June 2001

The Bcl-2 protein family members Bax and Bak play an important role in regulating apoptosis.1,2 But following their discovery in the 1990s, they did not take center stage because researchers didn't anticipate their role as "critical effectors of programmed cell death," says Craig Thompson, scientific director of the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. But the limelight is now upon them as Thompson and his colleagues at the Abramson Institute, in collabora

Editor's Note: This is the second of two articles that looks at the progression of AIDS research over the 20 years since its identification. The first part: M.E. Watanabe, "AIDS, 20 years later," The Scientist, 15[12]:1, June 11, 2001. Despite billions of dollars spent in research funds and a brief reprieve in Western nations after the introduction of multidrug therapy, AIDS continues to win its battle against humankind. First diagnosed 20 years ago, there are still no cures and no vaccines. Pre

A power shutdown last month at the University of California, San Francisco, sent physiology professor Mary F. Dallman into a panic. Her lab studies the effects of stress on the pituitary-adrenal axis in rats' brains, and one of her postdocs had recently begun the sort of 20-day, $10,000 experiment typically conducted by her lab. The pituitary-adrenal axis "is highly circadianly driven," Dallman explains, "and when the lights go out in the middle of the day, you're giving the circadian clock a

Click here for additional photos of life scientists elected to the National Academy of Sciences This past May, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) elected its new members and with the election came another round of criticisms that the NAS is elitist and gender biased, that the election process is outmoded, and that truly great scientists go unrecognized.1 Allegations aside, however, this year's election was the biggest ever--the first in which 72 members were chosen--and it signals the recog

"In the case of the Controlled Substances Act, the statute reflects a determination that marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception (outside the confines of a government-approved research project)." -Justice Clarence Thomas1 The Supreme Court's recent ruling against manufacturing and distributing medicinal cannabis does not appear to have had any immediate impact on either basic or clinical research studies under way. Some investigators, however, remain leery about the potential f

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS, the National Institutes of Health announced on June 4 the launch of a new Web site chronicling the history of AIDS research. "In Their Own Words: NIH Researchers Recall the Early Years of AIDS" (http:// aidshistory.nih.gov) highlights five main periods in AIDS research: initial encounters with the disease, the AIDS epidemic, early research efforts, the discovery of HIV, and the search for effective treatments. Each section includes a

Your story "Stem Cell Researchers Take on Parkinson's" by Laura DeFrancesco1 suggests that opposition to continuing this research on human subjects is confined to politicians opposed to embryo research and people stirred up by the "press maelstrom" following a New York Times article. It is also opposed by many ethical scientists. What principal investigator Curt Freed is doing strikes me as manifestly unethical. He can no longer consider this human research in a state of equipoise--which justi

Ted Agres correctly asserts in his recent article1 that, "...the issue of publicly funded stem cell research will probably not go away." But while he cites support from medical and health research champions in Congress, he fails to cite public opinion on the issue. A recent poll, commissioned by the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research--a newly created organization comprised of universities, scientific societies, patients' organizations, and other entities that are devoted to ensu

In 1997, to the surprise of many researchers, mitochondria reclaimed the limelight of apoptosis research when several groups observed that cytochrome c released from the mitochondria could induce apoptosis in cell-free systems.1,2 A hot research topic decades ago, mitochondria excitement cooled in the 1970s when researchers agreed on the mechanisms of oxidative phosphorylation (ox-phos). Now, mitochondria-mediated apoptosis is believed to be central to a number of major debilitating diseases, in

Apoptosis, a key process in the development of embryonic tissue differentiation, later helps to regulate the normal cellular life cycle by destroying damaged cells. When something goes awry, too little apoptosis can make cancer cells resistant to chemotherapy and even death-defiant. At the other extreme, premature or excessive apoptosis has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's, and to nerve cell loss in strokes. Not surprisingly, many major pharmaceutical companies rec

Investigation into the brains of aged rhesus monkeys show damage in the white matter (the myelin sheath covering the axons), while the gray matter (the cell nuclei and dendrites in areas such as the frontal cortex and hippocampus)saa remain intact, according to research presented by Douglas Rosene, associate professor in the anatomy and neurobiology at Boston University at the Successful Aging Conference on June 1-4 in Madison, Wis. The greater the degree of damage Rosene found, the poorer the a

Urothelial bladder cancer, the fourth most common cancer in men and the eighth most common in women, accounts for more than 54,000 new cases and 11,200 deaths annually. Cystoscopy and cytology, used to detect this transitional cell cancer in situ, have significant drawbacks, including relatively low sensitivity, patient discomfort, and infection risks. Now, a new U.S./European research consortium wants to create a simple, cost-effective, noninvasive diagnostic test to replace cystoscopy and cyto

For this article, Jim Kling interviewed Inder M. Verma, professor of genetics at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Data from the Web of Science (ISI, Philadelphia) show that Hot Papers are cited 50 to 100 times more than the average paper of the same type and age. Q.T. Li, D. Van Antwerp, F. Mercurio, K.F. Lee, I.M. Verma, "Severe liver degeneration in mice lacking the I kappa B kinase 2 gene," Science, 284:321-5, April 9, 1999. (Cited in 150 papers) Courtesy of Inder M. VermaInder M.

For this paper, Jim Kling interviewed David Lynch, senior staff scientist at Immunex Corp. in Seattle, Wash. Data from the Web of Science (ISI, Philadelphia) show that Hot Papers are cited 50 to 100 times more often than the average paper of the same type and age. H. Walczak, R.E. Miller, K. Ariail, B. Gliniak, T.S. Griffith, M. Kubin, W. Chin, J. Jones, A. Woodward, T. Le, C. Smith, P. Smolak, R.G. Goodwin, C.T. Rauch, J.C.L. Schuh, D.H.T. Lynch, "Tumoricidal activity of tumor necrosis factor

Caspase Related Reagents Courtesy of Bingren Hu, Queen's Medical Center, Hawaii. Provided by Cell Signaling TechnologyConfocal micrograph of double immunostaining for cleaved caspase-3 (green) and propidium iodide (red) in newborn rat brain tissue. This section shows control and transient cerebral ischemia. Editor's Note: This is the second article in our two-part series on cell death. The first part: J. Cortese, "Death watch I: Cytotoxicity detection," The Scientist, 15[5]:26, March 5, 2001.

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Cell Proliferation Assays Suppliers of Cell Proliferation Assays Courtesy of Zymed LaboratoriesMouse anti-PCNA (PC10)-stained colonic mucosa. Scientists often require rapid and accurate measurement of viable cell number and cell growth. These researchers traditionally assess cell viability via membrane integrity (e.g., trypan blue exclusion), and cell proliferation via the incorporation of labeled nucleotides (e.g., [3H]-thymidine) into newly synthesized DNA during cell division. Work to im