THE SCIENTIST VOLUME 7, No:16 August 23, 1993 (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) Articles pu
THE SCIENTIST
VOLUME 7, No:16 August 23, 1993
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
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NEWS
SSC SHOWDOWN: Scientists building the superconducting
supercollider are once again holding their collective breath as
Congress decides the fate of the megaproject. Funding has already
been cut off by the House of Representatives, and the SSC
workers--and, to some extent, the entire particle physics
community--are looking to the Senate to protect their scientific
and professional futures
Page : 1
CHEMICAL INTERACTION: Despite a recent survey indicating that
chemists are suffering through the worst job market in two
decades, many of them believe that an increasing demand for
chemists in physics, as well as biomedical- and biotechnology-
related research and development, will increase employment in the
long run
Page 1
BOMBING FALLOUT: This summer's letter-bomb attacks on two
university scientists has sent a chill through researchers at
academic institutions; but rather than shutting down their
activities, the incidents have mobilized academia toward taking
greater precautions against such assaults
Page 1
VACCINE OVERSEERS: The Institute of Medicine, in a recent report,
is calling for the establishment of a National Vaccine Authority
to oversee vaccine research and act as a liaison between
government and industry to facilitate vaccine research and
production
Page 3
GOOD LUCK, HE'LL NEED IT: Friends and colleagues speak of NIH
director nominee Neal F. Lane's personal and professional
qualifications for the job in glowing terms, but warn that the
Rice University theoretical physicist will need to use all his
skills to overcome the challenges currently facing the science
agency
Page 4
OPINION
A MATTER OF TIMING: With smallpox eradicated from the Earth, the
World Health Organization has recommended that all remaining
smallpox virus stocks held in U.S. and Russian laboratories be
destroyed by the end of this year. But Russian biologist Lev S.
Sandakhchiev pleads for an extension of that deadline, citing the
abundance of important genetic research yet to be done on
smallpox viruses--work that could take many years more to
complete
Page 11
COMMENTARY: The problem of a waning job market for science
graduates is further aggravated by the strict specialization and
divisional structure of many academic science departments.
Without a redirection toward more interdisciplinary training, few
graduates will be prepared for the jobs that are available, says
Kenneth Heitner, a Ph.D. alumnus of the California Institute of
Technology
Page 12
RESEARCH
CHEMISTRY'S TOP 25: Harvard University leads the list of U.S.
research institutions and corporations producing the world's
highest-impact chemistry papers, according to the newsletter
Science Watch
Page 14
HOT PAPERS: A physical chemist discusses his article on the
discovery, isolation, and characterization of a buckyball
derivative
Page 17
TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY
DESIGNING CHEMISTRY: Versatile, full-featured molecular-modeling
packages and graphical user interfaces are allowing bench-level
experimental chemists and molecular biologists to design
sophisticated molecules and academic chemists to use the
technology to teach their students as well as advance their
research
Page 18
PROFESSION
TREADING SALARY WATERS: Faculty in the physical and life sciences
at state universities and land grant colleges received raises in
the 1992-93 school year that barely kept pace with inflation--
and, in some cases, didn't--according to a survey.
Page 20
SHEILA E. WIDNALL, associate provost and a professor of
aeronautics and mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, has been nominated for the post of secretary of the
Air Force
Page 21
SHORT TAKES
NOTEBOOK
Page 4
CARTOON
Page 4
LETTERS
Page 12
CROSSWORD
Page 13
OBITUARY
Page 21
SCIENTIFIC SOFTWARE DIRECTORY
Page 30
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
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NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : Biomedical Opportunities Seen As Rare Bright Spot On
Chemistry Job Horizon
Especially for inorganic chemists, the employment picture for the
discipline is said to be the grimmest it has been in decades
AU : MARCIA CLEMMITT
TY : NEWS
PG : 1
A recent survey reveals that chemists currently face one of the
worst job markets in the past 20 years in their discipline. Yet
many of them believe that their field's growing importance to
other research areas, especially biomedicine, will put chemists
in a better position than many other science professionals to
benefit from any future economic upturn.
"The Ph.D.'s we produce are getting jobs, in part because the
pharmaceutical industry has remained healthy," says Craig Hill, a
professor of chemistry at Emory University in Atlanta. Emory's
chemistry program is largely oriented toward biology and
medicine, Hill says, and he attributes much of his graduates'
success in the job market to that fact. "But there's no question
the employment market is tough," he says, "especially in areas of
chemistry less relevant to medical applications. Jobs for formal
inorganic chemists, for example, are clearly limited."
The most recent annual employment survey conducted by the
American Chemical Society (ACS), revealed that, as of March 1,
1993, 2 percent of chemists surveyed described themselves as
unemployed and looking for work. While that number may seem
insignificant compared with unemployment figures for the
population as a whole, ACS statisticians report that it reflects
the highest percentage of unemployment among chemists since 1983.
(United States Department of Labor statistics for March showed
overall unemployment at 7.3 percent, unemployment in the chemical
and allied products industry at 5.6 percent, and unemployment
among managerial and professional workers at 3 percent.) The
survey results are likely to be a significant topic of discussion
at ACS's annual meeting, being held August 22-27 in Chicago.
According to Joan Burrelli, ACS senior research analyst, who
directed the survey, and Michael Heylin, editor of ACS's Chemical
and Engineering News, who reported on the data in the
publication's July 12 edition (71[28]:7-12, 1993), additional
survey data show chemists' job prospects to be even dimmer,
compared to the employment prosperity they have traditionally
enjoyed. According to the survey, 7.2 percent of chemists
currently work in what Heylin calls "unsatisfactory employment
situations," including part-time jobs and postdoctoral and
fellowship positions. That number is up from 6.5 percent a year
ago and is the highest percentage in the last 20 years.
Demand Vs. Supply
Both ACS and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
sponsor job banks and other employment services for their
members. Both groups say employer participation in job
clearinghouses and job-listing services has generally declined
over the past few years, while the number of individuals seeking
positions has risen.
According to Anjalika Silva, a staff associate in ACS's office of
employment services, both the number of "employer organizations
attending ACS National Employment Clearing Houses, and interviews
generated [at those meetings] have declined." But Silva says the
downturn in attendance and interviewing is not a direct gauge of
decline in the job market. Instead, Silva says, it's a measure of
employers' more cautious and carefully targeted hiring practices.
"A larger number of positions available are not publicly
advertised to job seekers," Silva says. More employers are now
specifically targeting job candidates to interview instead of
making general job announcements.
In the past, established chemists and chemical engineers have
been hired in large numbers by the major chemical, fuel, and
consumer products industries. But employment service
professionals and scientific recruiters say that picture has now
changed, with smaller companies making up a higher percentage of
the job market, more interviews targeted to specific skills and
specific candidates, and significantly better job prospects for
younger scientists, who can be paid less and may be more
flexible.
For example, a spokesman for AIChE reports that while large
companies still employ the greatest percentage of that
organization's membership, the past few years have seen big
increases in chemical engineers hired by environmental
engineering firms and the materials, biotechnology, and
electronics industries, all sectors largely dominated by smaller,
younger companies. The reason for this, industry experts say, is
that the larger companies have curtailed hiring, while other
industries are discovering an enhanced need for more chemists.
Jeffrey Weiss, assistant general manager of the Los Angeles-based
scientific recruiting firm Search West, says most of the biotech
and biomedical firms he deals with are targeting chemists with
specific skills, such as protein purification and polymer
chemistry. These chemists are being incorporated into small,
focused research teams working on particular projects or
products, as opposed to the practice of maintaining a large, more
generalized scientific work force. In addition, Weiss says, such
firms often "seem to be looking for people two or three years out
of the postdoc, perhaps because they're seen as young enough to
change with the times," and pursue avenues outside of their
established research interests.
ACS's most recent employment clearinghouse found chemists with
six to 10 years of experience receiving the greatest number of
interviews, with the next largest number going to those with zero
to five years of experience, according to ACS employment
specialist Silva. Meanwhile, chemists with 16 to 30 years'
experience fared worst, with only half of that group receiving
interviews.
According to ACS data and many scientific recruiters and
individual chemists, several fields, notably analytical
chemistry, synthetic organic chemistry, and polymer chemistry,
head the list of subspecialties currently most in demand by
industry.
At ACS's March 1993 employment clearinghouse, for example, job
seekers registered as polymer chemists and organic chemists
received the highest percentage of interviews, with analytical
chemists receiving only slightly fewer. Inorganic chemists
garnered few interviews, while physical chemists fared worst
among the major chemical subfields, with only a little more than
one half the candidates receiving interviews. Of available job
openings posted by employers before the clearinghouse, the
largest number were for analytical chemists, the second largest
number for organic chemists.
Cross-Fertilization
Chemists say their discipline is rapidly becoming of central
importance to research in biology and physics because of the
increasing significance of molecular expertise in both
disciplines--imaging in biology and condensed-matter research in
physics, for example.
Pharmaceutical companies--long an employer of chemists--are
finding even more uses for some chemical specialties as they try
to design drugs based on new understandings of very large
molecules. Biotechnology companies and companies trying to
develop medical diagnostic tools have also begun to hire
chemists.
"Today much of biochemistry has been handed over to chemists,"
says University of Chicago chemistry department chairman Jeremy
Burdett. "Chemists used to regard large [biological molecules] as
blobs. But new imaging techniques [such as spectroscopy, X-ray
crystallography, and multidimensional nuclear magnetic resonance
imaging] have allowed us to see them as simply molecules.
Chemists know how to deal with molecules."
That training in understanding molecules means "chemists can move
easily into the biosciences, in a way that biologists simply
can't move into chemistry," says Koji Nakanishi, Centennial
Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University. Nakanishi says
some students from his organic chemistry lab now work as
biochemists "and even immunologists."
Young chemists who hone the time-honored skills of isolation and
purification of compounds, molecular structure determination, and
molecular synthesis, and also become familiar with the language
of the biosciences, should find increasing opportunities in
biomedicine, Nakanishi and others say.
In particular, "a lot of biotech companies are realizing they
can't operate without organic chemists," says Rice University
chemistry professor Marco Ciufolini. Further evidence of a
growing chemistry/ biotech connection can be seen in data from
ACS's most recent employment clearinghouse, in which
biotechnology jobs made up the third-highest category of
available positions posted before the event.
Clinical chemists, who develop methods of monitoring enzymes,
drugs, and other chemicals in human patients and supervise the
application of those methods, represent another biomedicine-
related chemistry specialty that may be of growing interest to
employers. Medical centers, medical testing laboratories, and
pharmaceutical companies have been the largest employers of
clinical chemists. But as more firms try to develop instruments
for diagnosis and patient monitoring, "a lot of clinical chemists
are now going into industry," says Barbara Goldsmith, director of
clinical chemistry at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in
Philadelphia.
Chemical engineers also seem increasingly able to transfer their
skills into some newly expanding areas, notably environmental
engineering, according to human resources experts and AIChE.
"Chemical engineering is an excellent intellectual base for
dealing with environmental contaminants, and there's certain to
be more demand for that," says Fred Schulz, a chemical engineer
and principal officer of ESOF Co., a technical marketing and
human resources firm in Cincinnati.
Much current chemistry research involves chemistry's interface
with physics, particularly in the creation of new materials with
novel physical properties. But while such studies form a large
part of the academic research agenda, some chemists caution that
real industrial development of such materials--and concomitant
job creation for chemists--may be many years and scientific
discoveries down the line.
"The materials science area is wide open. There are opportunities
for dramatic discoveries from inorganic and organic chemists,"
says the Chicago's Burdett. "But you can't just cook something
up, dump wide open. There are opportunities for dramatic
discoveries from inorganic and organic chemists," says Chicago's
Burdett. "But you can't just cook something up, dump it on a cold
surface, and call it a new material. The challenge is: Given the
elements, predict the structure, then predict the material's
properties."
Without being able to make such predictions, creation of new
materials is essentially random, Burdett says. Even the tiniest
changes in chemical composition or in the process by which a
compound is made can make an enormous difference in a material's
properties, and so far scientists have only the barest
understanding of the rules that govern such changes.
