March 1991

The president's financial plan looks good on paper, but Congress now faces the tough job of reconciling promises with harsh reality. WASHINGTON--Benjamin Franklin, the story goes, was asked what he and his fellow statesmen had produced during their deliberations in that steamy Philadelphia summer of 1776. "A republic," he answered, "if you can keep it." Every federal budget raises anew the question of whether a large increase sought for any one program will come at the expense of other pro

The commericial race to put therapeutic peptides and proteins into pill form worries those who fear reckless research. Against a backdrop of secrecy and suspicion, researchers are working on a pill that would deliver protein and polypeptide drugs into the body, and could generate billions of dollars in annual sales for biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms. But some scientists, looking at the radically different scientific and business approaches being pursued in the pill's development, have

WASHINGTON--The 6 percent increase requested for the National Institutes of Health in 1992 would provide enough funds to support 632 more research grants but not enough, say science policy analysts, to put federally supported biomedical research on firm financial footing. Given the sorry state of the economy and the huge federal deficit, scientists as well as members of Congress are praising the president's proposed $8.78 billion NIH budget as a step in the right direction. But agency official

Volume 5, #5The Scientist March 4, 1991 STAYING SAFE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES With the war in the Persian Gulf intensifying United States citizens' fears of terrorism while traveling abroad, scientists should remember that performing research in certain parts of the world can entail a degree of danger. Of course, the entire Third World is not a uniform hotbed of unrest and violence, although it is sometimes portrayed otherwise. But it's also true that, in some developing countrie

FUNDING FOR THIRD WORLD RESEARCH The following is a sampling of programs specifically designed to support research in developing countries. U.S. Agency for International Development Program in Science and Technology Cooperation (PSTC) Office of the Science Adviser Room 320 SA-18 320 21st St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20523-1818 (703) 875-4444 National Science Foundation Science in Developing Countries Program Division of International Programs Washington, D.C. 20550 (202) 357-953

UC-Santa Cruz Chemist And Entrepreneur Wins ACS Award For Molecular Modeling Tufts Professor named Editor-In-Chief Of New England Journal Of Medicine Obituary Todd Wipke, professor of chemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and cofounder of Molecular Design Ltd., a leading molecular modeling software company based in San Leandro, Calif., has been selected to receive the 1991 Herman Skolnik Award, presented by the American Chemical Society's Division of Chemical Informat

A three-tiered training program lets scientists and educators experiment with new ways to improve student performance. WASHINGTON--A little-known program in the Department of Education that scientists can tap into to help educate youth has seen its funding increase more than 50 percent for this year and is on the White House list for another boost next year. One of the best-kept secrets in science education, the department's Eisenhower Program for Mathematics and Science Education is part of

Technical and cultural concerns hamper the full-scale launching of an innovative vehicle to relay scientific results Plans to bring science publications into the computer age are making slow but steady progress as individuals, academic associations, and publishers investigate the feasibility and economics of producing journals electronically. These online "publications" of peer-reviewed research articles will be circulated to scientists either directly, through existing computer networks tha

CLARIFICATION In an article in the Jan. 7, 1991, issue of The Scientist ("Couple Lead Quest For New Allergy Drug," page 1), the names of Charles Reed and Allen Kaplan were misspelled. Also, Kaplan should have been identified as past president of the American Academy of Allergy and Immunology.

Volume 5, #5The Scientist March 4, 1991 NSF HOPES TO BOOST ITS SUPPORT FOR INDIVIDUAL GRANTS Author: Jeffrey Mervis Date: March 4, 1991 WASHINGTON--There's more for individual investigators in the 1992 proposed budget for the National Science Foundation. But whether that translates into bigger grants or more awards, should the money still be there in the fall when Congress completes action on the federal budget, is a question that NSF officials expect to be answered individual

Volume 5, #5The Scientist March 4, 1991 MORE FOR SSC: DOES IT MEAN LESS FOR OTHERS? Author: Jeffrey Mervis Date: March 4, 1991 Every federal budget raises anew the question of whether a large increase sought for any one program will come at the expense of other programs. For scientists, the issue is best symbolized this year by the supercollider, for which the administration wants $300 million more on the road to completing the $8.25 billion facility in 1999. Administration of

"... We may safely pronounce that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration." -- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, No. 68. Since the majority of government employees, including the director of the National Institutes of Health, are appointed in some fashion, the establishment of selection criteria is unavoidable. The question is what will the criteria be and how will they be weighed? The need for a director of NIH is apparent on several

A half-century ago, United States Gen. George V. Strong wrote a letter denying Albert Einstein a security clearance to work on the Manhattan Project. The general apparently based his decision on allegations that the physicist was an "extreme radical" and would be a security risk. He was neither of these. Nevertheless, he was at the center of the most striking effort to smuggle ideology into science in U.S. history. Unfortunately, the practice seems to persist. The Bush administration last year

