Notebook

STICKING POINT: Zebra mussels, here attached to a crayfish, can be real pests. Late last month President Bill Clinton signed the National Invasive Species Act, which will provide additional funds to combat a growing ecological and economic problem. Non-native freshwater and marine plants and animals from as far away as Asia are carried to North American estuaries like San Francisco Bay-where they sometimes gain a troublesome toehold-in ship ballast water. The act authorizes an average of $22.4 million for research and monitoring annually over the next six years, notes Bob Peoples, the non-indigenous species coordinator for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. He notes that the agency is still working out details regarding how and when to make the funds available to researchers. Waterborne creatures are flushed into the surrounding water when ships wash out their ballast holds. Some of the foreign species thrive in their new home so well that they become pests. One notable example is the infestation of the Great Lakes by the zebra mussel, which was brought into the region via ships plying the St. Lawrence River. The tiny mollusks attach to municipal water treatment and power plant pipes and screens, causing problems with normal operations. For more information, consult the Non-indigenous Aquatic Species home page at http://www.nfrcg.gov/nas/nas.html. OFF THE MARKET: McNeil settles case involving Arthritis Foundation pain relievers. The attorneys general of 19 states reached a $2 million settlement in a deceptive-marketing case with Fort Washington, Pa.-based drug company McNeil Consumer Products Co. and the Arthritis Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Atlanta, last month. The state officials maintained that the advertising campaign for the Arthritis Foundation (AF) line of pain relievers falsely led consumers to believe that the product was a special formulation. As part of the agreement, McNeil will give $250,000 to the National Institutes of Health for arthritis research and $90,000 to each of the 19 states for legal costs. While settlement talks were taking place, McNeil announced on September 26 that it was discontinuing the AF product, which it had been marketing since 1994 (K.Y. Kreeger, The Scientist, Feb. 20, 1995, page 1). Company statements say that the decision was purely a business judgment, because the product "failed to achieve sales objectives." Instead, McNeil will now contribute $1.3 million annually for the next three years to support foundation research and education programs. "The foundation saw [the AF pain reliever campaign] as a very successful program from a philanthropic standpoint, and we would have loved to have it continue," says Eric Hargis, executive vice president of the foundation. "We recognize that the product did not meet sales objectives, and we respect McNeil's decision to discontinue." EMPLOYABLE: Chemist Todd Blumenkopf is profiled in a new booklet. In their efforts to land jobs, researchers with disabilities often face the added handicap of ignorant employers. The American Chemical Society (ACS) will attempt to enlighten the unknowing with a booklet entitled Scientists Working With Disabilities, to be published by the end of the year. The free publication, written by science reporter Michael Woods, will be sent to chemistry employers, guidance and career counselors, students, parents, and others to show that disabled scientists are very employable and to illustrate how they do their jobs. Members of ACS's Committee on Chemists With Disabilities have worked for several years to get it funded and are assisting Woods; in addition, several will be profiled in the booklet. One of them, Todd Blumenkopf, a senior research investigator in discovery chemistry at Pfizer Central Research in Groton, Conn., says the project originated with 1990's Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). "We were getting a lot of inquiries from employers about how to modify laboratories for scientists with disabilities," reports Blumenkopf, who chairs the ACS steering committee managing the booklet. "There was very little information available. We felt that it behooved us, as the leading professional society in chemistry, to collect that information and disseminate it." For information on booklet availability, call ACS at (202) 872-4600. LISTENING IN: The West Virginia radio telescope SETI now uses. After more than a year's hiatus, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute's Project Phoenix has resumed, at its first site in the Northern Hemisphere. SETI is the Mountain View, Calif.-based organization that scans space for artificial radio signals, and Project Phoenix is the five-year, privately funded research program that SETI launched when Congress cut its funding in 1993 (N. Sankaran, The Scientist, May 16, 1994, page 4). Because of the expense, SETI can afford to use its equipment at only one site at a time; most recently, it used a 210-foot radio telescope in Australia. But the institute recently set up shop in Green Bank, W.Va., where the National Radio Astronomy Observatory maintains a 140-foot radio telescope whose location, in the hollows of the Appalachian Mountains, is largely free of radio interference and thus ideal for scanning, according to SETI public program scientist Seth Shostak. SETI is permitted 25 percent of the telescope's time, which will be used to investigate 1,000 nearby, sun-like stars. "The first objects we looked at, the first suns, are two stars that are known to have [recently discovered] planets-51 Pegasus and 47 Ursa Majoris," Shostak comments. "We moved these guys to the front of the class. The stars that are known to have planets are getting our first attention." An international consortium of