


                          THE SCIENTIST


VOLUME 8, No:2                                 JANUARY 24, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)

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TI :                      CONTENTS
PG : 3 
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                            NEWS

GOVERNMENT FUNDING: With the new proposed federal budget 
less than a month away from release, researchers, society 
officers, and federal agency officials reviewing the final 
1994 science appropriations say they are guardedly 
optimistic about future support and the direction the 
current administration is taking in its approach to science  
PG : 1

ON THE DEFENSIVE: Investigators involved in NIH's Women's 
Health Initiative are fending off criticism of the $625 
million study of women's health issues, including a recent 
Institute of Medicine report stating that the main 
hypothesis of the investigation is scientifically weak and 
that its planners have underestimated the costs of the 
project  
PG : 1


RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS: The International Science Foundation for 
the former Soviet Union, with help from several United 
States scientific societies as well as individual 
researchers, is reviewing thousands of grant proposals from 
Russian scientists in an effort that will culminate in the 
funding of some 900 proposals worth a total of more than $45 
million  
PG : 3

PITTCON AT 45: In addition to displays of state-of-the-art 
tools in analytical chemistry and spectroscopy, as well as 
numerous symposia and workshops on the subject, attendees at 
the 1994 Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and 
Applied Spectroscopy will be taking time to look back on the 
evolution of their discipline over the past 45 years that 
the conference has been held  
PG : 4


                          OPINION

BIOSPHERIAN: In an interview with The Scientist, UCLA 
researcher and professor of pathology Roy Walford discusses 
the two years he spentin Biosphere 2; he reflects not only 
on the advances he made in studying human dietary needs, but 
also on the day-to-day life shared by him and his colleagues 
inside what has been described as "a planet in a bottle"  
PG : 11

COMMENTARY: New National Science Foundation director Neal 
Lane notes recent advancements that have made a difference 
in remedying the underrepresentation of women in science, 
but also stresses that much more needs to be done to solve 
what he calls "one of the most important and debated issues 
facing the science community today"   
PG : 12


                          RESEARCH 

RU 486 RESEARCH: Caught amid the political controversies 
surrounding its use as an abortion pill, research into 
therapeutic properties of RU 486 has nonetheless proceeded 
at a steady pace, despite irregular funding and a 
stigmatized public image  
PG : 14

HOT PAPERS: A molecular geneticist discusses his paper on a 
genetic disorder that causes myotonic dystrophy  
PG : 16


                     TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY

CHROMATOGRAPHY SOFTWARE KEEPS PACE: For the various 
chemistry disciplines that depend on chromatographs for 
sample analysis, the chromatography data-handling software 
that supports this process has become more sophisticated 
over the past decade  
PG : 17

                         PROFESSION

PAY DISPARITY AMONG DOCTORS: A Boston University study has 
found that female researchers in three areas of academic 
medicine--cardiology, rheumatology, and general internal 
medicine--receive lower salaries and fewer promotions than 
their male counterparts do  
PG : 21

WILLIAM H. PICKERING AND ARVID CARLSSON, an astrophysicist 
and a neuropsychopharmacologist, respectively, have each won 
the 1994 Japan Prize, one of the richest scientific awards 
in the world  
PG : 22


                        SHORT TAKES

NOTEBOOK   PG : 4
CARTOON    PG : 4
LETTERS    PG : 12
CROSSWORD  PG : 13

CHROMATOGRAPHY SOFTWARE DIRECTORY  
PG : 19

OBITUARIES  PG : 22


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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TI  : NIH Women's Health Researchers Rebut Criticisms Of 
      Their Study

Project scientists reject Institute of Medicine claims that 
their ambitious initiative is scientifically and financially 
deficient

AU  : FRANKLIN HOKE

TY  : NEWS

PG  : 1

Recent criticisms that the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) 
at the National Institutes of Health is poor science and 
likely to run over budget are drawing sharp rebuttal from 
project investigators.

An Institute of Medicine (IOM) report released late last 
year said that one of the study's primary hypotheses--that a 
low-fat diet will reduce the occurrence of breast cancer in 
women over 50 years of age--is scientifically weak, given 
the existing data. The IOM group suggested instead that the 
investigation of a secondary hypothesis, that a low-fat 
dietary pattern reduces the risk of coronary heart disease, 
be emphasized. The panel also found that the WHI 
underestimated the per-participant, per-year costs at about 
$1,000--far lower than the $2,000 to $3,000 required in 
other NIH studies--a fact that might endanger the study's 
successful completion. 

The women's health project ranked as one of former NIH 
director Bernadine Healy's highest priorities. As early as 
her 1991 confirmation hearings, she announced her intent to 
launch such a program as a corrective device for years of 
health research that excluded women as subjects. Healy 
pressed the project forward aggressively throughout her 
directorship, which ended in June 1993. The resulting WHI is 
the largest research study ever conducted by NIH, involving 
more than 160,000 women over the age of 50 at 45 clinical 
centers across the United States. The women are to be 
tracked for 14 years at a cost of more than $625 million. 
The study has been widely  viewed  as  one of the foremost 
achievements of Healy's tenure at NIH.

Partly because of the history of women's health research, 
however, or perhaps because of Healy's confrontational style 
as director, the WHI has attracted more political interest 
than do most NIH research efforts. Some women's health 
advocates suspect that, even now, the criticisms of the WHI 
may be, at least in part, politically based.

"I believe, with all my heart, that some of this is 
political," says Nancy Brinker, founding director of the 
Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation in Dallas and 
chairwoman of the President's Cancer Panel Special 
Commission on Breast Cancer. "Politics does enter medicine 
and science."

Brinker is among those who praise Healy's efforts to make 
the WHI a reality.

"It was a major accomplishment," says Brinker. "Maybe the 
study was designed, in some people's eyes, a little too 
rapidly; maybe it wasn't perfectly designed. But what people 
forget is that Bernadine Healy had the guts to stand up and 
talk about [women's health] issues."

WHI officials answer the IOM critique by saying that WHI 
hypotheses and the report's suggestions simply represent 
differing assessments of the existing epidemiological data. 
In fact, they say, this is why the WHI's clinical trial is 
so important--it will provide hard data against which to 
check these differences (see accompanying story).

"The disagreement really came about as an honest scientific 
disagreement among people collecting data and interpreting 
them in various ways," says William Harlan, codirector of 
the WHI and associate director of NIH's Office of Disease 
Prevention. "It's not resolvable by further 
[epidemiological] studies of the same type."

Estimates of study costs also were carefully done, WHI 
investigators say, and the study can be completed as 
budgeted.

"We budgeted it tightly, but, we think, realistically," says 
Robert Wallace, principal investigator of the Vanguard 
Clinical Center at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. "But 
it's very hard to know. Obviously, budgeting for that long a 
period is an exercise in guesswork."

So far, 16 of an eventual total of 45 WHI clinical centers 
have been funded; these first 16 are known as the Vanguard 
Clinical Centers. One coordinating center, at the Fred 
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, has also been 
funded.

"We looked at our budget six ways from Sunday to be sure 
that we could do it," says Richard A. Carleton, co-principal 
investigator of the WHI Vanguard Clinical Center at Memorial 
Hospital, Pawtucket, R.I. "We can do what we have said we 
will do for the amount that they told us we could have," 
says Carleton, who is also physician-in-chief at Memorial 
Hospital.

In addition to challenging the WHI design and budget, the 
IOM panel was openly angry about delays at NIH that resulted 
in the panel's reviewing a project that was already awarding 
multiyear contracts and scheduled to begin participant 
recruitment during the review period. The House 
Appropriations Committee asked for the IOM review of the WHI 
in July of 1992; NIH did not approach IOM about the review 
until February 1993, and a contract was not signed until 
April 1993. There were limits, as a result, to what the 
committee felt it could responsibly recommend.

"There is a tension evident in this report," wrote committee 
chairwoman Marion J. Finkel, a vice president at Sandoz 
Pharmaceuticals Corp., East Hanover, N.J. "Had the committee 
been asked to design a plan for women's health research, it 
would not have designed this WHI."

Meanwhile, advocates for improved women's health research 
and care say the time has come to move beyond arguments over 
which scientific questions should be asked by the WHI. The 
project--as designed--is important, they say, and should go 
forward.

"I'm so frustrated at the length of time that this has 
taken, at the exclusion of women from important trials and 
so on, so that, at this point in 1994, we're still asking 
questions that should have been answered--or at least asked-
-20 years ago," says Brinker. "I would hate to see this 
trial abandoned. I've always thought it was an ambitious, 
appropriate thing to do."


Costing Questioned
In its report, the IOM panel said that the per-participant, 
per-year costs might be twice or even three times the $1,000 
estimated by NIH and that the total costs for the WHI 
clinical trial probably would be greater than the $625 
million allotted. This assessment, they said, was based on 
comparisons to other recent, similar NIH studies of women's 
health. The additional costs, they said, would have to be 
borne by the 45 clinical centers, a fact they felt might 
threaten the overall WHI.

"NIH and Vanguard Clinical Center representatives have 
indicated that the additional funds necessary for successful 
completion of the trial will be covered by the institutions 
in which the Clinical Centers are based," the report said. 
"This reliance on institutional support may be reasonable in 
the case of the [16] Vanguard Clinical Centers, but the 
committee felt it is unlikely that an additional 29 
institutions can be identified that have both the experience 
to carry out the tasks of high-quality research and the 
ability to provide additional resources."

WHI officials take strong exception to the IOM cost 
assessment, including disagreements on some points of fact. 
They say, for instance, that individual clinical centers 
will not be asked to take on additional expenses at any 
time.

"Our contracts are very clear on that," says Carleton. "The 
IOM had an erroneous understanding, somehow, on that one."

Carleton adds that the costs were carefully and 
conservatively analyzed, including adjustments for factors 
that have skewed the results of several previous studies. 
Such factors include, for instance, the "healthy volunteer 
effect." People who volunteer for clinical health studies 
such as the WHI tend to be in better health than the average 
person, it has been shown.

WHI director Harlan defends the per-participant calculations 
that support the overall project estimate of $625 million 
and says IOM was not comparing "apples with apples" in its 
critique.

"The comparisons that were made are really inappropriate," 
says WHI codirector Harlan. "The comparisons they made were 
with relatively small studies of 1,000 or fewer 
participants, lasting two to three years. A good part of the 
cost in a large clinical trial is recruitment and the early 
initiation of people into the treatment and measuring of the 
adverse effects. If you take those costs, which may be a 
third or 40 percent of the total cost, and amortize them 
over  the  14-year  period,  the  costs per participant, per 
year become much smaller."

Harlan adds: "They didn't carry out a very careful cost 
analysis--in fact, they didn't provide an independent cost 
analysis to buttress their argument."

Panel chairwoman Marion Finkel acknowledges that the panel 
had difficulty assessing WHI costs, but with good reason.

"We didn't get sufficient detailed information from NIH to 
be able to make those calculations," Finkel says. "Our 
calculations were based upon some of the information that 
was supplied by the Vanguard Centers, and we just costed it 
up."

One IOM recommendation--based on its assessment that the 
costs would exceed the $625 million budgeted--was that the 
study end sooner, in 2002 instead of 2005. This suggestion 
was partly a reflection of their hoped-for changes in 
hypotheses, also. The shortened project would allow time to 
test the heart disease hypothesis, for instance, but not 
enough time to test the effects of dietary modification on 
breast cancer risk. But, most important, according to 
Finkel, the shorter study would begin to address concerns 
over the budget.

"It would save money," Finkel says. "The committee 
recommended that the NIH look at the study several years 
before its scheduled completion, to see if any trends were 
emerging that would require that the study continue, and, if 
there were no such trends emerging, to terminate it."

In another area, the panel said that women in the study 
should be better informed about the potentially higher risk 
of breast cancer that may result from hormone replacement 
therapy, important in one part of the study.

Here, WHI officials agree with the recommendation and plan 
changes in consent forms and other materials so that 
participants in the huge project will be more fully informed 
about these health risks.



Dodging IOM

The report noted that the House Appropriations Committee 
directed NIH in July 1992 to contract with IOM "to complete 
a review of the design and estimated costs of the WHI by 
February 1, 1993, in time to make adjustments, if necessary, 
before major study activities began." Yet NIH did not 
formally discuss the project with IOM until February 1993, 
the report says. A contract was not agreed upon until late 
April 1993, well after the due date requested by Congress.

"Whether the delay was due to a slow-moving bureaucracy or 
to other causes is unknown to the IOM committee," they 
wrote. "As a result, however, the committee was faced with 
the task of critiquing a study in progress. In the interim, 
NIH had requested, received, and evaluated proposals, and 
entered into contracts with 17 research institutions to 
serve as the Clinical Coordinating Center and Vanguard 
Clinical Centers."

Harlan says that the delay can be explained, at least in 
part, by a closer look at the necessary legislative process. 
While the House Appropriations Committee may have asked for 
the review in July 1992, he says, the appropriations bill 
containing the request did not become law until October.

"We didn't have a bill and a mandate to carry out a study 
until October of 1992," Harlan says.

He acknowledges, however, that NIH's delay between October 
1992 and February 1993 in engaging IOM for the then 
congressionally mandated study cannot be entirely blamed on 
bureaucratic process.

"Dr. Healy, who was then the director, didn't move quickly 
on it," Harlan says. "I don't know how else to say it. I 
think that probably led to some of the irate response that 
you sense in the report."

In response to the IOM panel's complaints about being asked 
to review an ongoing project, Harlan says that there was 
never a time when the panel could have looked at a project 
that was still under development.

"Had they started in October, which was the original 
presumption on the part of the House Appropriations 
Committee," Harlan says, "the project would still have been 
under way at that point, in that we had, at that juncture, 
funded a coordinating center and were negotiating the 
funding of the first 16 Vanguard Clinical Centers."

Harlan does say that, with the help of new NIH director 
Harold Varmus, there is a "movement toward resolution" under 
way. WHI officials, IOM panel members, and, perhaps, others 
will be invited to discuss relevant scientific and other 
issues and to make a recommendation to the director, Harlan 
says.

Despite the sharp nature of the IOM critique, there is 
general agreement on the value of the WHI and reason to 
believe that an accommodation can be reached.

"If the committee really felt very strongly that the study 
had serious problems, we could have recommended that it be 
terminated," says Finkel. "But we didn't. We thought there 
were a lot of strengths in this study."


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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TI : A HOBBLED HYPOTHESIS?

AU : FRANKLIN HOKE

TY : NEWS

PG : 9


One of the main questions that Women's Health Initiative 
(WHI) investigators hope to answer, and one specifically 
challenged by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), is whether a 
low-fat diet will reduce breast cancer risk. This hypothesis 
arises from comparisons of epidemiological data from 
countries with different fat-consumption patterns and of 
data tracking the change in breast cancer occurrence among 
migrants moving between some of these countries.

Japanese women, for example, have much lower breast cancer 
rates than do women in the United States, and the 
traditional Japanese diet contains much less fat than is the 
norm in the U.S. Women whose parents moved from Japan to the 
U.S. have breast cancer rates comparable with those of other 
women in the U.S.

