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Merck and Co. Inc., the pharmaceutical giant based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., announced on July 11 that it will fund a $20 million program to support African American science students. The program, to be administered by the Fairfax, Va.-based College Fund/United Negro College Fund (UNCF)--a consortium of 41 private, historically black colleges and universities will be called the Merck~UNCF Science Initiative. According to UNCF president and former Pennsylvania congressman William H. Gray III, the program represents the largest single corporate gift ever received by the fund. Annually for the next 10 years, the program will provide fellowships, internships, and other types of support to African American science students at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels. A total of 37 fellowships will be given annually: 15 awards of up to $15,000 to undergraduates, 12 awards of up to $25,000 to graduate students, and 10 awards of up to $40,000 to postdocs. Also to be awarded are two annual summer internships of $5,000 each for undergrads. In addition, the plan contains a provision for institutional support via grants to the science departments of fellowship recipients' schools, as well as $2 million in funding for a Merck Science Center of Excellence at a UNCF member institution. Applications will be distributed in the early fall, with selections to be made in mid-March of the following year. For information, contact UNCF at 8260 Willow Oaks Corporate Dr., P.O. Box 10444, Fairfax, Va. 22031; (703) 205-3561. As fans of the national pastime--or those few who remain loyal despite the lack of a binding labor agreement--were honoring this year's inductees in the Baseball Hall of Fame, seven scientists and engineers last week were being feted at a ceremony celebrating their inclusion in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The festivities were enhanced by the July 23 grand opening of Inventure Place, an Akron, Ohio, facility dedicated to inventors and the United States patent system. The $22 million building--which, according to hall of fame officials, was completed on time and on budget and has been totally paid for--is the new home of the hall of fame as well as interactive exhibits, inventors' workshops, and business and educational outreach programs. The hall of fame was created in 1973 by the National Council of Patent Law Associations in cooperation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Seven people were inducted this year, bringing the total to 120. The 1995 inductees are: Forrest Bird, president of Bird Air Lodge Inc. in Sandpoint, Ohio, who invented medical respirators designed to control oxygen flow in patients with respiratory or cardiac illnesses; Joseph H. Burckhalter, retired professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Michigan and Robert J. Seiwald, retired professor of organic chemistry at the University of San Francisco, honored for codeveloping fluorescent dyes used in diagnosis of infectious disease; Stephanie Kwolek, retired chemist at DuPont Co.'s Buffalo, N.Y., site, who earned the research patents that led to the development of Kevlar fiber, used in ballistic armor and spacecraft construction; Waldo Semon, a retired research scientist at B.F. Goodrich Co. in Akron, who holds 116 patents in the fields of rubber and plastics; the late John C. Sheehan, a professor of organic chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who discovered a way to chemically synthesize penicillin; and the late William Stanley, founder of Pittsfield, Mass.-based Stanley Electric Manufacturing Co., who developed the electric transformer. When Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays in November 1895, his finding almost immediately led to applications in medicine, science, and industry. One hundred years later, X-rays are still going strong, and two national societies are joining forces to commemorate Roentgen's find. The Health Physics Society, headquartered in McLean, Va., and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine in College Park, Md., are holding their first-ever joint meeting in Boston this week. The meeting will cover a variety of X-ray-related topics, such as occupational and environmental radiation protection; medical physics; radiation regulations; environmental monitoring; and human-interest issues pertaining to radiation, such as past human radiation experiments. The meeting will also host exhibitions, including a collection of historical X-ray instrumentation and artifacts normally on display in Oak Ridge, Tenn. An additional feature of the gathering is "X is for X-ray," an exhibit on the history of radiological sciences. An eclectic group of scientists from the veterinary and human health communities make up the recently announced scientific advisory board of the American Kennel Club (AKC) Canine Health Foundation. The foundation was established last December, with an initial endowment of $1 million, to fund canine health research. According to AKC, the new committee's duties will include establishing a system for reviewing grant applications and "recommend programs, research, and collaboration for advancing the body of health knowledge concerning dogs." The new board members are: Gustavo Aguirre, Caspary Professor of Ophthalmology, Baker Institute/College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University; George J. Brewer; professor of human genetics and internal medicine, University of Michigan; Linda C. Cork, professor and chairwoman, department of comparative medicine, Stanford University; Stephen J. O'Brien, chief, Laboratory of Viral Carcinogenesis, National Cancer Institute; Donald F. Patterson, Charlotte Sheppard Professor of Medical Genetics, and chief, section of medical genetics, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania; Jaspar D. Rine, professor of molecular and cell biology, University of California, Berkeley; Lawrence B. Schook, professor and chairman, department of veterinary pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Minnesota; Joe W. Templeton, professor of genetics and veterinary pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University; and James W. Edwards, ex officio, AKC. In announcing the members of the