May 1999

Prions have been a tough sell. Against a backdrop of the "DNA to RNA to protein" credo, the idea that the same amino acid sequence could exist in multiple forms, both normal and deranged, seemed like heresy. But since Stanley Prusiner, a professor of neurology, virology, and biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), named the agent that causes the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) "proteinaceous infectious particles" in 1982,1 evidence has been steadily

As an issue on the cusp of science and social policy, the value of marijuana in medicine refuses to go away. For several years, researchers wishing to undertake clinical trials of marijuana's medical effects on humans have claimed that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are stonewalling by insisting that the protocols are unacceptable. Those organizations complain that several pr

Edited by: Steve Bunk Arnold S. RelmanAndrew Weil Integrative medicine, the combining of alternative and conventional medical methods, was the subject of a debate held recently at the University of Arizona (UA) College of Medicine. The opponents were Arnold S. Relman, editor-in-chief emeritus of the New England Journal of Medicine and professor emeritus of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Andrew Weil, director of the UA program in integrative medicine and best-selli

Studies are slowly restarting at the Veterans Administration Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (VAGLAHS) after an unprecedented suspension of research last March 26.1 Investigators, meanwhile, are dealing with the fallout, and many are waiting to learn the fates of their protocols. They're also struggling still to understand why such drastic action was taken because of administrative failures. "We're all ... amazed this could happen, and I think all of us feel we're being blamed for what is

Biochemist John Carson uses The Virtual Cell to compare experimental and simulation results. Biologists are generating a vast amount of data on the molecular events that occur in the cell. Since a computer might the best tool for researchers to integrate all the information and sort out the complexities of a typical biological process, the next logical step would be to develop appropriate software for the job. A team at the University of Connecticut (UConn) Health Center in Farmington is attemp

The home gardening season is beginning in Northern California, and with it, a public-service campaign that asks, "Have you oversprayed your garden?" The runoff of agricultural chemicals--especially fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides--directly into San Francisco Bay poses a perennial problem. What is not so obvious is that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is obstructing an innovative and environmentally friendly solution. The EPA's decision to introduce Draconian regulation of an e

Mention the National Institutes of Health to any science graduate student and the name conjures up images of top-notch researchers in white lab coats, doing cutting-edge science with lots of money to spend but very little space. Moreover, the NIH always seemed to me to be "Science Central" for the United States, because NIH grants support research nationwide, and because every prominent faculty member of my graduate school program ran off to attend study sections. The rhetorical question that s

Edited by: Jennifer Fisher Wilson Courtesy of John Kuriyan W.Q. Xu, S.C. Harrison, M.J. Eck, "Three-dimensional structure of the tyrosine kinase c-Src," Nature, 385:595-602, Feb. 13, 1997. (Cited in more than 185 papers since publication) Comments by Michael J. Eck, assistant professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, and department of cancer biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute F. Sicheri, I. Moarefi, J. Kuriyan, "Crystal structure of the Src fam

if (n == null) The Scientist - Opportunities Abound in Pharmacogenomics The Scientist 13[10]:16, May. 10, 1999 Profession Opportunities Abound in Pharmacogenomics By James Kling Graphic: Leza Berardone "Have it your way!" proclaim the restaurant chain's ads. What is arguably true for patrons of the fast-food industry is likely inevitable for patients seeking therapy for their illnesses. Pharmacogenomics--the application of genotyping to patient

Aga2-fusion protein binding to yeast cell by Aga1. Image provided by Invitrogen. Phage display systems, reviewed in a recent issue of The Scientist,1 have proven enormously useful for the detection of protein-ligand interactions, as well as for the selection of variants with altered binding characteristics. However, limiting the utility of phage display systems are so-called expression biases against certain eukaryotic proteins, as well as the distinctly different protein processing mechanisms

Packard BioScience Company has just lowered the price on its already competitively priced Cyclone™ Storage Phosphor System. The Cyclone was the star product of Packard's business in 1998 and generated enough sales volume that the company has been able to reduce the price from $18,000 to $15,000. The Cyclone was created for smaller labs that are forced to use X-ray film or must share imaging facilities with other departments. However, product manager Brian Ayling insists that the Cyclone

Genomic Solutions' ProGest Digestion Station Proteomics is just beginning to reach its potential as a major research tool. Although genomics has dominated the front pages of scientific journals and mainstream media outlets, researchers are quietly discussing the limitations of DNA and molecular biology in describing the behavior of proteins. Keith Ashman, senior research scientist at EMBL in Germany, believes that DNA-based research tools are going to naturally evolve into proteomics. "Genomic

In the article "Gene analyses--sunny side up! Chemiluminescent detection systems for reporter gene assays" (D. Wilkinson, The Scientist, 13[7]:18-20, March 29,1999), the explanation for how CoA transforms light production by firefly luciferase from a flash to a continuous glow-type pattern is incorrect. CoA is thought to work by binding to firefly luciferase and causing stimulatory conformational changes that speed up the enzyme's ability to release the product oxyluciferin.1 S.R. Ford, L.M.

INTRAFLAGELLAR TRANSPORT Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have for the first time seen a motor protein moving cargo during intracellular transport in a living organism. "This provides a potentially very exciting assay for studying motor proteins generally in vivo," says Jonathan M. Scholey, senior author of the study published recently in Nature (J.T. Orozco et al., "Movement of motor and cargo along cilia," Nature, 398:674, April 22, 1999). Using fluorescence microscopy, Sch