The IOM report, however, suggested that these comparisons 
are based on the amount of fat produced and sold, not 
necessarily on the amount actually consumed by women. It 
also noted that many epidemiologists believe the amount of 
fat consumed by women during adolescence, when breast 
tissues are developing, may be more important to overall 
breast cancer risk than that consumed as adults. Hence, 
lowering dietary fat levels in the WHI study population of 
women, all over 50 years of age, may have little effect on 
their cancer rates.

Several studies also have failed to show a link between 
dietary fat and breast cancer rates, according to Walter C. 
Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the 
Harvard School of Public Health, Boston. Willett is a 
coinvestigator in the 120,000-participant, 17-year-long 
Nurses Health Study at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and 
Women's Hospital, also in Boston. In 1989, 110,000 younger 
women were added, with Willett as principal investigator for 
that part of the study.

"When investigators like ourselves started to do more 
detailed studies," Willett says, "where you look at fat and 
control for other factors, the relationship between fat 
intake and breast cancer hasn't shown up. As the evidence 
has come in, the hypothesis, which was a reasonable one--
that's why we spent a lot of time looking at it--just hasn't 
been supported."

William Harlan, codirector of the WHI and associate director 
of NIH's Office of Disease Prevention, counters that these 
studies, many conducted within single countries, are not a 
fair test of the low-fat hypothesis.

"The range of fat intake within the U.S. and within most 
industrialized countries tends to be quite high and quite 
narrow," Harlan says. "It does not encompass the low fat 
levels of some of the countries where the breast cancer 
rates are low--for example, in Japan."

He adds: "You won't find many people [in the U.S.] down at 
the 20 percent level, which is a level that some people feel 
is the important level for total fat intake."

The suggestion by IOM that the WHI switch its primary focus 
to the link between dietary fat and coronary heart disease 
is unwarranted, WHI researchers say. That link already has 
been demonstrated by other studies, they say, and is a less 
compelling goal for this landmark women's health research 
effort than breast cancer.

"On that panel, there were assembled a group of very capable 
people, some of whom have experience in this particular 
area, some of whom do not," says Richard A. Carleton, co-
principal investigator of the WHI Vanguard Clinical Center 
at Memorial Hospital, Pawtucket, R.I. "They looked at this 
and said that, in their view, the dietary modification was 
more likely to change coronary disease. That is not 
scintillating new information."

Several clinical studies already provide strong evidence 
that dietary changes can affect heart disease outcomes, says 
Carleton.

"You can argue a lot of those data come from men," Carleton 
says, "but, in this area, I don't have terribly good reasons 
to hypothesize that women are going to be radically 
different from men. If you ask yourself where is the biggest 
public health issue for which there are imperfect--very 
imperfect--data, it is breast cancer."

Some critics, however, go beyond the IOM suggestion that the 
WHI emphasize different questions. Willett, for example, 
says that the WHI not only is asking the wrong questions, 
but also will not, in any case, be able to answer them as 
currently designed.

"There's a fundamental problem with the design of the 
women's health study," Willett says, "and that's that 
they're changing many factors simultaneously. They're not 
just lowering fat intake, they're increasing fruit and 
vegetable and vitamin intake. So, even if you do see 
something, you can't say that it's due to fat. If that's an 
interesting question, they're doing the wrong study."

Willett says the WHI may be important politically, but not 
scientifically. He adds that the high cost of the study 
amplifies the significance of the problems.

"The scientific world largely believes it's a disaster," 
Willett says. "It's a huge investment of money--it's going 
to be a billion dollars or more in the end--and it can't 
answer the questions that it was set out to answer. No one 
would be disturbed about it if it were a few tens of 
millions of dollars, but it's definitely taking money out of 
lots of other laboratories."

WHI investigators reject such statements and say the study 
questions are not only important, but that the WHI, as 
designed, can answer them.

"The important thing about the WHI is that it will test in 
experimental fashion some hypotheses that have not been 
tested in humans any other way," says Robert Wallace, 
principal investigator of the Vanguard Clinical Center at 
the University of Iowa, Iowa City, "the fundamental one 
being the effect of low-fat diet on a variety of cancers. 
That's never been done."

Echoing other WHI researchers, Wallace characterizes 
challenges to the dietary fat-breast cancer link hypothesis 
as legitimate differences of epidemiological data 
interpretation.

"It's an honest scientific disagreement," Wallace says. 
"Various investigators--as we all do--lean more heavily on 
their own data than on others. Some studies show an effect 
and others don't. But low-fat diet has the potential for 
improving health in so many areas that it is very much worth 
testing."

"To most of us who believe that one needs to test this, the 
clinical trial seems the only way to do it," Harlan says. 
"It's a matter of deciding whether you believe that the 
hypothesis merits a test."

Carleton suggests that the debate over the WHI's scientific 
goals, in itself, shows the need for the study.

"Where there are differences of opinion, the facts, usually, 
are not known," he says.


--F.H.

(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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TI : Reviewing Congress' Final Appropriations For 1994, 
     Scientists Eye Future Funding With Cautious Optimism

Despite dramatic cuts in several programs, observers 
perceive Congress as generally supportive of research

AU  : BARTON REPPERT

TY  : NEWS

PG  : 1

Despite severe reduction in United States government support 
of large-scale science proj-ects and a number of general 
research areas for 1994, officials at scientific 
associations and major research universities say they are 
optimistic--although "cautiously" or "guardedly" so--about 
the prospects for fiscal 1995.


At the same time, some science budget-watchers warn that the 
research community will face a tough fight--in view of 
government-wide spending constraints--to maintain even the 
modest funding increases in the FY94 budget and to stave off 
further major-program cutbacks at the National Science 
Foundation and other agencies. They cite, for example, the 
continued downsizing of the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration's space station and the total elimination of 
funding for the Department of Energy's superconducting 
supercollider (SSC) as examples of big-science projects that 
fell victim to these economic forces in the 1994 budget.

"The simple fact is that the budget crunch is intense and 
it's going to continue," says Roland W. Schmitt, chairman of 
the American Institute of Physics, an umbrella organization 
of 10 physics-related scientific societies based in College 
Park, Md. Schmitt is also a member of the National Science 
Board, which oversees NSF.

With the United States research community, he says, this 
means that "you're going to have to be in there scrambling, 
showing that you are relevant, you are going to be serving 
the national interest.... I think it's going to be a very 
hard sell that you've got to put forth. But I think there 
are ways of doing it."

Schmitt, former president of Rensselaer Polytechnic 
Institute, says the budget for fiscal year 1995, to be 
proposed by President Clinton early next month, pre-sents a 
"mixed picture." It will be "really tough because of the 
total budgetary pressures," he says, while on the other hand 
"I don't think the science is going to be singled out--
people coming after it harder than anything else."

For the 1994 fiscal year, final appropriations for which 
were approved late last fall, Congress provided NSF with a 
total appropriation of $3.028 billion--$152 million less 
than the Clinton administration's budget request, but an 
increase of 10.7 percent over the preceding year's figure. 
The research portion of NSF's funding went up 7.5 percent to 
$1.998 billion, while money for education programs increased 
by 16.8 percent, up to $570 million, and funds for 
laboratories and instrumentation jumped by 120 percent, up 
to $110 million.

In providing for the National Institutes of Health, the 
legislators voted a total of $10.956 billion--$288 million 
more than the Clinton administration had requested, and an 
increase of 6.1 percent from fiscal 1993. Funding for NIH's 
National Center for Human Genome Research climbed by 21.3 
percent to $129 million.

Receiving the biggest increase for fiscal 1994 was the 
National Institute of Standards and Technology, for which 
Congress appropriated $520 million--up by 35.4 percent from 
the year before. This move reflected strong support from the 
White House and on Capitol Hill for expanding applied 
research to help enhance the global competitiveness of 
American industry.

On the big-science front, Congress sent shock waves rippling 
through U.S. high-energy physics by voting to kill the 
multibillion-dollar SSC under construction in Texas. Also, 
it chopped back fiscal 1994 funding for the space station by 
8.3 percent, to a level of $1.946 billion.

After the dust had settled from the congressional actions 
last summer and fall, the Council of Scientific Society 
Presidents (CSSP) drew up a "statement on science 
priorities," which it has submitted to the White House 
Office of Science and Technology Policy and other agencies. 
The council is an umbrella group bringing together the heads 
of about 60 scientific societies, with a combined membership 
of some 1.3 million.

The CSSP consensus statement said federal policy should 
emphasize the importance of "foundational" research by 
"continuing to devote a large part of the NSF and NIH 
budgets to the pursuit of foundational knowledge in the 
sciences and a substantial part of R&D budgets of the 
mission-oriented agencies to similar pursuits in areas 
relevant to them."

Among other steps, the statement called for efforts to 
"increase international cooperation and multinational 
funding for major, costly, large science projects." Lack of 
more substantial international cost-sharing was one factor 
cited by opponents of the SSC.

Schmitt, who helped to draft the CSSP statement, says that 
while cancellation of the supercollider was a "devastating 
blow" to the high-energy physics community, the project's 
fate "had become a political issue more than anything else, 
anyway. I don't know that [the SSC vote] has any great 
significance for the future support of pioneering or 
fundamental science."

Robert Park, Washington, D.C.-based public affairs director 
for the American Physical Society, says about the research 
funding situation: "We seemed to do well, I think, in the 
NSF budget--as well as could be expected in these hard 
times."

He observes that "we would have preferred to see the space 
station program canceled, instead  of  the  supercollider.  
But ... the NSF came out of the year fairly healthy, though 
we remain concerned about the Senate report language that 
accompanied that appropriation."

Park is referring to a Senate appropriations subcommittee's 
report that--in blunt language that has rankled some in the 
academic research community--calls on the foundation to make 
sure that more of its resources go to fund "strategic 
research" targeted at high-priority national needs (see 
story on page 7).

Park, who is also a professor of physics at the University 
of Maryland, College Park, says in looking ahead to the next 
budget year: "I'm cautiously optimistic."

Clifford Gabriel, executive director of the Washington, 
D.C.-based American Institute of Biological Sciences, also 
looks on the bright side when commenting about the past 
year's action on Capitol Hill: "It could have been a lot 
worse. I think NIH did well. With [the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture], their grant program received a modest 
increase--that's something that I think needs continued 
growth. NSF did reasonably well. They got a lot of support 
in their instrumentation and facilities programs."

Overall, Gabriel says, "I'm generally pleased with how 
things came out last year. And if we could see something 
even close this year [for fiscal 1995 appropriations], that 
would be an accomplishment."

Gar Kaganowich, public affairs director for the Federation 
of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), 
headquartered in Bethesda, Md., notes that his organization 
had recommended $11.75 billion for NIH in fiscal 1994--a 
boost of 13.6 percent.

"It was helpful to see the 6.1 percent increase that we did 
get.... We are pleased that we did that well in the current 
budget environment. But obviously we were a little 
disappointed that we couldn't move further--closer to the 
number that we had recommended," he says.

According to Kaganowich, FASEB's consensus recommendation 
for NIH in fiscal 1995 is a total of $11.934 billion, which 
would amount to an increase of about 8.9 percent.

Cornelius J. Pings, president of the Washington, D.C.-based 
Association of American Universities, which represents major 
U.S. research universities, gives a qualified yes to the 
question of whether he is satisfied with the fiscal 1994 
appropriations: "overall--and given the context." Pings 
adds:  "There is the capacity to do a lot of good research 
in this country. And there will be some of my colleagues who 
say we could have used more [federal funding]. I'm sure 
that's true. But it's a time of choice, and I think we came 
out remarkably well."

Regarding prospects for NSF and NIH to receive fiscal 1995 
increases comparable to this year's, Pings says: "I haven't 
thought about increments. I think it's a time of great 
anxiety with that budget for '95--and the next four years, 
assuming that Congress and the administration stick to the 
discipline they've imposed upon themselves. There's a 
severely constrained resource ... if anything increases, 
something else has to decrease."

The fiscal 1994 appropriations for NSF and NIH were a 
pleasant surprise, says Judith Argon, director of the office 
of research support at Duke University in Durham, N.C.: "I 
think we were much more encouraged than we thought we were 
going to be, particularly with NIH, where the increases were 
larger ... than we were led to expect." Also, she calls the 
move to more than double NSF funding for academic research 
facilities and instrumentation "an enormously positive 
step.... We'd love to see that kind of program at NIH."

Looking ahead to the 1995 budget, Argon says, "I would say 
we're guardedly optimistic."

However, the Duke official adds that "there are certainly 
movements--within both NIH and NSF--to see more of the funds 
directed toward specific initiatives.... We worry that there 
will be programs that will be underfunded that we've 
traditionally drawn support from. We'll need to watch that 
and try to work with those two agencies and with the 
Congress."

The  NSF   budget's   boost   to $110 million for academic 
research infrastructure is "an extremely good start" toward 
a multiyear effort to fund badly needed facilities and 
instrumentation, says Norman Scott, vice president for 
research at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "Cornell is 
anxiously putting proposals together at this time to compete 
for those funds," he says.

Alvin Kwiran, vice provost for research at the University of 
Washington in Seattle, says he believes that with the fiscal 
1994 funding levels, "the research enterprise in the 
universities did remarkably well, given all the constraints 
on the federal budget."

According to Kwiran, the University of Washington last year 
had a research budget totaling approximately $430 million--
with about 80 percent of the funds coming from federal 
sources.

Kwiran says he expects to see continuing debate about the 
overall direction and longer-term goals of research in the 
United States. But he observes that "assuming no serious 
downturns in the economy, or no untoward events, I'm 
optimistic that science will continue to be funded 
respectably."

The research administrator adds that "the big factor, of 
course, in recent years has been the explosive growth in the 
big-science projects. The decision on the SSC in some ways 
is extremely painful to those directly engaged in it--but 
probably inevitable, given the spiraling costs of that 
project and the budget constraints that the country faces."

Fred W. Weingarten, executive director of the Washington, 
D.C.-based Computing Research Association, notes that 
Congress trimmed back  fiscal  1994  funding   for high-
performance computing and communications   programs--by $12 
million  at  NSF  and  by  about $40 million at the 
Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency. These cuts 
came even though the Clinton administration has strongly 
endorsed efforts to develop the "national information 
infrastructure."

Looking to the next budget go-round, Weingarten says: "We've 
got a tough fight. We're going to have to make our case. 
We've got some heavyweights on our side, and we think we've 
got good arguments. But we've got to be realistic, too.... 
There's only a limited number of times in which politicians 
will stick their necks out and defend you."

Peter Boyce, executive officer of the American Astronomical 
Society, also based in Washington, has some reservations 
about the fiscal 1994 appropriations. "The money for NSF was 
very heartening," he says, but in the final budget for NASA-
-in which, aside from the space station cutback, R&D funds 
increased by 4.9 percent, up to $9.284 billion--"there are a 
couple of things which really give us pause."

One particular area of concern, he says, was the scrapping 
by Congress of NASA's High-Resolution Microwave Survey, the 
radio astronomy program that had previously been known as 
the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

"They canceled it and they saved $12 million," Boyce says. 
"And it was done with a lot of demagoguery--no consideration 
of where the program was, how well it had met its goals ... 
and the fact that after planning and work for 10 years, the 
search was just starting."

Boyce adds that he doubts any funding can be restored for 
the program in fiscal 1995. "It's just too much of a fight," 
he says. "It's too tempting a target for people to use to 
grab headlines."



