Notebook

OVERSATURATED: "There are more funded projects than we can absorb," says HGS's William Haseltine. Earlier this month, Human Genome Sciences Inc. (HGS), a biotech firm in Rockville, Md., and Philadelphia-based pharmaceutical giant SmithKline Beecham widened their almost three-year-old exclusive agreement to include more companies in their bioprospecting of the human genome. In research and marketing deals totaling more than $90 million over the next five years, Schering Plough Corp. of Madison, N.J., and France's third-largest drug company, Synthnélabo, will pay for access to HGS's database of human gene sequences for developing biomedical products. A $50 million deal with the German firm Merck KGaA (which is not affiliated with the Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based firm Merck and Co. Inc.) is expected to be finalized soon. In 1995, HGS and SmithKline first opened up their collaboration to include Japan's largest drug company, Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. "There are more funded projects than we can absorb," remarks William A. Haseltine, HGS's chairman and CEO. "These are projects that come with full-length genes, purified proteins, biological information, and medical utility." In October 1994, HGS and SmithKline made their database available-in exchange for certain rights-to university researchers. In the past, the HGS genomic database has been compared with the public-domain database being developed by Merck and Co. Inc. and Washington University (WU) (F. Hoke, The Scientist, Dec. 12, 1994, page 1), but Haseltine maintains that the announcement has "absolutely nothing to do" with the Merck-WU effort. With regard to pharmaceutical companies' use of human genomic databases, Haseltine states, "I would say the pharmaceutical companies have voted with their pocketbooks. They have decided either to pay for access to the InCyte [Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif.] database [of human genome sequences] or pay to enter into a collaboration with HGS and SmithKline." Other companies, such as Sequana Therapeutics Inc. in La Jolla, Calif., have adopted the scaled-down strategy of sequencing a smaller set of human genes in search of drugs and therapies. Date: July 22, 1996 Dean E. Eastman sees his new job as an intriguing way to spend the next decade of his professional life. After a 33-year career with IBM Corp. of Armonk, N.Y., as both a researcher and an executive, the 56-year-old Eastman last week took over as director of Argonne National Laboratory, just outside Chicago. He tells The Scientist his decision to leave IBM was driven by a desire to find something that "would be interesting for the next 10 years. . . . At this stage of life I thought this would be an interesting third career." Argonne is managed by the University of Chicago for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). "I know it pretty well," notes Eastman, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. "It affords an opportunity to make a contribution to science policy and technology policy, in the areas of energy and environment and basic science." The holder of a doctorate and master's and bachelor's degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he says he has no specific plans for Argonne. "My first task is to spend a lot of time listening to [those working on] the large array of programs and projects they have going on." Those projects, however, may shrink in numbers and scope, with the DOE laboratory system facing budgetary constraints and pressures to clarify missions. Eastman, most recently the vice president of technical strategy and development reengineering with the IBM Server Group, replaces Alan Schriesheim, who steps down after serving a record 12 years as director. Date: July 22, 1996 HONORED: Geneticist mario Capecchi will receive the Kyoto Prize for basic scienc. For the first time in the 12-year history of the Kyoto Prize, its three recipients are all from the United States. The annual Kyoto Prizes were established in 1984 by the Inamori Foundation of Japan to recognize people who have made significant contributions to the betterment of humanity. Mario Capecchi, a professor of human genetics at the University of Utah School of Medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, will receive the prize in the basic science category. Capecchi, 59, is a pioneer in the field of gene targeting, a technology that allows researchers to engineer with pinpoint accuracy genetic mutations in mice. The other winners are Donald Ervin Knuth, a professor of computer sciences, emeritus, at Stanford University (in the advanced technology category) and Willard Van Orman Quine, a professor of philosophy, emeritus, at Harvard University (in the creative arts and moral sciences category). Each will be awarded a diploma, a gold Kyoto Prize medal, and a cash gift of 50 million yen (about $460,000) at a ceremony in Kyoto in November. When asked what he is likely to do with his hefty cash prize, Capecchi remarks, "I know where some of it will go: I have a daughter, and it will probably go to her college fund." Echoing the plight of many parents, he adds, "By the time she's ready to go, who knows what the price will be?" Date: July 22, 1996 AUTHOR, AUTHOR: Cornell's Paul Sherman hopes his books on naked mole-rats wil help interest kids in science. Biologist Paul Sherman likes to tell people about his passion: naked mole-rats. He likes it so much that he coauthored two books for children and young adults on the little critters, which are nearly completely hairless, give birth and nurse their young like mammals, and have a body temperature that changes with the environment, as do reptiles. Sherman, a professor of animal behavior at Cornell University, studies naked mole-rat behavior and biology. To him, writing kids' books about these odd-looking, social creatures that spend nearly their entire lives in burrows in eastern Africa was a natural way to appeal to young people's