Vision

One problem with the current war on cancer is that much of it focuses on destroying the malignant cell itself while paying little attention to some of cancer's allies that are more prone to attack.

In October 2004, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hersko, and Irwin Rose "for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation."

More efficient protein structure determination is a major goal of the US structural genomics projects.

Every life scientist practices due diligence.

Since long before the word neuroscience was coined, the community has devoted substantial resources to studying the visual system, and for good reason.

Twenty-five years after the enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act, scientists and administrators in academia who are interested in moving bench discoveries to the clinic are learning what travelers in London's subway system already know: It's important to "mind the gap."

Henry Flower became director of the British Museum of Nat ural History in 1884, and promptly set about rearranging exhibits.

Five years have passed since the National Institutes of Health launched the Protein Structure Initiative (PSI), a 10-year, $600 million effort to accelerate structural genomics.

We need new antibiotics.

The composition and sequence of 3 billion bases of DNA serve as a major determinant of our individual physiology.

A Boeing engineer tells me that a modern airplane has about 10,000 sensors constantly recording information, not only to inform pilots about the plane's performance but also to forecast mechanical problems that can be corrected during routine maintenance.

Complex systems beg simplification.

A new scientific field is being born, one that seeks to understand which organisms have subjective states, what purpose theymight serve, and how distinct states of consciousness come about.

The first statement that usually accompanies a talk or journal article on cellular biology is usually something like, "Life is complicated."

Cultivating scientific leaders is a bit like drug discovery.

Faith in the promise of pharmacogenomics has changed the plan for primary healthcare.

A global effort is underway to determine whether embryonic stem cells can be used to treat a variety of conditions, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and Parkinson disease.

Cells are a riot of activity.

Nearly two decades ago, Paul H. Silverman testified before Congress to advocate the Human Genome Project.

Experimental biologists today sit at the edge of enormous bodies of information.