People: American Institute Of Physics Appoints Retiring IBM Executive As Director And CEO, Former DOE Genome Project Director To Oversee Biotech Launch

Author: Ron Kaufman, p.21 Marc H. Brodsky says that when he takes over as the director and chief executive officer of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) on November 1, one important goal of his will be to establish a positive public perception of physics. "We must begin to give the public some understanding of what physics is and what physicists do," says Brodsky, 54, a researcher in amorphous semiconductors who has been working at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center since 1968. "My favorite wording of the problem is the joke: `The best way to stop a conversation dead at a cocktail party is to tell somebody you're a physicist,' " he says. "That conveys an image. If you say you're a chemist, [laypeople] picture test tubes and Bunsen burners. If you say you're a biologist, perhaps they think of someone looking in a microscope. They have an image. "But I'm not sure what the image is of a physicist, and I think it's important to know what that image might be and how to convey a good one." Though being an image-maker is not an easy task, Brodsky says he would like to show the public "how physicists contribute to the understanding of phenomena and how that's important for society." A second goal Brodsky identifies for his tenure at AIP is to negotiate a new relationship between the nation's libraries and the organi-zation's technical publications. He says that as library budgets decrease and journal subscriptions increase, new ways of distributing information must be found. "Electronic publishing is the future," he says. "This could mean delivering technical information through electronic networks, electronic data-bases, or on CD-ROMs. The real question is what, of the many different ways, will be the one that survives in the long-term and is affordable." Brodsky received his bachelor's degree in 1960 and his Ph.D. in physics in 1965 from the University of Pennsylvania. He will retire from IBM at the end of September as the director of technical planning of the IBM research division. At AIP, Brodsky will replace the retiring Kenneth W. Ford, who has been director of the group for seven years. Founded in 1931, AIP is an umbrella organization for 10 member physics societies, giving the institute approximately 100,000 members. In November, AIP will leave its present offices in New York City and--along with the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers--move to College Park, Md., to create the American Center for Physics. Darwin Molecular Corp., a biomedical startup located in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, Wash., has tapped David Galas, former head of the Human Genome Project at the United States Department of Energy, as its vice presi- dent of research and development. Formed this year, Darwin is focusing on combining the technologies of large-scale DNA sequencing and directed molecular evolution to create new drugs and treatments for cancer, AIDS, and autoimmune disease. "There is no established company that I know of moving in the direction of joining these two aspects of modern biotechnology," says Galas, 49, who began his new position on July 1. Darwin intends to use computers to rapidly analyze vast amounts of one-dimensional DNA sequencing information and then convert it into three-dimensional protein structural information. The company then hopes to design effective new drugs more quickly and with more accuracy, using techniques involved in molecular evolution to synthesize, select, and produce new drugs to target a given disease. "This sort of seamless integration across the boundaries of molecular evolution, molecular structural studies, computational analysis, and sequence analysis provides a real unique combination of ingredients," Galas says. Galas assumed his position at DOE in 1990 after nine years as a professor of molecular biology at the University of Southern California. He received his B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1967 and his Ph.D. in physics from UC- Davis-Livermore in 1972. Galas says the Human Genome Project is an "extraordinarily powerful new paradigm" for modern biology. He says his work at DOE will give him an important perspective on both the problems and the advantages inherent in obtaining genetic sequence information. "An important aspect of the genome project that will find its reflection in the sort of things that are important to Darwin is the understanding of how important technology is to the development of biological sciences," he says. "Technological developments such as DNA sequencing and PCR have transformed the field entirely. And the impact of these and other new techniques will accelerate dramatically." Zanvil Alexander Cohn, a longtime professor at Rockefeller University and a researcher in cellular physiology and immunology, died June 28 at his home in New York City. He was 66 years old. Cohn was an influential researcher in the area of infectious disease; his work was used in clinical experiments on leprosy, tuberculosis, and AIDS. He was the author of numerous highly cited papers, among them "The isolation and properties of the specific cytoplasmic granules of rabbit polymorephonuclear leucocytes" (Journal of Experimental Medicine, 112:983, 1960), which has been cited more than 840 times, and "Differentiation of mononuclear phagocytes" (Journal of Experimental Medicine, 121:153, 1965), which has been cited nearly 700 times. Cohn received his B.S. in 1949 and his M.D. in 1953 from Harvard University. He joined Rockefeller in 1958. Thomas D. Duane, a professor at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, died June 20 at his home in Newtown, Pa. He was 75 years old. Duane was the head of ophthalmology at Jefferson and at Wills Eye Hospital, also in Philadelphia. He edited a three- volume reference work, The Biomedical Foundations of Ophthalmology (Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott Co., 1982). He received his M.D. in 1943 from Northwestern University and his Ph.D. in 1948 in physiology from the University of Iowa. After serving as a Navy flight surgeon during the Korean War, Duane joined the Jefferson faculty in 1962. He retired in 1981. Elizabeth M. Ramsey, a researcher in embryological development at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., for 36 years, died July 2. She was 87 years old. Ramsey, who received her M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine in 1932 and began her career as an assistant pathologist there in 1933, studied the anatomy of the placenta. She joined the staff of the Carnegie Institution in 1935. She was the author of The Placenta: Human & Animal (New York, Praeger Publishers, 1982).

People: American Institute Of Physics Appoints Retiring IBM Executive As Director And CEO, Former DOE Genome Project Director To Oversee Biotech Launch

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