six research centers has pinpointed and cloned the gene responsible for the most common form of Fanconi anemia (FA), a rare, inherited, often fatal disease (Fanconi Anemia/Breast Cancer Consortium, Nature Genetics, 14 :324-8, 1996). It causes severe bone marrow failure, birth defects, and a type of leukemia. Fanconi results from several genetic mutations; there are five known genetic forms of the disease. The recently discovered gene defect is believed to account for some 65 percent of Fanconi cases, says coauthor Arleen D. Auerbach, an associate professor in the Laboratory of Human Genetics and Hematology at Rockefeller University. She predicts that the work will help scientists develop a diagnostic test for FA-A, the most common form of the disease. The gene, dubbed FAA, is recessive, meaning two defective copies-one from each parent-are required to cause the disease. The researchers aren't sure what the newfound gene does, though they have some clues. According to Auerbach, "the gene is involved in a fundamental pathway to maintain stability of DNA. When it is mutated, it can lead to [DNA] instability and cancer, in addition to bone marrow failure and birth defects. The gene doesn't resemble any other gene we've studied. The protein it makes is common in human tissues, but the gene is completely novel." She contends that FAA may represent a new class of genes associated with prevention or repair of DNA damage. "The gene mutation must have fundamental effects and create defects very early in the developmental process-perhaps by the 12th week of gestation," she notes. "Once we understand what the normal gene does, we expect to learn a great deal about the basics of cancer development." The Rockefeller researchers had developed a Fanconi diagnostic test in the early 1980s for a rarer form of the disease. "Now that we have the [FA-A] gene, we expect to develop a test for carriers and a prenatal screen for larger groups of at-risk populations," Auerbach explains. She also hopes that the new gene finding will enable scientists to determine whether single-gene carriers are at increased risk of birth defects and cancer. The Princeton, N.J.-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has issued a call for applications for its 1997 Minority Medical Faculty Development Program. The initiative offers four-year, postdoctoral research fellowships for minority physicians interested in academic careers in biomedical research, clinical investigation, or health services research. African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and Puerto Ricans who have completed at least college and medical training on the mainland are eligible. Applicants must be minority physicians who are United States citizens at the time of the application deadline, are currently completing or will have completed formal clinical training, are prepared to devote four consecutive years to research, and aspire to careers in academia. As many as 12 fellows will be selected; each will receive an annual stipend of up to $50,000, plus a $25,000 annual research-support grant. Applicants must identify a senior faculty member with whom they propose to study and conduct research; candidates and proposed mentors begin the application process together. Mentors must be located in U.S. scientific institutions. An advisory committee will review the progress of each fellow after the first two years to determine whether funding should be continued for the full duration of the award. The deadline for request of application materials is February 28; completed applications are due March 28. Fellows will be officially notified next December. For information, contact Lois F. Lipsett, deputy director, or Nina Ardery, administrative assistant, at (301) 913-0210. Fax: (301) 913-9022. E-mail: lipsett@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu or nardery@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu. HOLIDAY CHEERS: Nobelist Richard Roberts is 1997’s Dr. December. For all who have been anxiously awaiting its arrival, the 1997 Studmuffins of Science calendar is now available. The calendar depicts male Ph.D. scientists and engineers-some scantily clad-in work and recreational settings. According to calendar creator Karen Hopkin, as soon as the Studmuffins project turns a profit, a Women of Science calendar and others will follow. Compared with the inaugural 1996 Studmuffins calendar, the 1997 version features embellishments and new additions, including more flesh and flex and a Nobel laureate. Richard Roberts, who shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for the discovery of split genes, poses as Dr. December. Roberts, wearing a fetching smirk and croquet whites, is shown relaxing with a glass of white wine on a lounge chair in his front-yard-turned-8,000-square-foot-croquet-lawn (financed with his Nobel winnings). He tells The Scientist he decided to participate in the venture because "it looked as though it might be fun." Another motivation for taking part, he says, is that many scientists take themselves too seriously. "This is especially true of a lot of Nobel Prize winners," adds Roberts, research director at New England BioLabs, a biotech firm located in Beverly, Mass. For information on ordering the 1997 calendar, call (888) PHD-DATE. To sneak a peek at those Ph.D. pinups, visit the Studmuffin Web page at http://www.studmuffins.com. Hopkin also urges readers to send in nominations for a 1998 calendar. She requests that photos of yet-to-be-discovered male and female darling doctorates -- or of "those adorable Nobel laureates"-- be sent along with biographical and contact information to Studmuffins of Science, P.O. Box 3382, Grand Central Station, New York, N.Y. 10163.

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