May 1997

MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH: Researchers who understand "'nouveau technologies' of biology" are needed to develop allergy treatments, notes Hoechst Marion Roussel’s Martin Wasserman. It happens like clockwork: allergy season. Every spring, more than 20 million Americans sneeze, wheeze, and curse the flowers. But if scientists have their way, things might be different in the years to come. Across the United States, biotech and university labs are unraveling the basic biochemistry behind al

Photo: Youngblood PLAY IT AGAIN: Replication is the key to reducing inadvertent errors or fraudulent results, maintains USC's W. French Anderson. Last fall, Francis Collins, a prolific and widely respected scientist, retracted all or parts of five papers he had coauthored in the preceding two years. Collins, the director of the National Center for Human Genome Research at the National Institutes of Health-which in January became the National Human Genome Research Institute-apparently was the v

EQUITY EQUALS SUCCESS: Universities can help start-up ventures by reducing demands for cash, explains licensing officer Mike Martin. A recently issued report has provided new evidence that federal support of basic research in universities earns significant paybacks in the form of jobs created and taxes paid by companies created to exploit research findings. Many institutions have been convinced that they could successfully stimulate start-up companies without losing their academic purity and c

Sidebars Malaria: A Statistical Index Funding Agencies For Malaria Research Researchers in the field lament what they call gross underfunding, but say a joint approach will help ensure that avaliable monies are well spent. After several years of declining interest in malaria research and decreasing support for such studies, the field is gaining much-needed momentum. Spurred in part by an international conference held in Dakar, Senegal, in January, funding agencies and scientists around the gl

MALARIA: A STATISTICAL INDEX Date: May 12, 1997 Number of clinical cases per year: 300 million to 500 million Number of deaths per year: 1.5 million to 2.7 million, about 4 percent to 5 percent of all fatalities Rank among major infectious diseases in mortality rates: 3rd (after pneumococcal acute respiratory infections and tuberculosis) Occurrence: 90 percent of all cases in sub-Saharan Africa; two-thirds of remaining cases in six countries: India, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Vi

FUNDING AGENCIES FOR MALARIA RESEARCH Date: May 12, 1997 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Contact: Michael Gottlieb or Lee Hall Parasitology and International Programs Branch Solar Building/Room 3A12, Bethesda, Md. 20892-7630 Tel:(301) 496-2544 Fax: (301) 402-0659 E-mail: mg35s@nih.gov (Gottlieb) or bh24q@nih.gov (Hall) Web site: http://www.niaid.nih.gov UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) TDR Communicat

By Eric Albert Email: ealbert@world.std.com ACROSS 1 Reflex and respiratory controller 6 Caries target 9 What's left on a filter paper 10 Element used in lasers 11 Bone present in all land vertebrates 12 Strain of animal 13 Work: pref. 15 Important point in meiosis 17 Mycota 19 Hematite, e.g. 21 Simplest ketone 24 Unsaturated hydroxyl compound 25 It's found in high concentration in red blood cells 27 Unresponsive state 30 CAT, for example 31 Creeping plant stem 32 Reaction causing substance 33

By Eric Albert Email: ealbert@world.std.com ACROSS 1 Reflex and respiratory controller 6 Caries target 9 What's left on a filter paper 10 Element used in lasers 11 Bone present in all land vertebrates 12 Strain of animal 13 Work: pref. 15 Important point in meiosis 17 Mycota 19 Hematite, e.g. 21 Simplest ketone 24 Unsaturated hydroxyl compound 25 It's found in high concentration in red blood cells 27 Unresponsive state 30 CAT, for example 31 Creeping plant stem 32 Reaction causing substance 33

In the article "Scientists Debate RNA's Role At Beginning Of Life On Earth" (R. Lewis, The Scientist, March 31, 1997) on page 14, the following comments should have been attributed to Laura Landweber, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University: "The ability to isolate new ribozymes from random sequences has fueled a new excitement about the possibility of uncovering early pathways of RNA evolution. Ultimately, this will make the world of possible primordi

Editor's Note: Pope John Paul II transmitted the following open letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in October 1996. His letter is a statement of the Catholic Church's current position with respect to biological evolution. It is of interest in the context of discussions concerning creationism, religion, science, and science education. The original references included within the papal letter have been preserved, but the subheadings appearing throughout the text have been edited for spa

Approximately three decades ago, a previous pope proclaimed that Jews were no longer to be held responsible for the death of Christ. A friend of mine, Israel Kaplan, then sent the pope a telegram that read, in toto, "Gee thanks." This is one reaction and will be the sole reaction of many scientists to the current pope's letter concerning biological evolution. There are other perspectives. The pope's recent letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences shows a sophistication in speaking of "theo

I propose a partial reform of the existing scientific publishing process. My proposal aims to improve the techniques for manuscript processing and to stimulate competition among academic journals for exceptional articles. Despite its seeming widespread acceptance, the peer-review system is constantly under fire and criticism. Critics argue that it is excessively costly and time-consuming. The system is vulnerable to misconduct, plagiarism, and breach of confidentiality. Some of the most cited