While most industrial chemistry labs focus on more traditional
applications than do the academic labs where young chemists
train, university chemists say that this shouldn't prevent young
scientists from obtaining jobs.
"Industry cries out for polymer chemists, but there's damn little
polymer research going on in academia," whose chemists tend to
opt for more cutting-edge studies, says Emory's Hill. However,
say Hill and others, organic chemists can remake themselves as
polymer chemists in industry.
Robert Curl, a physical chemist who is chairman of the chemistry
department at Rice, says that "the job situation is tight. But
people do get jobs eventually. Physical chemists tend to become
analytical chemists, where their skills in instrumentation [such
as spectroscopy] are highly valued."
Despite the current slump, chemists seem optimistic that the
versatility of their science means their long-term job prospects
are good. "Our civilization puts a high value on the ability to
make molecules, so my feeling is the future is very bright," says
Rice's Ciufolini.
"The chemical industry is in a state of change now, the way the
textile industry was in the 19th century. But in the future,
chemists--especially synthetic organic chemists--should still be
in the forefront, making high-value-added compounds, such as
pharmaceuticals and compounds that are environmentally friendly."
Marcia Clemmitt is a freelance science writer based in
Washington, D.C.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : Erosion Of Congressional Support For Supercollider
Frustrates, Angers Nation's High-Energy Physicists
Many of them argue that, without the SSC, thefield of particle
physics may lose its vitality--maybe even its future
AU : FRANKLIN HOKE
TY : NEWS
PG : 1
The struggle in Congress over funding for the superconducting
supercollider (SSC)--now something of an annual event--is
disrupting work at the laboratory and raising frustrations
throughout the high-energy physics community, say physicists.
Many of them also worry not only about the future of the
multibillion-dollar Waxahachie, Texas, project, but also about
that of particle physics in the United States.
Already, failing support for the SSC in Washington, D.C.,
threatens recruitment to the project, they say, from student
through professional levels. Some top particle physicists in the
early to middle stages of their careers, disturbed by the
prospect of waiting until the next century to begin experiments,
are considering moves to accelerator laboratories outside the
U.S., such as CERN in Geneva.
"What may be the most disturbing thing of all," says Steven
Weinberg, a professor of physics at the University of Texas,
Austin, and a 1979 Nobel Prize winner in physics, "is that
there's been a kind of bargain between science and society:
Scientists pursue their inner-directed goals, and society
supports this because, in the long run, it will reap benefits.
And Congress seems to be losing interest in keeping up society's
end of that bargain."
On June 24, the House of Representatives voted by a decisive 280-
150 margin to cut the SSC's $620 million fiscal 1994 funding from
a Department of Energy appropriations bill. Now, supporters of
the SSC hope that the Senate will back the collider, as it did
last year, in a vote likely to take place in mid- to late
September. Then, a conference committee may be able to effect a
compromise that will fund the project. This would be similar to
the sequence of events leading to funding of the project last
year.
In fiscal 1993, the House voted, 323-181, to cut $450 million in
funds from the proposed total of $483.7 million earmarked for the
collider, leaving just enough for an orderly shut-down of the
project. The Senate then voted, 62-32, to support the project,
and a conference committee worked out a compromise that continued
funding.
The several-months-long battle is distracting to many of the the
2,000 or so SSC employees in Texas, as well as to physicists at
universities around the U.S. whose work is tied to the SSC.
"If the end result is that we get funded, complete the project,
and do the science that we want to do, that would be fantastic,"
says Benjamin Grinstein, a physicist in the theory group at the
SSC. "But, in the meantime, there are two months a year that are
incredibly disruptive to the people at the laboratory and, to a
lesser extent, to the high-energy physics community."
He adds: "It's really wrong that if this country seems to commit
itself to do something of this magnitude, it would then put
thousands of people through this kind of psychological terror
campaign every summer. Unfortunately, this is the way our law
works. We have a yearly appropriations process, and we have to
put up with it."
Some younger physicists are reviewing their career strategies in
light of the escalating uncertainty of congressional support for
the SSC.
"When people choose a career, they balance their degree of
dedication and interest in it against the financial rewards and
against the riskiness," says Alan Fry, an SSC physicist. "That
triangle that we're trying to balance is changing now in high-
energy physics. Certainly, at SSC, it's no longer obvious to me
I'll have a job next year."
The wrangling in Washington also has direct effects on the pace
and progress of work at the laboratory, SSC scientists say.
"Every year, there's a point where there's a hiring freeze, you
can't buy things, and you have to just stop," says Patty McBride,
a particle physicist at the lab. "We're continuing what we can,
but it's difficult. You just lose a little bit of momentum."
Delays associated with the funding struggle, including the
suggestion that lower near-term costs might be achieved by
pushing the SSC's completion date from the current 1999
projection into the next century, are not generally well-received
by younger physicists.
"People my age all want to be working on a current experiment,
something that's running and taking data in the next few years,"
says McBride. "We don't want to sit here and let the rest of the
field pass us by. People here are worried that with the funding
fight every year, things will be delayed even more."
Makoto Takashima, another physicist working on-site in
Waxahachie, agrees. After nine years in Europe, doing his
graduate work at DESY, the accelerator lab in Hamburg, Germany,
and then postdoctoral work at CERN, he is anxious to move forward
scientifically.
"The reason I went to Europe was because I felt they were doing
better science in high-energy physics," Takashima says. "It's as
simple as that. But with the SSC, I really felt that this country
had a big chance of getting back to the top. The scientists in
this country, I think, are the best--and I've seen that by direct
comparison to the Europeans. But the way the funding is here,
it's difficult to get these projects off the ground. And that's
unfortunate, because the scientific heritage is here.
"There is some sentiment around here that the Congress may say,
`We'll keep you limping along, and we'll build this thing in the
year 2015,' or something," Takashima adds. "If it comes to that,
I would rather just leave. I want to do something within my
active lifetime."
Many physicists note that backing for the collider laboratories
in Europe and Japan is more reliable than in the U.S. This
stability, and the resulting continuity in work, is cited by many
as one reason the next generation of American physicists may
expatriate. S. Peter Rosen, dean of science at the University of
Texas, Arlington, is concerned that this may happen.
"Europe is much better than us in that, once they make a
commitment to a project, they're committed," Rosen says. "There's
never, anymore, any question about its future."
Prospects for recruitment to the SSC specifically, but also into
the field generally, may be damaged by the lack of congressional
support for the Texas collider, according to some physicists.
Larry Gladney, a professor of physics at the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, is developing high-speed parallel
computing applications for data acquisition at the SSC. He also
has been part of a collaborative arrangement to encourage
students at Lincoln University, a historically African-American
undergraduate school about 35 miles west of that city, to
consider Ph.D.-level science career options. In June, he traveled
with some of these students to visit the SSC.
"The idea was to introduce the fact that there are science and
engineering careers that are going to be built up by having this
large project in the country," Gladney says. "And, certainly,
it's very undermining, right afterwards, to have the House turn
it down and make it look like the rug is going to be pulled out
from under it, after getting people enthusiastic about it. It
does a lot of damage to say that there's that much uncertainty
associated with being a scientist."
He adds: "Here is something I have planned to spend a great deal
of my future efforts on. Now, it looks as though, if the SSC
goes, then you'll have to go out of the country to do high-energy
physics research. That's really the end point of this--if the SSC
goes, it's very unlikely that we'll get much funding for any of
the high-energy physics projects."
Concern that particle physics might become a "sterile" field
without the SSC has led some professors to counsel graduate
students to be wary in their career choices.
"In physics, we're interested in mathematical theories that
describe nature," says Edward Farhi, a professor of physics at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "and those theories
must be compared with experiment to see whether, in fact, they
accurately describe nature. In roughly 10 or 15 years [without
the SSC], there would be little or no experimental data that
would help us understand the way nature works beyond what we
already know. So, [for young people] to go into a field in which
the data flow is going to terminate would just be a mistake."
Leon Lederman, director emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator
Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., and a 1988 Nobel Prize winner in
physics, also worries about the future of high-energy physics
without the "big machine," the SSC.
"The big machine was really designed to answer certain questions
that we know can't be answered by the current inventory," he
says. "For people working in these fields, no matter how
fascinated they are in what they're doing, if they know that the
big questions are not going to be answered, some starch must go
out of the whole system."
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : TAKING THE LEAD:
TY : NEWS
PG : 1
Research scientists throughout the United States
are expressing enthusiastic approval of President Bill Clinton's
recent nominations of Harold E. Varmus as director of the
National Institutes of Health and Neal F. Lane as head of the
National Science Foundation.
If approved, the 53-year-old Varmus--a Nobel Prize-winning
geneticist--would be the first non-clinician to head NIH.
Currently a professor of microbiology, biochemistry, and
biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, he
shared the 1989 Nobel in physiology or medicine with J. Michael
Bishop for work on oncogenes. Varmus would take over from Ruth
Kirschstein, who has been acting director since cardiologist
Bernadine Healy stepped down on June 30 (F. Hoke, The Scientist,
July 12, 1993, page 1).
"He's a reasonable, gentle soul," Philip Needleman told The
Scientist last month, "certainly quite a different personality
from the [just-departed] occupant of that position." Needleman is
chief scientist of the MCR division of Monsanto Co., St. Louis,
and serves on the National Academy of Sciences' Board on Biology,
which Varmus chairs.
Meanwhile, Lane, a 54-year-old physicist and the provost of Rice
University in Houston, was nominated by the president last month
to head NSF. The choice of Lane to replace Walter Massey at the
agency's helm has also been well received in the research
community.
For more on Lane, see story on page 4.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : TAKING THE LEAD:
TY : NEWS
PG : 1
Research scientists throughout the United States
are expressing enthusiastic approval of President Bill Clinton's
recent nominations of Harold E. Varmus as director of the
National Institutes of Health and Neal F. Lane as head of the
National Science Foundation.
If approved, the 53-year-old Varmus--a Nobel Prize-winning
geneticist--would be the first non-clinician to head NIH.
Currently a professor of microbiology, biochemistry, and
biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, he
shared the 1989 Nobel in physiology or medicine with J. Michael
Bishop for work on oncogenes. Varmus would take over from Ruth
Kirschstein, who has been acting director since cardiologist
Bernadine Healy stepped down on June 30 (F. Hoke, The Scientist,
July 12, 1993, page 1).
"He's a reasonable, gentle soul," Philip Needleman told The
Scientist last month, "certainly quite a different personality
from the [just-departed] occupant of that position." Needleman is
chief scientist of the MCR division of Monsanto Co., St. Louis,
and serves on the National Academy of Sciences' Board on Biology,
which Varmus chairs.
Meanwhile, Lane, a 54-year-old physicist and the provost of Rice
University in Houston, was nominated by the president last month
to head NSF. The choice of Lane to replace Walter Massey at the
agency's helm has also been well received in the research
community.
For more on Lane, see story on page 4.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : Clinton's Choice For Top NSF Post: Can He Make The
Agency `Sing'?
AU : RON KAUFMAN
TY : NEWS
PG : 4
Colleagues and other scientists familiar with him describe
theoretical physicist Neal F. Lane, President Bill Clinton's
nominee for the directorship of the National Science Foundation,
as "open-minded," "straightforward," and a "consensus-builder."
They also say that these and other attributes of the Rice
University provost will be necessary to defend and advance basic
research as budgetary constraints tighten around the science
agency.
If confirmed, Lane, 54, will replace Walter E. Massey, who left
the foundation last March after a two-year stint to become senior
vice president for academic affairs and provost for the
University of California system. NSF, with an annual budget of
nearly $3 billion, is one of the major sources for individual-
investigator grants in the basic sciences.
Presidential science adviser John Gibbons, who assisted the White
House personnel office in its search to replace Massey, says
Lane's academic background as well as the year he spent as
director of NSF's physics division (1979-80) give him the well-
rounded experience needed to head the agency.
"I admire him and am delighted he's willing to come to Washington
and help turn the commitments of this administration toward the
continued strong support of basic science," says Gibbons. "And I
hope he will provide the kind of leadership and energy within the
NSF to make it sing."