committee, AKC Foundation president Robert J. Hritzo noted, "We are on the brink of an exciting new era for canine health and welfare, and this committee will have a direct impact on the successes we achieve. Progress is already evident from research projects such as Dr. George Brewer's copper toxicosis study, which identified the gene which causes this disease in Bedlington terriers." For more information on the foundation, contact AKC Canine Health Foundation, 51 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10010; (212) 696-8236. In experiments that give new meaning to the summertime slogan "Life's a beach," University of California, San Diego, researchers claim that the basic building blocks of life could have been formed on the shore of a primordial sea. In a simple laboratory study, Stanley Miller, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Michael P. Robertson, a research fellow, set out to gather evidence for the theory that molecules similar to those composing RNA made up the forerunners of life (M.P. Robertson, S.L. Miller, Nature, 375:772-4, 1995). One of the barriers on the road to acceptance of this theory was the lack of a plausible route for the creation of cytosine and uracil, the bases found only in RNA. First, the two researchers re-created the chemical conditions that might have been found in primitive evaporating lagoons or pools on drying beaches an aqueous solution containing concentrated amounts of urea and cyanoacetaldehyde, a compound that could have been created by lightning from primitive Earth's volatile atmosphere. When Miller and Robertson heated the chemicals, large amounts of cytosine were formed, from which uracil was made by simply hydrolyzing with water. "A lot more of this prebiotic chemistry occurred under drying conditions than in very dilute conditions," speculates Miller, who has conducted pioneering studies on the origins of life on Earth. The American Mathematical Society's first electronic-only journal, Electronic Research Announcements of the AMS (ERA-AMS), is available online, free of charge, on the Internet. The new journal carries short articles describing "significant new breakthroughs" in math, according to an AMS statement. The articles are being offered electronically to provide "much timlier dissemination and the potential for a wider audience" than print journals, AMS says. The new publication covers all areas of mathematics, including applied fields, such as mathematical biology and theoretical physics. The journal has hypertext links and search capabilities. ERA-AMS has a 26-member editorial board, and submissions will undergo the standard peer-review process used for print publications. ERA-AMS, along with other AMS services, is available on e-MATH, the society's electronic information center. The e-MATH home page can be accessed at http://www.ams.org. Authors can submit papers via E-mail or via ftp. AMS is working on plans to provide electronic access to all of its primary journals. The concept may not replace the warmth of a practiced bedside manner, but researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are close to making diagnosis from home a reality. Together with colleagues from the Medical College of Georgia and the Eisenhower Army Medical Center, the Georgia Tech scientists will develop and install telemedicine units in the homes of 25 selected patients and one nursing home. The units will be equipped with an array of diagnostic devices tailored to the medical needs of the patients. Output from the instruments will be forwarded to medical communication hubs at the medical school and the Eisenhower medical center using cable television coaxial cable. The hubs are staffed 24 hours a day by medical professionals who can be in contact with the patients by two-way audio, video, and data links. The project is being funded by the Army Medical Research and Development Command. The Pew Charitable Trusts of Philadelphia recently announced their Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences for 1995. Effective July 1, each of the annual $200,000 awards supports the research of a junior faculty member at any American medical school or university for a period of four years. The awards are intended to encourage the investigators to be adventurous in their research during the early years of their career. Twenty scholars were chosen from a pool of 99 candidates nominated by invitation extended to 89 institutions nationwide. The final selections were made by a 13-member national advisory committee chaired by Rockefeller University president Torsten N. Wiesel. This year's scholars, listed by affiliation and research concentration, are: Patrick J. Brennwald, Cornell University Medical College, molecular genetics of cell biology; Stephen Buratowski, Harvard University, gene expression and DNA repair; Richard W. Carthew, University of Pittsburgh, pattern formation and mirror symmetry; Andrew C. Chan, Washington University, immunology; Seth A. Darst, Rockefeller University, structural biology; David E. Fisher, Children's Hospital, Boston; molecular biology; Marnie E. Halpern, Carnegie Institution of Washington, developmental neurobiology; Tracy M. Handel, University of California, Berkeley, biophysics, immunology; Yuri A. Lazebnik, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, cell biology; Craig C. Mello, University of Massachusetts, developmental genetics; Carlos T. Morales, University of Miami, molecular biology of human diseases; Lee Ann Niswander, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, molecular control of vertebrate limb development; Thomas L. Ortel, Duke University, molecular biology; George C. Prendergast, Wistar Institute, molecular genetics; Daniel P. Raleigh, State University of New York, Stony Brook, structural biology; Antony Rosen, Johns Hopkins University, rheumatology; Erin M. Schuman, California Institute of Technology, neurobiology, synaptic plasticity; Miguel C. Seabra, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, protein prenylation/molecular genetics; Yue Xiong, University of North Carolina, cell cycle and cancer; Tian Xu, Yale University, Drosphila development. (The Scientist, Vol:9, #15, pg 30, July 24, 1995) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A.

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