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THE SCIENTIST
VOLUME 8, #8 APRIL 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
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Articles published in THE SCIENTIST reflect the views of their
authors and not the official views of the publication,
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TI : CONTENTS
PG : 3
============================================================
NEWS
RETIREMENT CONSIDERATIONS: The end of mandatory retirement at
colleges and universities is forcing administrators to set new
policies and older faculty to make some hard decisions. Academic
officials are rethinking their hiring and retirement incentive and
pension positions, while individual educators must figure out when
to retire
PG 1
THE HEIDI CHRONICLES: A $900,000 settlement in a
sex-discrimination lawsuit filed by nuclear medicine and radiology
researcher Heidi Weissmann against her former employers does not
include a confidentiality agreement, a development that observers
say will foster a public discussion of such cases and the larger
issues involved
PG 1
ACADEMY HONORS: The National Academy of Sciences will honor 15
individuals at its annual meeting this month. Three of the award
recipients are astronomers, including Cornell University's Carl
Sagan, who will be given the academy's highest honor.
PG 1
BIOLOGICAL CONVOCATIONS: Two biological societies are meeting next
month; the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
will gather May 21-25 in Washington, D.C., and the American
Society for Microbiology will convene in Las Vegas May 23-27
PG 3
NONAGENARIAN SCIENCE: Reflecting the timelessness of science's
quest for knowledge, many United States scientists are still
productive in their 90s--continuing their investigations,
consulting and collaborating with other researchers, publishing
their research, and, in some cases, branching out into other
fields
PG 11
OPINION
JOURNAL PUBLISHING: Throughout his long career in science,
University of Miami biochemist William J. Whelan has maintained
that the best research journals are those developed by scientific
organizations rather than private publishers. Whelan, who is
editor-in- chief of the FASEB Journal, thus encourages societies
to overcome their natural conservatism and become more active in
creating publications that meet the ever-changing needs of their
memberships
PG 12
COMMENTARY: While some scientists find awards distasteful,
publisher Eugene Garfield contends that such acclaim plays a
valuable role in the scientific enterprise, reaffirming the
profession's pursuit of excellence and providing inspiration to
young researchers with the message that, by applying their skills
unfalteringly, they may be recognized by society and, more
important, by their peers.
PG 13
RESEARCH
MUSHROOMING FIELD: New genetic techniques and increased interest
from other disciplines have broadened the scope of mycology
research over the past decades, including studies of fungus'
potential as a herbicide, in degrading toxic waste, and as a
possible cure for cancer and AIDS
PG 14
HOT PAPERS: Sharka M. Prokes discusses her paper on porous silicon
as an optoelectronic material; Ed Masteller discusses his
long-term investigation of aquatic insects in a tropical
rainforest
PG 16
TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY
GOING WITH THE FLOW: Flow cytometry has become a commonplace
technique in biological research and medical diagnostics over the
past five years. The technology, which analyzes large numbers of
individual cells or subcellular structures, has been a boon to DNA
sequencing, HIV research, and a Massachusetts Institute of
Technology study of phytoplankton
PG 17
PROFESSION
MICROBIOLOGIST RITA R. COLWELL, president of the University of
Maryland Biotechnology Institute, has been named president-elect
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
PG 23
PHYSICIST FREEMAN J. DYSON, a professor at the Institute for
Advanced Study, has received the 1994 Wright Prize
PG 23
SHORT TAKES
NOTEBOOK PG 4
LETTERS PG 13
FLOW CYTOMETRY PRODUCT DIRECTORY PG 19
NEW PRODUCTS PG 20
OBITUARIES PG 23
CROSSWORD PG 23
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
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TI : Unusual Settlement Caps Sex-Discrimination Case
Observers laud the fact that the agreement lets Heidi
Weissmann and her former employers keep their controversial
debate alive
AU : BARBARA SPECTOR
TY : NEWS
PG : 1
Despite a recently announced out-of-court settlement in medical
researcher Heidi S. Weissmann's seven-year-long sex-discrimination
case against her former employers, each side still insists that it
would have prevailed had the case gone to trial. While it is
debatable whether the $900,000 settlement--notable for the large
amount and the absence of a confidentiality agreement--helps or
hurts the cause of women's advancement in science, most observers
agree that the parties' freedom to discuss the highly publicized
case may help to further a public understanding of the issues
involved.
Weissmann, formerly an attending physician at Montefiore Medical
Center and an associate professor of radiology at Yeshiva
University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, N.Y.
(R. Kaufman, The Scientist, Sept. 14, 1992, page 1), says she
hopes the settlement of her United States District Court suit
against the two institutions will "let women [pursuing
discrimination cases] know they can have the courage of their
convictions and be successful in the end."
Says Catherine Didion, executive director of the Washington,
D.C.-based Association for Women in Science (AWIS): "The more we
get this on the table--the good and the bad--the more we can be
able to address it and get on with the science."
According to the settlement agreement, $35,000 of the amount
constitutes back pay, $540,000 compensates Weissmann for pain and
suffering, and $325,000 represents legal fees and expenses. An
attorney for Weissmann, Edward S. Rudofsky of New York, says that
the plaintiff's lawyers "agreed to accept fixed fees instead of
their time charges to accommodate the settlement and see that Dr.
Weissmann received a substantial recovery for her injuries and
damages."
Weissmann has estimated the value of legal services rendered in
her case at more than $1 million.
Montefiore officials say the institution's insurance covers the
entire settlement amount. The institution also paid for the legal
expenses of Weissmann's former lab chief incurred in an earlier
copyright-infringement suit she had filed against him, a central
issue in the sex-discrimination case. Weissmann won the copyright
case on appeal.
As part of the settlement, Weissmann has agreed not to seek
employment at Montefiore, Einstein, or any of 29 affiliated
institutions.
Why The Settlement?
Philip R. Forlenza, an attorney for Montefiore, says that, despite
the agreement to settle, he believes his clients would have won
had the case gone to trial. "We wanted to be vindicated," he says.
Weissmann's lawyer, Rudofsky, says District Court Judge Lawrence
M. McKenna's findings in response to a motion filed by another
Weissmann attorney, Eleanor Jackson Piel, "indicated that Dr.
Weissmann had a very strong case and had already satisfied most of
the elements. The issue was whether the other side's justification
of it would stand up before a jury."
Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation,
which supported Weissmann, says the plaintiff's success in her
copyright case strengthened her claim of discrimination. "You
seldom get a sex-discrimination case where the plaintiff has
already won in court," Smeal says. "It was a slam-dunk case."
Despite his clients' confidence that they would win, Forlenza
says, the institutions decided to settle after years of failed
attempts to go to trial, which he attributes to Weiss-mann's
repeated changes of attorneys and other delays caused by the
plaintiff. "I was convinced Dr. Weissmann was never going to take
the witness stand," he says.
Meanwhile, For- lenza says, Mon-tefiore and Einstein were
receiving "very severe criticism launched by the people and
organizations supporting Dr. Weissmann. They said, `You're waging
a battle of attrition; you're wasting funds that could be put to
better use.'" Faced with such criticism, which was well
publicized, "the top people in the institutions went through a
soul-searching exercise," ultimately deciding to settle. "But," he
says, "there was unanimity in their belief that the institutions
had not acted improperly."
Weissmann blames the defendants for the delays. "They'll fight you
to the bitter end," she says, "and if you're still around seven or
15 years later, they'll offer you a settlement. What do they lose
by first trying to run you out of steam?"
Smeal, whose organization provided Weissmann with funds and office
space, says the group took on her cause because "we felt that she
was the kind of plaintiff that was going to hang in there, no
matter what."
A Protracted Case
Weissmann first filed discrimination charges with the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in April 1987. The EEOC
complaint alleged that she had not been promoted to chief of
service in 1986 and had received an unfavorable performance review
in January 1987 because she was female, according to court
documents.
Regarding Weissmann's allegations that her negative performance
review was motivated by sexism, Forlenza says, "All the criticism
was substantiated by documents and attendance rec-ords." Both
sides acknowledge that in June 1987 Weissmann was denied a 5
percent raise given to virtually all members of the department.
In a separate but related case during this time, Weissmann charged
that on two occasions, her former lab chief, Leonard M. Freeman,
represented a book chapter she had written as his own. She filed
for a temporary restraining order in August 1987 and later filed a
copyright-infringement suit in the same U.S. District Court, in
New York. The court found for the defendant in May 1988. The
Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed the decision in
1989. Later that year, Freeman's appeal to the Supreme Court was
denied.
In January 1988, Weissmann filed her discrimination suit against
Montefiore and Einstein. Her third amended complaint, filed in
September 1993, alleged that on the day of the hearing on her
application for the temporary restraining order, she was escorted
from her office by security guards and asked to relinquish her
keys. Her attorney at the time wrote to the hospital's lawyers
that the action constituted a firing.
In October 1987, according to the complaint, Weissmann received a
dismissal letter from Montefiore, which maintained that the key
episode was not a discharge and that her failure to return to work
constituted a resignation. Weissmann alleged in her complaint that
the incident and the denial of the raise were retaliation for the
EEOC filing and the copyright suit.
That same month, it was announced that Freeman, now chief of
nuclear medicine and radiology at Einstein, had been promoted.
Montefiore denied Weissmann's charges, noting that the raise would
have been given retroactively when she submitted a grant
application she was to have been writing. Mon-tefiore further
maintained that Weissmann was asked for her keys because the
hospital had evidence that she was removing patient rec-ords from
her office.
Damaging To Feminism?
Letty Lutzker, a former colleague of Weissmann and Freeman's who
is now chief of nuclear medicine at St. Barnabas Medical Center in
Livingston, N.J., says the case damages the feminist cause. "There
was no discrimination; there was no exploitation of a young
scientist as far as I can see," says Lutzker. "Dr. Freeman is not
someone who exploits people; he's one of the most gender-neutral
people I have known."
Adds another former colleague, Corine Yee, physician in charge of
nuclear medicine at Kaiser-Los Angeles, "I know that there is
discrimination that is more covert than overt, but you can't just
turn around and cry discrimination at every turn if you don't get
what you want. I think what she was asking for was unreasonable."
Lutzker and Yee, who confirm Montefiore's assertion that they were
first offered the chiefship that Weissmann contended she was
denied because she was a woman, say the plaintiff's professional
advancement was hindered because she had not completed her boards
in nuclear medicine or radiology.
Says Rudofsky, Weissmann's attorney: "Dr. Weissmann was board
eligible; documents discovered in the hospital files indicated
that she was being billed as a specialist.
"She claimed she was not encouraged to take the boards; in effect,
she claimed, she was programmed for failure. Board certification
only became an issue when she complained about discrimination."
Weissmann says Montefiore's department chairman did not fill out
the forms she needed to take the boards in time to meet the
deadline. Forlenza, Montefiore's attorney, denies the charge,
saying that the chairman had urged her to take the boards for
several years.
The Terms
According to Rudofsky, Weiss-mann's refusal to accept a
confidentiality agreement was "a major impediment to settlement."
Had it not been for this stumbling block, he says, the case might
have been settled as early as 1989.
"I don't doubt that cost her hundreds of thousands of dollars,"
says former National Institutes of Health fraud researcher Walter
Stewart. "It proves that she's a public hero, not just someone
with a private grievance."
"I don't think these things should be kept confidential," says
former Montefiore researcher Yee. "Montefiore is not at a
disadvantage for having something open like this."
A 1989 settlement offer from the institutions, under which
Weissmann would have been paid $150,000, included a provision that
neither side disclose the terms. In speaking to others, each party
would have been required to use a statement saying that the
dispute was "caused largely by inadequate communication."
"They wanted me to make a public, written statement exonerating
Dr. Freeman and to vacate the [copyright] judgment against him,"
says Weissmann.