"By providing financial support to our nation's scientists and
engineers, the National Science Foundation fuels the engine of
creativity that helps us to increase our economic potential and
our base of knowledge," said Clinton at last month's announcement
of Lane's nomination. "Neal Lane, with his considerable
experience as a scientist and administrator, will provide the
leadership necessary to foster the great talent, ingenuity, and
potential of the American research community."
Lane has been provost at Houston-based Rice since 1986, after
serving as chancellor at the University of Colorado at Colorado
Springs for two years. Upon receiving a Ph.D. from the University
of Oklahoma in 1964, Lane joined the faculty of Rice in 1966 as
an assistant professor of physics. He became a full professor in
1972 and served as chairman of the physics department at Rice
from 1977 to 1982.
Lane has published numerous papers. His most cited work appeared
in Reviews of Modern Physics in 1980 ("Theory of electron-
molecule collisions," 52:29); it has been cited in more than 300
subsequent papers.
At press time, a date for Lane's Senate confirmation hearing had
not been announced. Lane declined to be interviewed for this
story.
`Consensus-Builder'
While at Rice, Lane was the thesis adviser to Lee Collins, a
graduate student in atomic molecular theory. Collins, now a staff
scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico,
characterizes his former mentor as "a very effective leader,"
whose management style is one of reasoning and persuasion.
"He's very sensitive to people. His style is not confrontational,
but he has an agenda and strongly held beliefs," says Collins,
who studied under Lane from 1973 to 1975. "Yet, he listens well
and can usually bring a consensus about from a large number of
divergent opinions. I've always been amazed at how skillful he is
at managing situations within an academic community--that he can
bring together such a diversity of opinion and exert leadership
without commanding or trying to force his opinions on others."
Atomic theorist Peter Milonni, also a staff member at Los Alamos,
is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on the
Future of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Sciences. Lane was a
cochairman of the panel until recently resigning after the NSF
nomination. Milonni says Lane is "conscientious, knowledgeable,
and evenhanded; there's absolutely nothing negative I can say
about him.
"One reason I'm happy about Neal's appointment is I think he'll
be objective and listen to people," Milonni says. "He doesn't
have an axe to grind. I don't think he's got one opinion he's
going to stick to and not listen to anyone else. He's the kind of
person whose mind can be changed by evidence."
Another member of the NAS panel, F. Fleming Crim, a chemistry
professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, calls Lane "a
true consensus-builder."
On a panel of physicists, chemists, astronomers, and electrical
engineers, Crim says Lane "seemed to be good at hearing what
people were saying. This was a group of people primarily
concerned with small science. Neal seemed to understand the issue
of individual-investigator science and be responsive to it."
Future Considerations
Crim says that in the coming years, NSF may have to fight to
maintain its current funding levels as money from Congress
becomes harder to secure. "The NSF is going to face some
challenging and interesting times as it competes for part of the
research budget," Crim says.
He says NSF's mission to further basic science may also be
challenged. "I think the whole issue of `Are we going to fund
basic science in this country?' is one that will be actively
questioned over the next few years," Crim predicts. "And the head
of the NSF is going to be right in the middle of it."
Presidential science adviser Gibbons agrees: "As budgets get
tighter, Congress and the [Clinton] administration are going to
have to wrestle harder with the issue of distribution of
resources for basic science."
Echoing those sentiments, former NSF director Edward A. Knapp
also warns that NSF could be ruined if it is forced to focus on
applied science. "If NSF becomes an applied science agency, they
will not make it," says Knapp, who headed the agency from 1983 to
1984, during President Ronald Reagan's administration. Knapp is
now director of Los Alamos' Meson Physics Facility. "The things
that DARPA [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which
recently dropped Defense from its name] does so well, NSF just
can't do. NSF has always supported basic science and doesn't have
the staff for applied programs.
"I would counsel Neal Lane," says Knapp, "to be very careful not
to upset what NSF does so well."
Gibbons notes that, important as it is, basic science is "just
one of a number of things on poor Neal Lane's plate."
He says that other issues, such as maintaining a "fresh flow of
ideas" through NSF and explaining the rationale for basic science
in a world "no longer overshadowed by the U.S.-Russia standoff,"
will also be of importance to the next foundation head.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : Universities Mobilizing Against Letter Bomb Threat
Science departments and individual researchers take protective
measures, in case the mailing of deadly missives resumes
AU : CONNIE O'KANE
TY : NEWS
PG : 1
As faculty, administrators, and students start arriving back on
campuses throughout the United States for the new semester, the
intense, frightening publicity generated by separate letter bombs
that seriously injured two science professors this past June has
eased off. However, while the colleges and universities once
again become heavily populated, reverberations from the bombings
continue to resound throughout the academic research community.
Federal investigators apparently are making little progress in
identifying the perpetrator. They currently believe the culprit
to be a lone serial bomber responsible for the death of one
person and injury to 22 others over the past 15 years. Given the
assailant's sporadic pattern of violence, law enforcement agents,
campus security officials, and individual scientists do not
discount the possibility that more such attacks will occur.
As a result, individuals, departments, and institutions around
the U.S. are taking extra precautions--such as tightening
procedures, sponsoring safety seminars, and issuing guidelines
for identifying suspicious mail--to guard against any repeats of
the tragic events. Yet, with as much concern as the bombings have
caused, scientists and academic officials contacted by The
Scientist say that panic has not set in; safety procedures, so
far, have created no chaos on campus.
The reaction of chemistry professor John Bercaw of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena typifies the feelings of many
researchers contacted by The Scientist. Bercaw says he was
somewhat alarmed at the news of the bombings and instructed his
secretary not to open any boxes. (Only one box has come in since
then--containing chemical samples and bearing a return address
that he recognized.)
Despite his initial jitters, however, Bercaw says that he is no
longer concerned about the bombings and that, although the events
were a topic of conversation among his colleagues, none of them
have expressed fear of continuing their work.
"I'm afraid scientists are too much in love with what they do to
let this keep them out," Bercaw says.
The `Unabom' Case
The mail bomb incidents, the latest in a series of bombings
dubbed the "Unabom" case by the FBI, occurred this summer (see
story on page 10). On June 22, Charles J. Epstein, a specialist
in the study of genetic disorders at the University of
California, San Francisco, was badly injured when he opened a
package mailed to his home. Two days later, David Gelernter, a
computer scientist at Yale University, was severely wounded when
he opened a package that was mailed to his office.
Gelernter was still hospitalized late last month at Yale-New
Haven Hospital with injuries to his right hand and right eye,
according to Cynthia Atwood, a Yale spokeswoman. Epstein lost
three fingers, suffered a broken arm, and had abdominal injuries,
according to news reports.
Although academic scientists and law enforcement authorities have
expressed fears that either the bomber will strike again or the
incidents will lead to copy-cat attacks, more immediate causes
for concern in universities have, thus far, been pranks and
scares. In Montgomery County, Md., for example, four residents
who work in the field of animal research, whose practitioners
have been the target of violent attacks in the past, each found a
shoebox-size package wrapped in brown paper left on their front
doorsteps on July 6. A bomb-sniffing dog was brought to each
location to check the packages, none of which contained a bomb.
Once opened, investigators found such things as a brick, a rubber
rat, and "fuzzy bear" slippers, says Harry Geehreng, a county
police sergeant.
In other places, suspicious packages have caused confusion. Four
days after the Yale bombing, the Bluemle Life Sciences Building
of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia was evacuated, and
police closed a downtown street for two hours before determining
that a suspicious package contained only harmless research
specimens, according to Carole Gan, a spokeswoman for the school.
Yale has had several dozen calls about suspicious bombs since the
attack on Gelernter, according to Harry DeBenedet, a bomb
technician with the Yale police.
The incidents have also led some institutions to adopt preventive
measures. Yale has held eight sessions on bomb safety and four
others are planned. So far, 400 teachers, administrators, and
other university employees have attended. Counseling sessions
were also offered by the university, Atwood says.
"Judging from the attendance at the [security] sessions, there's
a lot of heightened awareness out there," she says.
Back To Normal
Yet, day-to-day activities at academic laboratories have not been
significantly affected, many researchers report. "I think the
media tends to worry more about these things than the individuals
do," says Herbert Srebnik, former chairman of the biology
department and an emeritus professor of anatomy at the University
of California, Berkeley. "Some people are more upset by things
like this than others. We are busy doing the things we are paid
to do and like to do."
Srebnik says that he recognizes most of the mail he gets. It's
from a person, a pharmaceutical company, or a publishing house--
and normally the individuals sending it are well known to him.
"I think most people think they are not going to be a target,"
Srebnik says. "Speaking for myself, I feel the same way."
Harold Kinder, manager of security for Caltech, finds that alarm
about a terrorist incident is usually cyclical. "Right after you
get publicity, you get a lot of calls and then things taper off,"
Kinder says. "It [the threat of letter bombs] doesn't seem to be
causing any problems at all. There is just a little more
concern."
Other than some extra training for mail-room staff, it's been
business as usual at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, says
Dennis O'Shea, director of news and information at the school.
"It hasn't been anything that dramatic," he says.
"I think it's really bad for morale," says Susan Paris,
president of Americans for Medical Progress, a nonprofit group
that supports animal research. But, she says, with the amount of
tension that has come from environmentalists, animal rights
activists, and anti-abortion forces, the bombings shouldn't come
as a surprise to scientists. "It can't shock them anymore," she
says.
University officials say they are coping with the threat of a
repeat bombing. "Universities are complicated places," says David
Cohen, provost and former vice president for research of
Northwestern University. "Stuff goes on all the time."
Northwestern, once a target of the "Unabom" bomber, has received
other bomb threats and has experienced protests from animal
activists, Cohen says, so it is used to dealing with adversity.
"I don't sense an extreme level of concern or anxiety," he says.
Even at Yale, things have been getting back to normal. "People
have really taken it in stride," Atwood says.
Safety Advice
Despite the calm being reported on campus, as well as the
infrequency of the bombing attacks, university administrators and
security officers as well as law enforcement officials observe
that certain aspects of the bombings provide lessons to all
institutions and urge safety precautions and awareness that can
reduce the danger.
Although bombing experts are reluctant to talk in absolutes,
there is agreement that a simple envelope is not a threat. If the
recipient can lay the envelope flat and feel only paper inside,
there should be nothing to fear. "When you say `letter bomb,'
sometimes that's misleading," De-Benedet says. "It has to have
weight to it."
That weight comes from a detonating device and the explosives,
items that are necessary if a letter bomb is going to cause
injury to the person opening it. But knowing that a portion of a
scientist's mail can be eliminated as a threat shouldn't provide
too much relief for a worried scientist. The National Association
for Biomedical Research--in an alert sent to its members, most of
whom use animals in their work--warns that a piece of mail large
enough to contain a book of matches is sufficient cause for
concern.
According to guidelines issued by the U.S. Postal Service,
recipients should be on the alert if packages have the wrong name
or title; have no return address; have markings that say
"personal" or "fragile"; have misspelled words or bad typing;
have a postmark that differs from the return address; are bulky
or lopsided; have strange odors, oil stains, or protruding wires;
or make a ticking sound.
Unfortunately, outside of the more obvious signs--a ticking
sound, for example--these warnings probably cover a good deal of
innocent mail that investigators receive. It is, for example,
highly impractical for a university professor to call campus
police every time he or she receives a parcel without a return
address. "That would be a victory for the bombers themselves,"
De-Benedet says, "because their terroristic act has had all the
reaction."
Moreover, as time passes after a frightening incident, people
are likely to let down their guard, officials say.
Thus, it's better for a scientist to embark on a long-term
program of prudence, they say. The first step of this program
would entail paying attention to unexpected mail. "They usually
know the type of mail they are receiving and who they are
receiving it from," DeBenedet says.
With unexpected mail, the scientist can alleviate his or her
concerns with a phone call to the sender identified by the return
address. De-Benedet estimates that, 98 percent of the time, a
call is enough to verify that a package is safe.
