Issue | November 1998 | November 1998 | The Scientist Magazine®

News

NIH, NSF Post Biggest Gains In FY 1999 Federal Budget

Although this year's research and development budget may be the biggest ever, it may also be the hardest to decipher. About half of the FY1999 spending bills reside in a 40-pound, 4,000-page document that has sent legislative staffers and departmental budget staff members scrambling to make sense of the hundreds of what some call earmarks and others call pork. Normally, the federal budget coalesces from 13 separate bills. But this year, election-year political wrangling between President Bill

Traitors or Trailblazers? Scientists Pursue """"Alternative"""" Careers

SERENDIPITY: Carol Yoon, a freelance writer in Bellingham, Wash., was convinced she would hate science journalism until she landed a fellowship that placed her at the Portland Oregonian for a summer. Carol Yoon, a freelance writer in Bellingham, Wash., was convinced she would hate science journalism until she landed a fellowship that placed her at the Portland Oregonian for a summer. "I did it on a lark," she says. Discovering that she enjoyed writing about science, Yoon remarks, was "a t

Clinical Trials Debate Continues: Asian American women want their fair share of clinical trials--but what is fair?

IMPROVEMENT ON THE WAY: NAWHO President Mary Chung says that better education within the Asian American community will incease participation of Asian American women in clinical trials. Asian Americans comprise approximately 4 percent of the U.S. population, and they now account for 4 percent of the women enrolled in U.S. National Institutes of Health-sponsored clinical trials. This satisfies the spirit of the NIH Guidelines on the Inclusion of Women and Minorities as Subjects in Clinical Resea

Gender-Based Biology Courses Take Diverse Forms

Introductory general biology courses and textbooks cover a vast amount of material. They tend to stress the similarities of life at the molecular and cellular levels, with Homo sapiens considered but one of many species. For students wishing to learn specifically about the female body, or about differences between the sexes, these courses aren't usually appropriate. ANALOGY: Like women's absence in past medical tests and clinical trials, many problems have not been addressed in biology, anat

Cartoon

"As an anthropologist, I've been to tropic jungles and frozen tundras. I've seen primitive cultures and sophisticated societies. But this is the only place where I've been unable to figure out what's going on."

Opinion

Alliances Through Networking: It Is Not Rocket Science

I was in the middle of a hectic day when a friend called and asked if I would give a talk the next day at a luncheon to be attended by 500 people in a major city. "My keynoter has fallen seriously ill," said my good friend. "Sorry for the very short notice, but I know if anyone can pull this off, it's got to be you." Letting that flattery go to my head at the speed of light, I accepted the challenge. Doing so did several things for me: my "war chest" of chits got a bit larger; I was helping a

Letter

Endocrine Disruptors

Paul Smaglik and the four scientists he quotes in the Sept. 14 issue (P. Smaglik, The Scientist, 12[18]:1, Sept. 14, 1998) appear quite convinced that there are some, possibly many, chemicals in the environment that are "endocrine disruptors" and cause various adverse effects. They seem concerned only that the EPA program may not find all of these harmful products or mixtures. Many of the scientists I know agree that DES causes significant pathology as an "endocrine disruptor," and exposur

Commentary

Gender-Based Biology

The concept of "gender-based biology" can be traced to the late 1980s, during the formative days of the Society for the Advancement of Women's Health Research. In a discussion with the then president of the Institute of Medicine, Samuel Thier, about the omission of women from the design of clinical trials, Thier commented that there were real gender issues. He also offered that researchers needed to take advantage of the information the exploration of those differences could provide. The challe

Hot Paper

Signal Transduction

T. Fernandes-Alnemri, R.C. Armstrong, J. Krees, S.M. Srinivasula, L. Wang, F. Bullrich, L.C. Fritz, J.A. Trapani, K.J. Tomaselli, G. Litwack, E.S. Alnemri, "In vitro activation of CPP32 and Mch3 by Mch4, a novel human apoptotic cysteine protease containing two FADD-like domains," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 93:7464-9, 1996. (Cited in more than 185 papers since publication) Comments by Emad S. Alnemri, associate professor and deputy director of the Center for Apoptosis Rese