The controversy over administering so-called litmus tests to candidates for science policy posts came to a head in the summer of 1989, during the Bush administration's efforts to fill the still-vacant director's post at the National Institutes of Health. After being asked by a White House personnel officer about his personal views on abortion, William Danforth, Washington University chancellor and potential nominee for the director's post, withdrew from consideration. He also made public his

The war with Iraq has focused our attention sharply on the Gordian knot of the United States' intertwining political, energy, and environmental interests. In dramatic contrast to the billions spent weekly on war, the 101st Congress passed in its closing days, and the president signed, the National Environmental Education Act, authorizing fiscal 1992 funding of merely $12 million--roughly the value of just five M1A1 tanks or 17 Patriot missiles. This bill reveals a remarkable lack of national com

Both Scientific American and science writer Forrest Mims [Notebook: "Cast-Off Creationist Talks Back," The Scientist, Nov. 12, 1990, page 4; Opinion: "The Mims Case: Defending Science Or Persecuting Religion?" Feb. 18, 1991, page 11] may be innocent victims of the shell game being played with the meaning of "evolution" by polemicists on both sides of the creation/evolution pseudo-controversy. The basic problem is that the term "evolution" has evolved into a word of distinct multiple meanings, i

I n a letter to the editor [The Scientist, Feb. 4, 1990, page 14], B.J. Luberoff objected to a key sentence in my Commentary ["We Need To See And Teach Science's Historical Context," The Scientist, Dec. 10, 1990, page 14]: "After all, it is science that has brought the world materials that now cause environmental pollution and made possible the engines of modern war." He states that science brought us only knowledge, not materials. However, Roald Hoffmann has been emphasizing that chemists are

The failure of scientific journals to offer a forum for the dissemination of hypotheses and theories in biomedical science is a serious problem, as argued eloquently by David Horrobin [Opinion: "Discouraging Hypotheses Slows Progress," The Scientist, Nov. 26, 1990, page 13]. It is unfortunate that it is now so difficult to publish suggestive ideas. While Medical Hypotheses is one approach to solving this problem, I would like to encourage editors of other journals to consider another possibili

I read with interest your story "Government To Industry: Join War On Drugs" [The Scientist, Nov. 26, 1990, page 1]. For the last three years, our company, NDA International Inc., has focused upon the development of an anti-addiction agent, Ibogaine, as an interrupter of heroin and cocaine dependency. NDA International has funded research projects in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands. These have all supported our claims for ENDABUSE (Ibogaine HCl). Research performed at Erasmus Uni

E. Dagotto, A. Moreo, T. Barnes, "Hubbard model with one hole: ground-state properties," Physical Review B, 40, 6721-5, 1 October 1989. E. Dagotto, A. Moreo, R. Joynt, S. Bacci, E. Gagliano, "Dynamics of one hole in the t-J model," Physical Review B, 41, 2585-8, 1 February 1990. Elbio Dagotto (Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara): "The theoretical understanding of high-temperature superconductors is currently one of the main challenges in condensed-matte

J.M. Nigro, S.J. Baker, A.C. Preisinger, J.M. Jessup, et al., "Mutations in the p53 gene occur in diverse human tumour types," Nature, 342, 705-8, 7 December 1989. Janice M. Nigro (Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, Baltimore): "`Cancer' represents a broad spectrum of diseases. Although all cancers involve abnormal cellular proliferation, the cell type involved and the biologic behavior of the cancerous tissues vary widely. For many years, investigators have been searching for abnormalities that a

C. Ellis, M. Moran, F. McCormick, T. Pawson, "Phosphorylation of GAP and GAP-associated proteins by transforming and mitogenic tyrosine kinases," Nature, 343, 377-81, 25 January 1990. D.R. Kaplan, D.K. Morrison, G. Wong, F. McCormick, L.T. Williams, "PDGF b-receptor stimulates tyrosine phosphorylation of GAP and association of GAP with a signaling complex," Cell, 61, 125-33, 6 April 1990. Frank McCormick (Cetus Corp., Emeryville, Calif.): "GTPase-activating protein (GAP) is a protein that bin

J.H. Exton, "Signaling through phosphatidylcholine breakdown," The Journal of Biological Chemistry, 265, 1-4, 5 January 1990. John H. Exton (Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tenn.): "This article was designed to alert readers to the existence of what appears to be a novel cellular signaling system involving the breakdown of phosphatidylcholine to phosphatidic acid. It arose out of the realization that the accumulation of phosphatidic acid in stimulated cells could not be e

