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THE SCIENTIST
VOLUME 8, No:10 MAY 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
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TI : CONTENTS
PG : 3
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NEWS
HIGHEST-LEVEL SCIENCE COUNCIL: The National Science and
Technology Council, a Cabinet-level panel chaired by
President Clinton, has been busy, although not particularly
visible. Its activities overshadowed by the president's
political troubles, NSTC has so far this year convened two
major forums to set national science priorities and
environmental R&D policy; currently, it is conducting a
comprehensive review of the federal science budget
PG : 1
NEW ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY: A grass-roots effort to convince
Congress to form a National Institute for the Environment is
picking up steam. As envisioned, the institute would fill
the gap between research funded by the National Science
Foundation and that supported by the Environmental
Protection Agency
PG : 1
ELECTRONIC ANSWERS: In the second part of a two-part series,
The Scientist examines how the global Internet will--through
an ever-greater diversity of networked sources--allow
scientists to approach new and currently unanswerable
questions
PG : 1
MENTORING REQUIRED: Depending on the final disposition of a
federal suit complicated by a recent Supreme Court ruling,
denial of mentoring in a research setting may constitute sex
discrimination
PG : 3
SUPPORTING THE ET SEARCH: Despite being cut out of the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration budget, the
search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) through the
use of radio telescopes and antennas continues. Renamed
Project Phoenix, the effort is now being supported by
private and corporate sources
PG : 4
OPINION
DIALOGUE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION: University of
Wisconsin bioethicist Van Rensselaer Potter argues that the
long-term survival of our planet depends on the efficacy of
communication between scientists--who are concerned with
human health and survival here on Earth--and the religious
traditionalists,whose motivation stems from an ideal of life
in some otherworldly realm
PG : 12
COMMENTARY: The rapid rate of worldwide socioeconomic forces
is threatening the environment and the quality of life in
the next century, says Sigma Xi Center director Thomas F.
Malone; and it is up to the scientific community to lead the
way in harnessing human knowledge and information necessary
to relieve these pressures
PG : 13
RESEARCH
TOOTHSOME RESEARCH: National Institute for Dental Research-
supported studies have broad implications for other areas of
human health, branching out into investigations of AIDS,
diabetes, and osteoporosis--and, increasingly, examining
disease on a molecular level
PG : 14
HOT PAPERS: Plant pathologist Pierre J.G.M. De Witt
discusses his lab's characterization of a fungal avirulence
gene; biochemist Richard A. Kahn comments on his article on
the identification of a functional domain of ADP-
ribosylation factor
PG : 16
TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY
RADIOIMMUNOASSAY STILL VIABLE: Radioimmunoassay, a lab
workhorse for 35 years, uses radioactive isotopes to measure
and detect minute quantities of biological substances.
Though its dominance has been challenged in recent years by
new detection techniques, many researchers still prefer its
sensitivity and specificity
PG : 17
PROFESSION
SCIENCE APPRENTICESHIP: High school students, and their
teachers, can get a first-hand view of research as summer
interns at the Coriell Institute for Medical Research in
Camden, N.J. The program has placed a special emphasis on
reaching out to minorities who populate the institute's
inner-city surroundings
PG : 21
GANG TIAN, a professor of mathematics at the Courant
Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University,
has received the 1994 Alan T. Waterman Award
PG : 23
'
SHORT TAKES
NOTEBOOK PG : 4
LETTERS PG : 13
RADIOIMMUNOASSAY PRODUCTS DIRECTORY PG : 19
NEW PRODUCTS PG : 20
OBITUARY PG : 23
CROSSWORD PG : 23
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TI : Supporters Of National Environment Institute Say
Proposed Agency Could Become Reality Within Year
Proponents believe that legislation establishing new science
funding unit may be introduced in the U.S. Senate this
summer
AU : KAREN YOUNG KREEGER
TY : NEWS
PG : 1
Buoyed by a groundswell of grass-roots and official support,
advocates for the creation of a new governmental agency--the
National Institute for the Environment (NIE)--are optimistic
that legislation establishing the proposed entity could be
passed within a year.
The agency, first suggested in 1989 and organizationally
modeled on the National Institutes of Health, would,
according to its proponents, function largely as a funding
and information clearinghouse to support environmental
research.
Its primary mission, NIE supporters say, would be to fund
studies bridging the gap between investigations financed by
the National Science Foundation and those essential to the
management and regulation activities of governmental bodies
such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
"It's really starting to take off," says Peter D. Saundry, a
physicist and executive director of the Committee for NIE
(CNIE)--a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit coalition of more
than 7,000 scientists, educators, students, business
leaders, environmentalists, and other con- cerned citizens
pushing for NIE's establishment. "There's an awful lot of
excitement about what an NIE can do. We're really starting
to build up momentum."
Legislation involving the proposed new agency, introduced in
the House of Representatives last August and still in
committee discussions, is expected to be raised for debate
on the House floor in the near future.
The Clinton administration, moreover, is likely to reveal
its position on NIE this summer, according to Saundry. "We
are also having discussions with a number of key senators,"
he says, in hopes that one of them will introduce a
companion Senate bill this summer.
Scope Of Responsibility
Those who have promoted the NIE concept, which was first
articulated in 1989, contend that the best way such an
institute can function is as an independent agency with four
areas of responsibility: research, assessment of current
knowledge, education, and information sharing.
Its proposed purpose, they say, is not to replace existing
environmental agencies, but to complement their missions by
concentrating on problems (such as ozone depletion and
deforestation) that are too comprehensive or time-consuming
to be sufficiently studied by these agencies. Because its
focus is to be interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, the
proposed agency's leaders would include representatives of
academia, government, and industry.
