Notebook

Bound For Glory Scientific Responsibility Bully For Herman Expanded Wellcome Funding "You Are Getting Healthy..." When More Is Less Following Women's Footsteps Date: February 7, 1994, pp.4 Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen, New York State Department of Health researchers who collaborated in the 1940s and 1950s on the world's first antibiotic against fungal infection--nystatin, named after the department--were posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The pair, only the second and third women to be so honored, will be inducted in a ceremony in Akron, Ohio, site of the hall, on April 23. Brown and Hazen were among the numerous scientists caught up in the post-World War II rush to develop antibiotics after the discovery of penicillin. They made their discovery from a bacterium found in a clump of dirt--picked up by Hazen on a farm where she was vacationing in Virginia--and produced a practical antibiotic in 1954. It cured many disfiguring and disabling fungal infections of the skin, mouth, throat, and intestinal tract, and eventually was used in over-the-counter drugs and veterinary preparations. Brown and Hazen donated royalties from their invention--more than $13 million by the time the patents ran out--to academic science. The Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions at Indiana University will sponsor a conference on the relationship between scientific misconduct and broader issues of social responsibility on Indiana's Bloomington campus on May 24. The goal of the conference, entitled "Scientific (Mis)Conduct and Social (Ir)Responsibility," is to foster discussion between scientists and ethicists and generate interest in teaching scientific responsibility in graduate classes, according to Kenneth Pimple, a research associate at the Poynter Center. The keynote address will be delivered by Rosemary Chalk, a senior program officer at the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, who has directed academy studies on integrity in science, conflict of interest, and health and rights issues. The conference will also include a panel discussion on teaching research ethics; other sessions are being planned. The conference is free, but preregistration is required by April 15. For more information, contact Pimple at the Poynter Center, 410 N. Park Ave., Bloomington, Ind. 47405; (812) 855-0261. E-mail: pimple@indiana.edu. Herman, the world's first transgenic bull, is the proud father of eight transgenic offspring, all of whom carry, as he does, a gene for human lactoferrin, an antibacterial protein produced in human milk, officials for GenPharm International Inc. announced last month. The calves were the first births from among 55 pregnancies produced through in vitro fertilization with Herman's semen at GenPharm's European facilities in Leiden, the Netherlands. GenPharm officials hope the transgenic breeding program will enable large-scale production of lactoferrin--which provides protection against bacterial infections of the gastrointestinal tract--to be produced in cow's milk. Bolstered by $400 million endowment from their London-based sister foundation, the Wellcome Trusts, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund of Morrisville, N.C., has announced expanded program initiatives in biomedical research. The Career Awards in the Biomedical Sciences provide medical faculty in their initial years $500,000 grants to help them make the transition to independent investigators. Deadline for applications is October 1. The Hitchings-Elion Fellowship Program, named after Nobel laureates George H. Hitchings and Gertrude B. Elion, provides $135,000 for three years of postdoctoral support in biomedical and behavioral sciences for researchers seeking experiences in laboratories in the United Kingdom. Applications are due March 10 and September 10. The Burroughs Wellcome Fund is also increasing support to $150,000, from $60,000, for its three-year New Investigator Awards in Molecular Parasitology. These awards are for researchers at the instructor or early assistant professor level engaged in parasitology research. Applications are due in January of each year. For information on all of these awards, contact the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Morrisville, N.C., 27560-9771; (919) 991- 5100. Fax: (919) 941-5884. A University of Florida study suggests that hypnosis can help boost the immune system. Psychoneuroimmunologist Beree R. Darby's investigation analyzed different levels of lymphocytes, the cells that make up the immune system. Blood samples were taken from 22 female and six male graduate students, both before and after self-hypnosis training. In the training sessions, the subjects were instructed in the biochemical details of the immune response and research findings in immunology, as well as direct and indirect suggestions for increased self-confidence and improved immune response. The study found a significant difference in the level of lymphocytes in the group taught self-hypnosis vs. a control group. U.S. universities and colleges spent more on research and development in 1992 than the year before, but the increase was smaller than the average growth rate of the past decade, according to figures from the National Science Foundation. Total R&D expenditures reached $19 billion in 1992, up 7 percent from the year before, but only 4 percent when adjusted for inflation. Yearly increases from 1982 to 1991 averaged 6 percent when adjusted for inflation. The Center for Research on Women has released Pathways for Women in the Sciences: The Wellesley Report Part I, the first phase of a study of why women choose to enter science and what promotes or impedes their success. The study, which focused on Wellesley College students, follows women's science career trajectories from undergraduate through graduate and early career years, and examines the personal and professional factors that encourage women to persist in science or choose other career paths. Among the report's central findings are: Interest in pursuing science or math is developed before college; neither undergraduates nor alumnae favored employment for mothers of young children, but anticipated being employed when they themselves had children; factors such as race/ethnicity, class, and historical cohort make a difference in women's experiences in the sciences; and the majority of alumnae experienced discrimination, harassment, or both in graduate school and the workplace.

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