"My integrity and First Amendment rights were not for sale," she
says. "I couldn't live with accepting what they wanted." Regarding
the statement and proposed confidentiality agreement, she says, "I
could not accept money and become part of their whitewash and
coverup."
Forlenza, calling the 1989 confidentiality agreement "very, very
standard," says the institutions had no problem deleting the
provision from the final settlement. "The first time [Weissmann
and her lawyers] complained about it, we backed off," he says.
According to the Feminist Majority, the $900,000 payment is one of
the largest for a single plaintiff in a sex-discrimination case
against a medical institution. Nonetheless, Rudofsky says, "I
would have liked to see her reinstated, and to recover more for
direct and indirect losses."
Houston attorney Thomas H. Padgett, Jr., who represents plaintiffs
in sex-discrimination suits, speculates that Weissmann might have
been awarded more had the case gone to trial. In one
discrimination case he handled involving a medical researcher, he
says, the jury awarded $100,000 more than the plaintiff had asked
for.
"Where did that extra hundred come from? Just from them being
mad," Padgett says. "That's the same kind of thing that could have
happened in this case."
Smeal says it's disturbing that Montefiore's insurance covers the
settlement as well as Freeman's expenses in the copyright case,
even though Weissmann sued him as an individual. "Why does the
university feel obligated to support him if he made a mistake?"
she asks. "The person who's aggrieved has a tremendous financial
burden in fighting the case."
Weissmann's supporters contend that, in light of her previous
accomplishments--she did pioneering research in biliary imaging,
receiving the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Mount Sinai School of
Medicine in 1980 and the Tetalman Memorial Award of the Society of
Nuclear Medicine in 1982--it is unfair for Montefiore to insist
that she not apply to any of its affiliates. "We as American
taxpayers should question why a scientist who obviously has
excellent qualifications and obviously did not bring a frivolous
lawsuit should not be allowed to work for them again," Smeal says.
Montefiore's attorney, Forlenza, says that an agreement not to
seek reemployment is "a very common provision in these kinds of
cases." Noting that the list includes several nursing homes and
similar facilities, Forlenza says, "Most of these are small
operations; there are scores of institutions she can apply to."
The Aftermath
Weissmann says the case has hurt her prospects of returning to her
field. "For seven years, I have not been able to get a job in
private practice, academia, or industry," she says (see
accompanying story).
Freeman, who was cleared in three internal investigations by
Einstein and Montefiore (a fourth was disbanded before reaching a
conclusion), says that, other than the consumption of an
"inordinate amount" of his time, "in terms of my relationships
with people, [the case] has had no impact whatsoever. People have
felt it important to rise to the occasion and come to my
assistance, to refute these allegations," he says.
"The scientific community, I think, realized it was a minor,
trivial type thing blown out of proportion." Noteworthy, Freeman
says, is that "women have been among my greatest supporters."
Freeman, coeditor of Seminars in Nuclear Medicine and editor of
Nuclear Medicine Annual, says that "I have no problems getting
people to write articles for my journals. I almost find people
more anxious--to show that there's no change" in the way he's
regarded.
Furthermore, he says, "I have received two major awards from
people well aware of what's going on." In June 1993 he was
presented with the Society of Nuclear Medicine's Distinguished
Educator Award; in 1990, he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha
honorary fraternity.
An Imperfect Remedy
AWIS's Didion cautions female researchers who feel they have been
discriminated against not to be too hasty in following in
Weissmann's footsteps. "We don't necessarily feel that litigation
is the avenue that women should explore," she says. Noting the
length of Weissmann's case, Didion says, "She had the stamina and
the emotional and financial support to stay this long. Most women
don't realize the type of commitment that is. We counsel women to
be as informed as possible about what the costs are and what the
alternatives are."
Furthermore, she says, if highly publicized discrimination cases
persist, men may overreact by declining to interact with women in
mentorship or collegial roles: "We need to be careful that we
don't allow this to be the only example of women in science."
----------
WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT
ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE
FOLLOWING ADDRESSES:
garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu
71764.2561@compuserve.com
The Scientist,
3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104
U.S.A.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
-------------------------------------------------------
TI : WHAT'S NEXT FOR HEIDI WEISSMANN?
AU : BARBARA SPECTOR
TY : NEWS
PG : 5
Now that her seven-year-long sex-discrimination case against her
former employers, Bronx, N.Y.-based Montefiore Medical Center and
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, has been settled, nuclear
medicine and radiology researcher Heidi S. Weissmann must decide
what to do with the rest of her life.
Although she has not yet been successful in finding a job in her
field, Weissmann says, "things are slowly progressing in a
positive direction": Since last January, she says, she has been
invited to give talks in her field to professional groups, such as
the Society of Gastrointestinal Radiologists; last year, she was
also asked to lecture at a teaching hospital.
In addition, Weissmann says, "I have been invited to lecture on
issues of medical ethics, scientific misconduct, and the glass
ceiling."
Weissmann says she intends to use a portion of her settlement
money "to establish a network and resource center for other women
who find themselves in a situation [similar to the one] I found
myself in, and [to help] men and women who were whistle-blowers."
--B.S.
----------
WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT
ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE
FOLLOWING ADDRESSES:
garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu
71764.2561@compuserve.com
The Scientist,
3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104
U.S.A.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
-------------------------------------------------------
TI : With End Of Mandatory Retirement, U.S. Schools Face
New Challenges
As change in law allows science faculty to keep working after age
70, academia must rethink its personnel policies
AU : BILLY GOODMAN
TY : NEWS
PG : 1
The end of mandatory retirement for faculty at United States
colleges and universities--a policy change that became effective
on January 1 of this year--is placing a new burden on the schools
as well as individual faculty members.
While the end of the longstanding policy has not brought about--as
some administrators had feared--a deluge of complaints from young
job candidates concerned about a dearth of future job openings, it
is causing schools to take a hard look at their retirement
incentive plans. At the same time, professors are now finding that
they have to make independent decisions about when to stop
working.
When Congress passed the 1986 amendments to the Age Discrimination
in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967, prohibiting mandatory retirement
on the basis of age for most workers, it included several
temporary exemptions, notably one for tenured faculty in higher
education. That exemption expired Dec. 31, 1993.
The strongest sentiment for preserving mandatory retirement for
tenured faculty came from a few major U.S. research universities,
where the majority of faculty retirements have come at the
mandatory age.
That, say some administrators, is evidence that many professors
may choose to stay at their institutions past the age of 70. These
administrators, joined by many faculty members at research
universities, have opposed ending mandatory retirement, fearing
that the result will be a drastic reduction in employment
opportunities for young scientists and a consequent decline in
vigor and new ideas at their institutions.
Ernst Benjamin, general secretary of the Washington, D.C.-based
American Association of University Professors (AAUP), acknowledges
that some of these institutions could have trouble if they don't
encourage early retirement or restructure pensions, which are
generally based on years of service and involve yearly
contributions. But many older faculty, Benjamin says, "are very
valuable, and institutions are unhappy to lose them."
At the University of Chicago, where administrators and faculty
have been deeply concerned about the effects of the so-called
uncapping of mandatory retirement, Stephen Stigler headed a
faculty committee that looked into the repercussions. Stigler, a
professor of statistics, says, "We came to the con- clusion that
the effect on our university would be substantial and costly."
In addition, Stigler studied retirement patterns at five other
institutions and concluded that "absent mandatory retirement, the
rate of retirement would be very slow at major research
universities. By the turn of the century, about 10 percent of the
faculty would be over 70."
Not all administrators are so sure that uncapping will lead to a
postponement of retirement by large numbers of faculty members.
Jeremy Knowles, dean of the faculty at Harvard University, says,
"Without a fixed point, the decision of an individual to retire
becomes a more personal and deliberate one."
Historically, the rationale for mandatory retirement in academia
was based on two notions. First, colleges and universities need to
be able to hire new, usually young, faculty as a source of new
ideas and as a way for a department to enter new research areas.
Second, some administrators have feared that it would be difficult
without mandatory retirement to remove elderly, tenured professors
who had become ineffective.
Natural Experiments
It seems inevitable that some faculty members will now remain
employed after 70, postponing new hiring. But the magnitude of
this effect is unclear, administrators say. One source of evidence
is from natural experiments: institutions that uncapped long ago,
usually as a result of state law.
The University of Wisconsin, Madison, uncapped about 10 years ago,
but the change "does not seem to have affected the average age of
retirement," says Phillip Certain, dean of the College of Letters
and Science. He says the effect on hiring at the university has
been minimal, dwarfed by many other budgetary problems plaguing
colleges and universities broadly.
Some universities, such as Chicago and Stanford, expect a far
greater percentage of their faculty to remain employed after age
70. When the mandatory retirement age was changed in 1982--by
earlier amendments to the ADEA--from 65 to 70, the median age of
faculty retirement at both institutions increased from 65 to 70.
"It is as if the federal government had required us to hire 50 new
faculty members over the next eight years, all over 70, all at the
highest salary scales, and all based on their performance 35 years
ago," says Stigler.
For Chicago professors, apparently, emeritus status is not as
attractive as it is at many other colleges and universities where
teaching loads are much heavier, such as at Bryn Mawr College in
Pennsylvania. Bryn Mawr provost Judith Shapiro says, "We don't
have quite the same problems where the preretirement life might
not be much different from the postretirement life."
Does Youth Equal Vigor?
The central issue of whether younger faculty are the primary
source of new ideas is controversial, with little evidence either
way. Many faculty members, both young and old, interviewed by The
Scientist feel there was at least some truth to the assertion.
Marsha McNutt, a 41-year-old geophysicist at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, puts it this way: "The vitality of any
research organization is dependent on turnover, and on the need to
bring in new people with new ideas."
A National Research Council committee charged with looking into
the consequences of ending mandatory retirement concluded that
there was little evidence that scholarship diminishes with age. In
a commentary on the NRC committee's 1991 report (Ending Mandatory
Retirement for Tenured Faculty: The Consequences for Higher
Education), Saunders Mac Lane, an 84-year-old emeritus professor
of mathematics at the University of Chicago, disputed that
conclusion. The evidence was not based on professors over 70 years
old, he wrote, because "[under] previous retirement rules such
faculty were not present." He also suggested that these matters
are not easily studied quantitatively: "Careful observation of the
qualitative features of academic life suggests that older faculty,
while providing continuity and some insights, are usually not
energetic enough to engage in forefront research, in new courses,
and in dynamic and inspired teaching."
Without doubt, there are exceptions to Mac Lane's assertions. The
NRC committee reported on a study that found "individuals over the
age of 75 who maintain their cognitive [abilities] at a level
overlapping with the average performance of individuals under 35."
"Doubtless correct," wrote Mac Lane, but colleges and universities
are not interested in hiring "average" individuals: "The tests for
these abilities have little relation to the activities of faculty
in providing inspiring teaching or original research."
Before uncapping, universities sometimes used mandatory retirement
to avoid having to dismiss unproductive faculty members. Wait- ing
for mandatory retirement to remove unproductive faculty is no
longer an option, so many universities are revising their
post-tenure review programs.
The University of California system already had a policy of
reviewing tenured faculty at least every five years, says Ellen
Switkes, assistant vice president for academic advancement.
Professors who were not doing well often deferred that review, she
says, adding that they no longer can do that. The university
also reviewed its termination policy.
Pruning The Deadwood
Faculty members and administrators were nearly unanimous on one
point: Professors can become "deadwood" at any age. A corollary
is that "high performers go on being high performers," says Brett
Hammond, who was the staff director for the NRC committee.
Committee member Donald C. Hood, James F. Bender Professor of
Psychology at Columbia University, says that "if you take a look
at people who are not performing well, chances are they haven't
been performing well since they were 55 or younger."
Geraldine Richmond saw her mentor at UC-Berkeley struggle with
impending mandatory retirement, although he was active in both
research and teaching. "It seemed a shame, when he was so active
and I saw younger people just made professor who were putting
their feet up," says the 41-year-old University of Oregon
chemistry professor.