Barton Reppert is a freelance science writer based in 
Gaithersburg, Md.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COME WITH STRONG ADVICE

AU  : BARTON REPPERT

TY  : NEWS

PG  : 7

For the second year in a row, policy-making officials at the 
National Science Foundation are faced with toughly worded 
guidance from a Senate subcommittee that wants to see 
concrete progress soon in shifting NSF toward greater 
emphasis on supporting "strategic research."

Some in the academic research community view the Senate 
panel's language as a highly unwelcome attempt to 
"micromanage" NSF and dictate specific areas of scientific 
inquiry. Other observers, however, say that--semantic 
differences aside--they share many of the subcommittee's 
espoused aims for research and can learn to live with the 
policy guidelines.

The language at issue was crafted by a Senate appropriations 
subcommittee chaired by Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and 
published in a report accompanying the appropriations bill 
that included fiscal 1994 funding for the NSF.

Overall, the report said, NSF "is at a crossroads in its 
future.... In short, the foundation can be at the heart of 
helping to shape the administration's science and technology 
policy in pursuit of specific national goals, or it can 
diminish into becoming nothing more than a national 
endowment for science."

The subcommittee contends that NSF and the National Science 
Board have given "mixed signals" as to whether they intend 
to actually work toward implementing the "bold vision" that 
was sketched out in the November 1992 report of the 
Commission on the Future of the NSF.

"It is time for the foundation to move beyond rhetorical 
statements about the value of strategic research or the 
importance of using science for the transfer of knowledge 
and technology," the Senate report stated. "That, in the 
committee's view, is a fact of life and political 
reality.... The agency must spell out how much of its 
mission should clearly be strategic and applied in nature, 
and then implement these parameters through its budget 
process."

The Mikulski subcommittee warns that if NSF fails to do 
that, "future federal R&D budgets should instead be 
allocated more generously to agencies such as the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology, NASA, the national 
energy labs, or the National Institutes of Health, all of 
whom seem poised to pursue critical technologies with 
entrepreneurial vigor and enthusiasm."

In its report issued last September, the Senate panel calls 
on NSF officials to revise the foundation's strategic plan 
for the 1995 fiscal year to incorporate various specific 
changes. They need to take steps, the subcommittee says, to 
ensure that "not less than 60 percent of the agency's annual 
program research activities should be strategic in nature."

Robert Park, public affairs director for the American 
Physical Society, asserts that "the Senate report language 
attempts to micromanage the foundation." He calls  the  
latest  Mikulski subcommittee  report, compared with one 
issued the year before, "much more aggressively worded."

Kathleen Ream, head of the department of government 
relations and science policy at the American Chemical 
Society, comments that "there is a concern about the 
ultimate direction in which the Senate appropriations 
[subcommittee report] seemed to be pushing the foundation." 
She says the issue over strategic research poses the 
question of whether that involves just "categorizing basic 
research," or instead "dictating what can be done."

Cornelius J. Pings, president of the Association of American 
Universities (AAU), says he also is somewhat concerned about 
the Mikulski subcommittee report, but doesn't want to see 
the academic research community get overly worried about it. 
"I'm concerned about the language," he says. "And many of us 
were left trying to understand what really the rationale and 
the intent is, and what the follow-on implications would be. 
One fear might be that it portends micromanagement"--
although Pings adds that he himself doesn't see in the 
subcommittee report such micromanaging of NSF.

"I hope that we all don't get too stirred up here on 
something  that  may,  after  the  fact,  appear  only  to 
have been a semantic difference," says the AAU president.

Pings notes that "much of our work in basic research in this 
country is directed in the sense that it is concentrated in 
certain areas. That's been a political decision" by Congress 
and federal funding agencies, and that "furthermore, we know 
that that work supports outcomes in technology and 
applications. What we want to make sure of is that we let it 
be an outcome--not that we overdirect it going in."

NSF officials point out that a substantial portion of the 
agency's research funding already goes to areas that are 
considered strategic--such as high-performance computing and 
communications, advanced materials, and biotechnology.

One NSF official, speaking on condition of anonymity, calls 
Mikulski an "activist" subcommittee chairwoman who, with her 
staff, "wrote that language to get [the academic research 
community's] attention, and she sure as heck did."

Within the agency, this official says, NSF policymakers view 
the latest Mikulski report as "telling us to continue to do 
the difficult job of setting priorities.... It doesn't mean 
abandon anthropology. It does mean, though, that high-
performance computing ought to have high priority."


--B.R.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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NEXT:


-----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : FEDERAL RESEARCH FUNDING (In millions of dollars)
        
TY  : NEWS

PG  : 6



                                         FY 1994    FY 1994     
                                 FY 1993  Request  Approp.
National Science Foundation       2,734   3,180   3,028 
National Institutes of Health    10,326  10,668  10,956 
Department of Energy
-- Superconducting supercollider    517     640    ---  
-- Other civilian research        2,626   2,730   2,765 

National Aeronautics 
and Space Administration
-- Space station                  2,122   1,946   1,946 
-- Other R&D                      8,847   9,529   9,284 
National Institute of               384     533     520 
Standards and Technology         

Environmental Protection            323     354     339 
Agency (R&D)      
National Oceanic                    202     214     226
and Atmospheric Administration   

Department of Agriculture
-- National Research Initiative      97     130    112  

Source: Various federal agencies listed


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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NEXT:

----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : Societies Aid In Large-Scale Effort To Support Russian 
      Science

AU  : TRACEY D. WEBB

TY  : NEWS

PG  : 3


The International Science Foundation for the Former Soviet 
Union (ISF), with the help of discipline-specific panels 
composed of representatives of United States scientific 
organizations and more than 200 American and European 
scientists, is conducting what participants are calling an 
unprecedented peer-review process. The effort is scheduled 
to culminate this month with the funding of about 900 
research proposals from scientists in Russia and other 
Baltic states.

The grants will total $45 million to $50 million and will 
fund 10 percent to 20 percent of the proposals under 
consideration, according to Chris Williams, an executive 
assistant at ISF who is involved in the grant-review 
process. Williams says that, in all, 11,000 proposals were 
submitted to ISF; of these, he notes, 9,000 passed a formal 
screening of minimum requirements.

"The criteria [were] rather strict, but even though the 
scientists in the former Soviet Union are confined by a 
crumbling technical and equipment structure, the human 
capital is quite incredible," Williams says.

Criteria for scientists and their proposals included:


*  a degree equivalent to a Ph.D.;

* at least five articles published in science publications 
from inside or outside Russia since 1988;

* employment in scientific and/or educational institutions 
in the former Soviet Union;

* proposed research to be conducted in the natural sciences; 
and

* citizenship or at least six months' residence in the 
former Soviet Union.

The Process
Each proposal author was asked to provide the names of six 
reviewers familiar with his or her work from the relevant 
research community in the former Soviet Union, according to 
Irving Lerch, director of international scientific affairs 
at the American Physical Society (APS). While the comments 
of the reviewers were treated as referees' comments, "the 
panelists have the responsibility for making the final 
judgment," Lerch says.

Each panel had a secretary from the former Soviet Union who 
was responsible for collecting the proposals, ensuring that 
they were submitted in the proper format, and submitting 
them to the appropriate panel in Washington, D.C., for peer 
review.

The panelists are 220 scientists representing the U.S., 
Western Europe, Russia, the Ukraine, and other Baltic 
states. The meetings, held over the past two months, have 
been coordinated by staff members from the National Academy 
of Sciences, APS, the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the 
American Astronomical Society, the American Mathematical 
Society, and the American Chemical Society (ACS). Panelists 
were selected by the scientific societies, ISF's executive 
council, and an advisory committee in Moscow.

"The professional organizations have been tremendously 
helpful in providing administrative assistance," says 
Williams. "While ISF is responsible for funding the selected 
proposals, the scientific societies have overseen the 
organization of panel meetings, maintained day-to-day 
contact with panel members, and helped administer the review 
process of proposals in specific disciplines."

Eugene Bierly, director for education and research at AGU, 
says that the peer-review process did have some snags. 

"The process didn't work that well in terms of timeliness, 
and I suspect the reason was that our colleagues in Moscow 
did not have experience in getting so many proposals out in 
a timely manner," Bierly says. "Peer review is a new way of 
doing things to scientists in the former Soviet Union. I 
suspect at the next opportunity, things will go much 
smoother and faster."

John Malin, administrator of ACS international activities,  
notes that the joint peer-review process is the largest ever 
undertaken by ACS or any scientific organization.

"This [review process] means the ACS's Office of 
International Activities is handling a proposal load equal 
to that administered each year by the entire chemistry 
division of the National Science Foundation--a very tough 
job," Malin says. "Never before in grants administration has 
such an intense effort been organized and completed in so 
short a time."

Lerch says his organization was eager to participate in the 
process because it will help preserve important scientific 
work in the former Soviet Union.

"We believe there is a need to try and preserve at least the 
most important research grants there," he says. "Our view is 
that whatever we can salvage will be extremely important to 
science internationally."

Scientists in Russia and neighboring Baltic states have long 
been hindered by a bloated science bureaucracy and a 
struggling economy. One year ago, Hungarian-born tycoon and 
philanthropist George Soros established ISF with the 
objective of providing scientists in the former Soviet Union 
with the opportunity to conduct research based on individual 
merit (B. Goodman, The Scientist, Jan. 11, 1993, page 3). 
Under the current structure, senior scientists were given 
money to distribute among junior colleagues.

Malin, who recently returned to the U.S. from a visit to 
Russia, says that country's struggle to change to a market-
oriented economy poses a major challenge to scientists.

"Their scientific establishment was probably overbuilt," he 
says. "Now that they are learning about peer review, they 
are probably going to have to look at science in a more 
competitive way."

Funds received by scientists will help defray costs for 
equipment, travel related to research, and salaries, 
Williams says. "Scientists in Russia and neighboring states 
report that the highest annual salaries are at about 45,000 
rubles a month, the equivalent of about $500 a year," he 
notes.

Malin adds that the work of researchers in the former Soviet 
Union has also been limited by an information blackout.

"A serious problem we found in many of the proposals was a 
grave lack of contact with the latest scientific 
information," he says. "Because of the monetary problem with 
the devaluation of the ruble, they just don't have the 
buying power to purchase the latest science publications."

To help solve that problem, U.S. science organizations are 
donating journals to libraries and other institutions around 
the former Soviet Union. ACS, for example, is donating up to 
500 recent and current ACS journals, with a market value of 
about $500,000, to several Russian libraries across the 
former Soviet Union.

Malin says the Fisher Chemical Co. of Pittsburgh has pledged 
to donate about $600,000 worth of chemicals to ACS, which in 
turn will give them to the N.D. Zelinski Institute of 
Organic Chemistry in Moscow.

"We're excited about this process," Malin says. "There are 
some fine chemists in Russia and the other former Soviet 
countries, and ACS and ISF want to do all we can to help 
them."

Williams says the combined efforts of ISF, the scientific 
societies, and individual scientists should help researchers 
in Russia and other newly independent states reach their 
full potential.

"We think these grants and other programs will break the 
mold because they are opening up opportunities to more 
scientists based on merit rather than bureaucracy," Williams 
says.


Tracey D. Webb is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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NEXT:

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TI : PITTCON '94 `Greatest Show Ever' For Analytical 
     Chemists

AU : NEERAJA SANKARAN

TY : NEWS

PG : 4

"From a Handful of Scientists to the Greatest Science Show 
Ever!" is the slogan for the 1994 Pittsburgh Conference on 
Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (PITTCON '94), 
to be held February 27 to March 4 in Chicago. Indeed, the 
annual meeting where companies and scientists meet to 
exchange information on the latest in analytical 
instrumentation and technique has expanded dramatically in 
45 years. The first meeting, held in Pittsburgh in 1950, had 
20 technical papers, three exhibits, and perhaps 100 
conferees. This year's attendance is expected to top 30,000.

Almost 1,000 companies will be displaying their newest 
products in about 3,100 booths at the exposition. Among 
these are companies like Danvers, Mass.-based Fisons 
Instruments Inc. and Perkin-Elmer Corp. of Norwalk, Conn., 
which exhibited their products at the very first Pittsburgh 
Conference, as well. Some of the original equipment shown by 
these and other companies will be on display at the 
"Antiquities Museum," a special exhibition of 
instrumentation that has played a significant role in the 
advancement of analytical chemistry.

"The museum will give today's scientists the chance to 
review the advances in their fields and get back to their 
roots," says W. Richard Howe, president of PITTCON '94. 
"There has been a conversion from the earlier `wet' 
chemistry to modern analytical techniques. Imaging 
techniques are becoming more important now, as are computers 
and network systems," says Howe, who trained as a chemist 
and is currently an associate dean at the University of 
Pittsburgh.


Old And New
One of the items on display at the museum will be an 
original gas chromatograph, the GC Fractovap, Model GI, 
manufactured by Fisons Instruments and shipped over from the 
company's manufacturing site in Italy. "It [the Fractovap] 
is the size of a huge refrigerator," says Cathy Schaub, 
marketing communications manager of the company. "A modern 
GC sits on a bench top." Fisons will also have parts from 
its early mass spectrometers (manufactured in the United 
Kingdom) on display in the Antiquities Museum.

A visit to Fisons' 4,400-square-foot booth--one of the 
largest exhibit booths at the exposition--will give 
conferees an idea of how technologies have evolved over the 
past 45 years. On display will be new instruments such as 
the VG Platform-II mass spectrometer for benchtop analysis, 
and the Quattro-II line of mass spectrometers, which has 
applications in areas of pharmaceutical and biopolymer 
analysis.

In addition to the exposition, PITTCON '94 will feature more 
than 35 symposia with 1,800 papers and posters from 
specialists in various fields of analytical chemistry and 
spectroscopy.

Organizers of this year's PITTCON created three 
miniconferences on the special subdisciplines of 
bioanalytical chemistry, quality management, and process 
analytical chemistry, "to personalize it for those who feel 
it [PITTCON] is becoming too big," says Vincent Conrad, the 
1994 programs chairman, a research chemist at Pittsburgh-
based CONSOL Inc. Research and Development, a member of the 
CONSOL Coal Group. Each of these miniconferences will 
contain all the elements of a full-fledged conference, 
including symposia, invited talks, posters, workshops, and 
panel discussions.

Though it has long outgrown its original home of Pittsburgh, 
PITTCON retains its name because of its sponsors: the 
Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh and the 
Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh. All the members of the 
organizing committee are volunteers who hold regular full-
time positions elsewhere. 



AT A GLANCE

PITTCON '94, the 45th annual Pittsburgh Conference on 
Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, is being held 
at the McCormick Place-on-the-Lake in Chicago from February 
27 to March 4. The program will consist of 40 different 
symposia, with more than 200 invited speakers. In addition 
to these presentations, the technical program features more 
than 1,700 contributed papers and in excess of 40 short 
courses. Almost 1,000 companies dealing with analytical and 
spectroscopic instrumentation will be exhibiting their 
products in about 3,100 booths at the exposition, which will 
run from February 28 to March 3. New this year are three 
miniconferences on special issues, each including the 
components of a regular conference.


MINICONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Bioanalytical Chemistry

Symposia
Monday, Feb. 28
* 8:30 A.M.: Techniques for Food Safety and Environmental 
Monitoring

* 1:30 P.M.: Chemical Sensors: A Tribute to Wilhelm Simon 
(Simon is best known for his pioneering work toward 
developing ion-selective electrodes. He was a professor at 
the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich until 
his death in November 1992.)
Tuesday, March 1

* 8:30 A.M.: On-line Process Analysis on the Micron Scale

* 1:30 P.M.: Pharmaceutical Analysts

Poster Session
Monday, Feb. 28 to Tuesday, March 1

Managing Quality

Symposia
Tuesday, March 1

* 1:30 P.M.: The ISO 9000 Series and Global Harmonization of 
Standards (The ISO 9000 is a series of standards established 
by the National Institute of Standards and Technology for 
addressing   quality   standards   within   organizations 
worldwide.)

Wednesday, March 2
* 1:30 P.M.: Laboratory Accreditation, Atomic Absorption, 
and Atomic Fluorescence

Panel Discussion

Wednesday, March 2
* 8:30 A.M.: Quality Systems
Poster Session

Wednesday, March 2

Process Analytical Chemistry

Symposia
Wednesday, March 2
* 8:30 A.M.: The Role of the Analytical Laboratory in 
Process Analysis

Thursday, March 3
* 8:30 A.M.: Transferring Analytical Technology from the 
Laboratory to the Plant

Poster Session

Wednesday, March 2
User-Manufacturer Information Exchange

Sunday, Feb. 27


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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NEXT:

----------------------------------------------------------
TI : PITTCON '94 TACKLES THE ENVIRONMENT

TY : NEWS

PG : 5

PITTCON '94 features several sessions focusing on the 
practical applications of spectroscopy and analytical 
techniques in environmental remediation and monitoring. 
Listed are some of the major symposia, workshops, and short 
courses offered at the conference.

Monday, Feb. 28
8:30 A.M.
Symposia
* Techniques for Food Safety and Environmental Monitoring    
(bioanalytical miniconference)
* Surface Mass Spectroscopy: Probing Real-World Samples


Tuesday, March 1
8:30 A.M.
Short Course
* 234: Supercritical Space Extraction: Practical 
Considerations and Applications in Environmental Analysis


Wednesday, March 2
1:30 P.M.
Short Course
* 209: Introduction to Environmental Mass Spectroscopy

Thursday, March 3
8:30 A.M.
Symposia
* Advances in Purge and Trapping Gas Chromatography
* Analysis of Environmental Biohazards
* Environmental Mass Spectroscopy

1:30 P.M.
Symposium
* Indoor Air Measurements
Workshop
* Lead Laboratory Accreditation

Friday, March 4
8:30 A.M.
Symposium
* Advances in Environmental Remediation
Workshops
* Detection and Quantitation Definitions and Issues
* Field Water Sampling Using In Situ Solid Phase Extraction


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:
                          NOTEBOOK


----------------------------------------------------------
TI : Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)

PG : 4

Seismologists for the New York State Geological Survey, a 
research arm of the State Museum in Albany, are searching 
for personal accounts, photos of damage, and other 
information related to four earthquakes that struck the 
state earlier in this century. The events occurred in the 
counties of Attica on Aug. 12, 1929; Warrensburg on April 
30, 1931; Massena on Sept. 5, 1944; and Essex and Hamilton 
on Oct. 7, 1983. The data and documentation the scientists 
obtain will be compiled in an education package to be used 
by teachers around the state in their earth sciences 
classes. The museum already has an extensive collection of 
data on earthquakes in the region, dating back more than two 
centuries. In addition to educating students and teachers 
about these seismic events, the museum is trying to educate 
the public about earthquake risks in a region of the United 
States where that might not be a foremost topic. Anybody 
with information on the four quakes is requested to contact 
Gary Nottis of the survey at (518) 474-5816.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

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TI  : Bioscience Hotspots

TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)

PG : 4

The University of California, Davis, is fertile ground for 
the biosciences, according to a report by the National 
Research Council. Using 1991-92 academic year figures, the 
Summary Report 1992: Doctorate Recipients from United States 
Universities (Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 
1993) declared UC-Davis the national leader in awarding 
doctoral degrees in the biological sciences, with 126. 
Rounding out the top five in this category were the 
University of Wisconsin, Madison (120); the University of 
California, Berkeley (94); Yale University (82); and the 
University of Minnesota (79).


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

----------------------------------------------------------
TI : Chaos In The Works

TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)

PG : 4

The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and the Life 
Sciences is calling for abstracts of papers, posters, and 
session proposals for its next annual conference, to be held 
June 24-27 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The 
society brings together researchers and practitioners 
interested in applying dynamical systems theory, self-
organization theory, neural nets, fractals, and other forms 
of chaos and complexity theory to the study of nonlinear 
independent systems. Conference topics--around which the 
meeting will be organized, rather than disciplines--include 
chaos theory, methods, research, and application to all 
types of clinical practice; organization  psychology; 
anthropology; neuropsychology; sociology; economics; 
education; and the humanities. Abstracts of 800 words or 
fewer should be submitted by March 15 to: Jeffrey Goldstein, 
29 Hayes Rd., Amityville, N.Y. 11701. E-mail: 
goldstein@adlibv.adelphi.edu. For information about the 
society, contact Katherine E. Robertson, Society for Chaos 
Theory, P.O. Box 7226, Alhambra, Calif. 91802-7226. E-mail: 
0005699249@mcimail.com.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

----------------------------------------------------------
TI : A Closer Look At Inner Space

TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)

PG : 4

Researchers at AT&T Bell Laboratories have developed a 
technique for detecting and identifying single molecules 
with more than 100 times the sensitivity of previous 
methods, the company announced. Their discovery has 
potential applications in numerous areas, including 
molecular engineering, analytical chemistry, cell biology, 
and genetics. Eric Betzig and Rob Chichester of the Murray 
Hill, N.J., firm's Physical Research Laboratory used a 
"near-field" scanning optical microscope to funnel a 
lightbeam, used to detect molecules, through a tapered 
optical fiber with an opening 100 billionths-of-a-meter 
wide, reducing the volume of a sample to the point at which 
single molecules can be detected repeatedly with improved 
sensitivity. The technique eliminates a long-standing 
problem of "background haze" from the rest of the sample by 
its ability to focus the probe beam to a dimension smaller 
than the order of the wavelength of the probe light, which 
is a billion times larger than the volume of the molecule 
itself. Betzig and Chichester's technique allows researchers 
to generate a precise map of the location of individual 
molecules at the surface of specimens. "As a bonus," Betzig 
notes, they can use the technique to determine the 
orientation of each molecule. 


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : Funding For Minority Doctors

TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)

PG : 4

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Minority Medical 
Faculty Development Program is a four-year, postdoctoral 
research fellowship for outstanding minority physicians who 
are committed to careers in academic medicine. The fellows 
chosen will receive a $50,000 yearly stipend and a $25,000 
annual research grant to conduct research in areas of 
interest to them. The postdocs are open to minority 
physicians who are U.S. citizens and who have completed 
their clinical training. Applicants' materials will be 
reviewed and semifinalists will be chosen for interviews. 
The deadline for requests of application materials is March 
22; the deadline for the receipt of the completed 
applications is April 15. For information, contact James R. 
Gavin III, Program Director, Minority Medical Faculty 
Development Program, 4733 Bethesda Ave., Suite 350, 
Bethesda, Md. 20814; (301) 913-0210. Fax: (202) 913-9022.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : Networking For Human Rights

TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)

PG : 4

The AAAS Program on Science and Human Rights is calling on 
individuals concerned about persecution of scientists, 
engineers, health professionals, and science students to 
join the AAAS Human Rights Action Network, an electronic 
network accessible through Internet. The purpose of the 
network is to facilitate letter-writing and information 
campaigns directed at U.S. and international officials to 
help persecuted scientists around the world. There is no 
charge to join the network. Send the message "SUBSCRIBE 
AAASHRAN[first name, last name]" to the E-mail address 
listerv@gwuvm.gwu.edu. For information, contact AAAS, 1333 H 
St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

----------------------------------------------------------
TI : Brainstorm Awards

TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)

PG : 4

A Washington, D.C.-based organization, Intellectual Property 
Owners, is calling for nominations for its 1994 National 
Inventor of the Year award. The winners of the award, whose 
purpose is to increase awareness of current inventors and 
their benefit to society, will receive a $5,000 cash grant 
and a plaque. Winners will be honored, along with 
Distinguished Inventor runnersup, during a ceremony on 
Capitol Hill. An inventor is eligible for an award if the 
invention is covered by a U.S. patent, either was patented 
or first became available commercially in 1993, and was made 
in the U.S. Last year's award went to Gary H. Rasmusson and 
Glenn F. Reynolds of Rahway, N.J.-based Merck & Co. Inc. for 
Proscar, the first drug for treatment of prostate 
enlargement. The deadline for nominations is March 4. For 
information, contact National Inventor of the Year, 
Intellectual Property Owners, 1255 22rd St., N.W., Suite 
850, Washington, D.C. 20037; (202) 466-2396. Fax: (202) 833-
3636.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

                          OPINION
------------------------------------------------------------
TI   :  A Scientist Reflects On His  `21st-Century  Odyssey' 
        Within Biosphere 2

TY   : OPINION

PG   : 11

Editor's Note: On Sept. 26, 1993, four men and four women  
emerged from two years inside a giant Arizona greenhouse 
described by the New York Times as "the world's largest and 
strangest test-tube experiment, a planet-in-a-bottle called 
Biosphere 2."

Among those emerging was 69-year-old University of 
California, Los Angeles, researcher and professor of 
pathology Roy L. Walford, who for more than 20 years has 
studied the effects of low-calorie, nutrient-dense diets in 
animals. Walford continued this research in Biosphere 2, a 
glass-sealed, 3.15-acre space, replete with an ocean, grassy 
savanna, and 3,800 species of plants and animals. The 
difference was that this time, Walford's subjects were 
humans, rather than mice and rats.

According to Walford and the other so-called biospherians, 
their two-year mission within the "closed ecological support 
system and research facility" was a resounding success. They 
count among their most significant accomplishments growing 
approximately 80 percent of their own food, recycling 100 
percent of all human and domestic wastes as well as all 
water in their environment, and setting a new rec-ord for 
living in a closed system by surpassing the previous record 
(six months) set by Russian researchers in 1984.

The mainstream scientific community, however, has been less 
congratulatory. A number of scientists have criticized the 
venture for setting aside rigorous scientific methods in its 
attempt to meet its goals of finding new ways to sustain 
human life in outer space and to combat pollution. Some 
scientists also have criticized the circus-like atmosphere 
surrounding the project. A number of attractions including a 
bookstore and espresso bar, a "Biosphere Cafe" and a 
"Biosphere 2 Postal Center--are near the experimental 
facility, which is located in the foothills of the Catalina 
Mountains north of Tucson in Oracle, Ariz.

In a recent interview with Ridley Park, Pa.-based freelance 
writer Julia King, Walford described what it was like--as a 
scientist and as a human being--to leave Biosphere 1, the 
Earth, for two years and to live and work in the closed 
atmosphere of Biosphere 2. Following is an edited version of 
the interview.

Q  What were your scientific research goals in the biosphere?

A  First of all, I didn't plan a great deal of research when 
   I went in. I figured I was just going to be a country 
doctor inside. However, a lot of strange things happened, 
and because of my background in research, I was able to 
seize upon these and make them into what you might call an 
experiment of nature. For example, we had projected that we 
would have 2,500 calories per day per person. But there we 
had only about 1,800 for the first six months [because of] 
low light, insects, pests, and so forth. The diet turned out 
to be a low-calorie, low-fat, and nutrient-dense diet. This 
is like the diet I've been studying for years in my research 
in animals, which extends life span, retards the rate of 
aging, and induces a number of physiologic changes. This is 
a big area in gerontology, and yet it happened just by a 
freak of chance that I would be positioned inside, taking 
care of these people, when the same kind of diet was forced 
upon them. So this, then, was an experiment of nature.


Q  Have you published any results of your studies?

A  My report on the first six months of work in the 
   biosphere was published in the Proceedings of the 
National Academy of Sciences [89:11533, December 1992]. That 
became quite a famous paper because it was the first 
rigorous human study of this kind of nutrition.


Q  What did the diet consist of? 

A  It was largely vegetarian--beans, grains, some fruits, 
   mainly bananas. There was meat once a week, an egg about 
every two weeks, starches, potatoes, sweet potatoes, white 
potatoes, vegetables. There was a moderate amount of 
variety, but not a great variety, so the biospherians had to 
learn how to make a cuisine out of a limited amount of food, 
and that turned out quite well.


Q  I've read several articles in which other biospherians 
   report being obsessed with food, having constant 
cravings, and so forth. I also understand that everyone 
inside lost quite a bit of weight. Did you experience any 
particular cravings? What kind of weight loss did you 
experience?

A  I maintain a fairly vegetarian diet generally, so I 
didn't go around craving food. Nothing in the area of oral 
consumption was a big problem for me. The average weight 
loss was 18 percent of body weight for men and about 10 or 
12 percent for women. My personal weight was about 145 going 
in. The lowest point I reached was 119. When I came out I 
was 124. [Walford's height is 5 feet, 7 inches.]


Q  There have been rumors that you and the other 
biospherians were forced to secretly import food into the 
biosphere as a result of the poor growing conditions and low 
food supply. Was food imported?

A  None was imported. There was some stored food already 
inside--about two or three months' worth. Also, there were a 
lot of beans and so forth that were stock for planting, 
which, instead of planting, we ate.


Q  So, you could say that the planting beans were, in a 
sense, intended for consumption anyway?

A  Only if we could not make the grade agriculturally. I 
think we grew about 80 to 85 percent of the food we 
consumed.


Q  What was the focus of your dietary research?

A  What I measured in the biospherians were different 
physiologic changes, such as blood pressure and cholesterol. 
There was an enormous drop in cholesterol, low blood sugar, 
a low white blood cell count--all hallmarks of the same 
changes that occur in animals on such a diet.


Q  If these hallmarks are the same for humans as they are 
for animals, do you think other effects of the low-fat, low-
calorie, nutrient-dense diet that you have observed in 
animals may also manifest themselves in humans?

A  One can infer that humans are acting in the same way. And 
if you wish to make that inference for the other things 
found in such a diet, you would also obtain in humans 
retardation of aging, health enhancement, and resistance to 
tumor development. That research has been continuing. I got 
a great deal more data on it during the next year and one-
half [following the PNAS paper], and still more now that 
I've come out. In collaboration with the metabolic people at 
the National Institutes of Health, I'll be doing further 
work with frozen plasma serum that I drew inside.

 
Q  What were some of your other research pursuits inside the 
biosphere?

A  I've also done a fair amount of work on oxygen depletion 
because there was a period when the oxygen level in the 
biosphere declined to about 14 percent, as opposed to the 
outside atmosphere of 21 percent. Fourteen percent is the 
equivalent of being at about 13,500 feet up a mountain. In 
this way of thinking, our ascent up the mountain was about 
700 feet per month, and this induced a long-term gradual 
hypoxia in the biospherians. I've done quite a few studies 
on that, which are not yet written up. They were interesting 
because the biospherians did not acclimatize in the usual 
way to that kind of oxygen depletion. Their hemoglobin 
levels didn't rise very much, and they did not experience 
the kinds of changes in blood chemistry that one might 
expect. I might say that I'm in the process of founding a 
new medical specialty, which you can call biospheric 
medicine.


