fund (UNCF)--a consortium of 41 private, historically black colleges and universities will be called the Merck~UNCF Science Initiative. According to UNCF president and former Pennsylvania congressman William H. Gray III,

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