Many universities have used incentive programs to encourage early
retirement. Many more are likely to institute them. The University
of Chicago has, according to Colum-bia's Hood, one of the best
articulated plans. Henry S. Webber, associate vice president for
administration at Chicago, says one of the most important
incentives is the cash bonus professors can receive if they retire
between 65 and 70. The largest bonus, if one retires at 65, is
equal to twice the average of the final three years' salary. The
bonus declines to zero if the professor retires at 70.
Chicago and other universities are trying to eliminate an
incentive for faculty members to stay on a year or two past 70; in
many cases, a professor's pension, paid out as an annual annuity,
increases dramatically with just an extra year or two of service.
This is in part because many pensions are defined contribution
plans--the university makes a contribution each year to the
pension. Chicago has instituted a cap on the amount a faculty
member can accumulate under the defined contribution plan. "The
spirit of the plan," says Stigler, "is not to keep paying into the
retirement plan for an 85-year-old."
Another way to encourage retirement is to use disincentives. "One
method of discouragement our department uses all the time in a
non-age-discriminatory way is space al- location," says MIT's
McNutt. "If [the chairman] decides you're not using the space and
keeping grants funded, it is in his power to reassign the space."
On the other hand, one retirement incentive is attractive emeritus
status. Bryn Mawr's Shapiro says her college does its best to make
retired faculty feel a part of the place; for example, it allows
them to teach and includes them in the annual faculty publications
record.
A few faculty who just missed the cutoff, turning 70 just before
the exemption expired, tried to sue their institutions, but none
was successful in challenging age-based mandatory retirement, to
AAUP's knowledge. Others who celebrated their 70th birthdays on or
near last December 31 had to deal with conflicting sentiments
about the value of mandatory retirement.
One emeritus professor who says he favors mandatory retirement in
principle is Val Fitch, who retired last June--six months before
the uncapping--from Princeton Univer-sity's physics department at
70. Mandatory retirement, he says, is "an excellent idea and
removes arbitrariness from the situation. But when you find
yourself having to retire and have colleagues epsilon months
younger than you that don't have to retire, it makes it hard."
Billy Goodman is a freelance science writer based in Upper
Montclair, N.J.
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NEXT:
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TI : NAS Honors Sagan And 14 Other Science Achievers
AU : NEERAJA SANKARAN
TY : NEWS
PG : 1
The National Academy of Sciences will honor 15 individuals--a
dozen men and three women--for their contributions to science at a
ceremony to be held on April 25, in Washington D.C., at the
academy's 131st annual meeting.
Three of the 13 awards this year are going to astronomers,
including the academy's highest honor--the Public Welfare
Medal--which is being given to Carl E. Sagan, 59, David Duncan
Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Cornell University,
Ithaca, N.Y.
Every year, NAS presents this medal (the only award without an
accompanying cash prize) to an individual who has made
extraordinary use of science for the public good.
Perhaps best known as the creator and producer of the popular
science television series Cosmos (a public TV offering that has
won both the Emmy and Peabody awards), Sagan is being honored for
"communicating the wonder and importance of science."
"His ability to capture the imagination of millions and to explain
difficult concepts in understandable terms is a magnificent
achievement," said Peter H. Raven, NAS home secretary and the
chairman of the 1994 selection committee, in a statement.
"This award is given for outstanding contributions to the public,
not for individual scientific achievements," says Thomas Gold, a
professor, emeritus, of astronomy at Cornell University and
himself a full member of NAS. "He [Sagan] is absolutely terrific
at what he does--bringing science to the public and keeping their
interest in it alive." (For more information on Sagan, see story
on page 7.)
Unlike the recipient of the Public Service Medal, the other two
astronomers were awarded prizes that always go to scientists in
that field, though not on an annual basis. Donald E. Brownlee, 50,
a professor of astronomy at the University of Washington, Seattle,
will be receiving the J. Lawrence Smith Medal (and $20,000 for
investigations of meteoric bodies), for his studies on
interplanetary dust particles, which are an important source of
information about both asteroids and comets.
"They offer a different window into the early solar system," says
Brownlee, "because the original properties of the materials--from
the time that our solar system first came into being 4.6 billion
years ago--are still preserved." His group was the first to
collect this material from the outer layers of the Earth's
atmosphere, using high-altitude balloons and U2 airplanes. He has
received many honors; for example, he is the namesake of the
Asteroid 3259 Brownlee, named in 1991.
The James Craig Watson Medal with a cash award of $15,000 is going
to Yasuo Tanaka, the deputy director general and planning and
coordination director of the Institute of Space and Aeronautical
Sciences in Kanagawa, Japan. Tanaka was named for his
contributions to X-ray astronomy and for his role in establishing
the U.S.-Japanese collaboration in the ASCA mission. ASCA is an
X-ray satellite built by the Japanese and launched by the
Americans.
Says Virginia Trimble, a professor of physics at the University of
California, Irvine, "It is producing fantastically good results
about clusters of galaxies and other things in space."
The Brain At Work
A second discipline that features prominently among this year's
awards is neuroscience; in addition to the NAS Award in the
Neurosciences and the annual Troland Research Awards for
quantitative and physiological studies in psychology, the 1994 NAS
Award for Scientific Reviewing honors this field. Thomas Jessell,
43, of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
in New York, has been cited for "bridging the fields of
developmental neurobiology and developmental biology," by writing
and editing reviews.
Recent important review papers by Jessell include: "Synaptic
transmission: a bidirectional and self-modifiable form of
cell-cell communication," Cell (v72) / Neuron Review Supplement,
10:1-30, 1993; and "Diffusible factors in vertebrate embryonic
induction," Cell, 68:257-70, 1992.
The two Troland Research Awards, each a prize of $35,000, are
being given to Donald D. Hoffman, a professor of cognitive science
at the University of California, Irvine, and David D. Lavond of
the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, in the
quantitative and physiological research categories, respectively.
Hoffman, 38, cited by the academy for his research in the area of
human visual perception, has developed mathematical and
computational models for the manner in which humans convert the
two-dimensional images from their retinas to three-dimensional
pictures.
"We [the viewers] are computing depth from flat images," explains
Hoffman. According to his model, "The three-dimensional picture we
see is actually a theory: the best inference based on data--2-D
images--and assumptions. The visual system is very much like a
scientist." While he has built specific models for various visual
abilities, such as deducing depth from motion, shape from shading,
and stereo vision, Hoffman's main contribution to the field has
been to develop a general framework for perceptual inference.
"Our claim is that there is a common, formal structure underlying
the theories of each ability, limited not only to visual
capacities but also to other perceptions, such as touch and
localization by hearing," he says. These hypotheses are detailed
by Hoffman and his colleagues, mathematicians Bruce Bennett at
UC- Irvine and Chetan Prakash at California State University, San
Bernardino, in two major publications: a book titled Observer
Mechanics: A Formal Theory of Perception (New York, Academic
Press, 1989) and an article, "Unity of perception" (Cognition,
38:295-334, 1991).
Lavond, 41, is among the first scientists to have used a new
reversible cooling technique in the study of structure-function
relationships in the brains of mammals.
"Until now, the only way to localize functions was to create
lesions in the brain that resulted in permanent damage," says
Lavond. "There was no way to reverse the lesion and see if a
function could be restored. Using this new technique, we can prove
the involvement of any given region in a specific activity."
The method introduces a probe into the desired location and
temporarily inactivates the region by cooling the cells. Recording
electrodes attached to the probe keep tabs on the activity of the
cells. When the coolant is removed, the cells are restored to
their normal temperatures and activity. Lavond has applied this
technique to localize certain memory and learning behaviors to two
specific regions of the brain.
"The technique adds another dimension to the study," explains
La-vond. "Because of the recording devices we attach to the
cooling probe, we are able to record the brain activity of both
regions at the same time--thus determining the type of
participation of each region in any given activity."
Walle J.H. Nauta, an emeritus professor of brain and cognitive
sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
Cambridge, had been named the recipient of the neurosciences
award, a gold medal with a cash prize of $15,000. After the
announcement was made, however, Nauta, who was 77, died of a blood
infection on March 24, having been hospitalized for a few days in
Cambridge, Mass. The award will be given posthumously.
Test-Tube Evolution
Sharing the NAS Award in Molecular Biology, which recognizes
recent notable discoveries by young scientists, are Gerald F.
Joyce, 37, an associate professor at the Scripps Research
Institute, La Jolla, Calif., and Jack W. Szostak, 41, a professor
of genetics at Harvard Medical School, Boston. Working
independently but simultaneously, both awardees have produced
ribozymes--RNA molecules with specific enzymatic or catalytic
properties--using principles of natural selection rather than
synthetic processes.
"We are observing Darwinian evolution in the test tube and making
new molecules that do not, as far as we know, exist in nature,"
says Joyce, whose laboratory has produced populations of ribozymes
that cleave DNA molecules and some that use calcium ions to cleave
RNA molecules instead of the normally used magnesium ions.
The method involves introducing very large populations--10 to 100
trillion RNA molecules--in a test tube to a target chemical
reaction. "We rig the system so that any RNA molecule acquiring
the desired cleavage property is tagged chemically," explains
Joyce. These tagged molecules are picked up and amplified and
subjected to mutations; progeny RNA molecules are cycled through
the selection-amplification-mutation steps several times and at
each level, the molecules' function, efficiency, and structure are
assessed, allowing the scientists to follow the evolution of the
enzymes in a stepwise fashion.
Szostak's laboratory has produced ribozymes that can join small
pieces of RNA together, which he describes as "something between a
polymerase and a ligase."
Visionaries
The NAS Award for Initiatives in Research, awarded annually to
young scientists to encourage investigations that will likely lead
to new capabilities for the benefit of humanity, goes to Joanne
Chory, 38, at the plant biology laboratory of the Salk Institute
for Biological Studies, San Diego.
Chory is receiving the $15,000 prize for her research in
uncovering the genetic and molecular events that determine how
seedlings make developmental decisions in response to light.
"We are studying a very fundamental problem that could eventually
lead to practical applications in agriculture," she says.
The academy has also selected six other noteworthy individuals
from a number of specialties to be honored at the April 25
meeting:
Botanist Elisabeth Gantt, 59, of the University of Maryland,
College Park, is being awarded the Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal and
a cash prize of $15,000 for published research on marine or
freshwater algae. Gantt discovered a new type of light-harvesting
complex called phycobilisomes, unique to red and blue-green algae.
The Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal and $25,000 go to
Donald Metcalf of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical
Research in Melbourne, Australia, for his work on the clinical
applications of blood-cell growth factors. Recently, Metcalf, 65,
also received the prestigious Albert Lasker Clinical Medical
Research Award (B. Spector, The Scientist, Oct. 18, 1993, page 1)
and Columbia University's Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (N. Sankaran,
The Scientist, Feb. 7, 1994, page 23)
Koji Nakanishi, 73, Centennial Professor in the department of
chemistry at Columbia University, is receiving the NAS Award in
Chemical Sciences, a bronze medal and $10,000 in cash. Nakanishi
does research on bioactive compounds produced by plants and
animals, and has isolated and determined structures of a vast
array of these compounds. The academy has also cited him for his
contributions in vision research, particularly in finding the role
of the compound retinal.
The John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science, for
noteworthy and distinguished accomplishments in a subject within
the academy's charter, goes to Marina Ratner, 55, a professor of
mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. She is
receiving the $25,000 prize for providing proofs for a group of
mathematical results called the Ragunathan conjectures.
The G.K. Warren Prize, an award of $6,000, is going to Claudio
Vito-Finzi, a professor of geology at University College, London,
England, for his field investigations and resulting contributions
to fluvial morphology.
