March 1995

While the most quoted dissenter says the virus plays no part, there is a broad diversity of opinion in the scientific community on its function. When the journal Science ran an eight-page special report in December, it got a lot of attention which, after all, is what special reports are intended for. But this one, devoted to a single researcher, was highly unusual. Called "The Duesberg Phenomenon," it presented University of California, Berkeley, retrovirologist Peter Duesberg's unorthodox vie

Stock options and an openness to independent personalities are increasing the appeal of small firms for creative, ambitious scientists. The ability of small science-based companies to go head-to- head with much larger firms in attracting top scientific talent is growing, according to researchers and human resources analysts. The traditional recruiting advantages of big companies higher salaries and a greater degree of job security have been effectively offset in recent years by major shifts in

Daunting challenges, including implementation, assessment, and maintaining public support, lie ahead for NRC's K-12 guidelines Educators and scientists say they are encouraged by the latest version of the National Research Council's science education standards, an effort aimed at defining what United States K-12 students should know about science. The previous draft had been criticized for being at once too specific and inflexible on scientific subject matter and too vague about the practice o

For the third time in its 38-year history, the Gairdner Foundation of Willowdale, Ontario, Canada, has selected a scientist who is already a Nobel laureate to receive one of its prestigious International Awards. Traditionally, this award has been considered a "Nobel predictor," with 43 out of 238 honorees having gone on to win the coveted prize. Prior to this year's announcement, Frederick Sanger and H. Gobind Khorana, who won their Nobels in 1958 and 1968, respectively, were the only scientist

Life scientists from a wide array of disciplines, whose paths might not normally cross, will come together in Atlanta for Experimental Biology '95 (EB '95) from Sunday, April 9 through Thursday, April 13. The 15,000 biomedical researchers expected to attend will get a chance to meet one another, share information, and plan future research activities while attending scores of technical sessions on such topics as "Protein Lipidation in Cellular Signaling" and "Degeneration and Regeneration of the

Some chemists getting ready to attend the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), to take place in Anaheim, Calif., April 2-6, undoubtedly are preoccupied by personal concerns: According to a recently released ACS survey, salary increases for those working in the field during the 12-month period that ended March 1, 1994, were the lowest in a decade. And those in a position to receive these meager pay raises are the lucky ones--in the year studied, the survey found, chemistry unem

Research psychologist Catherine D. Gaddy has been appointed executive director of the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology (CPST) in Washington, D.C. Gaddy was associate director of the office of program consultation and accreditation for the American Psychological Association (APA) in Washington before assuming her new post on March 1. She succeeds Betty M. Vetter, who directed the organization for 30 years, until she died of lung cancer in November (The Scientist, Jan. 9, 199

Molecular geneticist Pamela Larsen, an assistant professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California, is the first researcher to hold the Paul F. Glenn Foundation Chair in Cellular and Molecular Gerontology. She received the appointment in February, when the foundation announced the $1.5 million endowment to establish the chair at USC's Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center. In what USC officials maintain is a unique arrangement, the chair is designated to pass from one promising

Editor's Note: Since 1987, Peter Duesberg, a University of California, Berkeley, retrovirologist, has been contending that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. Eight years after he first put forth his revolutionary hypothesis, dissenters from the once-gospel theory that HIV alone is the culprit have become more visible, and articles about Duesberg's hypothesis have appeared sporadically in the scientific and popular press (see story on page 1). Duesberg's assessment of the role of HIV, however, remai

In the debate over HIV as the sole "cause" of AIDS, I have come to the conclusion that, in addition to HIV, there are many other influences playing upon the immune system of patients. I believe that it is essential that we avoid being doctrinaire on the basis of evidence that is still incomplete. My views on these matters have been tempered by the fact that, as shown by my colleagues Robert F. Garry at Tulane University, Marlys H. Witte at the University of Arizona, and others (R.F. Garry, M.H.

Eugenie Scott believes science and religion can be compatible--with some compromises (Opinion, The Scientist, Jan. 9, 1995, page 12). John Maddox, the editor of Nature, recently wrote, ". . . many professional scientists are deeply religious, often justifying their belief on the grounds that 'science cannot know everything.'. . . it may not be long before the practice of religion must be regarded as anti- science" (Nature, 368:185, 1994). As a practitioner of Christianity and science, I prefer

To a scientist such as myself, who spent 40 years in pharmaceutical research and saw some 20 new drugs reach the market, it is shocking that a physician like Kenneth Stoller (The Scientist, Sept. 5, 1994, page 12) would have any doubts about the need for experimental animals in new drug research and development. Is he saying that he would administer a new drug to a human with no preclinical experience in animals? To himself, his family, his patients? Would he give a new drug to a human that sho

Research in the neurosciences is in the midst of a particularly exciting period of discovery, says Zach Hall, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), as scientists continue to learn more about the basic biology of such disorders as stroke, epilepsy, and degenerative conditions like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's diseases. Hall's institute has supported and participated in many of these landmark studies. Now the field stands poised on the brin

Edited by: Neeraja Sankaran G. Pantaleo, C. Graziosi, J.M. Demarest, L. Butini, M. Montroni, C.H. Fox, J.M. Orenstein, D.P. Kotler, A.S. Fauci, "HIV infection is active and progressive in lymphoid tissue during the clinically latent stage of disease," Nature, 362:355-8, 1993. (Cited in 293 publications through January 1995) J. Embretson, M. Zupancic, J.L. Ribas, A. Burke, P. Racz, K. Tenner-Racz, A.T. Haase, "Massive covert infection of helper T lymphocytes and macrophages by HIV during incuba

Imagine this scenario. You sit at your computer to study the structure of a crucial protein--one that you've painstakingly cloned, produced in a protein-expression system, and purified after many hours in the laboratory. The crystallography laboratory that you collaborate with produced crystals of your protein weeks ago. They collected X-ray diffraction data and plugged it into their workstation-based molecular-modeling system, coming up with a three-dimensional structure of your protein showin

National Institutes of Health administrators are unhappy once again--with self-styled fraud investigators Walter Stewart and Ned Feder, this time for alleged misuse of NIH stationery. It appears the infraction is that, under NIH letterhead on January 23, the two men forwarded a copy of an as-yet-unreleased congressional inquiry into alleged scientific misconduct by HIV researcher Robert C. Gallo of the National Cancer Institute to Kenneth Ryan, chairman of the federal Commission on Research Int