The problem of unexpected mail, however, is somewhat complicated
by the actions of someone like the "Unabom" bomber, who has come
up with plausible return addresses and in several cases has sent
a fabricated letter to set up the arrival of the parcel bomb. In
the two recent bombings, for example, the packages bore the
return addresses of two different scientists at California State
University in Sacramento.
Earlier, the bomber had sent a letter to an airline executive
telling him a book would be sent. Another note, to University of
Michigan psychology professor James McConnell, asked him to read
a manuscript. In both cases, the targets were injured in
subsequent bombings.
There is, however, some logic to the intentions of a bomber.
Generally bombers want to hit a specific individual, and they
don't want to get caught. Targeting a particular person, they are
liable to include a notation on the package saying "personal and
confidential" or "private."
Because they want to avoid detection, the addresses bombers put
down are likely to be flawed. Their handwriting might be
distorted in order to be disguised, for example. Or, not wanting
to risk a phone call to verify information, the bomber might make
a mistake with a title or a department. The address might be in
cut-and-paste lettering or be written on a homemade label.
In addition, because bombs require such unusual elements, there
can be telltale signs on the package. One such clue is a wire
sticking out of the packaging. With the rough handling that mail
sometimes gets, it is possible that a wire could poke through.
Aluminum foil is another indication of a suspicious package,
since foil is a common electrical switching device.
Explosives can leave distinctive signals, as well. Some
explosives leak, so an oil stain could be an indication of a
bomb. Black powder has a rotten-egg smell, and other explosive
materials have peculiar odors. Odor and stains are the more
obvious warnings.
Sometimes, other clues can be found in the packaging. Since bombs
require several elements--detonating devices, explosives, and so
forth--wrapping is often irregular. The package might appear
sloppily wrapped with several combinations of tape. It might have
soft spots or bulges. There also might be a sloshing sound--an
indication that gasoline or another flammable liquid is present.
Bombers want to make sure their packages don't get sent back, so
they often put extra postage and notations like "Fragile--Handle
With Care" and "Rush--Do Not Delay."
Since mail bombs are designed to be triggered when opened,
pressure or resistance when attempting to remove contents can be
another sign of trouble.
One advantage the recipient of a suspicious parcel has is time,
De-Benedet says. As package bombs are designed to be tossed and
dropped without exploding, there's a chance the parcel might have
already had some rough treatment in the mail before it arrived at
a suspicious recipient's desk.
If a package has aroused suspicions and the recipient cannot
allay his or her fears, it's time to call the police. Postal
officials recommend that the recipient isolate the parcel and
evacuate the immediate area. A suspicious package should not be
put in a desk drawer or dropped in water. If possible, though, a
window should be opened to allow venting of gases.
Err On The Side Of Caution
Postal authorities and university law enforcement officials
caution that individual scientists must be responsible for
inspecting and opening the mail. The post office--and even
university mail rooms--simply handle too much traffic to inspect
for bombs. (Technically, there are some precautions that post
offices could take. Equipment that measures the dielectric
constant of a package would probably discover a bomb because
explosives would have a detectable reading, according to Anthony
Fainberg, an analyst of counter-terrorism. This equipment could
be set up in the same area as the scanners that read zip codes.
Though this would be enormously expensive, it would be practical
for some post offices in university towns if the threat were
great enough, Fainberg says.)
But these same officials stress that someone who finds a
suspicious package should not be too embarrassed to call the
police. "Personally, I'd rather look silly than be in a
hospital," says Richard Koehn, vice president for research at the
University of Utah. "I'd hope the staff and faculty would feel
the same."
Calls to check suspicious packages have not taxed their personnel
excessively, security officials at several universities say. At
Yale, De-Benedet says that anyone who is suspicious should call
every time he or she suspects something wrong. If police inspect
an innocent package, DeBenedet tells the person who requests the
search to call again if necessary. "If they receive another
package the next day and they feel suspicious, they should call
us back," he says.
A staff member at the National Academy of Sciences, who asks to
remain anonymous, sums up the feelings expressed by several
scientists: "If a terrorist sends me a post card, I'm not going
to worry about it. If he sends me a two-pound package, I'd be
worried. I come from the standpoint that more paranoia is better
than less paranoia."
Connie O'Kane is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL BOMBER
AU : Connie O'Kane
TY : NEWS
PG : 10
>From news accounts and statements from investigating agencies, a
picture emerges of a crafty and patient serial bomber who has
terrorized the airline industry, universities, and scientists,
and so far has not made a major mistake.
The most recent bombings were the boldest of all because, for the
first time, the bomber--who federal authorities believe is a
white male--issued a public statement. The New York Times
received a letter on June 24, the day of the second bombing (S.
Labaton, New York Times, July 12, 1993, page 1). The letter
identified the bomber as "FC." Investigators have since told the
paper that the initials "FC" were found engraved on a number of
the bombs in a way that was meant to survive the blast. The
letter to the Times said the bombs came from "an anarchist group
calling ourselves FC." The letter said the group would "give
information about our goals at some future time," the Times
reported.
The letter included a nine-digit number that would identify the
sender in future letters. The number resembled a Social Security
number, and the first three numbers were identical to those of
Social Security numbers issued to California residents.
The Times article raised the issue of the bomber's focus on that
paper. Some investigators, the paper reported, have speculated
that the bomber has selected some victims out of news stories in
the paper. Both Charles J. Epstein, a specialist in the study of
genetic disorders at the University of California, San Francisco,
and David Gelernter, a Yale University computer scientist, had
been featured in Times articles that described major
contributions to their fields. Another researcher, University of
Michigan psychology professor James McConnell, had been the
subject of a Times article and was the target of a 1985 bomb that
instead injured a research assistant.
The "Unabom" case is characterized by the length of time the
bomber has been working, the selection of targets among
university and airline professionals, and the long gaps between
some attacks. The first bombing was May 25, 1978, when a security
guard at Northwestern University was injured opening a package
that had been found in a parking lot. Since then, the bomber has
struck twice in 1979, once in 1980, once in 1981, twice in 1982,
four times in 1985, and once in 1987, before striking twice this
year.
The blasts have killed one person, Hugh Campbell Scrutton, who
was killed in 1985 when he came across a bomb that had been
placed behind his computer rental store in Sacramento, Calif.
--C.O.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : Vaccine Program Could Spawn Opportunities For Researchers
AU : RON KAUFMAN
TY : NEWS
PG : 3
A report released last month by the Institute of Medicine (IOM)
proposes the creation of a National Vaccine Authority (NVA) to
oversee the entire process of vaccine research and development in
the United States. The authority will also act as a liaison
between the federal government and private industry for vaccine
production.
The report discusses, among other topics, the role of applied
research in the development of new or improved vaccines against
such diseases as tetanus and cholera both in the United States
and internationally.
Though the report does not directly address expanded vaccine
research opportunities under the proposed authority, Violaine
Mitchell, the study director at IOM, says investigators may be
attracted to a more directed approach.
"In terms of funding streams it might help direct attention to
areas of top priority and attract new researchers there," she
says. "On the other hand, so much of what science does well is
allowing investigator-initiated research to explore new
opportunities."
The report, entitled The Children's Vaccine Initiative: Achieving
The Vision (Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 1993), was
produced by an 18-person committee whose members represent
academia, industry, government, and nonprofit groups. The
committee met on a regular basis between February 1992 and
February 1993 to produce the report.
"The National Vaccine Authority is essentially a mechanism for
taking the risk out of vaccine development by the public sector
accepting that risk," says IOM committee member Jerald Sadoff.
Sadoff contends that through investment-tax credits; guaranteed
purchase of vaccines produced; financial and technical assistance
with clinical trials; and provisions for limiting liability, NVA
could ensure the production of targeted vaccines by both large
and small manufacturers.
"Making a new cholera vaccine for Bangladesh, a better malaria
vaccine, or making a long-acting tetanus vaccine that can be
given as a single dose are all perceived as high-risk and low-
profit ventures," explains Sadoff, the director of the division
of communicable disease and immunology at the Walter Reed Army
Institute for Research in Washington, D.C.
"When you couple high risk with low profit, companies are just
not interested." He says NVA would essentially subsidize the
development of vaccines with a low profit margin.
"This would also increase the number of scientists involved in
vaccine research," Sadoff says. "It would open an opportunity for
people to work in this field and know the vaccines they work on
would not be strictly limited to only those that are immediately
commercially viable."
Coordinating Development
A body like NVA, according to the report, is important for
coordinating vaccine development between federal agencies as well
as between the public and private sectors. On an international
level, it is a way for the U.S. government to respond to the
Children's Vaccine Initiative (CVI), an organization created at
the World Summit for Children in New York City in September 1990.
"In the committee's view," states the report, "the success of
U.S. participation in the CVI will depend ultimately on effective
cooperation and collaboration among government, universities, and
most critically, the private sector, including both biotechnology
firms and established vaccine manufacturers."
The global CVI--headquartered at the World Health Organization in
Geneva--organizes task forces and product development groups to
find ways to promote and facilitate the development of new and
better vaccines. Two current projects include a single-dose
tetanus toxoid vaccine and a heat-stable oral polio vaccine.
According to the report, 20 percent of the world's children,
mostly in poor and underdeveloped nations, are unvaccinated. Lack
of good vaccination programs, states the report, results in more
than 2 million deaths and 5 million cases of disability annually
as a result of preventable diseases such as measles and
Haemophilus influenzae. The report also states that only half of
U.S. children under the age of two have received the complete set
of recommended immunizations.
Domestic Concerns
"The problem is there is no organized system within the U.S.
government right now charged with developing new and improved
vaccines," claims Richard Mahoney, also a member of IOM panel.
"What you have is a variety of different agencies--the National
Institutes of Health, the Agency for International Development
[AID], the Centers for Disease Control [CDC], and the U.S. Army--
all doing their own thing when developing vaccines.
"Then there is the National Vaccine Program Office, which was
supposed to have coordinated vaccine-related issues, but never
succeeded," says Mahoney, director of the Seattle-based Program
for Appropriate Technology in Health, an international nonprofit
group focused on promoting technology in developing countries.
Established by Congress in 1986, the National Vaccine Program
Office was intended to coordinate the vaccine R&D programs of
AID, NIH, CDC, the Department of Defense, and the Food and Drug
Administration by producing a plan of specific goals by January
1987. That plan was never created.
Mahoney and others complain that the office never received the
money or personnel needed to carry out its given task.
"The National Vaccine Program has no operational component," says
Jay Sanford, professor of internal medicine at the University of
Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and the chairman of
the IOM committee. "It's an organization which is supposed to
determine policy, but it has never been adequately staffed or
funded and is not at a high enough level to ever be heard."
The program is to be located within the office of the assistant
secretary for health; its proposed appropriation for fiscal year
1994 is more than $8 million. By contrast, the IOM report states,
if NVA were to be formed, funding levels would need to be around
$75 million.
The large amount of money required to run NVA is perhaps the
biggest stumbling block in its creation, says Philip Russell, a
immunologist at Johns Hopkins Uni- versity and a consultant to
the CVI. "The money for NVA would have to come from the budgets
of other government agencies," he says. "So it's not going to
receive enthusiastic endorsement from them. But there's a kind of
powerful logic in the IOM recommendation.
"It's tough to get new ideas like this through Congress and the
bureaucracy unless there's some powerful champions. So we'll have
to see whether the powerful champions arise."
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : NOTEBOOK
TY : NEWS
PG : 4
Going For Gold (Part I)
A group of highly skilled United States competitors went head-to-
head against the world's best in Perugia, Italy, last month and
brought home two gold and two silver medals, finishing in the top
three against 37 other national teams. But they didn't have to
run faster, jump higher, or throw anything farther to do it. The
U.S. team of four high schoolers competed in the 25th
International Chemistry Olympiad. Theirs was the highest finish
ever for an American team in the competition. Christopher Herzog
of Highland Park High School in New Jersey and Daniel Katz of
Torrey Pines High School in San Diego won gold medals. Herzog
placed fifth among the 149 students participating, while Katz
tied for 14th. The foursome, which included silver-medalists
David Hutz of Chapel High School in Pittsburgh and Robert West of
Oak Park High in Kansas City, Mo., was chosen to represent the
U.S. from an original group of approximately 10,000 competitors
nationwide. The U.S. team was joined in the top three by China
and Taiwan.
