Profession Notes

The Japanese government wants US life scientists to help transform Japan into a science and technology powerhouse, according to Koji Omi, minister of state for science and technology policy. Many jobs are available in laboratories and university research centers. "Because we believe that the life sciences have great potential to benefit humanity, the plan [the Second Basic Plan for Science and Technology, effective April 1] places strategic importance on this field," Omi recently told representatives of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, D.C. The five-year plan calls for developing proteomics, single nucleotide polymorphisms, regenerative therapies based on embryonic stem cells; and plant and bacteria genomics. Nevertheless, just because Japan rolls out the red carpet doesn't mean life scientists will cross the Pacific on it. "Most people in the US think nothing good happens scientifically in Japan," says Michael Snyder, director of the Pacific Rim Initiative at AAAS, "But Japanese life scientists are doing world-class work." The Japanese government is spending big bucks to prove that point. The new plan calls for R&D expenditures of 24 trillion yen ($223 billion)--36 percent more than spent during its first five-year plan. The plan also doubles the amount of open, competitive proposal-based research funds. "The Japanese obviously are eager to participate in the post-genomic/structural genomic areas," says Alan Holt, program officer for East Asia at the National Institutes of Health's Fogarty Institute in Bethesda, Md.

Twelve postdocs from the University of California, Davis, will get an opportunity to teach under a National Institutes of Health grant designed to encourage minority students to enter academia. The program, known as PROF (Professors of the Future), is aimed at giving postdocs the classroom experience they typically lack. "Of the 463 postdocs we have on the Davis campus, two-thirds of them want a mentored teaching experience as part of their postdoctoral experience," says Jerry Hedrick, associate dean of graduate studies at UC-Davis. The postdocs will study teaching techniques in a course developed by a San Francisco State University professor, explains Bruce Macher, assistant vice president of research at the 28,000-student institution, which serves a sizable minority population. The postdocs will assist a faculty member or "teaching mentor" for one semester. In the subsequent term, the apprentices will teach courses under the mentor's supervision, Macher explains. "In terms of the teaching, [the program] broadens our breadth of scientific knowledge," Macher explains. The NIH funds PROF with a five-year, $3.1 million grant to "provide an opportunity for the minority institutions to have energetic research-oriented people interacting with their students," states Clifton Poodry, director of minority opportunities research at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. "Our hope is that partner schools like Davis may pick up graduate student applicants," he says. Emory University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Arizona also operate similar NIH- supported programs.

A super-fast international computer grid, under development by a consortium of 15 US universities, may open new opportunities to scientists researching genomes and proteins, according to Paul Avery, the project's principal investigator. The International Virtual Data Grid Laboratory (iVDGL), financed mainly by a $13.65 million National Science Foundation grant, is designed to provide physicists massive computer resources via the Internet to make rapid calculations. Avery expects some sites to be available to scientists who are working on the project in early 2002. The consortium will discuss how to make the grid available to other scientists during an Oct. 17 meeting, he adds. "We would like to make it available to people in a way that they can take advantage of the resources and try out some of the large-scale applications," Avery says. The European Union, Japan, and Australia will be partners in developing the iVDGL; the UK-based e-Science Programme contributed $2 million to the project for computer science fellows, and other international partners supplied an additional $20 million, according to a University of Florida fact sheet. The project's European partners expect to announce the construction of a Transatlantic link that will run 2.5 gigabytes of data per second. The iVDGL will be capable of handling data measured in petabytes--1 petabyte equals 1 million gigabytes. Eventually, the computational speed could be measured in petaflops, where one petaflop equals one thousand trillion calculations per second. "Twenty-first-century science is characterized by massive data and data handling," Avery observes. "Physical scientists take the lead on this because we need the grid now to solve our problems, but it's rapidly being realized that biologists ... commerce and business ... will need it too."