----------
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(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
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TI : BRINGING SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC
AU : NEERAJA SANKARAN
TY : NEWS
PG : 7
At 59, Carl Sagan, recipient of the Public Welfare Medal from the
National Academy of Sciences this year, continues to play an
important role as a communicator of science, wearing different
hats--writer, teacher/lecturer, and laboratory scientist--to do
so.
The author, coauthor, or editor of more than 20 books written for
lay audiences, he is a prolific writer with more than 600
publications--including scientific papers as well as popular
articles--to his credit. He is a regular contributor to the
magazine Parade, a Sunday supplement to many newspapers across the
United States.
"I take [writing this column] very seriously, as it is an
important vehicle to keep the public informed about science," says
Sagan. "The magazine goes out to several million people and is the
most widely read publication of its kind in the United States, if
not the world."
In 1978 Sagan received the Pulitzer Prize for his Dragons of Eden
(New York, Random House Inc., 1977).
His most recent book, cowritten with his wife, Ann Druyan, is
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are, (Random
House, 1992). He has just finished a new book that is scheduled
for publication later this year, called Pale Blue Dots: A Vision
of the Human Future in Space. The title, says Sagan, is based on
pictures of Earth taken from beyond Neptune, by the spacecraft
Voyager.
Echoing his perennial and well-known pronouncements characterizing
Earth's inhabitants as voyagers on a vast sea of time, Sagan--who
played important roles in the Neptune and other outer-space
expeditions--says about the photographs and his new book: "It
gives an idea of how small and insignificant the Earth seems in
comparison to the rest of the universe."
Sagan received all of his higher education at the University of
Chicago, graduating with a master's degree in physics in 1956 and
a Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960. Since 1968 he has
been at Cornell University, where, he continues to teach both
graduate and undergraduate courses in astronomy, space sciences,
and critical thinking. He is an active scientist as well; research
interests over the years have included topics such as the
greenhouse effect on Venus, seasonal changes on Mars, the
long-term environmental consequences of nuclear war, and the
origin of life on Earth. In addition, he is the director of
Cornell University's Laboratory for Planetary Studies, a facility
that Cornell President Frank H.T. Rhodes has called
"universe-class--due in large part to Carl's contributions."
--N.S.
----------
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================================
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TI : Two Biology Societies To Meet Next Month
AU : KAREN YOUNG KREEGER
TY : NEWS
PG : 3
Considering the vast number of life scientists expected to attend
two major United States meetings during the coming weeks, someone,
somewhere, might well have designated May as "National Biological
Research Month."
An estimated 11,000 of these researchers, representing dozens of
disciplines and presenting thousands of papers and poster
sessions, will be gathering at annual get-togethers of the
nation's leading life sciences professional societies: Members of
the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
(ASBMB) will meet in Washington, D.C., May 21-25; and, starting
just two days later, the American Society for Microbiology (ASM)
will convene in Las Vegas for a five-day meeting that will run
through May 27.
As many as 3,000 researchers will take part in the ASBMB
conference, to be held at the Washington Convention Center. Nearly
100 presentations, 1,400 posters, and an exhibition with 300
booths rep- resenting more than 100 organizations are scheduled.
The scientific sessions of the 1994 ASBMB program are organized
into four thematic headings--Protein Targeting and Membrane
Traffic; Structural Aspects of Signal Transduction; The RNA World;
and DNA: Packaging, Replication, and Expression. The theme format
is a new concept for ASBMB meetings. General features of past
meetings, such as the poster sessions and the exhibition, will be
retained, say organizers.
Two days after the start of the ASBMB meeting--and nearly 2,000
miles away--microbiologists from diverse subdisciplines including
medical mycology, immunology, and bacteriophage biology will
gather at the Las Vegas Convention Center for the 94th general
meeting of ASM.
Five mini-themes--molecular detection and identification of
microorganisms; emerging infections; molecular pathogenesis and
molecular interactions at the prokaryote-eukaryote interface;
cyto-kines; and regulation of gene expression--will link the 21
topical divisions for scientific presentations, according to a
letter from Judith Domer, chairwoman of the program committee. The
letter was distributed along with the ASM prelim- inary program.
Over 2,500 papers in more than 150 sessions are expected.
Seminars, poster sessions, round-table discussions, workshops, and
an exhibition make up the varied offerings for the anticipated
8,000 attendees.
Biochemists Go To Washington
Jack Dixon, ASBMB program chairman and a biochemist at the
University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, points to two
new aspects of the 1994 meeting: an explicit effort to "include
women and younger investigators in the role of session chairs
[and] speakers, and with the planning of the conference" and the
inclusion of a special session called "The Washington Connection"
(see accompanying story).
According to Dixon, this session will address the "important role
that Washington has on biomedical research."
Alexandra Newton, a scheduled speaker at the structural aspects of
signal transduction session and an associate professor in the
chemistry department at Indiana University, Bloomington, says the
wide array of session topics will be useful to her and to several
students from her lab who are accompanying her. "I think it's
great that [the meeting] is so diverse, representing many research
interests, from RNA to protein signal transduction" as well as
being "a great place for students to get to know other people
working in similar areas," she says.
Robert Schimke, organizer of "The Washington Connection" session
and a molecular biologist at Stanford University, says that this
is the first time ASBMB has had such a formalized symposium on
public affairs. The purpose of this session, he says, "is to get
our scientists involved in dealing with some of the policy issues,
such as education and technology transfer, that impact on us."
"My anticipation is that in future years we will change the
subject" and attempt to "bring other people and institutions into
the dialogue," Schimke says. It is ASBMB's goal, he says, to
organize symposia that deal with policy issues when the society
meets in Washington.
Two satellite meetings--smaller conferences on highly specialized,
emerging topics scheduled one to two days before the start of the
annual meeting--will also be part of the overall ASBMB offerings,
adds Dixon. He explains that the satellite meeting "Structure and
Function of Kinases and Phosphatases," to be held at the
Washington Convention Center May 20-21, "is going to be
spectacular because [it represents] an effort to put structural
biology and signal transduction together in some interesting
ways."
Newton, also a chairwoman of one of the sessions at the kinase and
phosphatase satellite meeting, says that scheduling this symposium
with the main ASBMB conference makes it easier, time- and
funding-wise, for her "to send students to two meetings at the
same time and place," rather than going to separate meeting
locations.
The second satellite meeting--"The Cytochromes P450: Structure,
Function, Regulation And Genetics," held in conjunction with the
International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics--is slated for
May 21-22 at the Grand Hyatt Washington Hotel.
Microbiologists Meet
Although a relatively large meeting such as ASM's, with many
concurrent presentations and special sessions, might be fraught
with scheduling conflicts for attendees, frequent ASM
meeting-goers agree that the wide variety of scientific and
professional offerings are beneficial. Helene Marquis, chairwoman
and presenter at a microbial pathogenesis session and a
postdoctoral fellow in the microbiology department at the
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, finds little
difficulty in shaping her meeting schedule.
Although she plans to go to seminars led by well-known people--for
example, the president's forum, "The Future of Biomedical
Research: What Should We Expect," which features speakers Harold
Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health and Bruce
Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences--Marquis
primarily attends talks related to her research on intracellular
pathogens, such as "bacterial pathogens and infectious diseases."
Marquis also finds the peripheral services at the ASM meeting
helpful. For example, she used the job placement program at an ASM
meeting two years ago and found it "very efficient and
well-organized." She adds that the publishers' stalls at the
exhibition "are a good way to see what's on the market instead of
buying from a catalogue," because attendees are allowed a
first-hand look at texts.
Phillip Fedorak, a professor of microbiology at the University of
Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, finds the large size of the ASM
meeting advantageous. Fedorak, a frequent attendee of ASM
meetings, says that he feels somewhat professionally isolated in
Alberta and "what I appreciate the most is that this is a large
meeting and that most people that you want to talk to you can
track down."
He will be attending the meeting with three of his students, one
of whom will be presenting a poster on the microbial metabolism of
sulfur compounds in petroleum and creosote. Fedorak mentions that
making professional connections at the ASM meeting is also
important for his students, noting that some have found doctoral
and postdoctoral positions from contacts made at the ASM meeting.
"The scientific content [of the ASM meeting] is always good, but
in many ways, for us, it's the personal contacts that are
important."
Attending the 1994 ASM meeting will be a first for Karen Dierkson,
a doctoral student in the microbiology department at Oregon State
University in Corvallis, who will be presenting a poster on stress
responses in E. coli. In addition to scientific sessions about
food microbiology, she plans to attend some of the ASM roundtable
discussions (see accompanying story).
As a graduate teaching assistant, Dierkson is especially
interested in the education seminars--"Preparing Graduate Teaching
Assistants for the 21st Century" and "Interactive Multi-Media
Instruction in Microbiology," for example. "Any further
information I can get on teaching and education is always of value
to me," Dierkson explains.
She adds that microbiologists have much more than basic techniques
like gram-staining and growing colonies of bacteria on agar plates
to impart to students, so she hopes to add to her repertoire of
teaching strategies by attending these sessions.
Dierkson is also looking forward to the roundtable session
entitled, "Classical and Alternative Pathways to Career
Satisfaction: Options for Diversity." She anticipates that the
speakers will discuss different ways "for both men and women in
science to find a balance" between their careers and personal
lives.
----------
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================================
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TI : AT A GLANCE
TY : NEWS
PG : 9
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
* Charles Hancock, executive officer
* Martin Gellert, president
Nearly 3,000 members of ASBMB will attend the society's annual
meeting May 21-25 at the Washington Convention Center in
Washington, D.C. Presentations include almost 100 talks and more
than 1,400 posters, as well as an exhibition.
Meeting Highlights
"The Washington Connection," a series of public affairs sessions
featuring:
* "Science and Early Education," Bruce Alberts,
president of the National Academy of Sciences, chairman (Sunday,
6:00 P.M.)
* "Science and Technology Transfer," Daniel Vapnek, senior vice
president for research, Amgen Inc., Thousand Oaks, Calif.,
chairman (Monday, 6:00 P.M.)
* "Science and Public Policy," Howard Schachman, professor,
emeritus, of molecular biology, University of California,
Berkeley, chairman (Tuesday, 6:00 P.M.). Speakers will include
Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health, and
Neal Lane, director of the National Science Foundation.
AT A GLANCE
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MICROBIOLOGY
* Michael Goldberg, executive
director
* Gail Cassell, president
More than 8,000 attendees are expected to convene for the 94th ASM
meeting, slated for May 23-27 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Over 2,500 scientific papers and special sessions, as well as more
than 25 workshops, will be offered.
Meeting Highlights
Roundtable sessions held throughout the meeting:
* The Art of Seeking Employment and the Science of Finding It
* Managing Your Graduate Education: Preparation, Direction, and
Resources
* Preservation and Biodi-versity
* The Postdoctoral Fellow Dilemma: Nowhere To Go?
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================================
NEXT:
NOTEBOOK
-------------------------------------------------------
TI : Mathematics Awareness Week
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
"Mathematics and Medicine" is the theme for this year's
Mathematics Awareness Week, April 24-30. Organizers hope to draw
attention to the critical but often overlooked role of mathematics
in many areas of biomedicine. Important examples, they say, are
the use of mathematics in genetic studies and DNA analysis; the
reliance on mathematics of such medical-imaging technologies as
computerized axial tomography (CAT), magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI), and positron emission tomography (PET); the construction of
mathematical models for studying the immune system; and
development of the algorithms that underlie computer molecular
modeling. Colleges, universities, and research laboratories are
sponsoring lectures, demonstrations, exhibits, and other special
events to celebrate. The event is coordinated and funded by the
Joint Policy Board for Mathematics in Washington, D.C.,
representing the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical
Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied
Mathematics, with additional funding from the U.S. Army Research
Office.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
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TI : Garden Party
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
The University of California, Los Angeles, Extension is organizing
a tour of its diverse botanical gardens in the southeast corner of
the university's main campus on May 8, hosted by Mildred E.