Q  What is biospheric medicine?

A  Biospheric medicine is not just a kind of extension of 
space medicine, but will be a subspecialty in its own right 
and will deal with the practice of medicine or other 
sciences when you're in a situation where things go off in 
unpredictable directions. I predicted upon going into the 
biosphere that the main problems would be infection, trauma, 
and toxicity. In fact, none of these happened to any great 
degree. What happened was calorie depletion and oxygen 
depletion, and these were unpredicted. I think in the 
future, as we develop more biospheres, that other things 
will be happening that are not very well predicted. The 
biospheric physician has to have the kind of mind or kind of 
training that allows him to handle or adapt to the 
unpredictable. 

Q  How do you respond to critics of biosphere research, 
which is regarded by much of the mainstream scientific 
community as less than rigorous?

A  That's not the case for my work. I don't think people 
have criticized my work. The [PNAS] paper is very 
respectable, of course, and people expect me to come out 
with more on that category. I think the criticism is 
directed toward the major focus of the biosphere, which is 
as an ecological laboratory doing scientific investigations 
into ecology. I think the criticism is premature. I think 
it's very clear-cut what needs to be done is to justify the 
project scientifically. It is a long-term project, so I 
think the  other biospherians deserve  an other year or two 
or three. But, then, if they don't come out with substantial 
papers in major journals, the criticism is correct.


Q  Did you know the other seven researchers prior to living 
with them for two years in Biosphere 2?

A  Sure. Everybody who went in had periods of training. 
Space Biospheres Ventures [the company that built and 
sponsored Biosphere 2] has a cattle ranch in western 
Australia where everybody goes to spend a season. That's a 
strenuous deal. I was stringing barbed wire across the 
landscape, pounding fence posts, and riding horses herding 
cattle all day for six weeks. I suppose you could call it a 
stamina test.


Q  What were your relationships like inside the biosphere?

A  Well, I think we had a community with four people and the 
other four were like some separate group. There was a fair 
amount of factionalism inside. I feel fairly close to three 
other people that I was in with and not so close with four. 
[The factionalism] caused a lot of problems, but I think 
everybody was so devoted to making the biosphere work that 
everything held together despite personal conflicts. There 
weren't any fights or heated arguments, but there were 
people who got on each others' nerves. But we overlooked 
that because we had a job to do.


Q  What was a typical day like in the biosphere?

A  Usually you get up at 6:00 or 6:30 A.M.; breakfast is at 
   8:00. You may have various things to do between when you get 
up and breakfast--milking goats or watering something or, in 
my case, drawing blood. I wanted pre-breakfast blood on the 
biospherians. After breakfast there was about two hours of 
heavy-duty agricultural work--weeding, trenching, carrying 
buckets, gathering animal fodder, and so forth. Then there 
might be another hour of crew work of some kind. One of the 
things I did quite a bit was repair and take care of the 
sensors. It was electrical work. There are more than 100 
sensors for temperature, humidity, and so forth. In the 
afternoon I usually worked on medical or computer work. 
Other people would have agricultural work. One person would 
work in the rain forest, another in the terrestrial 
wilderness--doing research or propping up plants or 
planting. That would be it. Then dinner would be at 6:30 
P.M., and the evenings were  pretty  much  free time.


Q  What would you do for entertainment?

A  Well I should tell you everybody had to cook. Every 
eighth day you had to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 
all eight people, and that was about a 10-hour job.

Entertainment? Well, I'd read, watch television, talk to 
other people, something like that. I did a lot of video 
inside and I'm getting together an art exhibit with an 
outside performance artist that I interacted with while I 
was in the biosphere. We're doing an art piece that we're 
working up for a gallery exhibit called "The 21st Century 
Odyssey."

Q  And how would you communicate with the outside world?


A  E-mail, telephone, telecommunications, picturetel, 
videophone, fax . . . telepathy. All of the methods of 
communication.

Q  What was it like when you came out?

A  Re-entry was easy, but kind of confusing. When you 
settled into two years of pretty much of a routine, you knew 
where everything was, in a sense. So when we came out, 
everybody got kind of confused and forgot where they put 
this or that. For a few days or a week, everybody was losing 
their papers, their books. They couldn't remember where they 
put their keys and so forth.

It was also funny to deal with money again. I felt like 
going to a restaurant, pulling out $20, and saying, "Bring 
me that much food." This is what a savage would do. We felt 
kind of like that, like you had come in from the jungle and 
all of a sudden you were in civilization. I think everybody 
had the experience that when they drove first in the car, 
the landscape went by so fast that it was kind of 
psychedelic. You had to shut your eyes. You weren't 
accustomed to taking in visual information and change that 
rapidly.

Q  Did anything change substantially in the world outside 
from the time you entered the biosphere?

A  I don't think anything really took me by surprise because 
we had television and communications. Of course while we 
were in, the Russian Empire fell, the economic scene 
deteriorated--stuff like that--but I expected it.


Q  What's your next adventure? Would you go back into the 
biosphere?

A  Not a second time. But it was worthwhile to do it once. 
For my next adventure, well, I have a number of books to 
write. I have a lot of work to do in getting up an art 
exhibit.

I used to publish quite a bit of journalism, a moderate 
number of short stories and poetry. Now I have some more 
serious books I want to write.




(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:



----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : Women In Science: Much Has Been Accomplished, But Much 
      Remains To Be Done

AU  : NEAL LANE

TY  : OPINION (COMMENTARY)

PG  : 12

 
One of the most important and most debated issues facing the 
scientific community today is that of underrepresentation by 
women of all ethnic groups. I address the topic here in the 
hope that increased discourse will lead to increased 
understanding.

The Nov. 15, 1993, issue of The Scientist contained a page-
one article (R. Twombly, "Congresswomen Take NIH And NSB To 
Task Over Gender Bias") that correctly noted that women are 
underrepresented at the top levels of national science 
policy. Since that article appeared, President Bill Clinton, 
in keeping with his commitment to increase the number of 
women and minorities in positions of federal responsibility, 
has nominated Shirley Malcom to fill the only vacancy on the 
National Science Board (NSB). Malcom currently is head of 
the directorate for education and human resources programs 
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 
(AAAS). Upon her confirmation by the Senate, she will be an 
outstanding addition to NSB.

Yet, as important as it is to have highly visible role 
models as participants at the top levels of science and 
technology policy, the task we face is much broader. We must 
redouble our efforts and continually push to increase the 
number of qualified women at all levels of involvement in 
science, mathematics, and engineering. As a society, we must 
undertake these efforts because it is the right thing to do. 
For those who need a more pragmatic argument, demographic 
trends indicate that, between now and the turn of the 
century, nearly two-thirds of new entrants into the work 
force will be women. The jobs potentially available to these 
new working women will require higher skill levels in 
science, engineering, and mathematics than ever before. 
These statistics are quite well known; what is more 
difficult to identify and change are the root causes of the 
cultural attitudes that continue to limit the full potential 
of women in science and engineering.

While we consider the challenges and work ahead, let us not 
be blind to the progress that has already been made. 
According to 1993 National Science Foundation statistics, 
during the most recent 10-year period for which data are 
available, the proportion of women receiving Ph.D.'s in 
science, mathematics, and engineering increased from 22 
percent to 27 percent. In engineering, the proportion of 
women earning doctorates nearly doubled, from 4 percent in 
1981 to 7.7 percent in 1991. In a few scientific disciplines 
today--such as psychology and agricultural and biological 
sciences--a higher percentage of undergraduate degrees are 
being awarded to women than to men. This movement needs to 
be encouraged and expanded. Although society is moving 
beyond the simplistic stereotypes regarding women (and 
members of other underrepresented groups), many of the 
values and assumptions that underpin those stereotypes 
remain.

In spite of some notable progress, there are still problems 
at the top. Most of our scientific and technical 
institutions, including NSF, are managed primarily by men. 
And many men, I believe--no matter how concerned and 
sensitive they may be--have great difficulty understanding 
the obstacles that women have had to overcome to pursue 
careers in science, mathematics, and engineering. And these 
obstacles are compounded for women of color. We simply 
cannot know the discouragement that girls often experience 
in their homes and schools throughout their childhood, only 
to be followed by similar negative experiences in colleges 
or universities--and even in the workplace, provided they 
can stay with it. If we did understand better, perhaps 
unpleasant and even hostile learning and working 
environments would be rare. Perhaps the structures of our 
institutions would long ago have been changed. Perhaps the 
glass ceilings would have disappeared.

Why is it so difficult to understand? Why can't we do more 
to change the climate and structure of our working 
environments? It's time we found out. Otherwise, women are 
not likely to be attracted in greater numbers to careers in 
these fields that are so important to the future of the 
nation. And that would be a tragedy for all of us.

I call on all members of the science, mathematics, and 
engineering community to accelerate progress to provide 
women the same career opportunities as men. Let us work 
together to share approaches that have been shown to be 
effective and to explore new ideas. I invite readers to 
share with me their ideas on this matter--to let me know 
what more NSF can do.


Neal Lane is director of the National Science Foundation, 
4201 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Va. 22230.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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NEXT:


                          LETTERS

------------------------------------------------------------
TI : A Scientific Tradition

AU : WILLIAM RAINE

TY : OPINION (LETTERS)

PG : 12

The endeavors undertaken by Peyrets Goldmacher and the 
Association of Engineers and Scientists for New Americans 
(P. Goldmacher, "Let's Give Russian Scientists The Chance To 
Succeed--And Contribute--In The U.S.," The Scientist, Oct. 
4, 1993, page 12) deserve further consideration. Despite 
Goldmacher's plea, the task of job hunting should be easy 
for them. This can be understood by looking at the refugees' 
U.S. counterparts, such as myself.

I am a product of an American academic institution imbued 
with only two centuries of scientific tradition, for even 
though Georgetown University is the oldest Catholic 
institution of higher learning in the United States, ours is 
a young country. While English is my second language, I 
learned it at a young age and thus speak it without too much 
difficulty. This skill was put to good use by teaching 
physics at my alma mater, first as a graduate student and 
subsequently as a postdoctoral fellow. Unlike the Russian 
scientists with "doctorat nauk" degrees Goldmacher mentions, 
I will not be able to do considerable research beyond my 
Ph.D. because the number of applications for each assistant 
professor or postdoctoral position at even the least 
prestigious U.S. academic institutions is in the several 
hundreds.

While most of my U.S. colleagues (many of whom are first-
generation Americans themselves) possess far nicer c.v.'s 
than mine, some of them have found that they too will be 
forced to sit on the sidelines. The truth, which U.S. 
universities are only beginning to recognize, is that 
scientists from Europe and the former Soviet Union survived 
a grueling process of elimination, which often begins in 
grammar school. Those pedagogical methods are simple and 
efficient, ensuring finalists of the highest quality for a 
preselected number of slots designed to prevent a glut in 
their market.

The U.S. market, on the other hand, has been glutted for 30 
years because, rather than hold tough examinations such as 
the Tripos, the Concours des Grandes Ecoles, or the types of 
examinations made famous by Lev Landau's school of physics, 
we merely required comprehensive qualifying examinations at 
the master's and Ph.D. levels. Two generations of younger 
Americans had been aggressively encouraged to become 
scientists.

In May, as a result, I shall be obliged to leave physics, 
that which I love most and to which I have devoted all the 
youthful years of my life. In May, I will be happy to answer 
Goldmacher's call for volunteers to aid emigre scientists in 
the affirmative.


WILLIAM RAINE
Department of Physics
Georgetown University
Washington, D.C. 20057


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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NEXT:

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TI  : Animal Research Data

AU  : DONALD J. BARNES

TY  : OPINION (LETTERS)

PG  : 12

Ron Kaufman's report ("Scientific Merit, Rather Than Morals, 
Guides Use Of Animals In Lab Research," The Scientist, July 
12, 1993, page 1) and Martin L. Stephens's letter (The 
Scientist, Nov. 1, 1993, page 12) state that biomedical 
researchers choose their experimental subjects on a 
scientific rather than a moral standard. This is simply not 
true.

There is no doubt that humans are the most scientifically 
valid surrogates for other humans.

The dilemma is in the scope of one's ethical purview--that 
is, nonhuman animals are simply not included in the ethical 
systems of many biomedical researchers. Herein lies the crux 
of the debate; when one expands one's circle of compassion 
to include all animals, alternatives must be found for 
entertainment, clothing, dietary needs, and even biomedical 
research.

Through the National Anti-Vivisection Society's support, the 
International Foundation for Ethical Research is actively 
seeking means of advancing the goals of biomedicine without 
causing stress, pain, suffering, and death to other 
creatures.

Is it not axiomatic that moral considerations should 
necessarily take precedence over scientific hypotheses?


DONALD J. BARNES
Director of Education
National Anti-Vivisection Society
53 W. Jackson Blvd.
Chicago, Ill. 60604-3795 


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:



                          RESEARCH 

----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : RU 486 Research Forges On, Despite Political Hurdles

AU  : MYRNA E. WATANABE

TY  : RESEARCH

PG  : 14


It has been a year since President Bill Clinton, in one of 
his first major acts, called for an import alert on the drug 
RU 486, commonly called "the abortion pill," to be 
reconsidered. The alert, imposed by the Bush administration 
in 1991, allegedly in response to political pressure from 
conservative and right-to-life groups, prohibits the 
importation of the drug into the United States for personal 
use.

Since then, agreements have been reached between the drug's 
French manufacturer, Paris-based Roussel-Uclaf, and the New 
York-based Population Council to begin clinical trials of RU 
486 as an abortifacient in the U.S. Furthermore, the head of 
Roussel has met with David Kessler, the chief of the U.S. 
Food and Drug Administration, to discuss the drug. 
Nonetheless, the ban still remains in effect, until such 
trials result in FDA approval of the drug.

At the time the embargo first went into effect, biomedical 
researchers in different fields had been studying the drug's 
promising mechanisms and therapeutic effects in 
nonabortifacient uses for several years--as a potential 
treatment for cancer and immune system and neurological 
disorders, and as a contraceptive. The ban, many of these 
scientists feared, would have a chilling effect on their 
studies, limiting availability of the drug and support for 
their work. But that did not happen, according to many RU 
486 researchers, with supplies of the drug and government 
funding for research remaining essentially unchanged from 
before the embargo. 

Given the Clinton administration's supportive attitude, it 
would have been reasonable to expect that an upsurge in 
studies and trials might have occurred over the past year. 
Yet very little new research is being done on the drug in 
the U.S. and there has not been a significant increase in 
the modest numbers of projects receiving federal support.

Scientists studying the drug, as well as science agency 
administrators, have several theories on why this is so. A 
few researchers are concerned that the stigma surrounding 
the drug because of its abortifacient uses may have carried 
over to non-abortion-related uses of the compound. Some even 
worry that this reticence to carry out research may extend 
to Roussel itself, which is the only source of the drug and 
a major supplier of research funds for it. And yet still 
others believe RU 486 is being neglected because it is 
perceived as a "women's drug," suffering the same lack of 
federal funding as studies of other women's diseases. On the 
other hand, some scientists and some agency officials 
believe that the main reason for the nonproliferation of 
studies is that similar drugs are showing equal, if not 
greater, promise.