Regarding the article "Observers Say Fisher Case Highlights Flaws In System" (S. Benowitz, The Scientist, March 31, 1997, page 1): My late wife, Ruth Chessin, was a participant in the breast cancer study, under her former name, Mrs. Louis (Ruth) Marcus. She had the greatest confidence in Bernard Fisher. Part of her distress in reading about his problem may have contributed, in part, to her dying-a victim of lung cancer, whereas earlier she had had breast cancer. I came across your article quit

While Annual Reviews Inc. has been following "HighWire Press' activities with great interest and admiration, none of its 26 review journals has been published by HighWire, contrary to what was reported in the March 31, 1997, issue of The Scientist [C.C. Morton, page 13]. The Annual Review of Sociology Online has been produced in-house, and the Annual Review of Medicine has been produced in cooperation with Techbooks of Fairfax, Va. Both series may be found at http://www.annurev.org. Samuel Gub

I have spent more than 45 years working in a variety of areas in nuclear science and technology, with a number of them in radiation protection. It was a pleasure to read Theodore Rockwell's article (Opinion, The Scientist, March 3, 1997, page 9). It is high time for the scientific community to look at the data supporting the Linear No-Threshold model (of which there are none) and the data supporting a threshold model (of which there are a great number). Also, the concept of "collective dose" d

Studies comparing the advancement of men and women in academic medicine continue to find that, even when credentials and time commitment are equal, a lower percentage of women progress to the top ranks. The two contributing factors that seem to come up most often are that women receive less adequate institutional support for their research and a poorer quality of mentorship. The "glass ceiling" metaphor is not helpful in enlarging our understanding of these complex phenomena. "Cumulative caree

HOT PAPERS IN MEDICINE, RANKED BY CITATIONS RECEIVED IN NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER 1996 Date: May 12, 1997 Rank Paper CitationsNov.-Dec. 1996Total citationsthrough March 1997 1. J. Shepherd et al., "Prevention of coronary heart disease with pravastatin in men with hyper-cholesterolemia," New England Journal of Medicine, 333:1301-7, 1995. 43 211 2 A. Colombo et al., "Intracoronary stenting without anticoagulation accomplished with intravascular ultrasound guidance," Circulation,

HOT PAPERS IN BIOLOGY, RANKED BY CITATIONS RECEIVED IN NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER 1996 Date: May 12, 1997 RankPaperCitationsNov - Dec 1996Total citationsthrough March 1997 1 R.D. Fleischmann et al., "Whole-genome random sequencing and assembly of Haemophilus influenzae Rd," Science, 269:496-512, 1995. 70 459 2 J.D. Thompson, D.G. Higgins, T.J. Gibson, "CLUSTAL W: Improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific ga

Edited by: Thomas W. Durso P.S. Moore, Y. Chang, "Detection of herpesvirus-like DNA sequences in Kaposi's sarcoma in patients with and those without HIV infection," New England Journal of Medicine, 332:1181-5, 1995. (Cited in more than 165 publications as of April 1997) E. Cesarman, Y. Chang, P.S. Moore, J.W. Said, D.M. Knowles, "Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus-like DNA sequences in AIDS-related body-cavity-based lymphomas," N. Engl. J. Med., 332:1186-91, 1995. (Cited in more than 160

Edited by: Thomas W. Durso H. Hsu, J. Xiong, D.V. Goeddel, "The TNF receptor 1-associated protein TRADD signals cell death and NF-b activation," Cell, 81:495-504, 1995. (Cited in more than 150 publications as of April 1997) Comments by Hailing Hsu, Amgen Inc., Thousand Oaks, Calif. Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) is an immunoregulatory cytokine whose activities are signaled main through a cell surface receptor called TNF receptor 1 (TNFR1). Abnormal regulation of TNF has been implicated in inflam

Hot Papers In Medicine, Ranked By Citations Received In November And December 1996 Hot Papers In Biology, Ranked By Citations Received In November And December 1996 Editor's Note: Throughout the year, the newsletter Science Watch, published by the Institute for Scientific Information in Philadelphia, publishes lists of 10 research papers in biology and medicine that are the most cited at the time of publication. These rankings provide a glimpse of current trends in research. The most recent art

Evolution is the backbone of modern biology, but life scientists sometimes face audiences who perceive it as a threat to their religious beliefs. With laws such as North Carolina House Bill 511, proposed in March as an attempt to "ensure that evolution is not taught as fact in North Carolina public schools," scientists are being asked to clarify the distinction between science and religion. Professors at small Southern and Midwestern colleges seem to have the most experience in discussing-and s

Biologists are constantly seeking more sensitive assays to detect the presence of organisms or telltale DNA, RNA, and proteins. Although radioactive tags incorporated into the target itself (or into a complementary strand)-and later detected by Geiger counters or film exposures-have traditionally given good sensitivity, the problems of waste disposal and laboratory monitoring have driven a search for alternative tags that have radioactivity's sensitivity but avoid its hazards. Fluorescent tags-

Citing numerous safety concerns, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on May 1 announced it is dismissing the company that manages its beleaguered Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y. Associated Universities Inc. (AUI), Brookhaven's contractor for 50 years, failed to address the department's "needs and expectations for community relations and environment safety and health stewardship," according to a DOE statement. Such a move is unprecedented for DOE, but Secretary of Energy Fede