Mathias, in whose honor the gardens have been named. The day-long
program includes a lecture by Mathias, currently a professor,
emerita, of botany at UCLA, who will conduct a guided walk in the
gardens. Mathias, 87, was a professor of botany at UCLA until her
retirement in 1974, and now organizes nature study tours for UCLA
Extension in various parts of the world. The eight-acre gardens
include a deep canyon and offer a variety of climates, which allow
the university to maintain some 4,000 species of plants from
various parts of the world. They also house a herbarium with
170,000 dried plant specimens. For information, contact The
Sciences, UCLA Extension, 10995 LeConte Ave., Suite 714, Los
Angeles, Calif. 90024; (310) 825-7093.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
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TI : Wool And Oil Do Mix
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced a new
twist on an age-old product. Because of a myriad of
qualities--inexpensiveness, biodegradability, and toughness, for
example--low-grade wool is being developed into the latest
environmental clean-up tool. A consortium of industry and academia
is investing more than $700,000, along with an additional $700,000
from USDA, to turn wool into the booms, pads, and socks used in
swabbing spilled and leaked oil.
Developers expect that their wool pads will involve a lower cost
to the environmental clean-up industry and will be reusable, after
oil is removed and eventually broken down into polypeptides and
amino acids, as a protein concentrate.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
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TI : Arts And Sciences
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
"Natural History Illustration in New York State," an exhibition of
the works of scientific and natural history illustrators, is
currently on display at the New York State Museum in Albany.
Recognizing the importance of illustrations in augmenting the
results of scientific discoveries and research, the exhibit
contains several works executed in a variety of media that reflect
the unique alliance between art and science. All the 46 artists
whose works are on display are either from the state of New York
themselves, or work with scientists from the state. Running from
April 13 through June 19, the exhibition complements the New York
Natural History Conference III, held from April 13 to 16.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
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NEXT:
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TI : Underwater Astronomy
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
A team of researchers is converting a 5 million-gallon reservoir
in the New Mexico mountains into an observatory that will act
"like a camera whose shutter is always open," to detect violent
cosmic events.
Scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory; New York
University; the University of Maryland; George Mason University;
and the University of California's Santa Cruz, Riverside, and
Irvine campuses expect by 1997 to equip the giant pond with more
than 400 submerged and sensitive light detectors, with an
additional 200 detectors along the edges. The observatory is
designed to record signals from high-energy cosmic emissions as it
surveys, for example, the explosive deaths of evaporating black
holes, the centers of active galaxies, and gamma ray bursters. The
detectors will be sensitive to a range of gamma rays--high-energy
photons--and will sense the arrival of air showers when gamma
rays, descending through the upper atmosphere, collide with air
molecules. A cover on the pool will block outside light from
entering, permitting only gamma ray-generated particles through.
The $2.5 million project is funded by the National Science
Foundation and the Department of Energy.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
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TI : A Fungus Below Us
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
A petroleum engineer in Texas has a suggestion for what to do with
miles of tunnel constructed for the now-defunct superconducting
supercollider, but it has more to do with high-energy gastronomy
than physics. According to an Associated Press report, Naresh
Vashisht believes the concrete-sealed, 200-foot-deep tunnel would
be ideal for growing mushrooms. Vashisht says he'd like to use the
tunnel because of its nearly perfect mushroom-growing conditions:
total darkness, high humidity, and a steady 70-degree temperature.
Vashisht notes that in Pennsylvania, mushrooms are grown in old
limestone mines, and that the tunnel is constructed from a similar
stone, Austin chalk.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
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TI : Brain Food?
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
A University of North Carolina School of Public Health study may
confirm some parents' worst fears and isn't likely to make the
fast-food industry very happy, either. According to the study,
pregnant women who eat hot dogs at least once a week appear to
double the risk that their children will develop brain tumors,
while children who consume the same amount also double their risk
of brain cancer. In addition, kids who eat hamburgers that
frequently are twice as likely to contract lyphocytic leukemia,
says David A. Savitz, a UNC professor of epidemiology, and his
former graduate student, Sara Sarasua. In the study, Savitz and
his colleagues focused on certain processed meats that contain
high levels of nitrites. They found the highest risk for
contracting cancer among groups in which the children did not take
vitamin supplements and consumed the most processed meats. Savitz
says the study does not prove that nitrites cause cancer or that
people should stop eating hot dogs and hamburgers. "Evidence like
this should encourage us to moderate the amount of processed meat
we feed our families and underscores the value of vitamin C and
other vitamins, especially in fruits and vegetables," he says.
----------
WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT
ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE
FOLLOWING ADDRESSES:
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U.S.A.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
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TI : Nonagenarians Stay Active
AU : STEVEN BENOWITZ
TY : NEWS
PG : 11
Generally, when a reader sees a reference to a work published in
1926 or 1927, years in which Tadeus Reichstein published some of
his earliest papers, he or she assumes that the author has long
since departed this earth.
But this is a false assumption in the case of Reichstein, who at
age 95 is still publishing. Reichstein, who shared the 1950 Nobel
Prize in physiology or medicine for discoveries relating to the
hormones of the adrenal cortex, is still hard at work at the
Institute of Organic Chemistry at the University of Basel,
Switzerland, actively participating in international
collaborations.
His 1992 paper "The phloroglucinols of Dryopteris stenolepis"
(C.J. Widen, P. Ayras, T. Reichstein, Annales Botancici Fennici,
29[1]:41-54), for example, was coauthored with Finnish researchers
from the University of Helsinki and the University of Turku.
In the United States, a change in a federal law may make
nonagenerian researchers like Reichstein more common on university
campuses. January 1 of this year marked the end of the exemption
for university faculty to the Age Discrimination in Employment
Act, which in essence will prohibit mandatory retirement for
professors (see story on page 1).
Now that U.S. faculty members don't have to retire at age 70--the
mandatory age at many schools before the law went into
effect--they can continue to work indefinitely. And, indeed,
scientists who are remaining vital and active into their 90s can
already be found on American soil. It's hardly surprising;
scientists, after all, possess a boundless curiosity. Their quest
for new knowledge is timeless.
New Providence, N.J.-based R.R. Bowker Co.'s directory American
Men and Women of Science lists more than 350 scientists who are 90
years old or older and living in North America. Many are no longer
actively involved in their profession. Many are in poor health.
But a select few continue to defy time.
While most interviewed for this article acknowledge that they
don't quite get around the way they used to--they rarely attend
conferences or give lectures, for example--they all agree that
they continue to work because they love what they do.
"I'm a scientist, and I keep working because I enjoy it," says
ornithologist and evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, the Alexander
Agazziz Professor of Zoology, Emeritus, at Harvard University's
Museum of Comparative Zoology, who will turn 90 in July. "I'm
interested in science, in finding new things out, and in
communicating with the public. Why shouldn't I continue to work?"
Making Room For Others
Their continued high productivity notwithstanding, many of these
active nonagenarians approve of a mandatory retirement age. They
contend that scientists can continue their work in other venues,
and that retiring is often necessary to allow younger researchers
and scholars the opportunity to make their own marks.
Take Mayr, for example. His official university retirement in 1975
"has been a godsend" to him, he says. He's busier than ever
lecturing, consulting, and writing. In fact, says Mayr--who
received the National Medal of Science in 1969 and is a member of
the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)--since age 64 he's
published nine books, and he has two more that will go to the
publisher this year. He still writes some five to 10 scientific
papers a year.
This past January, Mayr spent the month as a visiting scientist at
the Archbold Biological Station in Lake Placid, Fla.
"I have a very active mind," says Mayr. "Any person worth his salt
should know what to do when he retires; if he doesn't, he probably
wasn't any good in the job to begin with. People should retire so
young people can have opportunities."
Mayr has written some 17 books. His latest, One Long Argument
(Harvard University Press, 1991), focuses on the philosophical
founda- tions of Charles Darwin's theories of evolution.
A Household Name
Few scientists' careers rival that of 93-year-old Linus Pauling,
winner of two Nobel Prizes (for chemistry in 1954 and for peace in
1962). His 1970 book, Vitamin C and the Common Cold (New York,
W.H. Freeman & Co.), helped make him a household name. When he was
73, he founded the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine
in Palo Alto, Calif., where he has continued studying vitamins and
disease. He maintains a rigorous schedule, despite having been
diagnosed with prostate cancer two years ago.
"I don't lecture much anymore, but I continue to write and
collaborate with colleagues at the institute on their research on
vitamins," says Pauling, speaking from his ranch at Big Sur, some
200 miles from the Palo Alto institute, where he spends most of
his time. He likes to devote two or three weeks of "high energy"
at a time to a project.
Last year, he published the second edition of his book Cancer and
Vitamin C (Philadelphia, Camino Books), and he's currently
collaborating on a second edition of his 1986 book, How to Live
Longer and Feel Better (New York, W.H. Freeman & Co.).
"Age 70 may be too early for people to retire, with people living
longer and healthier," Pauling says. "The previous policy seemed a
good one. But a professor who is retired at one university is
occasionally offered a job by another university . . . the rule
never prevented another university from hiring you.
"Professors who were handicapped by age could retire; others, if
they were healthy and wanted to continue to work, could [do so],"
Pauling says. He retired from Stanford University when he was 73
rather than further abuse the university's retirement policy, he
says.
"There was no pressure on the administrators that way."
Why does Pauling continue to work? He has few financial worries;
he's paid a salary from the institute under a lifetime
appointment. He also receives a pension from his days on
university faculties at the California Institute of Technology,
Stanford, and the University of California, San Diego.
Pauling, an NAS member, contends there's little else left for him
to do, save visiting with family. "I've always been interested in
learning new things, and have always liked research," he says.
"I've always taken pleasure in discovering something new and
thinking of something that no one else had."
Today, he keeps up with major scientific journals; in February, he
published a "Technical Comment" in Science ("Triethylsilyl
cations," Science, 263:983). He continues to be interested in the
fields of atomic structure and nuclear physics.
Life After Research
John T. Edsall, 91, a professor, emeritus, of biochemistry at
Harvard University, still walks to work daily in Cambridge, Mass.,
weather permitting. But when the biochemist-physician officially
retired in 1973 from teaching at Harvard, he decided not to
continue his bench research. "I had seen other people who
continued their research into their old age, but it inevitably was
less significant than in their youth," says Edsall.
Edsall's retirement from the classroom hardly seems to have slowed
him down. He has turned to the history of science, an old interest
of his. Edsall also has written extensively on the history of the
study of blood and hemoglobin. His latest publication came out
this past December: a review of a biography of Nobel laureate Hans
Krebs for Nature (366:417-8).
Like Pauling, Edsall has been deeply involved in social issues. In
1973, the American Association for the Advancement of Science
asked him to help develop its proposed Committee on Scientific
Freedom and Responsibility, which he later chaired. Edsall, an NAS
member, also serves on the academy's committee that addresses
human rights violations.
Edsall's expertise is in the chemistry and structure of blood and
muscle proteins. During the 1940s, he and his colleagues helped
develop new uses of blood plasma proteins and blood fractionation
processes in medicine and surgery.
Edsall says he's "somewhat concerned" about the abolition of
mandatory faculty retirement. "Older faculty may want to hang on,"
he worries. "There may be too many holding on and not enough
opportunities for young people."
Historical Insight
Mathematician Dirk J. Struik, who will turn 100 in September, has
little doubt he could still teach a college class in calculus.
However, he no longer does mathematical research. Though early in
his career he focused on tensor analysis and differential
geometry, in the 1960s he turned to the history and sociology of
mathematics and science. "Creative mathematics is for the young,"
he says, "but historical insight can last till the end."