R.W. Coombs, A.C. Collier, J.-P. Allain, B. Nikora, et al., "Plasma viremia in human immunodeficiency virus infection," The New England Journal of Medicine, 321, 1626-31, 14 December 1989. Robert W. Coombs (University of Washington, Seattle): "Our paper describes the association between the recovery of cell-free infectious HIV (plasma viremia) and the progression of disease in HIV-infected people. The importance of this observation is supported by a companion publication (D.D. Ho, et al., New

Department of Microbiology & Immunology University of Illinois Chicago GTPase mechanisms work for ras family oncogenes, vesicular transport mechanisms, signal transduction, and translational initiation and elongation in prokaryotes, eukaryotic microbes, plants, and animals. Members of the diverse GTPase group of enzymes share sequence homologies, molecular mechanisms, and structural patterns. Crystal structures (from X-ray analysis), molecular genetics, and biochemical studies merge into a

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and University of California San Diego Many synapses between pyramidal neurons in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex are strengthened when a presynaptic terminal is stimulated at the same time that the postsynaptic neuron is depolarized. This form of long-term potentiation (LTP) is mediated by activation of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, a subtype of voltage-sensitive glutamate receptor. A new study in the cerebral cortex has revealed th

Institute of Materials Science University of Connecticut Storrs Progress in materials science depends increasingly on collaboration between those skilled in the synthesis of new molecules and others possessing special measurement or evaluation techniques. A good example, among organic materials, is the family of ladder polymers. They are difficult to synthesize and characterize but possess extended electronic conjugation. Initially, they were prepared as polymers with high-temperature stabi

Department of Chemistry University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA Organic chemistry in crisis? "Not so," says Dieter Seebach, who argues that the fantastic progress made in this field over the last decade is not a sign of maturation, but instead is only a window opening wider on ever-expanding opportunities. D. Seebach, "Organic synthesis--where now?" Angewandte Chemie, International Edition in English, 29, 1320-67, November 1990. (ETH-Zentrum, Zurich) Measurements in the picosecond realm a

Department of Computer Science University of Pittsburgh Pittsburg, PA The Hypertext model of structuring and presenting information leads to the question of how people, as readers, ordinarily classify texts. A new approach (repertory grid analysis) from Personal Construct Theory provides insights. The classes of criteria ("constructs") emerge, dealing with how text is read (such as once, or repeatedly), why it is read (for example, for professional or personal reasons), and what type of inf

University of Iowa biochemist John Donelson's brush with disaster during a 1987 expedition to West Africa is a prime example of the kind of nightmare that can occur when a scientist embarks on a research project in a Third World country. For weeks Donelson had been touring remote areas in Mali and Cameroon, collecting parasite specimens from natives infected with onchocerciasis, a disease prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. Midway through the Cameroon leg of his trip, Donelson ran low on the liqui

To promote the quest for mapping the human genome as an effort, UNESCO and the Third World Academy of Sciences have established the UNESCO/TWAS Fellowship Programme in the Human Genome. The program provides support for investigators from developing countries to spend up to three months in established laboratories doing research or learning new techniques related to the human genome. The researchers should be under the age of 40 and from Eastern Europe or developing countries. The dozen fell

Salaries for most pharmaceutical scientists rose in 1989, reflecting the ongoing development of new drug products and the need to keep pace with inflation, according to the latest annual survey conducted by the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. The 5,350-member association, based in Alexandria, Va., represents a wide range of science professionals who design, test, market, and develop drugs. For scientists working in industry--the bulk of those responding--1989 salaries rose

Scientific Community Mourns The Loss Of Nobel Laureates Bardeen And Luria John Bardeen & Salvador E. Luria John Bardeen, emeritus professor of electrical engineering and physics at the University of Illinois, and the first person to win two Nobel Prizes in the same field, died January 30, at the age of 82, of a heart attack at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He had been visiting Boston to consult with specialists about his health problems. In 1947, Bardeen, along with Wa

Tufts Professor Named Editor-In-Chief Of New England Journal Of Medicine Author: Rebecca Andrews (The Scientist, Vol:5, #5, pg.21, March 4, 1991) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- Jerome P. Kassirer, associate physician-in-chief at the New England Medicine Center in Boston and Sara Murray Jordan Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, has been named editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), effective July 1991. Kassir

Education Is Everybody's Business Bidding War On Advanced Technology A Cloudy Crystal Ball Global change Aims To Top $1 Billion Physicists Tackle Child Care Despite the existence of a Department of Education, at least 16 federal agencies are involved in the teaching of science and math. That's what an interagency Committee on Education and Human Resources found in an inventory of federal efforts as a first step toward a coordinated approach to promote science and math proficiency. The E