Whatever the case, several investigations with the drug are 
under way in a variety of biomedical areas.

The State Of RU 486 Research
Clinton's call for reevaluating RU 486 opened the way for 
scientific comment on possible clinical uses of the drug. 
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of 
Sciences was commissioned by the Henry J. Kaiser Family 
Foundation to write a report on the scientific status of 
research with RU 486 and similar antiprogestin compounds. 
The distinguished scientific panel made recommendations for 
further studies in the report, which is based, in part, on a 
two-day seminar held in Washington, D.C., last spring and 
attended by some of the top researchers using RU 486 (M.S. 
Donaldson, et al., eds., Clinical Applications of 
Mifepristone (RU 486) and Other Antiprogestins: Assessing 
the Science and Recommending a Research Agenda, Washington, 
D.C., National Academy Press, 1983). The panel concluded 
that antiprogestins have many potential applications aside 
from abortion--as contraceptives, in uterine diseases, in 
breast and ovarian cancers, in Cushing's disease, and 
against nonmalignant menin-giomas, among others--but needed 
much additional study.

Some of these studies are ongoing and others are just 
beginning, but they give an indication of extensive medical 
research potential for a drug that would have been consigned 
to public obscurity until approval were it not for the 
abortion controversy.

RU 486 (or mifepristone, as it is called generically) and 
similar antiprogestins interact with progesterone receptors. 
The effects of these compounds are broad, and indications 
are that they may be used in treatment of numerous diseases, 
many unrelated to reproductive function. RU 486 also has a 
strong antiglucocorticoid effect that makes it useful in 
treating diseases in which glucocorticoid receptors can be 
blocked (see accompanying story).

Kathryn Horwitz, a molecular endocrinologist at the 
University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver and one 
of the foremost researchers on the role of hormone receptors 
in breast cancer, explains that breast cancers grow in 
response to estradiol and progesterone. Antiestrogens, like 
tamoxifen, are used clinically to inhibit growth of the 
cancer tissue.

Now, Horwitz says, it is important to study the role of 
antiprogestins, such as RU 486, to complement the 
suppression of the estrogenic component. She expects that in 
the future, antiestrogens and antiprogestins could be 
combined in a treatment regimen.

"Right now, we have very little clinical information on the 
antiprogestins alone," she says. Horwitz is one of a few 
researchers receiving funding from the National Cancer 
Institute (NCI) for her studies on breast cancer cells and 
RU 486.

Some clinical evidence of the drug's potential use with 
breast cancer patients may be forthcoming. A very small test 
of the drug in women with advanced breast cancer will be 
conducted at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center in 
California.

The one Phase III clinical trial supported by NCI is a study 
of the effects of the drug on nonresectable meningioma. 
Meningiomas are nonmalignant, recurring growths on the 
meninges, or the covering of the brain, that lead to death. 
According to Steven Grunberg, who is coordinating the trial 
and is chief of the hematology and oncology unit at the 
University of Vermont College of Medicine in Burlington, 70 
percent of meningiomas, whether in male or female patients, 
have high levels of progesterone receptors. RU 486, as an 
antiprogestational agent, would be able to block the 
receptors on the tumors, discouraging tumor growth. A pilot 
study, begun in 1987 while Grunberg was at the University of 
Southern California, showed positive results. The trial is 
coordinated through the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) in 
San Antonio, Texas, and institutions throughout the U.S. are 
participating.

In a number of small clinical tests, Samuel S.C. Yen of the 
University of California, San Diego, has been studying the 
effects of RU 486 on two very common, nonmalignant, painful 
conditions related to uterine tissue: endometriosis and 
leio-myoma. Current pharmaceutical regimens have potentially 
serious side effects and are therefore limited to the short 
term; minimally invasive surgery also results in only 
temporary relief. The only cure is hysterectomy. Thus, a 
drug that can be administered on a long-term basis with 
minimal side effects would become the preferred method of 
treatment. Women treated in trials with RU 486 showed 
greater improvement than is usually seen with other drugs, 
Yen says.

One of the research projects is based on the drug's 
effectiveness in promoting uterine contractions. Marilynn 
Frederiksen, an obstetrician-gynecologist with Northwestern 
University Medical School in Chicago, has had some success 
in clinical studies stimulating labor using RU 486 in women 
carrying dead fetuses. She currently is negotiating with 
Roussel for a clinical study on the kinetics and efficacy of 
the drug in inducing labor in cases of stillbirth.

RU 486 has several mechanisms of action. One of these is as 
an antiglucocorticoid.

George Chrousos and Lynnette Kaye Nieman of NIH's National 
Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) are 
using RU 486 to treat some patients with a certain subtype 
of Cushing's syndrome, a disease characterized by excess 
production of adrenocorticosteroid hormones, such as 
cortisol. Because glucocorticoids are important in 
suppression of inflammatory response, Chrousos has used the 
drug in other basic research on the action of 
glucocorticoids in humans.

The antiglucocorticoid function of the drug has resulted in 
another clinical study to determine if RU 486 will foster 
memory improvement in Alzheimer's disease patients. This 
trial, to total 40 patients, is being carried out by Nunzio 
Pomara, director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Center of the 
Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in 
Orangeburg, N.Y., at the New York University School of 
Medicine, where he is a research associate professor of 
psychiatry.

Pomara explains that in animal studies, high endogenous and 
exogenous corticosteroid levels have been found to damage 
the hippocampus. He says that some Alzheimer's patients have 
increased cortisol levels that cannot be pharmacologically 
decreased, and many Cushing's syndrome patients--who have 
high cortisol levels--show signs of cognitive and memory 
deficits, some even having dementia. Thus, Pomara reasons, 
blocking glucocorticoid receptors with RU 486 in Alzheimer's 
patients may decrease damage to the hippocampus.



Why So Little New Research?
With such fascinating and diverse projects using the drug, 
the question arises as to why so few projects are being 
funded by the government. Almost all the researchers 
contacted for this story believe that the political fallout 
because the drug's major use is in inducing abortion is, at 
most, a mild undercurrent in terms of reduced federal 
support for RU 486 projects. Because the drug is treated as 
an unproven new drug by FDA, investigators must file an 
investigational new drug application (IND) in order to 
obtain supplies of it. But these scientists say that FDA 
has, by and large, not inhibited their ability to get the 
drug and has approved their INDs.

NCI has been funding basic research on RU 486 for several 
years. The institute's total support, however, is small. For 
example, in 1992 the agency disbursed $281,000 in grants; in 
1993, $276,000 in grants and $157,000 for the clinical 
meningioma trial. When asked why NCI is not funding more 
research with the drug, Michael Friedman, associate director 
for the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program at NCI, explains, 
"There was an important need to evaluate this agent in 
patients with meningioma and so we were happy to help 
investigators perform a Phase III study. For breast cancer 
and other indications, the company, that is, Roussel-Uclaf, 
showed us all the data they had. Although some patients seem 
to have benefited from the agent, it looked to be no 
different than other hormonally active agents." Friedman 
adds, "We are reevaluating this position regularly so that 
if new information becomes available, our enthusiasm might 
change."

Ana Murphy, director of the division of reproductive 
endocrinology at Emory University School of Medicine in 
Atlanta, who has been studying the drug for endometriosis 
and fibroids along with UCSD's Yen, has another theory. She 
believes that RU 486 is being treated as a drug for women, 
and "there's no money in the budget for a lot of women's 
diseases."

Although some researchers have had very productive 
experiences working with and receiving funding from Roussel, 
others fault the drug company. They say that political and 
economic pressures within the company and from its parent 
firm, Hoechst AG in Berlin, may be adversely affecting its 
ability to fund these projects. They also say that other 
companies, such as Berlin-Teknika in Belgium, have other 
drugs that may be better than RU 486.

Thus, most projects have been funded, at least in part, by 
researchers' own sources. Yen, optimistically, submitted a 
grant application to NIH, but he doesn't expect funding 
because of budgetary problems.

Meanwhile, the import ban on personal use that sparked the 
controversy involving RU 486 will continue until it receives 
FDA approval. "The FDA's position," according to spokesman 
Lawrence Bachorik, "is that somebody should submit an NDA 
[New Drug Application] so we can evaluate the data."


Myrna E. Watanabe is a biotechnology consultant based in Yonkers, N.Y.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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NEXT:

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TI  : RU 486 AS A RECEPTOR BLOCKER

AU  : Myrna E. Watanabe

TY  : RESEARCH

PG  : 14

RU 486, discovered more than 10 years ago, is an 
antiprogestin. Antiprogestins attach to progesterone 
receptors on the cell membrane in competition with the 
steroid hormone progesterone. When progesterone binds with a 
receptor, a cascade of biochemical events leads to DNA 
transcription. An antiprogestin, once bound to the 
progesterone receptor, suppresses transcription. In the 
uterus, this leads to hormonal and biochemical changes that 
can prevent implantation of a fertilized ovum or, if 
implantation has occurred, interrupt the pregnancy. Because 
the uterus is not the only site in the body that has 
progesterone receptors

on its cells, other medical uses of antiprogestins are 
evident. The most prominent possible uses are in breast or 
ovarian cancers that may respond by growing in the presence 
of estrogens and progesterones. 

RU 486's other potential clinical uses result from its 
ability to block glucocorticoid receptors in cells 
throughout the body. They are particularly important in 
illnesses like Cushing's syndrome, in which the adrenal 
cortical hormone, cortisol, which affects carbohydrate and 
protein metabolism, is produced in excessive amounts.


--M.E.W.


SUGGESTED READING

G.P. Chrousos, P.W. Gold, Journal of the American Medical 
Association, 267:1244-1252, 1992.
G.P. Chrousos, et al., The Adrenal and Hypertension: From 
Cloning to Clinic, pages 273-284, eds. F. Mantero, et al., 
Serono Symposia Series, New York, Raven Press, 1989.
M.T. Gomez, G.P. Chrousos, Cushing's Syndrome, Current 
Therapy in Endocrinology and Metabolism, pages 134-137, ed. 
W. Bardin, Philadelphia, B.C. Decker, Inc.
K.E. Greene, et al., Fertility and Sterility, 58:338-343, 
1992.
L.M. Kettle, et al., Fertility and Sterility, 56:402-407, 
1991.
A.A. Murphy, et al., Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and 
Metabolism, 76:513-517, 1993.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

                         HOT PAPERS


----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : CELL BIOLOGY

TY  : RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS)

PG  : 16

H.Y. Lin, X.-F. Wang, E. Ng-Eaton, R.A. Weinberg, H.F. 
Lodish, "Expression cloning of the TGF-b type II receptor, a 
functional transmembrane serine/threonine kinase," Cell, 
68:775-85, 1992.

Herbert Y. Lin (Netherlands Institute for Developmental 
Biology, Utrecht): "Transforming growth factor-b1 (TGF-b1) 
was initially identified about a decade ago as a prototypic 
negative growth factor, arresting cell growth at the G1 to S 
transition of the cell cycle. More than 20 other related 
members of this TGF-b superfamily of ligands have now been 
described. They appear to play important roles in many areas 
of biology, including development, embryogenesis, and 
morphogenesis, as well as in cell growth. Understanding how 
TGF-bs achieve their potent effects would greatly enhance 
our understanding of these processes and may provide 
insights into diseases such as cancer.

"In our work we describe the expression cloning of the type 
II TGF-b receptor and demonstrate that the receptor has 
serine/threonine kinase activity. The cloning of the type II 
receptor, which proved to be similar to the activin type II 
receptor (L. Mathews and W. Vale, Cell, 65:973-82, 1991), 
provided the heretofore unknown first clues to the first 
steps of TGF-b signal transduction. Our results directly 
implicated serine/threonine phosphorylation as the initial 
event in TGF-b signal transduction and raised the following 
question: What are the immediate downstream targets for the 
type II receptors?

"Recently, a type I TGF-b receptor has been cloned (R. 
Ebner, et al., Science, 260:1344, 1993), and it is also a 
receptor serine/threonine kinase. Surprisingly, the type I 
receptor appears to require the type II receptor in order to 
bind TGF-b, and type I and type II receptors appear to 
interact in a hetero-oligomeric complex (J. Wrana, et al., 
Cell, 71:1003, 1992; M. Inagaki, et al., Proceedings of the 
National Academy of Sciences, 90:5359, 1993). Even more 
surprisingly, the TGF-b type III receptor appears to enhance 
the ability of the type II receptor to bind TGF-b (F. Lopez-
Casillas, et al., Cell, 73:1435, 1993). The details of how 
these receptors interact with each other remain problems for 
future work.

"What makes this field particularly exciting at the moment 
is that the signal transduction system used by receptor 
serine/threonine kinases appears to be so different from 
other known signal-transduction systems that each new 
finding has turned out to be unexpected and unpredicted: 
true surprises. Future discoveries will no doubt be as 
surprising and exciting."


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:


----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : MOLECULAR GENETICS

TY  : RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS)

PG  : 16

J. Buxton, P. Shelbourne, J. Davies, C. Jones, T. Van 
Tongeren, C. Aslanidis, P. de Jong, G. Jansen, M. Anvret, B. 
Riley, R. Williamson, K. Johnson, "Detection of an unstable 
fragment of DNA specific to individuals with myotonic 
dystrophy," Nature, 355:547-8, 1992.

Keith Johnson (Department of Anatomy, Charing Cross and 
Westminster Medical School, University of London): "Myotonic 
dystrophy (DM) is the most common form of adult-onset 
muscular dystrophy and is inherited as an autosomal dominant 
disorder with the mutation mapping to chromosome 19. Several 
features of the phenotype associated with DM were extremely 
puzzling to geneticists prior to the discovery of the 
mutation that causes it, given that a single gene defect was 
suspected of underlying it from its Mendelian mode of 
inheritance. DM has a highly variable age of onset within 
families, usually with earlier onset in subsequent 
generations (a phenomenon known as anticipation). In a 
single family a range of symptoms can be seen in differently 
affected individuals with widespread variation in the 
symptoms' severity. Of note is the almost exclusively 
maternal transmission of the most severe form of the 
disease, congenital DM. Coupled with these observations was 
the fact that there are no sporadic cases of DM, indicating 
that all affected individuals inherit their disorder.

"At the end of 1991, thanks to an international 
collaborative effort, the region in which the gene was 
located had been narrowed down sufficiently for a detailed 
search to be undertaken. This search threw up a DNA probe 
from the candidate region that detected alterations in the 
size of DNA fragment from DM patients compared with the 
control group. This finding was similar to the reported 
mutations underlying Kennedy's disease and fragile X mental 
retardation, which were both due to expansions in copy 
number of trinucleotide repeats. Soon after the publication 
of three papers describing the instability of the region in 
DM patients (this paper as well as C. Aslanidis, et al., 
Nature, 355:548-51, 1992; and H. Harley, et al., Nature, 
355:545-7, 1992) came the confirmation that this was indeed 
the third example of trinucleotide repeat instability. The 
repeat altered in a way that correlated very well with the 
phenomenon of anticipation, the repeat getting longer in 
earlier-onset cases. There are now several cases of DM 
reported that show the repeat can also contract on 
transmission and that this almost invariably happens when 
inherited through the paternal germline. Since the DM 
mutation discovery two more inherited disorders, 
Huntington's disease and, most recently, a form of 
spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA1) have been found to have a 
similar underlying mechanism. There is evidence that a 
number of other diseases may have a similar etiology and 
this form of mutation probably represents a large and 
important class of inherited disorders. The term `dynamic 
mutations' has been coined to describe this form of 
mutation.