Going For Gold (Part II)
Meanwhile, in Istanbul, Turkey, another U.S. team of students was
making an impressive showing, finishing seventh in the 34th
International Mathematical Olympiad. The six-member team garnered
two gold, two silver, and two bronze medals in the 11-day
competition held last month. Andrew Dittmer of Vienna, Va., and
Leonard Ng of Chapel Hill, N.C., won gold medals. Ng was also a
gold-medalist in last year's competition. A total of 72 nations
participated in the olympiad, with the U.S. finishing behind
China, Germany, Bulgaria, Russia, Taiwan, and Iran.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
Holy Smoke
Over the years, Penn State University materials scientist Rustum
Roy has gained a reputation for his thorny outspokenness on
controversial scientific matters. Recently, according to a group
of Roman Catholic scientists, he went a bit too far. The July
1993 issue of a newsletter called the Bulletin of the Catholic
Association of Scientists and Engineers took Roy to task for a
letter he wrote that appeared in the November 1992 issue of
Physics Today. The newsletter article castigated Roy for using
the term "Immaculate Assumption" to criticize the funding process
for high-energy research. The bulletin also took issue with Roy's
negative comparison of the Catholic College of Cardinals to the
hierarchy running high-energy physics programs. "Such comments
are blatantly anti-Catholic, anti-cleric, bigoted, and small-
minded, and impugns the honor of Our Lady," the newsletter said.
"The a priori assumption behind such positions is that all logic-
minded scientists agree that religious beliefs are superstition
based on ignorance, and have no place in scientific matters."
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
Turn On, Tune In
Scientists whose insights and discoveries may eventually change
the world are the focus of "The Next Generation: An Innovation,"
a three-part miniseries produced by Public Broadcasting System
station WNET in New York. The series, which will air nationally
over many PBS stations September 7, 14, and 21 (check local
listings), profiles the lives and work of emerging scientists,
collaborative teams, and remarkable young people in the U.S. and
abroad. Part one, "1% Inspiration," looks at rising
investigators, such as geneticist Mary-Claire King, whose diverse
studies include researching breast cancer and identifying the
bodies of MIAs through DNA analysis of their teeth. The second
episode, "A Matter of Teamwork," examines interdisciplinary
teams, including a University of Michigan group that has
developed a cellular treatment for cancer and includes molecular
biologists, immunologists, oncologists, surgeons, psychologists,
and medical ethicists. Another team, perfecting the imaging
system for NASA's Cassini robot probe of Saturn, scheduled for
launch in 1997, is scattered across North America and Europe, but
tightly linked through computer networks. The last installment
looks to the future--more specifically, youngsters who will
become the scientists of the future. The series examines the
social and psychological factors molding such young investigators
as 14-year-old Tariq Hook of Philadelphia, whose passion is
aeronautical engineering. Hook, pictured here, has designed a
hydraulic arm that has won prizes at regional science fairs.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
Fuel For Thought
The United States Department of Energy has announced its 1994
National Awards Program for Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy to recognize individuals, institutions, and companies who
have "implemented energy-related measures that benefit the
nation's environment, economy, and security." Applications may be
submitted to a state energy office by any individual, or non-
federal organization, who has implemented an outstanding energy-
efficiency or renewable-resource technology since 1989. A state
energy office may nominate one project in each of five
categories: building technology, industrial technology,
transportation technology, utility technology, and energy
technology and education. Deadline for submissions, which must be
made to the Pennsylvania Energy Office, is Sept. 30, 1993. For
more information, contact the program coordinators--Rosemary Mape
of the Pennsylvania Energy Office at (717) 783-9983, or Frank
Bishop of the National Association of State Energy Officials at
(202) 546-2200.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
Bridging The Gap
In an attempt to narrow the gap between experimental and
theoretical physics, two researchers at the State University of
New York at Stony Brook are editing a 200-page handbook to help
physicists in both camps communicate. George Sterman and Jack
Smith, both professors of physics at SUNY-Stony Brook and members
of the university's Institute for Theoretical Physics, say that
although the two groups are engaged in the same discipline, they
often speak in two different languages. "One of the big problems
in high-energy physics is the fact that theorists--people who
work on the blackboard--and experimentalists--people who build an
apparatus and actually conduct an experiment--need better
communication," Sterman says. "The handbook tries to bring
together a set of basic results and make them accessible to
experimentalists and to theorists not actively working in the
field. People need to know how to sift through these results to
find out what's important in their own work." The handbook, which
is scheduled to be distributed within the next several months,
was written by 17 physicists from a 10-institution consortium
headed by Michigan State University. Sterman says the group plans
to distribute the handbook electronically and in hard copy.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
OPINION
TI : We'd Better Think Twice Before Eradicating All Smallpox
Virus Stocks
SIDEBAR:
The global eradication of smallpox as a threat to human health is
one of the milestone achievements of modern medical science. It
was accomplished through a unique international collaboration
sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) and directed by
virologist Donald A. Henderson, who now serves as deputy
assistant secretary in the United States Department of Health and
Human Services.
The principal research centers supporting the eradication program
were in Moscow and in Atlanta. While this collaboration was
proceeding, the Cold War also nourished a high degree of mutual
suspicion between the U.S. and the then-USSR about the possible
abuse of such research for potential application in biological
weaponry. While there are many technical reasons for giving
smallpox very low priority as a weapon threat, there was great
pressure to conclude an agreement to destroy all research stocks
of the smallpox (variola) virus, as part of confidence-building
between the superpowers.
Meanwhile, the world has experienced enormous changes. Russia is
no longer a military threat, and it is clear that its civilian
research establishment shares the same medical and scientific
values as the rest of the world's scientific community. Any
lingering questions about secret military work would not be
resolved by the proposed destruction of research stocks in
civilian hands. We have also become sensitized to the fate of
many other species, and now dedicate considerable political and
economic resources to the conservation of natural biodiversity.
Thus, a reexamination of the policies about smallpox is very much
in order.
The following appeal to reexamine the proposed destruction of
smallpox virus stocks is made by Russian biologist Lev
Sandakhchiev, who has played a notable part in the scientific
study of the smallpox and other viruses.
Joshua Lederberg
University Professor
Rockefeller University
New York
AU : LEV S. SANDAKHCHIEV
TY : OPINION
PG : 11
In 1980, the World Health Assembly announced the complete
eradication of smallpox disease throughout the world--an
achievement brought about by an international program overseen by
the World Health Organization (WHO) for more than 20 years.
Since 1984, the only collections of the variola virus (VAR)--the
cause of smallpox--have been stored at two WHO Collaborating
Centers on Smallpox and Related Infections: the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta and the Institute
for Viral Preparations in Moscow.
In March 1986, an ad hoc WHO panel--the Committee on
Orthopoxvirus Infections--recommended that, since smallpox had
been officially eradicated, all remaining collections of variola
virus be destroyed. And in May 1990, Louis W. Sullivan, then the
United States Health and Human Services secretary, asked WHO to
see that the VAR collections were indeed eradicated as soon as
the complete sequencing of the VAR genome had been achieved.
Later that same year, in December 1990, the ad hoc WHO committee-
-the same panel that in 1986 recommended the destruction of all
remaining variola virus collections--approved projects by
American and Russian scientists aimed at sequencing the genomes
of various VAR strains. To accommodate this process, the
committee recommended the destruction of all existing VAR stocks
and recombinant plasmids containing VAR DNA fragments by Dec. 31,
1993, given that sufficient sequence information was ascertained
by that time.
However, Russian investigators (working under the aegis of the
National Program on Conservation of Genetic Material of the
Russian Collection of Variola Virus Strains) believe that the
recommended eradication of VAR stocks by the end of this year is
not justified from the scientific point of view and is not
supported by the available data concerning the structural and
functional organization of the variola virus genome.
Progress So Far
So far, we have accomplished the sequencing of the complete
coding region of variola major virus strain India-1967, excluding
the non-coding short inverted terminal DNA fragments. Currently,
the Russian researchers, together with American scientists based
at CDC, are performing the DNA sequencing of the variola minor
virus strain Garcia-1966. The CDC scientists are also carrying
out the sequencing of the complete genome of the variola major
virus strain Bangladesh-1975. Moreover, genomic fragments of
several other VAR strains are being sequenced simultaneously by
British scientists at Oxford University.
To date, the following information concerning VAR genomic
structure has been revealed:
* The organization of VAR terminal inverted sequences is unique.
It is not yet understood, however, whether and how it affects the
manifestation of biological features of this virus. Evidently,
there is no possibility of re-creating the terminal structures of
the VAR genome through recombination of VAR DNA fragments cloned
in the molecular vectors, and the genomes of some other
orthopoxviruses.
* A major part of VAR genes is highly conserved with respect to
vaccinia virus. A number of VAR genes have revealed code for the
truncated versions of the analogous vaccinia proteins. Several
VAR long coding sequences have the truncated analogs in the
genome of vaccinia virus. We suggest that VAR and vaccinia virus
originated from a common ancestor and that cowpox virus (CPV),
persisting now, is likely to be the analog of the ancestor. The
ultimate conclusion on the origin of VAR and vaccinia viruses
demands the genome sequencing of at least one CPV strain.
* A variety of genes were revealed in the genome of VAR code for
the proteins analogous to TNF-receptor, gamma-IFN-receptor, and
complement-binding proteins, as well as the sets of proteins
belonging to the family of serine protease inhibitors, ankyrin-
like proteins, proteins of the T6/8/9 family of tumorigenic Shope
fibroma virus, and others. Several revealed VAR genes encode the
proteins of unique structure, which have no analogs among the
other poxviruses. However, to affirm the unique character of
these VAR genes and their genomic structure on the whole, it is
necessary to sequence the genomes of monkeypox (MPV) and cowpox
viruses, both being pathogenic for humans.
Much Remains To Be Done
Basing our opinion on the above results and on our understanding
of the ecology and evolution of orthopoxviruses, we consider the
following conclusions essential:
* There is no sense in the destruction of collections of
recombinant plasmids containing VAR genome fragments. These
plasmids can be handled in complete safety. There is no way to
reconstruct any variola-like virus with the help of these
plasmids. On the contrary, they can be quite useful. Using the
polymerase chain reaction (PCR), one can amplify the chosen
coding sequences without viral promoters and transcription
terminators, insert these sequences into the expression plasmids,
and synthesize the VAR proteins with subsequent study of their
characteristics and comparison with analogous proteins of the
other poxviruses. To our minds, a number of VAR proteins,
especially those possessing pronounced immunomodulating features,
can initiate the development of unique medical preparations.
* There is no sense in the eradication of VAR stocks until the
sequencing of genomes of human pathogenic monkeypox and cowpox
viruses is completed. MPV and CPV are zoonotic and persisting at
present in nature. The present level of knowledge does not allow
one to predict with validity the possibility (or impossibility)
of the formation of a variola-like virus in nature through
recombinational and evolutionary changes of monkeypox and/or
cowpox viruses. Thus, along with studying VAR, it is essential to
pay more attention to investigating the structural and functional
organization of MPV and CPV.
* The WHO Technical Committee has recommended carrying out the
complete genome sequencing of the variola minor virus strain
Garcia-1966, along with the complete sequencing of the variola
major virus strains India-1967 and Bangladesh-1975. This work is
not likely to be completed before 1994, if we consider the
previous experience within the frames of the variola genome
sequencing program.
* Authenticity of the determined structure of the viral genome--
that is, its correspondence to the native structure of original
natural isolate--presents a real problem. All viral strains under
sequencing by now have undergone several passages on
chorioallantoic membranes of developing chick embryos and/or cell
cultures. Nobody knows what changes in VAR genome can possibly
have arisen as a result of these passages.