Hepatitis

K. Masuko, T. Mitsui, K. Iwano, C. Yamazaki, K. Okuda, T. Meguro, N. Murayama, T. Inoue, F. Tsuda, H. Okamoto, Y. Miyakawa, M. Mayumi, "Infection with hepatitis GB virus C in patients on maintenance hemodialysis," New England Journal of Medicine, 334:1485-90, 1996. (Cited in more than 235 papers since publication) Comments by Kazuo Masuko, director and chief of physicians at Masuko Memorial Hospital in Aichi-Ken, Japan With the advent of AIDS and the increased attention to bloodborne pathogen

Profession

Universities Tailor Management Degrees to Science

Dilbert reprinted by permission of United Feature Syndicate Inc. Are you a bench scientist looking for promotion or a change of pace? Highly coveted upper-management positions don't always fall into the laps of the most technically competent people in the company. Unfortunately, everything that scientists learn about the natural world doesn't necessarily prepare them for the ins and outs of business. Often, the only lesson that scientists carry into business from science is the Darwinian princi

Technology

Cells on the Move

With the Cell Sedimentation Manifold from Creative Scientific Methods, Inc., migration assays are convenient and reproducible Studies of cell migration can reveal much in the study of cancer, arteriosclerosis, arthritis, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory conditions, and wound healing. Because of the many roles cell migration plays in pathological processes, any new technology for use in migration assays promises to have a significant impact on biomedical research. Development of the Cell Sedime

Harvest of Hope

Photosynthetic Harvest Inc. Turns Plants Into Chemical Factories With Its New Rhizosecretion™ Process There was once a controversial radio talk-show host in San Diego, later turned news anchor, who used to give lectures about how environmentalists had misunderstood how nature works. He would begin his lectures with a story to illustrate his point. One billion years ago, before humankind roamed the earth, life flourished and had evolved rapidly into multifarious communities of organisms.

Microscopy on the Fly

CompuCyte's Laser Scanning Cytometer Brings Scanning Capabilities to Fluorescence Microscopy Anyone who has ever got a headache from staring into a microscope for an extended period to count fluorescently labeled cells will appreciate the utility of the Laser Scanning Cytometer LSC® rom CompuCyte. As a slide-based laser scanning instrument that offers the analytical and quantitative features of a flow cytometer, the LSC pioneers a new dimension in fluorescence microscopy. The LSC will automa

Technology Profile

Cookbook For Eukaryotic Protein Expression: Yeast, Insect, and Plant Expression Systems

Date: November 9, 1998Baculovirus Expression Vectors In the recent past, efforts to elucidate the relationship between protein structure and biological function have intensified. Of particular interest is an understanding of the elements of sequence and structure that mediate specific functions. Often the protein of interest is in low abundance in its natural source and can be difficult to purify and/or unstable--subject to proteolytic cleavage or unfolding/non specific refolding during exhaust

Breaking Up Isn't Hard To Do: A cacophony of sonicators, cell bombs, and grinders

Date: November 9, 1998Comparison of Disruptors With names such as cell crushers, grinders, disintegrators, and pulverizers dominating the field, the business of cell disruption is not for the faint of heart. Some of the functions of these machines are so twisted and diabolical that they would make the Marquis de Sade wince. These devices do the dirty work of the research world, ripping and tearing at the fabric of plants and animal tissues with extreme prejudice to both forms of life. Many scie

Notebook

Courtesy of Shands HealthCare Marketing and Public Affairs SIMULATED PATIENT Facilities at the University of Florida's new $60 million brain institute include a computer-driven patient simulator. One of the simulator's inventors, Michael Good (center), UF associate professor of anesthesiology, directs a team of nurses and paramedics in an emergency room drill using the simulator. BRAIN TRUST A new $60-million facility makes the University of Florida in Gainesville a national nerve center for