"The discovery of the DM mutation immediately led to more 
informative prenatal and presymptomatic diagnoses for those 
at risk, although the long-term goal of being able to 
intervene in the disease pathway and call a halt to its 
progression seems to be still a long way off. The reason for 
this is that dynamic mutations represent a totally new and 
unexpected form of mutation. Although they are inherited 
from one generation to the next in a Mendelian fashion, the 
way in which they rapidly expand over one or two generations 
is clearly non-Mendelian. We still have a long way to go in 
understanding how expansion of repeats, in the case of the 
DM mutation in the 3-untranslated region of a putative 
protein kinase-encoding gene, leads to the disease 
phenotype. Indeed, there are contradictory reports about the 
effect of the repeat on expression of the protein kinase 
gene in the case of DM (C. Ezzell, Journal of NIH Research, 
5:54-8, 1993)."


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : MEDICINE

TY  : RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS)

PG  : 16

W.O. Spitzer, S. Suissa, P. Ernst, R.I. Horwitz, B. Habbick, 
D. Cockcroft, J.-F. Boivin, M. McNutt, A.S. Buist, A.S. 
Rebuck, "The use of a-agonists and the risk of death and 
near death from asthma," New England Journal of Medicine, 
326:501,6, 1992.

Samy Suissa (Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, 
McGill University, Montreal): "Asthma is a common disease 
that affects 5 percent to 10 percent of people. Numerous 
effective medications have been developed to treat this 
disease, by way of either bronchodilation or inflammation 
reduction. In the 1980s, the mainstay of asthma therapy was 
based on bronchodilators, which included theophyllines and 
a-agonists. Extremely effective, these latter drugs were 
used rather liberally, to the point at which they were 
available without prescription in some countries. Unexpected 
increases in asthma mortality in several parts of the world 
have induced investigations of the possible role of drug 
therapies in these mortality patterns.

"In 1989, a case-control study from New Zealand suggested 
that one of these a-agonist bronchodilators, namely 
fenoterol, was associated with a higher risk of death from 
asthma, while the other popular one, salbutamol, was not. We 
and other scientists were puzzled by this premise that two 
drugs from the same class could show different risk 
profiles. Conscious of the limitations of this type of 
epidemiologic study design, we decided to conduct our own 
investigation.

"Using a more rigorous population-based design, we found 
that the excessive use of any or all inhaled a-agonists, 
including fenoterol and salbutamol, was associated with 
fatal and near-fatal asthma. A significant number of the 
12,300 asthmatics studied were using inordinate amounts of 
inhaled a-agonists, much more than the maximum recommended 
quantity, and these formed the basis for the elevated risks 
we found. It was clear that these drugs had become victims 
of their remarkable effectiveness.

"Our study generated great attention primarily because it 
put in question the current practice of asthma therapy. 
Instantly, the uncontrolled use of inhaled a-agonists became 
no longer admissible. Physicians and patients were now to 
monitor the use of these drugs and, if this use increased, 
indicating worsening disease, to supplement therapy with 
anti-inflammatory inhaled corticosteroids. The latter 
indication has since been confirmed by our subsequent 
analyses of the data (P. Ernst, et al., Journal of the 
American Medical Association, 268[24]:3462-4, 1992), which 
suggest that the use of inhaled corticosteroids reduces the 
risk of fatal or near fatal asthma 10-fold. Our study has in 
essence substantiated the recent international guidelines on 
the management of asthma."


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:


                         TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY

----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : New Chromatography Software Keeps Pace With Hardware

AU  : CAREN D. POTTER

TY  : TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY

PG  : 17

As the power of personal computers has grown, so has the 
capability of chromatography data-handling software. Basic 
computer-mediated functions, such as instrument control, 
data acquisition and analysis, file management, and report 
preparation all have become increasingly available over the 
last 10 years or so to the wide array of chemistry 
disciplines that depend on the chromatograph for sample 
analysis.

Now, the current crop of chromatography software also offers 
such up-to-the-minute enhancements as user-friendly 
graphical interfaces, the ability to run a number of 
different experimental programs simultaneously (called 
multitasking), and the option of transferring chromatography 
data to other application programs. Chromatography is an 
analytical process in which gases, liquids, or solids in a 
mixture or solution are separated by one of several related 
techniques--by selective adsorption on a medium in a column, 
for instance--in order to detect and quantify the component 
substances.

Support for several relatively new analysis tools--such as 
photodiode array detectors, also called diode array 
detectors--is available. Another significant enhancement is 
the software's ability to run on a network in what is called 
a "client/server" configuration. The significance of these 
recent advances varies according to the particular needs of 
the laboratory using the system, but choices are expanding.

"The biggest benefit of using personal computers in 
chromatography is the ability to store the actual data 
points that describe the [charted] peaks," says Greg Murphy, 
group manager for network products at the Waters 
Chromatography Division of Millipore Corp. in Milford, Mass. 
With the data points on file, rather than only the printed 
or displayed chart results, researchers can later integrate 
the data in different ways, even trying alternative 
analyses, Murphy says.

For example, one of the most difficult analytical tasks in 
chromatography is interpreting so-called noisy peaks, or 
peaks that are not clearly defined, according to scientists 
and instrument vendors. Today, most chromatography data 
systems provide mathematical peak-fitting functions that 
assist in better integrating data so peaks are more clearly 
visible. 

Chromatography originally required laboratory workers to 
measure with a ruler the peaks of a chromatograph as printed 
by strip chart recorders and to then calculate the area 
under the peaks for analysis. Sometimes technicians 
carefully cut these paper peaks out for weighing on an 
analytical balance. In the early 1970s, devices called 
computing integrators arrived and were welcomed as 
replacements for strip chart recorders. Computing 
integrators drew chromatographs on-screen and were able to 
calculate the areas under curves for the researcher.

Then, in the 1980s, personal computers (PCs) began to take 
over these chores from computing integrators and have since 
steadily added capabilities. These computers are now a 
routine sight in labs that perform chromatography. PC-based 
chromatography data systems improved on computing 
integrators by performing more functions. Today, while many 
labs use sophisticated chromatography data systems provided 
by the same vendor that supplies their chromatographs, there 
is also the option of buying a stand-alone software system 
able to support instruments from many vendors.


More Accessible Software
Perhaps the most obvious change in chromatography data 
software in recent years is the way it looks on screen. This 
change is due to the nearly wholesale adoption, by both 
users and developers of software, of the Windows operating 
system with its graphical user interface. Instead of the 
sometimes forbidding text-based screens of the MS-DOS 
operating system and programs written for it, there are now 
colorful screens featuring pull-down menus of program 
options, images called icons to denote files and 
applications, and multitasking. These enhancements are more 
than cosmetic, scientists say.

"It's definitely easier to work through icons and menu 
boxes," says Nicholas Milner, a senior scientist at 
Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. of Nutley, N.J.

However, as Milner points out, it's easier only after users 
have become familiar with Windows. Many--but not all--lab 
workers have used Windows previously in some other 
application. If not, they are required to learn two things 
at once.

"Initially, it's difficult to deal with both the complexity 
of the chromatography software and the newness of Windows," 
Milner says.

Milner uses the Millennium 2020C/S chromatography data 
system from Waters. In his lab, Millennium is used with 
eight high-performance liquid chromatographs (HPLCs), also 
from Waters. In one pharmaceutical study involving food-
producing animals, a PC running Millennium controls either 
one or two instruments, as needed. Milner says that the 
biggest benefit of the Windows interface for his group is 
the multitasking ability to control two instruments 
simultaneously by opening two windows on the screen.

Within Millennium, multitasking allows multiple-instrument 
control, but this feature is not confined to one software 
application. In a laboratory, for instance, multitasking 
also would permit a technician to open a word processing 
program and prepare a report while the same PC 
simultaneously runs the chro- matography data system to 
control instruments and acquire data.

Another benefit of Windows is the ability to take data from 
one application and move them into another. This feature is 
useful for transferring chromatography data to a 
spreadsheet, for example. There is, however, a more powerful 
way to move and manipulate chromatography data, through a 
client/server network architecture.

In a client/server network configuration, PCs serve as the 
"clients" and handle local tasks such as running 
chromatographs. A larger central computer system is the 
server and functions as a data repository. Data from the 
clients travel by network to the server. When a 
comprehensive data-handling system such as a laboratory 
information management system (LIMS) is in use, for example-
-not uncommon in a networked laboratory--the LIMS will 
reside on the server, taking in data from the client PCs.

Some advantages of the client/server set-up are security and 
a better use of computing resources. Having a central data 
repository is more secure than keeping data on individual 
PCs, and PCs are less likely to be overloaded beyond their 
storage or computing capacities. Also, having data from many 
different instruments stored in one location makes report 
preparation much easier because access to data is greatly 
simplified.

"The biggest benefit [of the client/server approach] for 
us," says Tom Weber, a biochemist at Synergen Inc., a 
<M%11>biotechnology<D%0> company in Boulder, Colo., "is the 
ability to transfer data over a network from the PCs to a 
server and into our LIMS system. When you're running 
hundreds of samples a week, this is a big time-saver. But it 
also means that an analyst doesn't have to type all the 
numbers [into the LIMS] and possibly make mistakes."

Chromatography is used at Synergen for analysis of protein 
purity and for degradation studies of protein-based 
pharmaceuticals. Sixty HPLCs from Beckman Instruments Inc. 
of Fullerton, Calif., are used along with five to 10 HPLCs 
from Hewlett-Packard Co., Palo Alto, Calif. System Gold, a 
chromatography data system from Beckman, is used to operate 
the Beckman instruments, and Hewlett-Packard's ChemStation 
is used with the Hewlett-Packard devices. The client/server 
architecture is well suited to larger operations such as 
Synergen's, Weber says. Even midsize labs processing many 
samples per day can take advantage of similar 
configurations. In a lab with only a few instruments or one 
instrument processing only a few samples in the course of an 
experiment, however, the client/server architecture may 
represent excess capacity.

The client/server architecture improves on this older 
approach by replacing single-function "boxes" with 
multipurpose PCs.

The client/server architecture may also be beneficial to 
Milner's work at Hoffmann-La Roche. Milner, who is looking 
for a way to resolve his laboratory's data-management 
problems, thinks the client/server approach has pos- 
sibilities.

"File management would be easier with a centralized system," 
he says. "One person could be responsible for backing up 
data on a regular basis. And, when you update a program, you 
would load one version of the new software instead of eight 
or nine."

The current practice in Milner's group is to store 
chromatograph data on the PC hard disks, and then back up 
the data on floppy disks.

"That's a laborious process because the software 
incorporates a [spreadsheet] database, and you need to 
record an entire project rather than an individual 
chromatogram," he explains. "It takes a long while to back 
up that many disks, so we are now in the process of going to 
a tape backup system."

Many of the vendors of chromatography data systems offer a 
version of their software that supports the client/server 
architecture. These include Beckman Instruments (System 
Gold); the Waters division of Millipore (Millennium 
2020C/S); Hewlett-Packard (Chem-Station/Chem-Server); and PE 
Nelson, Cupertino, Calif. (Turbochrome).


Stand-Alone Software
It is not necessary to buy chromatography software from the 
same vendor that supplies the instrument. Not only are there 
third-party suppliers of chromatography data systems, but 
also most of the larger vendors claim that their software 
will work with instruments made by their competitors. This 
may not be as easy as they make it sound, however.

"You might be able to finagle something where you could 
almost, maybe, possibly make one vendor's software work with 
a different instrument," says Synergen's Weber. "But, 
realistically, their systems are designed to control their 
own instruments."

"What the customer perceives is a very close match between 
one vendor's instrument and its software," says Alan Koontz, 
vice president of marketing and sales for Axxiom 
Chromatography Inc. of Moorpark, Calif. "That's because 
they've been designed as tightly integrated systems. But it 
is possible to use HP's ChemStation, for example, with 
Beckman instruments. It just might not be convenient. What 
we're trying to do is give users that same tight integration 
with one software system and instruments from a variety of 
vendors."

Axxiom's data-handling software package, the Pyramid 
Chromatography Manager, is able to accommodate HPLC, gas, 
ion, and capillary electrophoresis instruments from any 
vendor, according to Koontz. The software not only accepts 
data from all these different devices, but also can be 
easily customized so that the user interface on each 
workstation matches the instrument as closely as the 
software offered by its vendor, he says.

The benefit of being able to control many instruments with a 
single software system might be obvious to researchers who 
work in the typical lab containing instruments from a 
variety of vendors. When each different brand of instrument 
has its own chromatography data system, the result is a 
collection of data systems with different features, 
interfaces, and data structures. By contrast, one software 
system capable of handling data from all of a lab's 
instruments can simplify data management and training by 
providing a consistent data format and user interface.

One situation in which compatibility between different 
vendor's products is not yet possible, however, is with 
photodiode array detectors, Koontz says.

"Diode array detectors don't produce an analog signal such 
as that produced by a UV or fluorescent detector," Koontz 
explains. "They produce an extremely complex file that the 
data system has to sort out very quickly. Each vendor uses a 
different file format and the system must be tailored to 
that format."

For Axxiom, which supports a number of photodiode array 
detectors in its Pyramid system, it takes "a major 
programming effort," Koontz says, to add support for a new 
detector. 

For labs that are not in the market for comprehensive 
chromatography data systems, there is also stand-alone 
software tailored to one central aspect of the 
chromatography process--data analysis. Typical of this 
approach is PeakFit from Jandel Scientific of San Rafael, 
Calif. Peak-fitting software enhances the accuracy of 
analysis by using non-linear curve-fitting techniques to 
reduce noise, adjust for backgrounds, and detect peaks that 
might otherwise be missed.

"Our HPLC analysis gives very noisy data," says Vijay 
Dhawan, a biophysicist in the department of neurology at 
North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., an 
affiliate of Cornell University. Dhawan's research on the 
dopaminergic system in patients with Parkinson's disease 
uses chromatography to trace the uptake of dopamine by the 
brain over the course of two hours.

"There will be four peaks of different magnitudes throughout 
the course of the study," Dhawan explains. "They represent 
the dopamine and three metabolites.

"You can see the individual peaks, but they are very noisy, 
and to separate them arbitrarily becomes very difficult, if 
not impossible. With PeakFit, you can smooth out the curves 
and distinguish the four peaks clearly."

PeakFit, which runs on a PC, takes chromatography data from 
the instrument in the form of an ASCII file. Initially, it 
took Dhawan a lot of time to find the best mathematical 
functions to fit the curves, he says, but once that was 
established, the process became "almost push-button."


Caren D. Potter is a freelance science writer based in 
McKinleyville, Calif.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : VENDORS OF CHROMATOGRAPHY SOFTWARE AND DATA SYSTEMS

TY  : TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY

PG  : 19

The following vendors market software products for use with 
chromatography instrumentation. For more information about 
specific products, their capabilities, and prices, please 
contact these companies directly.