On the other hand, the process of cloning via plaques involves
the selection of accidental variants, which can differ
considerably from the dominant structure of the genome to the
complete loss of a number of genes. Only the comparative study of
several isolates that have not undergone the laboratory passages
and a strain that has been cultivated for a long time (such as
Harvey-44) can clarify the situation. After the comparison of the
genomic sequences of various VAR strains, it obviously will be
necessary to PCR-amplify and subsequently sequence at least some
of the essential VAR DNA regions from stored unpassaged human
material. It is evident that such work could not be completed by
the end of 1993.
* No information is available now concerning the rate of mutation
accumulation in the VAR genome on the level of both amino acid
substitutions in proteins and "silent" nucleotide changes. The
molecular mechanism of this process on the population level is
also unknown. It should be noted that comparison of constant
genomic regions rather than the variable ones would give the most
important results as well as the comparison of silent
substitutions in the coding regions that are not subjected to the
direct selection pressure of antibodies and tissue-specificity
changes.
* Data concerning the inner microheterogeneity of natural
populations of this virus are almost completely lacking at this
point. Clarification of this question requires the sequencing of
a considerable number of clones of the same genomic regions
obtained from several viruses that have not been adapted to
laboratory cultivation.
* Destruction of VAR collections at the WHO Collaborating Centers
on Smallpox and Related Infections does not ensure the complete
eradication of VAR samples from the Earth. The possibility of VAR
stocks being preserved in some laboratory not under WHO's control
cannot be ruled out; nor can preservation of the virus in the
tissues of patients who have died of smallpox. If the world
community considers that the existing WHO Collaborating Centers
do not provide a guarantee against the use of VAR as a potential
biological weapon, we suggest the organization of an
International Laboratory on Smallpox. This laboratory would house
scientists from different countries; would have codirectors from,
for example, the U.S. and Russia; would work under constant
control of WHO (or the United Nations); and would provide both
the preservation of VAR strains and the advanced studies of
genomic organization and evolutionary changes of VAR and other
orthopoxviruses.
* In the permafrost region of Russia, there are burial grounds of
smallpox victims. It is not impossible that viable viruses are
still stored in such places, which is of great danger to mankind.
During summer periods since 1991, such a possibility has been
tested. Study of the tissue samples taken from corpses with skin
lesions characteristic of smallpox revealed the orthopoxviral
antigens but failed to reveal the viable virus. However, these
studies have not yet been completed--and there is no point in
eradication of VAR collections before the completion of this
work.
To sum up, the modern level of knowledge and laboratory
methodology about viruses is limited. The complete sequence of
the viral genome does not make available the complete knowledge
of viral features. It is not possible to predict what methods
will be developed in the future and in what way they could be
used to characterize VAR stocks.
The untimely destruction of viral collections could lead to the
irrevocable loss of information concerning the pathways and
mechanisms of variola virus evolution, especially its population
aspects, and would as well eliminate the possibility of
understanding the molecular epidemiological regularities of
population interactions of virus and host.
Lev S. Sandakhchiev is director of the Vector Laboratories of the
All Union Molecular Biology Research Institute Koltsovo,
Novosibirsk, Russia.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : For The Sake Of Today's Graduates, Science Education
Must Discover The Real World
TY : OPINION (COMMENTARY)
AU : Kenneth L. Heitner
PG : 12
A page 1 article in the June 6, 1993, edition of the New York
Times ("Top Graduates in Science Also Put Their Dreams on Hold")
reported that only a handful of this year's graduates from the
prestigious California Institute of Technology had found jobs as
of commencement day. The article also reported that half the
class members had decided to delay their entry into the job
market by going to graduate school.
Their decisions should be viewed with concern, since additional
specialized education may not necessarily serve to make them more
marketable in the future. The overall economic situation may
worsen by the time they enter the job market, and the demand for
science graduates, already waning, may grow even weaker.
As a graduate of Caltech, I share the pain of the capable young
men and women who find their futures clouded by today's
uncertainty in science and engineering careers. This uncertainty
springs mainly from two factors. One has to do with the declining
need for highly specialized researchers; the other with the
curricular narrowness at Caltech and similar science- and
engineering-oriented institutions.
>From the end of World War II until relatively recently, the
Department of Defense, the national laboratories, and the defense
and space industries consistently absorbed, directly or
indirectly, more than half of the scientists and engineers
produced by the research universities. People were needed to
develop weapons systems, atomic power, and aerospace technology.
Now these government programs are largely curtailed. Meanwhile,
large industrial research laboratories have also dried up as a
market for science graduates. Many large corporations have lost
the ability to translate their technical skills into marketable
products. Without product sales, they have had to cut back on
research and hiring. With these job markets weakened, new science
graduates are the first to feel the pain.
While the demand was high, meeting the specialized needs of
government and industry also affected research and teaching,
leading to strict specialization within the universities and a
correspondingly strict divisional structure. (Caltech has, for
the most part, maintained this divisional structure since its
beginnings, seven decades ago.) This structure emphasizes the
basic sciences<197>physics, chemistry, and biology<197>with
engineering and social sciences as separate divisions; and, while
providing strong basic science training for undergraduates, it
allows the faculty and graduate students to do world-class basic
research. But in the absence of demand for science graduates, it
may no longer be appropriate.
Today's undergraduate training needs to be complemented by
interdisciplinary programs that address broad societal problems.
But Caltech has not allowed enough of its programs to be driven
by societal needs and the changing job market. Scientific and
engineering skills are still needed; however, they must now
address a myriad of emerging problems. These include preserving
the environment, providing a sustainable economy, and ensuring
human health and well-being.
Professional progress in the university establishment remains a
tenuous career path. In the current environment of stagnation, an
academic career involves a long series of temporary postdoctoral
research positions. Shifts in program direction or the departure
of a faculty member can upset large and stable research
activities.
A science or engineering graduate is likely to be employed by a
small or medium-sized company. These companies are still viable
in the current business environment, but they view scientific and
technical breadth as more valuable than specialization and
require practical business training in finance and management.
The university has to become more involved in real-world problems
to provide the experience that the graduates need.
It is up to each university to recognize these needs and
reorganize or redirect itself before its graduates are no longer
marketable. New direction involves considerable risk, especially
in areas in which funding may not be easy to obtain.
At the same time, federal funding policy in science and applied
technology has to share the risk-taking with the universities.
Without flexibility and vision by the federal establishment,
initiative for change from the universities will not be
successful.
Kenneth L. Heitner, who was granted a Ph.D. in applied mechanics
from Caltech in 1969, lives in Vienna, Va.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
LETTERS
TI : Polygamous Snakes
TY : OPINION (LETTERS)
PG : 12
I am writing in reference to a citation champion entitled "Why
do female adders copulate so frequently?" (T. Madsen, R. Shine,
J. Loman, T. Hakansson, Nature, 355:440-1, 1992), as reported in
The Scientist (Hot Papers, March 8, 1993, page 15).
Difficult as it is to get scientifically sound but new ideas into
print, one's professional sensitivities are perturbed to read
about such a preposterous idea printed in Nature and heavily
cited by other scientists within one year. Polygamy among certain
species is "an enduring puzzle of sociobiology" (according to
Richard Shine, a coauthor of the paper), whereas monogamy among
snakes would have been a puzzling observation to everyone.
Polygamy in snake populations with an eye on reproductive success
through internal mixing of poor and good sperm is just giving
adders too much credit. In the absence of mate selection, the
outcome in terms of stillbirth and live birth is only a function
of the proportion of handicapped and normal males in that
population. Once an egg is penetrated by a sperm, it usually
becomes refractory to other sperm, regardless of quality.
This humble thought, which is by no means the only objection to
the scenario described in the celebrated paper, fell victim to
the wish to fit an essentially neutral piece of information into
an awkward paradigm. The term "secular scholasticism" comes to
mind.
If all successful species were polygamous, one would have some
support for the proposed ideas, but this is certainly not true.
If it were possible for snake females to preselect their partners
according to sperm quality, stillbirth would probably no longer
be a significant problem among snakes. Human societies in which
promiscuity is not a cultural taboo appear not to be
significantly further advanced than ours.
Why would other scientists quote such a paper with serious
intent? Perhaps our science education has become so specialized,
so technically oriented, that even a minimal philosophical basis
that keeps us from building perpetual motion machines has been
sacrificed to "progress." Cold fusion, permanent imprints in
water, polywater, and snake family planning are all part of the
same alarming symptom, that is, scientific illiteracy.
CHRISTIAN SCHWABE
Professor of Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology
Medical University
of South Carolina
Charleston
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
TI : Risk Assessment
TY : OPINION (LETTERS)
PG : 12
The subject of cancer risk assessment (S. Brudnoy, The Scientist,
March 8, 1993, page 14) is of continuing interest to academic
scientists, but even more important to regulatory agencies. This
topic is not as controversial scientifically as some may make it.
All human carcinogens are genotoxic; that is, they can react
under suitable conditions with DNA and genes, a fact leading to
analytical detection. An exception as a nongenotoxic human
carcinogen is high levels of the hormone diethylstilbestrol--
DES. Two excellent rapid tests, the Ames test and the DNA repair
test of Gary M. Williams, director of medical sciences at the
American Health Foundation, provide key information on
genotoxicity. Agents that are not genotoxic can play a role in
cancer causation, but for such agents there is a sharp dose-
response relationship, with a threshold. Thus, exposures at
levels that sensitive analytical chemistry can detect in the
environment are not likely human cancer risks.
Another element that needs consideration, as described by
Brudnoy, is the question of cell duplication rates. In any case,
however, there are sound methods to evaluate human cancer risks.
It is intriguing that there is so much intellectual discussion on
cancer risks when the removal or modification of the documented
known cancer risks--namely, tobacco use and nutritional excesses
(especially in regard to fat intake)--that overall account for
about 90 percent of the current cancer burden in the Western
world, receives so little attention and readily implemented
control measures.
JOHN H. WEISBURGER
Director Emeritus
American Health Foundation
Valhalla, N.Y.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : Harvard University Chemistry Papers Have Highest Impact
Worldwide
TY : RESEARCH
PG : 14
Editor's Note: From 1988 to 1992, research papers by chemists at
the University of California, Berkeley, were cited well over
11,000 times in subsequent articles. This total, according to
data from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in
Philadelphia, exceeds that of any other of the world's research
centers--academic, corporate, or otherwise. However, in terms of
the impact of its published chemistry articles--the average
number of citations the papers received in subsequent articles--
Harvard University was the clear leader during that period.
A recent article in the ISI newsletter Science Watch reports that
during those five years, a chemistry paper published by Harvard
researchers was subsequently referred to, on average, more than
nine times, while the average Berkeley paper received fewer than
seven citations. Nevertheless, the impact of the Berkeley
chemistry papers was still higher than that of any institution
from outside the United States; although the margin was narrow,
Berkeley ranked just ahead of the leading foreign institution--
Tel Aviv University--in citations per chemistry paper.
Following is a report on Science Watch's analysis, published in
the newsletter's June 1993 issue (4[6]:1-2) and used here with
the permission of ISI.
A year and a half ago, Science Watch drew up a list of 50
universities from around the globe that scored best in terms of
citations per paper for chemistry articles published in 1984-1990
(Science Watch, 3[2]:1-2, February/March 1992). The results of
this survey excited much interest and not a little controversy in
the United States and abroad, since in some instances peer
judgment and citation statistics contrasted sharply. In
particular, certain historically strong universities found
themselves bested by younger up-and-comers. Naturally, the Young
Turks hailed these findings, while the Old Guard grumbled about
the method used. Different methods produce different results, as
all scientists know. So, with this report, Science Watch returns
to ask the same question but in a different way.
This time, chemistry articles indexed by ISI between 1988 and
1992 were surveyed. Included in the current analysis were all
types of journal articles, whereas previously only discovery
accounts, reviews, and notes were counted. But the most
significant difference in methodology this time out was the
identification and inclusion of chemistry papers published in the
high-impact journals Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the USA. In the previous study,
papers published in multidisciplinary journals were not
considered because there was no way to select chemistry articles
from among those on other subjects that also appeared within
these titles. Now ISI's research department uses an algorithm
that scans the reference lists of papers published in
multidisciplinary journals to find those that frequently cite a
specific field. Such papers can then be categorized, or tagged,
according to the subject area most cited. About 60 percent to 70
percent of these papers can be categorized in this way.