Struik, an emeritus professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, taught at MIT from 1926 to his retirement
in 1960, save the five-year period during the McCarthy era when he
was accused of subversive activities and suspended from the
faculty.
Struik continues to work every day, "perhaps three hours,
answering calls from colleagues and students, writing letters or
articles and book reviews, as well as some biographical notes" for
a planned autobiography. He remains an associate to the history of
science department at Harvard.
"Tons of people can do good work after age 70 or 75," says Struik.
"I didn't necessarily want to retire when I did, but I had to. Of
course, it goes the other way, too. There are those who should
retire at age 50."
A Life's Work
"We spend a lifetime in a career doing something [we] like, and
you don't just give that up," says Ernest R. Hilgard, a professor,
emeritus, of psychology and education at Stanford who will turn 90
in July.
Hilgard, who retired from teaching in 1969, continued an active
research program for another decade. Today he attends a conference
every so often and lectures on occasion. His most recent books
include a history of psychology in the United States, which was
published in 1987 (Psychology in America: A Historical Survey, San
Diego, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.).
Hilgard, a member of both NAS and the American Philosophical
Society, sees nothing wrong with mandatory retirement. "If you
want to continue to work, the university will almost always let
you," he says. "I liked the option of a formal retirement. That
way the administration doesn't have to make the decision."
Pioneering plant physiologist Paul J. Kramer, James B. Duke
Professor of Botany, Emeritus, at Duke University, who will
celebrate his 90th birthday in May, believes that the ending of
mandatory retirement will "create an embarrassing situation" for
university administrations.
"It was easy for administrations; once you turned 70, they could
say it's time to retire," he says. "Now they will have to give a
great deal of thought to this."
Kramer, an NAS member and one of the founders and past presidents
of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, currently is
collaborating on a fourth edition of his 1949 textbook Water
Relations of Plants (New York, McGraw-Hill Inc.).
An Individual Decision
Meanwhile, in Canada, Gerhard Herzberg believes that retirement
should be left to the individual, although, he says, "it's
perfectly acceptable to have an age of retirement--say, 65 or 70."
Herz-berg is Distinguished Research Scientist at the Herzberg
Institute of Astrophysics in Ottawa, which is a member institute
of the National Research Council of Canada. He won the Nobel Prize
in chemistry in 1971 for his pioneering work in spectral analysis
and molecular structure.
Herzberg plans to retire when he turns 90, on Christmas Day.
Although there is no longer a mandatory retirement age for
Canadian government workers, there was a mandatory age of 65 at
the time of Herzberg's 65th birthday. (In Ontario, university
faculty currently must retire at age 65, though other provinces
may differ.) The mandatory age notwithstanding, Herzberg has kept
on working past his 65th year. He was still discovering new
molecules when he was 75.
"There should be allowances in special circumstances for some
people to continue working," says Herzberg. In his own case, the
Nobel Prize was just the ticket.
Steven Benowitz is a science and medical writer for Penn State
University's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa.
----------
WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT
ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE
FOLLOWING ADDRESSES:
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The Scientist,
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U.S.A.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
OPINION
------------------------------------------------------
TI : Societies Should Provide The Journals That
Scientists Need
AU : WILLIAM J. WHELAN
TY : OPINION
PG : 12
*******
Editor's Note: In a career spanning nearly 50 years, William J.
Whelan--now a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at
the University of Miami--has published some 250 research papers
and edited more than 20 scholarly books, his main interest being
the biogenesis of polysaccharides and action patterns of the
polysaccharide enzymes of metabolism. Throughout his career,
Whelan also has served as editor and developer of more than a
dozen scientific journals, including the Biochemical Journal,
Trends in Biochemical Sciences (TIBS), and FEBS Letters, a
publication of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies.
Since 1987, he has served as the first editor-in-chief of the
prestigious FASEB Journal, published by the Federation of American
Societies for Experimental Biology.
Eugene Garfield, publisher of The Scientist and founder of the
Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), has
known Whelan since the 1950s. "My association with Bill goes back
to a FASEB meeting in Atlantic City," he recalls, "where I was
handing out sample copies of an early Current Contents issue on
the boardwalk. Over the years, I've come to know Bill as a unique
entrepreneur. He chose not to personally benefit financially from
his journal-publishing endeavors. I certainly do not denigrate
publishers who, like myself, chose the for-profit route, but
Bill's idealistic commitment to journal publishing is commendable
and all too rare."
In this essay, Whelan tells about several failures by professional
societies to meet the ever-changing needs of their members. "In
that connection," says Garfield, "I'm reminded of an effort about
20 years ago by a group of biochemistry journal editors to place a
moratorium on the launch of new publications. Needless to say,
this misplaced hubris was doomed, and new journals have kept
coming out. All dynamic research fields will eventually `twig,'
just as biochemistry and genetics developed into molecular
biology; that comes inevitably with the growth of established
disciplines.
"Bill Whelan is astute enough to recognize that scientific
societies, while inherently conservative, need to overcome their
natural resistance to change."
A version of this essay originally appeared under the title
"Publish or Perish" in FASEB Journal (7:1423, December 1993). It
is presented here with FASEB's permission.
*******
AU : WILLIAM J. WHELAN
In the early 1960s, a proposal was made to the American Chemical
Society (ACS) by some members of its Division of Carbohydrate
Chemistry to publish a journal devoted to that subject. The
society, presumably through its committee on publications, turned
down the proposal.
The proponents of the publication were nevertheless convinced that
they had a worthwhile proposition, and a commercial publisher
eventually was found. The journal Carbohydrate Research proved to
be highly successful. Now having published its 250th volume, it
would have been an adornment to ACS.
I learned of what happened because I had been invited to join the
editorial board of Carbohydrate Research. I declined, however,
because by that stage in my career I had decided to work only for
publications produced by scientific organizations--societies and
so forth--and recommended that such a publishing umbrella be
pursued despite the initial rebuff by ACS. But my recommendation
was to no avail.
Two decades later--in the spring of 1983--I wrote the prospectus
for a review journal on behalf of the Committee on Genetic
Experimentation of the International Council of Scientific Unions
(ICSU).
Again, my recommendations were to no avail, and the project
"escaped." I will not expand on what happened, but suffice it to
say that when a journal of the same name was brought out in
January 1985 by a commercial publisher, the launch was later
described as the most successful in that publisher's history.
I have had a certain amount of experience in launching journals on
behalf of scientific organizations. I also have been the secretary
general of three international biochemical organizations of
societies and national academies, with the task, among others, of
raising funds to support their many worthy aims, such as
fellowships, symposia, workshops, and lectureships. I soon came to
realize that there is a limit to the amount of money that can be
cajoled from members, industry, and government. To raise more
money, one has to go out and earn it. And what better way than by
royalties or profit-sharing from publications?
It is my thesis that scientific journal publication should mainly
be in the hands of scientific organizations, thereby ensuring
built-in continuity, quality control, independence, and the
highest standards of reporting. This is not to say that these
attributes are lacking in the entrepreneurial efforts of private
publishers, but there can be no guarantee.
What I have come to believe represents, in most cases, the best of
both worlds is the journal whose copyright is owned by a
scientific organization but that is published, promoted, and
managed by an expert commercial publisher under an agreement that
provides an income to both parties (ideally, profit-sharing). In
such arrangements, the copyright holder is free to change the
publisher, such opportunity to be considered at the end of each
contract period. When sufficiently confident and experienced, the
scientific organization may become its own publisher. The Company
of Biologists in Cambridge, U.K., is to my mind the model of this
type of publisher.
It has been my privilege to have been involved in launching
journals that have reflected these attributes and have achieved
the successes expected of publications of scientific
organizations. So far, the three most successful--because they are
the oldest members of the stable--are the European Journal of
Biochemistry, FEBS Letters, and TIBS, the first two published for
FEBS and the latter for the then International Union of
Biochemistry.
The first two helped put the fledgling FEBS on the map. They
brought the European biochemical community together and their
combined income return to FEBS must by now, in dollars, run into
eight figures. For this reason, FEBS, a regional organization, is
wealthier than the worldwide International Union of Bio- chemistry
and Molecular Biology.
Why is this kind of success story not more common? True, there are
already many such examples, but in the publication explosion of
the last two decades, especially in biology, the pace has been set
by the private, entrepreneurial publisher--and generally to the
detriment of the optimal progress of science. The proliferation of
low-circulation, high-priced, subject-overlapping journals with no
quality control is allowed to happen because when it comes to
launching new journals, societies are their own worst enemies.
Their publication committees procrastinate. They are very
conservative. Such committees need only one or two members to say
that the world does not need another journal and the project
founders. The accepted default position is to do nothing. But if
there is anything in the idea, you can be sure, as was the case
with Carbohydrate Research and others, that the journal will be
off and running in private hands, a valuable piece of
property--something that might have been a real service to
science, that might have burnished the organization's image, and
provided a financial return in support its aims--lost to the
society forever.
I have written elsewhere of the wall of opposition that I and my
colleague Prakash Datta (respectively the secretary general and
treasurer of FEBS) encountered when, in 1967, we proposed the
publication of FEBS Letters. It would have been the easiest thing
in the world to have given up. Had we done so, FEBS would have
been immeasurably poorer.
So, my plea is that scientific organizations rethink their
traditional conservatism in launching new periodicals. If the
project is worth doing, it will be done by someone--if not the
organization, then by a private publisher. Take good care of your
intellectual property and do not let it escape to the private
sector by default, lack of vision, or negligence. Once lost, the
opportunity may never return. You owe it to your members to
protect, enhance, defend, and exploit those property rights.
We owe it to our colleagues to facilitate exploration of new
vistas of scientific communication.
William J. Whelan is a professor of biochemistry and molecular
biology at the University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, Fla.
33136.
----------
WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT
ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE
FOLLOWING ADDRESSES:
garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu
71764.2561@compuserve.com
The Scientist,
3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104
U.S.A.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
COMMENTARY
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TI : Although Some Achievers Are Overlooked, Awards
Are Healthy For Scientific Enterprise
AU : EUGENE GARFIELD
TY : OPINION (COMMENTARY)
PG : 13
The Scientist extends its congratulations to the men and women who
will be honored by the National Academy of Sciences next week at
the organization's annual meeting. Their achievements and the
reasons for this moment of special recognition by the academy are
recapped in Neeraja Sankaran's front-page report.
For some of these scientists--those who tend to keep a low profile
as they go about their work--such highly visible acclaim may make
them uncomfortable. They simply aren't used to the fanfare. For
others (astronomer, author, and TV personality Carl Sagan comes
immediately to mind), garnering awards and being in the public eye
is old hat. But however the individual honorees carry their
celebrity, you can bet they're all getting a lot of satisfaction
from the recognition. Sagan--as used to stardom as he must
be--told Sankaran that he is "delighted" to receive the academy's
highest award, which honors his mastery over the years as a
communicator of science to the public.
I'm aware that some in the science community have a distaste for
awards in general, usually on the grounds that they create a
potentially corrupting "star system." They feel that the pursuit
of recognition can become an overriding motivation for an
individual and thus a distraction from the pure pursuit of
research.
I disagree. By recognizing exemplary individuals, the annual NAS
awards--like the Nobels, Gairdners, Laskers, and others--reaffirm
science's pursuit of excellence. Awards provide inspiration to
young researchers with the message that, if they apply their
skills unfalteringly, they, too, may someday find their place in
the glow of public recognition. Even more important--as with the
NAS awards--they may gain the recognition of their peers.
It doesn't always work that way, of course; excellence is rarely
rewarded by public recognition. Consistent with the view of
Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset is the fact that the great
machinery of science is fueled by the persistent energy of
thousands of men and women who may never be singled out for their
accomplishments.