curiosity and perhaps interest them in pursuing science careers. While Naked Mole-Rats (Minneapolis, Carolrhoda Books, 1996) is aimed at a young audience, The Naked Mole-Rat Mystery: Scientific Sleuths at Work (Minneapolis, Lerner Publications, 1996) is geared toward high school students. "It's the first time I ever ventured into this venue," says Sherman, who comments that the idea for the books grew out of casual conversations with coauthor Gail Jarrow, an Ithaca, N.Y., writer of children's books who is a neighbor. "My interest was to use these unusual animals to attract readers to the books and then show them the excitement of studying animal behavior, and why the questions I ask as a scientist might be of interest to them as citizens," he explains. "The mystery [book] is really a series of mysteries regarding the social behavior of the mole-rat, the way the animal looks and acts," he notes. "All of these are mysteries to the behavioral scientist, which can be solved through observation and investigation." In the last few years, he observes, mole-rats have become all the rage in several nationwide zoos, particularly in Philadelphia, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. Date: July 22, 1996 Building on last month's successful first World Skeptics Congress (Notebook, The Scientist, July 8, 1996, page 30), the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and its sister organization, the Council for Secular Humanism, have revamped their Center for Inquiry Institute and launched a new program aimed at educating individuals in the finer art of skepticism. The three-year program, Humanistic Studies and Science and the Paranormal, will hold its first official seminar in Amherst, N.Y. (where all three institutions are based), August 6-10. Students will be offered a course titled "Introduction to Critical Thinking," and a choice of workshops, either "Investigative Tactics and Techniques" or "Humanist Ceremonies." By offering longer, more in-depth courses in a 30-credit, nonaccredited certificate program, organizers hope that the program is taking a step toward gaining degree-granting status, explains Tom Flynn, director of the Center for Inquiry, which is the joint headquarters for CSICOP and the council. He adds: "There's a great deal of public interest in these humanistic areas, and we expect that a number of retirees will participate, as well as some who simply take vacation time." Flynn notes that the center is not the first to offer such a program. The Humanist Institute in New York City has offered a nonaccredited certificate for eight years in "religious humanist" training. CSICOP is an international organization that promotes critical examination of the paranormal and fringe-science. The council focuses on, according to organization material, "religious dissent and unbelief." Date: July 22, 1996 Burroughs Wellcome Fund, a private foundation located in Durham, N.C., recently announced three competitive awards for biomedical scientists. The two-year-old 1997 Career Awards in the Biomedical Sciences program provides up to six years of support for early-career researchers from the United States and Canada. This year's award specifically includes support for reproductive science, an area Burroughs Wellcome has deemed particularly underfunded, according to officials. At least 13 Career Awards are expected to be made in various biomedical disciplines this year; applications are due October 1. The foundation also sponsors two other programs for U.S. scientists who wish to conduct research abroad. Hitchings-Elion Fellowships, named for 1988 Nobel laureates George H. Hitchings and Gertrude B. Elion, fund two years of study at the postdoctoral level in the United Kingdom or Ireland and one year in the U.S. Wellcome Research Travel Grants enable more-established U.S. researchers to visit their British or Irish colleagues for two weeks to six months. This grant is designed for researchers to exchange information or acquire new skills needed for either basic research or medical history projects. The deadline for the Hitchings-Elion and Travel awards is September 3. For more information, contact Rolly Simpson, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, 4709 Creekstone Dr., Suite 100, Durham, N.C.; (919) 991-5110. Fax: (919) 941-5884. E-mail: mailback@bwfund.org. Type "menu" on the subject line for a list of programs. The World Wide Web address is http://www.bwfund.org/bwfund. Date: July 22, 1996 While it may not be the makings of a B-grade horror flick, the giant microbe discovered by Louisiana State University (LSU) researcher John M. Larkin in the Gulf of Mexico could provide insight into primitive life forms. The microbe-a member of the tube-shaped Beggiatoa family, which grows in multicellular filaments that are easily seen with the naked eye-is the world's largest documented bacterium, according to Larkin, a professor of microbiology and associate dean of the LSU graduate school. "We've seen [Beggiatoa] up to two inches long," he says. "The fact that it's big is fun, but there really are other things that make it an important organism in understanding the origin of life." The giant Beggiatoa was found in a large microbial mat on the Gulf floor. Underneath the mats were tubes of the mineral pyrite, or fool's gold, in a size consistent with that of the organisms above. Larkin believes the pyrite tubes are the result of a reaction that occurred when the microbial mat was covered with ocean sediment. "When it was covered, to get energy, it oxidized the sulfur into hydrogen sulfide." This reacted with ferrous sulfide in the sediment; and as the organism pushed upward in search of oxygen, vertical tubes of pyrite formed. While this reaction has been demonstrated in experiments at temperatures higher than 100!C, Larkin contends that the monster microbe shows that a living organism can carry out the reaction enzymatically at much lower, life-supporting temperatures.

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