Although the omission of papers published in high-impact
multidisciplinary journals was uniform for all institutions, the
previous report nonetheless provoked criticism in that some of
the best papers from the various institutions had not been taken
into account (see, for example, Science, 260[5110]:885, May 14,
1993). Science Watch, thus, sought to address this criticism and
to look for any large differences in the results.
For the new ranking, as well as for the old one, only those
institutions that published 250 or more papers were ranked. U.S.
and non-U.S. institutions are presented separately here, since--
owing to the large number of U.S. publications in the ISI
database and the tendency for U.S. researchers to cite the work
of colleagues in the U.S.--the citation scores for U.S.
institutions are typically higher than those for non-U.S.
institutions.
Harvard University tops the table among U.S. institutions, having
placed second in the last survey. The California Institute of
Technology, which previously capped the chemistry chart, ranks
second this time and is runner-up to Harvard. The University of
Chicago, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Yale
University, and Stanford University, which turn up in the new top
10, also ranked in the top 10 in the previous analysis. The
Massachusetts Institute of Technology dropped considerably from
last time to this time, while Rice University rose sharply in
rank. All in all, however, the same cast of characters tends to
appear in both lists. Notable in the new list are three
corporations (AT&T Bell Labs, IBM Corp., and E.I. DuPont de
Nemours & Co. Inc.) and three government-sponsored laboratories
(Lawrence Berkeley, Argonne, and Sandia). These rank side by side
with the top-ranked U.S. universities.
Among non-U.S. institutions, Tel Aviv University, the Max Planck
Society's Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin, and the Weizmann
Institute rank first, second, and third. Israel's strong showing
is apparent in the national rankings for chemistry, 1988-92, in
which it ranks second only to the U.S. in terms of citation
impact (see Science, 260[5115]: 1738, June 18, 1993). The United
Kingdom's top-ranked university in chemistry turns out to be
Cambridge, followed by Southampton, Bristol, Oxford, and Sussex.
Three of Germany's six institutions listed in the chart are
affiliated with the Max Planck organization. Switzerland is
represented by the ETH and the Universities of Basel, Lausanne,
and Zurich. Philips Labs and the State University of Groningen
show the colors for the Netherlands, while the CEN and the
University of Strasbourg 1 stand tall for France. Australia,
Canada, Italy, and Japan each field one.
The new study surveyed a total of 393,898 chemistry papers
published in 1988-92, which were cited a total of 1,007,624 times
by the end of 1992, for a world citations-per-paper average of
2.56.
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : TOP 25 U.S. INSTITUTIONS IN CHEMISTRY
RANKED BY CITATION IMPACT, 1988-92
TY : RESEARCH
PG : 14
RANK INSTITUTION PAPERS CITATIONS CITES/PAPER
1 HARVARD UNIV. 937 8,465 9.03
2 CALTECH 821 6,817 8.30
3 YALE UNIV. 749 5,953 7.95
4 UNIV. OF CHICAGO713 5,606 7.86
5 RICE UNIV. 404 3,014 7.46
6 AT&T BELL LABS 1,091 8,088 7.41
7 NORTHEASTERN UNIV.256 1,840 7.19
8 UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA 808 5,776 7.15
9 UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES 894 6,165 6.90
10 STANFORD UNIV. 1,105 7,578 6.86
11 UNIV. OF COLORADO,
BOULDER 737 5,008 6.80
12 MIT 1,486 10,076 6.78
13 LAWRENCE BERKELEY
LABORATORY 890 6,021 6.77
14 UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA
BERKELEY 1,680 11,310 6.73
15 ARGONNE NATIONAL
LABORATORY 885 5,818 6.57
16 INDIANA UNIV. 848 5,545 6.54
17 NORTHWESTERN UNIV.928 6,063 6.53
18 UNIV. OF NO. CAROLINA,
CHAPEL HILL 690 4,487 6.50
19 SANDIA NATIONAL
LABORATORY 540 3,509 6.50
20 UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA
SAN DIEGO 625 4,053 6.48
21 UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA
IRVINE 489 3,105 6.35
22 IBM 1,603 9,922 6.19
23 UNIV. OF UTAH 1.069 6,593 6.17
24 UNIV. OF PITTSBURGH974 5,934 6.09
25 DUPONT 1,177 7,123 6.05
Source: Science Watch / Institute for Scientific Information
August 23, 1993
HOT PAPERS
TI : MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
TY : RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS)
PG : 17
M. Leid, P. Kastner, R. Lyons, et al., "Purification, cloning and
RXR identity of the HeLa cell factor with which RAR or TR
heterodimerizes to bind target sequences efficiently," Cell,
68:377-95, 1992.
Mark Leid (Oregon State University, Corvallis): "The diverse
effects of retinoic acid (RA) on development, cellular growth and
differentiation, and homeostasis are mediated by two families of
RA receptors that arose independently during evolution and belong
to the steroid/thyroid hormone superfamily of nuclear receptors.
Retinoic acid receptors (RAR) and retinoid X receptors (RXR) are
ligand-inducible trans-regulators that control transcription
initiated from the promoters of RA target genes by interacting
with cis-acting DNA response elements.
"The two families of nuclear RA receptors, which are
differentially activated by configurational isomers of retinoic
acid, were initially thought to represent divergent pathways of
RA signaling. However, several groups working independently and
using different experimental strategies arrived at the same
conclusion: RAR and RXR bind cooperatively to a variety of
natural and artificial response elements as a heterodimeric
complex, suggesting that the signals conveyed by the two classes
of RA receptors are, in fact, convergent (for references, see M.
Leid, et al., Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 17:427-33, 1992).
"In addition, RXR was shown to heterodimerize with several other
nuclear receptors, including thyroid hormone receptors (TR) and
vitamin D receptors (VDR) (for a review, see V. Laudet, D.
Stehelin, Current Biology, 2:293-5, 1992); peroxisome
proliferator-activated receptor (S.A. Kliewer, et al., Nature,
355:446-9, 1992); members of the COUP family of orphan
receptors<197>COUP-TF, ear2, and ARP-1 (S.A. Kliewer, et al.,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 89:1448-52,
1992; R.L. Widom, et al., Molecular and Cellular Biology,
12:3380-9, 1992); and the oncogenic derivative of TR, v-erbA (D.
Barettino, et al., EMBO Journal, 12:1343-54, 1993). The
implications of these findings are significant because of the
enormous combinatorial diversity that may be generated by
heterotypic interactions among this subset of nuclear receptors.
"While RXR appears to be a focal point of regulation for several
signaling pathways, and heterodimeric complexes containing RXR
are clearly implicated in signal transduction (for example, see
D. Heery, et al., PNAS, 90:4281-5, 1993, and references therein),
the possibility that RXR and all of the heterodimerization
partners of RXR also function in the context of homodimeric
complexes cannot be excluded. Indeed, X.-K. Zhang and coworkers
(Nature, 358:587-91, 1992) have demonstrated the relevance of
ligand-induced RXR homodimers in the transcriptional regulation
of some target genes, and RXR-dependent and -independent
transcriptional regulation mediated by TR (P.L. Hallenbeck, et
al., Journal of Biological Chemistry, 268:3825-8, 1993) and VDR
(C. Carlberg, et al., Nature, 361:657-60, 1993) have been
described.
"Clearly, transcriptional regulation of target gene expression by
RXR and the heterodimerization partners of RXR is a complex
matter and likely reflects the capacity of a cell to integrate
several parameters simultaneously, such as the intracellular
concentrations of the various receptors, ligands, and receptor-
specific transcriptional intermediary factors. This paper and the
other important papers mentioned previously provided a basic
insight into the mechanism by which these receptors function and
another avenue to address the complexity of signal transduction
mediated by nuclear receptors."
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
TI : PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY
TY : RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS)
PG : 17
K. M. Creegan, J. L. Robbins, W.K. Robbins, et al., "Synthesis
and characterization of C60O, the first fullerene epoxide,"
Journal of the American Chemical Society, 114:1103-5, 1992.
Donald M. Cox (Exxon Research and Engineering Co., Annandale,
N.J.): "Fullerenes and C60 in particular are now available in
useful quantities, thanks to the discovery of the arc synthesis
method by W. Kratschmer and colleagues (Nature, 347:354, 1990).
This ready availability of C60--or buckyball, as it is more
colloquially known--has stimulated an upsurge in chemistry
devoted to producing new derivatives from this unique molecular
building block. The discovery, isolation, and characterization of
one of the simplest of these, the mono-epoxide of buckyball,
C60O, are the subjects of this paper.
"Amos Smith III of the University of Pennsylvania and I led a
team of researchers that found that C60O can be synthesized in
good yield by photo-oxidation of buckyball benzene solutions. We
also showed that it is present in small amounts in the soot
produced directly via the arc synthesis technique. Using liquid
chromatographic techniques, we isolated sufficient quantities of
purified C60O and obtained its mass spectrum, UV-visible and
infrared absorption spectra, and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance
spectrum.
"The mass spectrum confirmed 736 daltons as its mass and strongly
suggested that it was indeed a mono-oxide of C60. The UV-vis and
infrared spectra, although similar to those of C60 in some
aspects, contained several unique features showing that this new
molecule was indeed different from C60. But the key question
became: How was the oxygen atom bonded to buckyball? The answer
was provided by 13C nuclear magnetic resonance, which nailed down
the structure as an epoxide and not the isomeric oxidoannulene
structure.
"One of the more interesting features was the behavior of C60O on
different chromatographic columns. The initial separations were
carried out using silica gel columns. When we tried the
separation on neutral alumina, a chromatographic material widely
used for fullerene separations, we found that C60O efficiently
converted back to C60, an effect that we feel likely explains why
C60O had not been isolated previously.
"Availability of C60O has already resulted in several additional
studies of its solid-state properties and potential use in
forming self-assembled monolayer films. Large-scale production of
C60O, C60 with a chemical handle, is anticipated to be a valuable
fullerene chemical reagent that will open up new (and, perhaps,
easier) opportunities in chemical synthesis."
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : Molecular Modeling Aids Chemistry Research And Teaching
AU : FRANKLIN HOKE
TY : TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY
PG : 18
Since full-featured molecular-modeling packages began appearing
on the chemist's desktop a few years ago, they have grown
dramatically in sophistication and capability. Following in part
on the availability of ever-more-powerful personal computer
hardware, new software modules have been added regularly, often
ported from workstation environments. At the same time, intuitive
graphical user interfaces have helped make computer-aided
chemistry increasingly accessible to scientists who are not
primarily programmers.
The result is that bench-level experimental chemists and
molecular biologists now are designing molecules with the aplomb
of computational chemists, and academic chemists are as likely to
use the programs for teaching their students as for advancing
their research. Many scientists are also using these packages to
create information-dense images for textbooks and papers.
"The computational chemist--or theoretical chemist--works
primarily with computers, the algorithms and so on, and with the
theories of chemistry," explains Joanne Hart, a chemist and
product marketing specialist with CAChe Scientific Inc.,
Beaverton, Ore., producers of a suite of Macintosh-based
computer-aided chemistry packages. "These are the people writing
a lot of the programs that we use now. And then there's the
experimental chemist. He's the fellow who's in the lab trying to
come up with a new paint, a new fragrance, or a way to make his
dye bluer. Our customer is the experimental chemist."
In terms of functionality, these modeling systems are situated
between personal computer molecular-drawing packages, which are
generally less sophisticated, and the full-scale molecular
simulation systems designed to run on workstations. In some
cases, there is overlap. For example, some drawing packages offer
a degree of analytical capability and may have software bridges
written into the program to allow them to communicate with more
powerful systems. Similarly, some of the personal computer
molecular-modeling systems also provide software links to the
more powerful workstation packages or are part of a family of
software running on the full range of computer platforms.