Indeed, examples abound even of researchers with monumental
achievements who, mysteriously, have been underrecognized--either
overlooked altogether when it came to the big prizes or forced to
wait many years before appropriate recognition came their way. The
1940s Rockefeller Institute team of Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod,
and Maclyn McCarty is a perfect example of the former; plant
geneticist Barbara McClintock of the latter.
As covered extensively in a recent edition of The Scientist (J.
Lederberg, Feb. 21, 1994, page 11), the Avery team's discovery a
half-century ago that genes are made of DNA "transformed" the
study of genetics. To many observers, it is a mind-boggling puzzle
why they never received a Nobel Prize or why the prize is still
denied the great team's lone survivor, McCarty.
Barbara McClintock, on the other hand, is a special case of
delayed recognition. McClintock was indeed given a Nobel for her
discovery of mobile, or "jumping," genes in plants. But although
she had been elected to NAS, the Nobel award came to her in 1983,
many decades after her work began leading the way for a generation
of younger researchers.
With the Avery team, McClintock, and countless others,
underrecognition or delayed recognition may be attributable to an
individual's lack of charisma and a disinclination for
self-promotion. In a recent issue, we quoted Nobelist Alfred
Hershey's remark on why Avery and his collaborators did not win
more widespread and visible acclaim for their work. "It was due to
their modesty," he said. "They refused to advertise."
To explain the underrecognition phenomenon, the following irony
also is worth considering: Recognition in the form of prestigious
prizes often is awarded as a result of recommendations from
scientists in the recipient's field; but it is frequently the case
that the truly knowledgeable scientists in any given field are
simply too busy at their lab benches to spend time making
recommendations to awards committees. Thus, a meritorious
candidate is apt to be overlooked now and then.
Overall, I support wholeheartedly the special tokens of
recognition--the NAS awards, the Nobels, and so forth. In my
opinion, they play a valuable role in the scientific enterprise. I
only wish there were a mechanism to ensure that all of those who
deserve such awards would at least be considered to receive them.
----------
WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT
ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE
FOLLOWING ADDRESSES:
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U.S.A.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #8, April 18, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
LETTERS
-------------------------------------------------------
TI : Rolling The Credits
AU : JOHN LASZLO
TY : OPINION (LETTERS)
PG : 13
I was very pleased to read the Commentary urging scientists to
give the National Institutes of Health proper credit for the
funding of their research (S.C. Silverstein, et al., The
Scientist, Nov. 15, 1993, page 12). This is also an immense
problem for not-for-profit agencies such as the American Cancer
Society. Our credibility largely depends upon reporting back to
the American public the progress in cancer research that was made
possible by their generous donations.
The vast majority of research that we support is of a very
fundamental nature and does not make headlines. However, some of
it does--some of our grantees win prestigious prizes and receive
national, and even worldwide, publicity. When publicity is
available, it's a golden opportunity to mention the sponsoring
agency or agencies. We generally learn about these press
conferences or other potential opportunities after they have
passed. Admittedly, the press often ignores the supporting agency,
even when it was properly listed at the bottom of the press
release. Further, some scientific journals are ruthless in
ignoring sponsorship when it comes to press conferences based on
articles published in their own journals.
It is terribly important for us to pull together on these matters
and to make plans for publicity and proper attribution before the
article or the press conference is completed. If we want to
encourage public support of research, this "nicety" must not be
overlooked.
JOHN LASZLO
American Cancer Society
1599 Clifton Rd., N.E.
Atlanta, Ga. 30329-4251
----------
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================================
NEXT:
-------------------------------------------------------
TI : Achievement Tests
AU : CINTHIA SCHUMAN
TY : OPINION (LETTERS)
PG : 13
The Scientist did an excellent job reporting FairTest's recent
study demonstrating that the lion's share of National Academy for
Science, Space, and Technology (NASST) scholarships went to boys
because of reliance on American College Testing (ACT) exam scores
to choose winners (F. Hoke, Jan. 10, 1994, page 1). However, the
reaction statements attributed to spokesmen for ACT contain such
significant errors of fact and logic that further clarification is
necessary.
For example, the statement by ACT's Kelley Hayden that the test
has a predictive validity of 95 percent for both males and females
is not supported by a single piece of data. The test-maker's own
research shows that ACT scores have a correlation of about 0.4
with first-year college grades, the only outcome the test claims
to predict. That means the ACT explains less than 20 percent of
the variance in grades. Moreover, ACT admits that young women
receive higher college grades, despite their lower test scores.
Equally wrong is ACT vice president Thomas Saterfiel's logic in
claiming that the 3:1 male/female scholarship ratio is justified
because the gender breakdown of college graduates in science,
engineering, and math is similar. In fact, his argument reverses
the causal chain and ignores the possibility that the low
percentage of female science students is partly a result of
test-based admissions and financial aid decisions.
FairTest does agree with Hayden that the ACT was never intended to
be used as the sole criterion for scholarships and that "test
scores should not be used alone to make high-stakes decisions."
Why, then, did ACT allow its scores to be used in the NASST
program, and why does ACT continue to allow test scores to be the
sole factor in determining freshman eligibility under the National
Collegiate Athletic Association's Proposition 48?
It is true that Congress, not ACT, mandates use of test scores.
But ACT apparently complied without hesitation. The entire
incident demonstrates that relying on unaccountable testing
companies to police the use of their products is insufficient.
CINTHIA SCHUMAN
FairTest
342 Broadway
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
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================================
NEXT:
RESEARCH
-------------------------------------------------------
TI : Many Disciplines Focusing On Fungus
AU : MYRNA E. WATANABE
TY : OPINION
PG : 14
With the advent of new molecular genetics techniques, the field of
mycology--the study of fungi--has changed dramatically in the past
two decades, its scope advancing rapidly. Until the 1970s,
mycology was essentially an observational science. A mycologist
was trained in traditional taxonomic techniques: making gross and
microscopic observation of specimens, comparing them with samples
in museum and research collections and illustrations in books, and
classifying them by morphological characteristics.
Although the field traditionally has branched into the study of
fungi species that cause disease, mycologists say their field now
encompasses molecular biology, ecology, chemical-extraction
techniques, and other specialties and skills not usual for the
traditional mycologist. The research emanating from laboratories
studying fungi is diverse, including investigations of biological
control of pest plants, production of new strains of edible
mushrooms, and degradation of toxic materials, as well as the
search for cures for cancer and AIDS.
Fields Of Interest
The object of mycologists' interest, fungi, according to Amy
Rossman of the United States Department of
Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) in
Beltsville, Md., comprise these groups: lichenized fungi or
lichens; mushrooms, truffles and false truffles; plant-associated
fungi, including rusts, smuts and mildews; and insect- and
animal-associated fungi, a category that encompasses insect and
animal pathogens.
The recent advances in biochemical techniques and the surge in
concern for the environment have resulted in rapid expansion in
the types of scientists taking an interest in the properties of
these organisms. For example, systematic mycologist Rossman, a
research leader of the systematic botany and mycology laboratory
at USDA-ARS, works with a team that includes a molecular
systematist on classification of fungi.
Rossman explains that, in many laboratories, molecular
systematists who can identify fungi from their DNA are
uncomfortable attempting to identify them by using morphological
characteristics.
Paul Rygiewicz of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA)
Environmental Research Laboratory-Corvallis (ERL-C) in Oregon, a
project leader in a study of mycorrhizal fungi--the network of
fungal mycelia that is intimately associated with tree
roots--trained as a tree physiologist and now works as a soil
biologist/soil ecologist.
Meindert de Jong of the Centre for Agrobiological Research (CABO)
in Wageningen, the Netherlands, is a plant pathologist. He is
using a silvicidal fungus to control noxious forest weeds. And
chemist Steven Aust of Utah State University in Logan has started
a company that will sell licenses for technology using white rot
fungus to degrade toxic materials.
Environmental Aspects
Among the lines of research involving fungi is field ecology. As
decomposers, fungi are essential for making soil nutrients and
nutrients from dead organisms available to plants for growth.
Investigators are discovering that medical applications of
fungal-derived materials may not be limited to antibiotics, like
penicillin, or such antifungals as griseofulvin, which
historically have been produced from fungi. Pharmaceutical
companies and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) are screening
compounds derived from fungi for drug activity.
EPA's Rygiewicz is studying how plants and their symbiotic
mycorrhizae will adapt to changes in carbon availability. Climate
change is expected to yield increased carbon dioxide
concentrations in the air. According to Rygiewicz, as much as 50
percent of the carbon assimilated by trees and going below ground
might pass through mycorrhizal fungi. Once processed by the
mycorrhizae, the carbon becomes available for use by other
organisms in the soil.
Among the questions Rygiewicz's group is asking is, if carbon
availability in the atmosphere increases, will the plant become
more dependent on fungi to sustain growth, or will it increase
root growth? What effect will a change in reliance on mycorrhizae
have on the other portions of the soil food web?
The New York Botanical Garden's Roy Halling, in cooperation with
colleagues at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, is
surveying mushrooms and other fungi in Costa Rica's relatively
young (approximately 350,000 years old) oak forest. The concern is
that if the oak forest were destroyed, the nutrients that are
recycled through the system by the fungi would leach out and be
lost. When you destroy the forest, Halling says, "not only do you
wipe out the nice charismatic macrofauna; you destroy a heck of a
lot more."
Utah State's Aust got the idea to start his company, Intech
One-Eighty Corp., when, at Michigan State University, a graduate
student approached him with a fungus that could degrade toxic
material. Aust recognized the enzymes that caused the white rot
fungus, Phanerochaete chrysosporium, to degrade lignin in wood. He
has been working with the fungus ever since. In a recent paper
(D.P. Barr, S.D. Aust, Environmental Science and Technology,
28:78A-87A, 1994) Aust explained that because this degradation is
extracellular, the fungus also is capable of degrading many
pollutants, including cyanides; polycyclic aromatics, such as
pyrene and anthracene; pesticides, such as DDT and chlordane; and
munitions, such as TNT.
CABO's de Jong expects that "biological control of weeds,
pathogenic fungi in crops, and harmful insects may have a bright
future." He now is studying use of the naturally occurring fungus
Chondrostereum purpureum, a common wood saprophyte and sometimes
parasite, to control resprouting of poplar stumps in poplar
plantings in a newly reclaimed polder--an area that had been under
water--in the Netherlands. Prior to this, de Jong used this fungus
to control the North American black cherry, Prunus serotina, an
introduced weed that competes with naturally occurring species.
Magic Mushrooms
Systematic mycologists like Richard Kerrigan, director of research
for Sylvan Research, a Cabot, Pa.-based mushroom spawn supplier,
have also gained from molecular biological advances. Kerrigan has
been studying wild species of Agaricus, the genus that contains
the cultivated button mushroom, A. bisporus.
Kerrigan explains that A. bisporus "has [predominantly] a closed
sexual cycle, in which only a single parent is needed to give rise
to each new generation of offspring." This makes crossbreeding
very difficult, he says. Along with French colleagues, Kerrigan
described a wild variety of this species that can be crossbred
with the cultivated variety (P. Callac, et al., Mycologia,
85:835-51, 1993). This may lead to more genetic variability within
cultivated mushrooms.
Several amateur mycologists tout mushrooms as curing many ills,
including hypertension, cancer, and AIDS, although this is not a
burgeoning area of research at present.
One of the most visible proponents of the medicinal use of
mushrooms is Paul Stamets, an entrepreneur who established a
mushroom company, Fungi Perfecti, in Olympia, Wash. Much of the
research Stamets relies on regarding health claims of mushrooms
was carried out in China and Japan.