Alltech Associates
2051 Waukegan Ave.
Deerfield, Ill. 60015
(708) 948-8600
Fax: (708) 948-1078

AMBIS Inc.
3939 Ruffin Rd.
San Diego, Calif. 92123
(619) 571-0113
Fax: (619) 571-5940

Analog & Digital Peripherals
P.O. Box 499
Troy, Ohio 45373
(513) 339-2241
Fax: (513) 339-0070

Anspec Associates Inc.
50 Enterprise Dr.
Ann Arbor, Mich. 48103
(800) 521-1720
Fax: (313) 665-6402

Antek Instruments Inc.
300 Bammel Westfield Rd.
Houston, Texas 77090-3508
(713) 580-0339
Fax: (713) 580-0719

Applied Biosystems
Division of Perkin-Elmer Corp.
850 Lincoln Center Dr.
Foster City, Calif. 94404
(800) 345-5224
Fax: (415) 572-2743

Autochrom Inc.
113 Cedar St., Suite S-6
Milford, Mass. 01757
(508) 478-2670
Fax: (508) 478-0217

Axxiom Chromatography Inc.
11988 Challenger Court
Moorpark, Calif. 93021-7122
(800) 441-8888
Fax: (805) 523-2313

Beckman Instruments Inc.
2500 Harbor Blvd.
Fullerton, Calif. 92634
(714) 871-4848
Fax: (714) 773-7600

Bio-Rad Laboratories
Life Sciences Group
2000 Alfred Nobel Dr.
Hercules, Calif. 94547
(510) 741-1000
Fax: (510) 741-1055

Bio-Rad Sadtler Division
3316 Spring Garden St.
Philadelphia, Pa. 19104
(215) 382-7800
Fax: (215) 662-0585

Bioanalytical Systems Inc.
2701 Kent Ave.
West Lafayette, Ind. 47906
(317) 463-4527
Fax: (317) 497-1102

Dionex Corp.
P.O. Box 3603
1228 Titan Way
Sunnyvale, Calif. 94088-3603
(408) 737-0700
Fax: (408) 739-4398

ESA
45 Wiggins Ave.
Bedford, Mass. 01730
(617) 275-0100
Fax: (617) 275-5529

Fisons Instruments Inc.
55 Cherry Hill Dr.
Beverly, Mass. 01915
(508) 524-1000
Fax: (508) 524-1019

Galactic Industries Corp.
395 Main St.
Salem, N.H. 03079
(800) 862-6004
Fax: (603) 898-6228

Gilson Inc.
3000 W. Beltline Hwy.
P.O. Box 620027
Middleton, Wis. 53562
(800) 445-7661
Fax: (608) 831-4451

Hewlett-Packard Co.
2850 Centerville Rd.
Wilmington, Del. 19808
(302) 633-8188
Fax: (302) 633-8916

IN/US Systems Inc.
5809 N. 50th St.
Tampa, Fla. 33610-4809
(800) 875-4687
Fax: (813) 623-3708

ISCO Inc.
4700 Superior St.
Lincoln, Neb. 68504-1398
(800) 228-4250
Fax: (402) 464-01318

Jandel Scientific
2591 Kerner Blvd.
San Rafael, Calif. 94901
(415) 453-6700
Fax: (415) 453-7769

Jasco Inc.
8649 Commerce Dr.
Easton, Md. 21601
(800) 333-5272
Fax: (410) 822-7526

JM Science Inc.
5820 Main St., Suite 300
Buffalo, N.Y. 14221-5734
(800) 387-7187
Fax: (716) 634-1970

Justice Innovations Inc.
1240 L'Avenida Ave.
Mountain View, Calif.  94043-1426
(415) 969-6122
Fax: (415) 969-6140

Linc Quantum Analytics
363 Vintage Park Dr.
Foster City, Calif. 94404
(800) 437-9701
Fax: (415) 312-0303

Micro-Tech Scientific Inc.
140 S. Wolfe Rd.
Sunnyvale, Calif. 94086
(408) 255-8701
Fax: (408) 730-3566

Millipore Corp.
Waters Chromatography Div.
34 Maple St.
Milford, Mass. 01757
(508) 478-2000, Ext. 3571
Fax: (508) 478-5591

Omega Engineering Inc.
One Omega Dr., Box 4047
Stamford, Conn. 06907
(203) 359-1660
Fax: (203) 359-7640

Oxford Biomedical Research Inc.
P.O. Box 522
1858 Starr Batt Dr.
Oxford, Mich. 48371
(810) 852-8815
Fax: (810) 852-4466

Oxford Clycosystems
133-33 Brookville Blvd.
Rosedale, N.Y. 11422
(718) 712-2693
Fax: (718) 712-3364

PE Nelson
Division of Perkin-Elmer Corp.
761 Main Ave.
Norwalk, Conn. 06859
(800) 762-4000

Pharmacia Biotech Inc.
800 Centennial Ave.
Piscataway, N.J. 08855-1327
(800) 526-3593
Fax: (908) 457-0557

Rainin Instrument Co. Inc.
5400 Hollis St.
Emeryville, Calif. 94608
(510) 654-9142
Fax: (510) 652-8876

Thermo Separation Products
P.O. Box 10235
Riviera Beach, Fla. 33419
(800) 532-4752
Fax: (407) 845-8819

Varian Associates Inc.
3045 Hanover St.
Palo Alto, Calif. 94304
(415) 424-5756
Fax: (415) 858-0480


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:


                         PROFESSION

----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : Study Finds Gender Disparities In Pay For Medical 
      Researchers

AU  : EDWARD R. SILVERMAN

TY  : PROFESSION

PG  : 21


A recent study conducted by researchers at Boston University 
has found that women in three areas of academic medicine--
cardiology, rheumatology, and general internal medicine--
receive less money and fewer promotions than their male 
counterparts.

The study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine (P.L. 
Carr, R.H. Friedman, et al., 119:908-13, 1993), found that 
these differences existed even though the women physicians 
surveyed performed similar duties and were just as 
productive.

The survey of 1,693 full-time United States physicians found 
that 47 percent of the men had achieved the rank of full or 
associate professor, compared with 33 percent of the women. 
In addition, it found that the women researchers received an 
average of $72,000 in annual compensation, while the average 
figure for men was $79,600.

The $7,600 average difference "represents about a 10 percent 
differential even after adjustment for factors relating to 
seniority and region of the country," the article reported.


Debunking A Myth
The results should dispel any myths that women earn less 
because they work less, said the study's authors, who 
defined academic productivity by counting an individual's 
research grants awarded, papers published in refereed 
journals, and abstracts accepted. They controlled for such 
variables to account for factors that may contribute to 
disparities in pay.

"Not only are the hours worked per week similar but the 
allocation of those hours to the various professional 
activities of academic medicine are also similar," the 
article stated.

The researchers, who surveyed faculty at 107 major U.S. 
teaching hospitals, also took into consideration the younger 
average age of women in medicine, a significant issue in 
measuring productivity because women have entered medicine 
only recently."This [survey] is a tool that women physicians 
can take to their department heads [to] show the differences 
in the way rewards are handed out," says Phyllis Carr, a 
coauthor of the study.

"And this study does that by not putting any person on the 
spot," says Carr, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical 
School and visiting physician at Massachusetts General 
Hospital, who led the study at Boston University, where all 
data were collected and analyzed. "No one is pointed at as 
the problem, because everyone is the problem."

"Because the results of our study and others support the 
conclusion that sex bias exists," the article stated, "it 
behooves academic departments to scrutinize their policies 
and attitudes toward women faculty, including the 
opportunities they provide for promotion and advancement and 
the compensation they offer."



An `Open-And-Shut Case'
Although the study is culled from data first collected in 
1986 as part of another project, the authors say the 
problems are still relevant and need redressing.

"Have things changed substantially in the last seven years? 
That's a judgment call," says Robert Friedman, an associate 
professor of medicine and public health at Boston 
University's School of Medicine and a coauthor of the 
report.

"I think most observers would say that things haven't 
changed," he says. "And in terms of job profiles, we've 
shown that women have reached parity. So I think that's a 
pretty open-and-shut case. Gender bias is implicated by 
ruling out other things."

A possible explanation for the finding of inequitable 
rewards doled out to men and women is that some aspects of 
performance may not have been measured in the study, such as 
the quality of teaching or administrative work.

Friedman also adds that some women may not be as good as 
their male counterparts in negotiating for higher salaries, 
raises, or promotions.

Barbara Turner, an associate professor of general internal 
medicine at Jefferson Medical College, part of Thomas 
Jefferson University in Philadelphia, agrees with this 
assessment. "I think it's a self-esteem thing," she says. 
"It's possible some women are so bloody grateful just to get 
a job.

"It's a woman's problem. We don't learn how to negotiate 
hard. I came out [of medical school] with a fellowship and 
didn't think of my salary as part of the picture. It doesn't 
mean you're a mercenary, but it's part of the job."

Beyond recognizing the problem, however, lies a quandary: 
what to do about it. While the study's authors urge academic 
departments to scrutinize their policies and attitudes 
toward women faculty, Turner points out, many medical 
researchers would still remain in the dark about their true 
status because most salary information is kept confidential, 
preventing staff from learning whether inequalities exist.

"The problem is that ... there's no access to comparative 
information," Turner says, recalling her anger a few years 
ago after learning that a man doing the same work and 
holding the same rank--but with fewer qualifications--made 
more money at another institution.

"The only way I can find out is by hook or by crook."


Edward R. Silverman is a freelance writer based in Millburn, N.J.



(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:

----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : ACADEMIC RANK, POSITION, AND COMPENSATION
      OF INTERNAL MEDICINE FACULTY (ADJUSTED VALUE*)
  
                                             Men  Women
Full or associate professor                   47%  33%
Tenured                                       42%  45%
Division chief                                32%  25%
Compensation (all faculty)                $79,100  $72,600
Compensation (with tenure only)           $79,300  $70,300
Compensation (without tenure)             $75,700  $71,000

* Adjusted for 10 variables: rank, year of graduation, 
fellowship training, membership in honor society, hours 
worked per week, faculty rank, division chief and division 
type, number of grants funded as principal investigator, 
number of refereed journal publications as first author

Source: P.L. Carr, R.H. Friedman, Annals of Internal 
Medicine, 119:908-13, 1993.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:


                           PEOPLE

----------------------------------------------------------
TI  : Prestigious Japan Prize To Be Awarded To Two 
      Researchers From U.S., Sweden

AU  : PHIL BECK

TY  : PROFESSION (PEOPLE)

PG  : 22

American astrophysicist William H. Pickering, whose 
contributions to space technologies have been central to 
space exploration, and Arvid Carlsson, a Swedish 
neuropsychopharmacologist who discovered dopamine as a 
neurotransmitter and its role in mental and motor functions 
and disorders, have been named recipients of the 1994 Japan 
Prize. At about $467,000 for each recipient, the prize, to 
be presented in a ceremony in Tokyo in April, is one of the 
world's richest scientific awards.


Deep-Space Research
Pickering, an 83-year-old emeritus professor of the 
California Institute of Technology, is being honored in the 
category of aerospace technologies for "leadership in 
unmanned lunar and planetary exploration and for pioneering 
achievement in the development of spacecraft and deep-space 
communications," according to the Tokyo-based Science and 
Technology Foundation of Japan, which awards the prize.

After obtaining a Ph.D. in physics from the California 
Institute of Technology in 1936 and while an assistant 
professor of engineering there, Pickering joined the Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory as a research scientist in 1944. He 
remained there for the next 32 years, becoming director of 
JPL in 1954. He retired in 1976.

In November 1957, shortly after the launch of the Soviet 
space satellite Sputnik, Pickering and his JPL colleagues 
were part of a team assigned to send up the United States' 
first artificial satellite. Pickering's lab developed the 
upper three stages of the launching rocket, the telemetry 
equipment for data transmission from the satellite's cosmic 
radiation measuring instrument, and the system integration 
of the payload. Less than three months later, Explorer 1 was 
launched. 

In 1959, Pickering led the design of Pioneer 4, which became 
the first U.S. man-made object to escape from Earth's 
gravitational field. Pickering's research also contributed 
to the lunar topography survey by the Ranger and Surveyor 
spacecraft, the Mariner series' exploration of Venus and 
Mars, and the soft landing by Viking on Mars.

Pickering's communications, data acquisition, and tracking 
research and instrumentation have led to the deep-space 
tracking network, a system of three stations equipped with 
70-meter parabolic antennae. He also developed coding and 
decoding systems, and numerous other space-related systems.

Under Pickering, JPL labs developed some of the first 
technology for digital communications and digital image 
processing, making possible later advances such as high-
definition television.


Monoamines Elucidated
Carlsson is to be given the prize in the category of 
psychology and psychiatry. His research contributed to the 
clarification of the functions of monoamines, especially 
dopamine, in the brain. The 71-year-old emeritus professor 
at Gothenburg University in Sweden discovered in the late 
1950s the reversal of reserpine-induced akinesia and 
sedation by DOPA, a direct precursor of dopamine. He also 
found that dopamine serves a critical agonist function in 
the regulation of psychomotor activity.

This was the first evidence that dopamine acts as a 
neurotransmitter in the brain and led to a new understanding 
of the role of dopamine in motor functions, especially in 
Parkinson's disease, enabling doctors to treat the ailment 
efficiently. It also revealed dopamine's role in mental 
functions and in the actions of psychotherapeutic drugs.


In the early 1960s Carlsson published the first evidence 
that neuroleptics, or antipsychotic drugs, act by blocking 
dopamine receptors, facilitating the development of several 
new drugs to treat psychoses. Other dopamine-related 
discoveries since then by Carlsson have led to understanding 
of the pathogenesis of Parkinson's and disorders associated 
with cognitive, emotional, and endocrine functions.

Carlsson received his M.D. from the University of Lund in 
1951, and taught there until 1959, when he became a 
professor and chairman of the department of pharmacology at 
the University of Gothenburg. He remained chairman of the 
department until 1976 and became an emeritus professor at 
the university in 1989.

--Phil Beck


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:


                          OBITUARY

----------------------------------------------------------
TI : Dixy Lee Ray 

TY : PROFESSION (OBITUARY)

PG  : 22

Dixy Lee Ray , former governor of Washington state and an 
accomplished zoologist, died January 2 in Seattle. Ray had 
suffered from a severe bronchial condition for several 
months before her death, according to reports. She was 79 
years old.

Ray began her career as an associate professor of zoology at 
the University of Washington in 1945, a position she held 
for the next 27 years. In addition, she was director of the 
Pacific Science Center in Seattle from 1963 to 1972 and a 
special consultant in biological oceanography for the 
National Science Foundation from 1960 to 1963.

Her public-service career started with a position as 
chairwoman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1972 to 
1975. She was appointed an assistant secretary of state, 
overseeing the Bureau of Oceans, International Environmental 
and Scientific Affairs in 1975, and served as governor from 
1977 to 1981.

Ray was a strong supporter of the nuclear industry and a 
harsh critic of environmental groups she deemed excessive in 
their protests against it. An essay she wrote for Imprimis, 
a journal of Hillsdale College in Michigan, appeared in The 
Scientist ("Who's To Blame When The Public Misunderstands 
Science?" April 16, 1990, page 17).

Ray earned her master's degree from Mills College in 1938 
and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1945.


(The Scientist, Vol:8, #2, January 24, 1994)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================




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