Among the personal computer molecular-modeling systems are
Alchemy III (Macintosh, DOS, and Windows) from Tripos Associates
Inc., St. Louis; Personal CAChe (Macintosh) from CAChe
Scientific; CSC Chem3D (Macintosh) from Cambridge Scientific
Computing Inc., Cambridge, Mass.; and HyperChem (Windows) from
Autodesk Inc., Sausalito, Calif.
All four have software links to workstation capability. Alchemy
III is produced by Tripos Associates, which also markets SYBYL,
one of the three most widely used workstation molecular-modeling
systems. (The other two are Insight II from BIOSYM Technologies
Inc. of San Diego, and QUANTA CHARMm from Molecular Simulations
Inc., Burlington, Mass.) Personal CAChe, for desktop Macintosh
computers, is the first product on an upgrade path that includes
CAChe Worksystem, CAChe Groupserver, and CAChe Project Leader.
CSC Chem3D exchanges files in a wide range of formats, including
those of several workstation modeling packages and a number of
important databases, such as the Brookhaven Protein Database and
the Cambridge Crystal Database. HyperChem, too, can read and
write files back and forth with high-end modeling packages
through industry-standard formats, and a version of the program
runs under the Motif graphical user interface on RISC-based
workstations from Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, Calif.
Drawing packages include chemDIAGRAM (Win- dows) from Molecular
Arts Corp., Anaheim, Calif.; CSC ChemDraw (Macintosh and Windows)
from Cam- bridge Scientific Computing; ChemIntosh (Macintosh) and
ChemWindow (Windows) from SoftShell International Ltd., Grand
Junction, Colo.; ISIS/ Draw (Macintosh and Windows) from
Molecular Design Ltd., San Leandro, Calif.; and ChemPrint
(Windows) from Tripos Associates.
The drawing packages also demonstrate the bridges software
developers have created between the different types of software.
Structures drawn in CSC ChemDraw, for example, can be transferred
into CSC Chem3D for molecular modeling. Another program in the
Cambridge Scientific group, CSC ChemFinder, provides database
searching tools--of both structure and information databases --
that integrate with either the drawing or the modeling package.
And Molecular Design's ISIS/Draw structures are fully compatible
with the company's three-dimensional chemical-structure database
search software.
Overall, personal computer molecular-modeling tools are opening
new research approaches and encouraging interactions between the
computer-oriented theoretical chemists and their bench-level
counterparts.
"Products like HyperChem are positioned to let people do
sophisticated molecular modeling without being a dedicated
molecular modeler," says Susan Spencer, a marketing
representative for Autodesk Inc. "They have to know chemistry,
but they don't have to know molecular modeling."
Kate M. Holloway is a computational chemist at Merck Research
Laboratories, West Point, Pa., and one of the organizers of an
upcoming American Chemical Society meeting session (to be held in
March 1994, in San Diego) titled "Applications of Computer-Aided
Molecular Design to Chemicals, Materials, and Pharmaceuticals."
She agrees that academic scientists and bench-level chemists are
the most likely users of the personal computer molecular-modeling
programs.
"These systems have all the functionality that you'd want for
simple molecular modeling," Holloway says. "The [workstation]
packages from Molecular Simulations and BIOSYM and Tripos are
intended for people who are going to be looking at fairly large
systems or are interested in specific [capabilities] like
solvation calculations, molecular dynamics, Monte Carlo, 3-D
pharmacophore building, and database searching. Some of those
pieces are present in the smaller packages, but you just don't
have the quite the same sophistication or power."
New Research Uses
In the context of specific investigations, a wide range of
analytical tasks can be performed by the personal computer
molecular-modeling programs, including geometry minimizations,
assessments of electrostatic interactions, and calculations of
infrared-, ultraviolet-, and visible-wavelength spectra. What
limitations there are--generally in the maximum size of the
molecules that can be studied and the speed with which analytical
functions on those molecules can be performed--seem to be related
more to the hardware than to the software.
Stefan Loren, a postdoctoral organic chemist working in the lab
of Joel Hawkins at the University of California, Berkeley, is
designing a variety of catalysts for asymmetric synthesis of
chiral, or racemic, drug molecules with the aid of the CAChe
system. These molecules exist in two structural forms that are
mirror images of each other, although they conform to the same
chemical formula. The right-handed and left-handed versions of
such molecules often have very different properties, so that the
ability to make one rather than the other is important to drug
developers, Loren says.
One of the common uses of the program, he says, is to minimize
the geometry of a given molecule, looking for different
conformations in which the molecule is likely to reside.
"From there, one can make predictions about where it might be
attacked and what the selectivity might be," Loren says.
In addition to the work with chiral molecules, Loren and
colleagues have used the workstation version of CAChe to model
carbon 60 molecules, or buckminsterfullerenes.
Sharon Bryant, a biologist with the National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences' Laboratory of Integrative Biology
in Research Triangle Park, N.C., uses Hyper-Chem to visualize
opioid peptides in binding situations, investigating receptor
sites. Among the analyses she performs are electrostatic
calculations, energy minimizations, and infrared-, ultraviolet-,
and visible- wavelength spectroscopic studies.
Working with molecules as large as 132 atoms, Bryant has tested
the limits of her desktop system. For one set of especially
demanding semi-empirical calculations she asked the program to
do, she ran out of computer memory after five days. The program
itself, however, was not the limiting factor.
"Also, I could have selected a couple of residues, calculated
those, and then gone back to select others," she says. "I could
then have combined the data to overcome the memory problem."
One point Bryant makes is that her lab added molecular modeling
to its set of tools, not to take the place of other techniques,
but to do something not easily done otherwise.
"We wanted to visualize the peptides," she says, "to understand
the molecules."
Teaching With Modeling
One of the fastest-growing areas of use for personal computer
molecular modeling is in teaching. The immediacy of being able to
see images of the molecules, combined with the scientific rigor
underlying the programming, makes the programs strong interactive
learning tools.
"I teach a laboratory course where the students spend half their
time working in the lab and half their time in front of the
computer," says John Kotz, Distinguished Teaching Professor of
chemistry at the State University of New York, Oneonta, and a
CAChe user. He notes that this time budget is similar to what the
students would experience if they were working in an industrial
laboratory today.
"On the computer, they build the compounds they're going to work
on in the lab," Kotz says. "After working in the lab, they follow
up by coming back to the computer, to see if the computer matches
up with their real experience."
He adds: "CAChe allows you to probe the reactivity of the
molecule by studying its electronic structure, so you can get
some idea of where the electron density is the greatest or the
least, and therefore where the molecule is most likely to be
attacked."
In a chemistry theory course that Kotz also teaches, the computer
screen has virtually replaced the blackboard.
"We actually teach the class in front of the computer," he says.
"Every time we sit down at the computer--and this includes
myself--we find things we never thought of before."
Kotz is currently at work on the third edition of a freshman
chemistry textbook (Kotz and Keith F. Purcell, Chemistry and
Chemical Reactivity, 2d ed., Philadelphia, Saunders College
Publishing, 1991) and plans to include a compact disk "hyper-
book" containing CAChe-generated chemical structures to augment
the book.
"You simply browse around inside it," he says. "You can connect
from place to place electronically, rather than by turning pages.
It's not meant to be page-turned."
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : MOLECULAR DRAWING AND MODELING SOFTWARE FOR THE PERSONAL COMPUTER
TY : TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY
PG : 19
The following companies are among those providing molecular
drawing and modeling software for personal computer operating
systems. Because options and modules vary in some cases, call for
specific pricing information.
Autodesk Inc.
Scientific Modeling Division
2320 Marinship Way
Sausalito, Calif. 94965
(800) 424-9737
Fax: (415) 331-8093
PC Product: HyperChem (Windows)
CAChe Scientific Inc.
P.O. Box 500, M/S 13-400
Beaverton, Ore. 97077
(800) 547-8949
Fax: (503) 526-2901
PC Product: Personal CAChe (Macintosh)
Cambridge Scientific Computing Inc.
875 Mass. Ave., Sixth Fl.
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
(617) 491-6862
Fax: (617) 491-8208
PC Products: CSC ChemDraw, CSC Chem3D, and SC ChemFinder (Macintosh)
Molecular Arts Corp.
1532 E. Katella Ave.
Anaheim, Calif. 92805
(714) 634-8100
Fax: (714) 634-1999
PC Product: chemDIAGRAM (Windows)
Molecular Design Ltd.
14600 Catalina St.
San Leandro, Calif. 94577
(510) 895-1313
Fax: (510) 352-2870
PC Product: ISIS/Draw (Macintosh, Windows)
SoftShell International Ltd.
715 Horizon Dr., Suite 390
Grand Junction, Colo. 81506
(303) 242-7502
Fax: (303) 242-6469
PC Products: ChemIntosh (Macintosh), ChemWindow (Windows)
Tripos Associates Inc.
1699 S. Hanley Rd., Suite 303
St. Louis, Mo. 63144
(800) 323-2960
Fax: (314) 647-9241
PC Products: Alchemy III (Macintosh, DOS, Windows), ChemPrint (Windows)
Workstation systems:
BIOSYM Technologies Inc.
9685 Scranton Rd.
San Diego, Calif. 92121
(619) 458-9990
Fax: (619) 458-0136
Product: Insight II
Molecular Simulations Inc.
16 New England Exec. Pk.
Burlington, Mass. 01803-5297
(617) 229-9800
Fax: (617) 229-9899
Product: QUANTA CHARMm
Tripos Associates Inc.
(address above)
Product: SYBYL
(The Scientist, Vol:7, #16, August 23, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
August 23, 1993
TI : Budget Pressures Limit Faculty Pay Raises At State,
Land Grant Schools
AU : EDWARD R. SILVERMAN
TY : PROFESSION
PG : 20
The average salary paid to science faculty at institutions
belonging to the National Association of State Universities and
Land Grant Colleges rose only slightly in 1992-93 compared with
the previous academic year, according to a recently released
survey.
Faculty in life and physical sciences departments at state
universities and land grant colleges (institutions originally set
up by United States government grants to teach agriculture)
received salary increases averaging between 1.5 percent and 3.5
percent, according to the study.
For instance, the average salary paid in the 1992-93 year to
botany professors was $61,539, up 1 percent from 1991 to 1992.
Chemistry professors received an average salary of $67,173, a 3.3
percent increase. And geology professors were paid an average
salary of $60,606, a 3.9 percent gain.
Professors in some departments, though, received virtually no
increases. Among them were the zoology, entomology, and pharma-
cology departments.
The survey, which university administrators say is a closely
watched indicator of academic pay scales nationwide, was
conducted by the Office of Institutional Research at Oklahoma
State University in Stillwater. Responses were received early
this year from administrators at 75 state universities and land
grant colleges, who reported salary data on faculty in science as
well as nonscience departments.
`Economic Malaise'
The modest pay hikes revealed by the survey roughly matched last
year's annual inflation rate, generally considered to be between
2 percent and 3 percent. Academic administrators say the small
increases reflect continued budgetary pressure on state
governments, which provide a great deal of state-school funding.
"It's just a reflection of the general economic malaise," says
Tom Field, associate director of planning and policy studies at
the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. "Relying on state
support is a losing cause. Universities are going to have to find
other sources of funding in order to prosper. The pie isn't
getting any bigger."
Says Lee Tarrant, Oklahoma State's assistant director for
institutional research: "They [the schools] are just keeping up
with inflation. So many state-supported schools feel strapped for
cash and can't give the raises they'd like to give. Most of the
people that I talk to are worried about faculty, particularly the
stars, leaving. I don't know where a lot of people would go, but
I'm sure there'd be a flight to industry."
Bucking The Trend
That may explain why the survey found that some faculty got steep
increases, bucking the general trend of modest raises. It found,
for example, that professors in such hot fields as pathology and
genetics received average salaries that were 15.7 percent and 6.7
percent higher, respectively, than the comparable figures for
1991-92, reflecting the need to compete with industry for
scientists in these areas.
But with slow economic growth, these opportunities seem to have
been available to only a small percentage of faculty in many
schools, resulting in a lack of turnover and dimin |