David Newman, a chemist with the Natural Products Branch of NCI,
screens natural compounds, including many varieties of fungi, for
activity against HIV and cancer. He says, "Although a large number
of aqueous extracts of fungi show initial activity in the HIV
screen as it is run at NCI-FCRDC [Frederick Cancer Research and
Development Center], the activity almost in all cases is due to
the presence of soluble polysaccharides." He points out that these
high-molecular-weight polysaccharides "are not useful as drug
entities." One reason for this, he explains, is that there is no
way to deliver such large molecules into the body. Many of the
molecules discovered in Chinese and Japanese research, he says,
are high-molecular- weight polysaccharides. NCI is, however,
supporting clinical trials of a ketone isolated from Fusarium
javanicum, a fungus that grows on yams. Phase I clinical trials in
patients with nonsmall-cell carcinoma of the lung are being
carried out at the NCI-Naval Oncology Branch, while phase II
clinical trials in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma have
been approved and are expected to begin soon at Johns Hopkins
Hospital in Baltimore.
Rygiewicz and de Jong see increasing environmental involvement by
mycologists in the future. Aust, in describing detoxification of
environmental contaminants, says, "One of the interests in this
field is that it has potential in the market."
Research in the field is supported in many ways, but not
extravagantly. The National Science Foundation funds taxonomic
research in mycology. Investigators such as Rossman and Rygiewicz
are financed by their agencies. Aust's work has been funded by the
National Institutes of Health, EPA, and corporate sources.
Halling is encouraged that NSF will begin a program for training
taxonomists, particularly in fields in which they are
underrepresented, such as mycology. He also is glad that the
National Biological Survey (NBS), a new unit of the Department of
the Interior, has made fungi a high priority. "If we really want
to get a handle on the old-growth forests, we better start looking
at what's going on underground with mycorrhizal fungi," according
to a statement by Gene Hester, acting NBS director.
Thus, although the field has widened, mycologists are still
wondering where the jobs will be and how research will be
supported. "The future is bright," says Halling, "but at present,
it's kind of bleak."
Myrna E. Watanabe is a biotechnology consultant based in Yonkers,
N.Y.
----------
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================================
NEXT:
HOT PAPERS
-------------------------------------------------------
TI : PHYSICS
TY : RESEARCH
PG : 16
S.M. Prokes, O.J. Glembocki, V.M. Bermudez, R. Kaplan, L.E.
Friedersdorf, P.C. Searson, "SiHx excitation: An alternate
mechanism for porous Si photoluminescence," Physical Review B,
45:13788-91, 1992.
Sharka M. Prokes (Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.):
"Silicon has many attractive properties, such as abundance, a
stable passivating oxide, and good thermal and mechanical
properties, which make it one of the most important materials in
the electronics industry. Unfortunately, bulk silicon is a very
poor optoelectronic material because its electronic structure is
such that only inefficient light emission in the infrared can be
produced. This occurs because the optical process is second-order
in nature, involving both photons and phonons.
"Porous silicon is produced by electrochemical etching, and
differs from bulk silicon in that it consists of interconnected
silicon structures, some on the order of several nanometers. The
discovery of strong, visible luminescence (approximately 1.7 eV)
from porous silicon generated significant interest, and it was
believed that the recombination of electrons and holes within
these nano-crystallites was the source of this light emission
(L.T. Canham, Applied Physics Letters, 57:1046, 1990). If correct,
this would make it possible to tune the color of light emission by
choosing the appropriate silicon particle sizes.
"The study by our group was the first to show that the
light-emission energy was dependent on the presence of surface
species, such as hydrides or oxyhydrides, and not on the particle
size. A competing model for the light-emission process was
suggested, based on the surface properties of this material, and
independent of particle size. Interestingly, more recent work (Y.
Kanemitsu, et al., Phys. Rev. B, 48:2827, 1993) showed that the
1.7 eV light emission does not correlate with the silicon particle
sizes. Furthermore, high-temperature laser heating experiments
(S.M. Prokes, et al., Phys. Rev. B, 49:2238, 1994) have shown the
1.7 eV light emission to be temperature-independent, indicating
that the emission process cannot be a property of the silicon
crystallites, but may be a property of oxide-related color centers
present at the surface of the silicon nanostruc-tures."
----------
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================================
NEXT:
-------------------------------------------------------
TI : ENTOMOLOGY
TY : HOT PAPERS
PG : 16
E.C. Masteller, K.M. Buzby, "Composition and temporal abundance of
aquatic insect emergence from a tropical rainforest stream,
Quebrada Prieta, at El Verde, Puerto Rico: Introduction," Journal
of the Kansas Entomological Society, 66:133-9, 1993.
Ed Masteller (Division of Science, Behrend College, Pennsylvania
State University, Erie): "Long-term investigations were conducted
in an island tropical rainforest with an aseasonal environment
using an emergence trap to collect adult aquatic insects. This
study involved six specialists of different aquatic insect groups
and produced the following six papers in J. Kansas Entomol. Soc.:
one (O.S. Flint, Jr., et al., 66:140-50) on caddisflies
(Trichop-tera); one (M.L. Pescador, et al., 66:151-60) on mayflies
(Ephemero-ptera); one (J.K. Gelhaus, et al., 66:160-6) on crane
flies (Tipulidae); one (L.C. Ferrington, Jr., et al., 66:167-80)
on midges (Chirono-midae); one (R.H. Wagner, et al., 66:181-86) on
mothflies (Psychodidae); and one (E.C. Masteller, et al.,
66:187-91) on dance flies, biting midges, and black flies
(Empididae, Ceratopogonidae, Sim-uliidae).
"The technique of long-term collecting with an emergence trap gave
results that provided a number of significant insights into
tropical aquatic insect fauna: a better understanding of
biodiversity and phenology of tropical headwater streams; evidence
that headwater streams in an insular environment are less diverse
than temperate habitats; the occurrence of seasonality patterns in
specific groups of insects; and knowledge of geographic affinities
of Caribbean aquatic insects. Many aquatic insect adults tended to
be smaller in size in the tropics. Support for the seasonality of
caddisflies was presented in a three-year continuation of our
research in Puerto Rico in E.C. Masteller, et al., Proceedings of
the 7th International Symposium on Trichoptera (Leiden, the
Netherlands, Backhuys Publishing, 1993), pages 65-71.
"Impacts of this study are: providing baseline data for comparison
with other Neotropical habitats and Nearctic streams; and
identifying trophic niches for many species. Comparisons of two
zoogeographic regions (E.C. Masteller, J. Kansas Entomol. Soc.,
66:192-9, 1993) using identical sampling methods is one of the
first of its kind.
"Robert B. Waide, director of the terrestrial ecology division at
the University of Puerto Rico and Head of the LTER (Long-term
Ecological Research) site at El Verde, stated: `This study was a
comprehensive effort involving numerous scientists collaborating
their efforts and utilizing the facilities of an LTER site to
further our understanding of the aquatic ecosystem at a
Neotropical habitat.'"
----------
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================================
NEXT:
TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY
----------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Flow Cytometry Expanding In Clinical And Research Labs
AU : REBECCA KRUMM
TY : TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY
PG : 17
Flow cytometry, a rapid and powerful technique for biological
research and medical diagnostics, has been evolving since the late
1960s. But it has been only in the last five years that
flow-cytometry devices have become commonplace in basic research
and clinical settings.
These sophisticated instruments use lasers, fluorochrome dyes, and
photomultiplier tubes to analyze large numbers of individual cells
or subcellular structures. A significant strength of the
technology lies in its ability to rapidly characterize individual
cells by recording and correlating several pieces of data about
each one. Cells or cell particles can be counted and even
physically sorted according to multiple parameters.
Fluorescence And Lasers
As the name implies, flow cytometry (or simply "flow," as users
call it) analyzes cells or cell particles flowing in a stream of
liquid. First, the cells are stained with fluorochromes, dyes that
emit light in various colors when illuminated by a laser beam.
Some flow cytometers are equipped with up to four lasers, although
instruments with one or two are more common. The most widely used
lasers in flow cytometry are argon lasers, but helium-neon lasers
are also used.
The choice of fluorochrome used depends somewhat on the laser that
will be illuminating it. Fluorescein, a commonly used dye,
fluoresces green when hit by an argon laser, while phycoerythrin
fluoresces orange. Additional laser types broaden the range of
fluorochromes that can be used in flow cytometry.
One by one, the fluorescently stained particles, in a fluid
suspension, pass through a laser beam. As each particle
fluoresces, the light is picked up by a photodetector, which
converts the light signal to an electrical impulse. In addition to
fluorescence, laser light scattered by the particles can also be
measured.
A flow cytometer usually includes several photodetectors. Through
the use of filters and mirrors, different-colored light signals
can be sent to specific photodetectors, which then send the
information to a computer, where it is stored for analysis. For
any one particle, the data for each parameter are stored
discretely, so that statistical correlations are possible between
parameters.
If the particles are to be sorted, the machine puts an electrical
charge, either positive or negative, on the droplet of fluid
containing the cell, and the charged droplet is deflected into a
test tube. By using both positive and negative charges, a
researcher can sort two distinct populations of cells.
Although the technology involved in flow cytometry is itself not
new, it took a while to catch on, according to Alice L. Givan,
codi-rector of the cell analysis laboratory at Dartmouth-Hitchcock
Medical Center's Norris Cotton Cancer Center, in Lebanon, N.H.
Flow cytometry was developed during the late 1960s by researchers
in several locations, but much of the work that went into
present-day flow cytometry took place in the 1970s at Stanford
University in California, and at Los Alamos and Lawrence
Liver-more national laboratories, in New Mexico and California,
respectively. At that time, says Givan, "it was a fairly rarefied
technique with a few experts building their own instrumentation."
By the early 1980s, commercial flow cytometers were available.
However, "these were pretty difficult instruments to use. They
required a lot of care and feeding and constant alignment and
things of that sort."
It was not until the late 1980s that flow cytometry really caught
on. "The field really exploded because `black box' flow cytometry
became available," says Givan. Flow cytom-eters "became much more
foolproof, much easier to use. They didn't require quite the
high-tech technical support." At this point, she says, "they moved
fairly rapidly into hospital labs, and into research labs," more
or less on a lab bench, where people could use them fairly easily.
Givan points out that flow cytometry instrumentation has grown in
two different directions. One is that the simpler, more accessible
"black box" machines have made flow cytometry a routine technique
in the clinical lab. In addition, increasingly sophisticated
machines are being developed with faster sorting capabilities,
multiple color analysis capabilities (determined by the number of
photodetectors), and multiple lasers, machines that can be
configured for many different types of experiments.
Paul Ginouves, United States product manager for cytometry
research and instrumentation at Miami-based Coulter Corp., one of
the leaders in flow-cytometry instrumentation, says that Coulter's
current crop of flow cytometers extends these advances in the
technique. For example, he says, the Coulter EPICS XL, introduced
in 1992, is the first four-color analyzer available in a benchtop
system. The EPICS XL has many automated features, useful in the
clinical laboratory. Its four-color capability makes it an
important research tool, says Ginouves, as long as multiple lasers
and sorting are not required. The XL sells for $89,500 to
$122,500, depending on the configuration.
Coulter's other flow cytometer on the market is the EPICS Elite
ESP. The ESP also has some automated functions, and can sort
between 10,000 and 20,000 cells per second, and use up to four
lasers. The cost of the ESP ranges from $153,000 to $300,000.
Another major player in flow-cytometry instrumentation is Becton
Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems of San Jose, Calif. Becton
Dickinson offers an assortment of instruments, with laser
capabilities ranging from one to three, and color capabilities
from two to four.
Fluorescent reagents for use in flow cytometry are available from
many suppliers, including Coulter and Becton Dickinson. Others
include Sigma Chemical Co. in St. Louis; Indianapolis-based
Calbio-chem-Novabiochem Corp.; and Molecular Probes Inc. in
Eugene, Ore.
PCR And Flow
Some of the most powerful applications of flow cytometry involve
combining it with molecular biological techniques, such as the
polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Last May, researchers at
Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago published a
paper describing a methodology they developed to discern very
small sequences of DNA and messenger RNA within a cell using PCR
and flo