October 1999

Editor's Note: This year's winners of the Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards were honored for their achievements at an Oct. 1 luncheon at the Hotel Pierre in New York. Three researchers were recognized for their work on ion channels, two for their development of a novel hypertension medication, and one for a lifetime of contributions to neuroscience. Following are three stories on the winners. More information is available on the Web at www.laskerfoundation.org. Basic Award Recognizes Ion Ch

It was like falling off a cliff," Mark L. Batshaw, George Washington University pediatrics chairman, says of the adverse effect Jesse Gelsinger experienced following gene therapy. On Sept. 14, 18 Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania patients received escalating doses of an adenovirus carrying a gene to restore ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC)--an enzyme that, when missing, renders people unable to break down dietary protein. Gelsinger was in the highest-dose group, which nonetheless receiv

The "EcoSphere" (top) is a small-scale model of the self-sustaining living environment of Earth; in the sealed, airtight globe, materials are used and reused in an endless cycle. Karen Nelson (bottom), a microbiologist from Jamaica, is filmed in her own environment for the series. Historically, an uneasy alliance has existed between science and television. The uneasiness is partially due to an age-old belief that communicating science to the lay public is not necessary, to some degree impossible

It was the first weekend in September, and all was not right at the Washington County fairgrounds, 35 miles north of Albany, N.Y. Usually the site of a well-attended arts and crafts show, the fairgrounds was a ghost town. The previous weekend, a convergence of unusual events at the annual county fair created a health nightmare that would take the lives of a 3-year-old and a 79-year-old and sicken more than 1,000. But painful lessons learned may help prevent future outbreaks of infection by Esche

Neuroscientists from the United States and Cuba gathered at the Hotel Nacional in Havana Oct. 19-23 and took a significant step toward enhancing scientific dialogue between the two countries. Their meeting featured 25 American speakers and a similar number of Cuban presenters, as well as representatives of U.S. pharmaceutical companies, Cuban students, and politicians from both nations. The purpose of the Havana gathering, organized as a satellite conference to the Society for Neuroscience

After six years and nearly $5 billion in budgetary increases, Harold Varmus announced Oct. 7 that he is leaving the National Institutes of Health to head the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. When Varmus took on the NIH directorship in 1993, the agency posted a budget of $11 billion. The budget for fiscal year 1999 soared to $15.6 billion. Scientists on the NIH campus also have praised Varmus for reinvigorating what was once a flagging institution.1 "Harold Varmus has done ever

D.P. King, Y.L. Zhao, A.M. Sangoram, L.D. Wilsbacher, M. Tanaka, M.P. Antoch, T.D.L. Steeves, M.H. Vitaterna, J.M. Kornhauser, P.L. Lowrey, F.W. Turek, J.S. Takahashi, "Positional cloning of the mouse circadian Clock gene," Cell, 89:641-53, May 16, 1997. (Cited in more than 160 papers since publication) Comments by Joseph S. Takahashi, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and professor of neurobiology and physiology at Northwestern University This paper proved to be as significant for

N. Rampino, H. Yamamoto, Y. Ionov, Y. Li, H. Sawai, J.C. Reed, M. Perucho, "Somatic frameshift mutations in the BAX gene in colon cancers of the microsatellite mutator phenotype," Science, 275:967-9, Feb. 14, 1997. (Cited in more than 218 papers since publication) Comments by Manuel Perucho, director of the oncogene and tumor suppressor gene program at the Burnham Institute, La Jolla, Calif., and Nicholas Rampino, associate professor at the Burnham Institute Manuel Perucho Though healthy cells d

Automated Nucleic Acid Synthesizers Most of today's biological and biomedical laboratories simply could not function without ready access to user-specified oligonucleotides. Many researchers rely on core services or external vendors for their custom nucleotide needs. Other laboratories or departments choose to invest in oligonucleotide synthesizers for their exclusive use. Read on for a review of the basics of solid-phase oligonucleotide synthesis and a summary of some of the commercially availa

Table of Molecular Biology Services Product Tables Courtesy of Invitrogen Many of today's brightest minds find themselves competing with their peers for limited resources in crowded labs. Ingenious experiments may end up on the back burner because another researcher has already booked the instrument through the end of the month or the instrument is awaiting repairs. Increasingly, scientists have come to rely on the convenience of prepared products and contract services.1 It began gradually wit