To date, 70 bipartisan cosponsors, led by Reps. George
Brown, Jr. (D-Calif.) and James Saxton (R-N.J.) have
endorsed the bill to found NIE. In addition to this
political support, 24 environmental advocacy groups, 29
universities, more than 70 scientific professional
organizations (see list on page 6), and prominent minority
group and business leaders have voiced their support of the
NIE idea.
NIE advocates argue that the proposed institute could have a
significantly positive impact on the way in which United
States environmental science is conducted in terms of its
funding, education, research collaboration, and information
sharing.
After a meeting with Saxton last October, Secretary of the
Interior Bruce Babbitt said in a statement, "I can support
the concept. It's much needed. We've evolved over the last
25 years an extraordinary set of environmental laws, but our
attention to underlying science and technology has not kept
pace."
Original Support
The NIE concept started with Stephen P. Hubbell, a professor
of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University
and chairman of CNIE, and Henry F. Howe, an ecologist at the
University of Illinois in Chicago. Hubbell and Howe, along
with 50 other supporters, first convened in 1989 (E.
Pennisi, The Scientist, Nov. 12, 1990, page 1) to discuss
the idea. "We have grown about three orders of magnitude
since then in terms of supporters," says Hubbell. Today,
CNIE is run by a staff of about 20 and funded by private
foundations such as the Pew Charitable Trust in
Philadelphia.
Unlike existing agencies, Saundry explains, NIE would
involve representatives from academia; nongovernmental
organiza- tions; and local, state, and federal agencies in
its mission. "This is more than simply an academic
initiative driven by research scientists, although they are
an absolutely key constituency," he says. "It's not just the
generators of science, but the users of science who are
going to be an integral part of this."
Adding prestige to CNIE's stature is its early March
appointment of Hon. Richard Benedick as the first president
of CNIE. Benedick, a career diplomat and special adviser to
the United Nations secretary-general at the 1992 "Earth
Summit" conference in Rio de Janeiro, sees his role as
helping to guide the strategic planning of NIE and providing
a "high visibility that is called for at this phase when the
project is really gaining momentum."
"From my own experience as an international negotiator,"
says Benedick, referring to his work as chief mediator for
the 1987 Montreal Project, an international agreement to
protect the ozone layer, "I felt that the NIE was very
definitely an idea whose time had come."
Inadequate Funding
Environmental scientists and CNIE officials agree that two
of the most pressing arguments for NIE are inadequate
funding for and coordination of environmental research in
the United States. According to Larry Gilbert, chairman of
the department of zoology at the University of Texas,
Austin, "Most public funds for research applied to issues of
the environment flow through agencies such as EPA and the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where the scientific
questions or goals designated for funding programs are
developed more often by bureaucrats than scientific
investigators. Funds go to laboratories willing to work on a
particular defined project rather than to the best
scientific proposals.
"Unfortunately for scientists who study environmental
biology, there is no counterpart to NIH to complement the
limited support available through NSF," Gilbert says.
Regarding research coordination, Thomas Eisner, a chemical
ecologist at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., says, "An NIE
would give a focus to environmental research problems."
According to CNIE, there are currently 20 federal agencies
and departments with a role in environmental research.
Basic Message
Hubbell says that the basic message CNIE is taking to
politicians is that NIE needs to be an agency that focuses
on interdisciplinary, problem-oriented en- vironmental
research with its own protected budget. He says that,
conceptually, it is generally agreed that there is a need
for the functions that NIE would perform.
He explains, however, there is opposition from some people
who have expressed concerns about what it will cost and
whether the "reinventing of government cannot already do
what we are proposing." Hubbell says that detractors argue
that "in a time of fiscal austerity, government can't afford
a new agency."
For example, according to the CNIE spring 1994 newsletter,
some university administrators are wary of whether NIE
functions would mesh with those of the Department of the
Interior's National Biological Survey (NBS), although
Babbitt endorsed the concept. These administrators have also
voiced apprehensions that a new, large agency would compete
for the already comparatively small amount of federal
dollars for environmental research.
Saundry explains how CNIE proposes NIE should be funded:
"The federal government currently spends about $76 billion
on research and development. That's split about 55 percent
for defense, 45 percent for civilian. This administration
has committed itself to rebalancing that." He says that CNIE
feels that a "good chunk" of the 5 percent shift to even up
the split should be allocated to environmental research and
creating NIE. The total 1992 budget for environmental
research, according to CNIE documents, was $3.1 billion.
To control costs, NIE supporters suggest that the proposed
agency not have its own facilities, but fund extramural
research through competitive grants to academic
institutions, federal laboratories, nonprofit organizations,
and private companies.
Benedick also observes: "The administration is still wary
because some people see [NIE] as a threat, although Babbitt
has been a supporter."
He says that the existing agencies feel somewhat
unjustifiably threatened during a time of budget
constraints. Unjustifiable, Benedick says, because "the NIE
along with the private sector and the academic community
would raise the profile for environmental research and would
mean more money for all environmental research programs."
Regarding NIE's proposed status as a quasi-independent
agency, Benedick says, "another principal advantage [to
forming NIE] is that because NIE will be independent and
linked to environmental stakeholders, it would not only have
credibility but a durability that can never be achieved
inside the federal system. So, setting up an NIE will
hopefully insulate [environmental research] from the
inevitable vagaries from administration to administration."
According to Gilbert, "Another problem of the current
funding programs is that they discourage, rather than
encourage, interdisciplinary approaches to problems.
Economic, social, and legal issues must be part of an
overall solution."
Under an NIE setup, Gilbert foresees interactive teams of
environmental biologists and socio- economic experts working
together. He expects that individuals will still work "on
their own thing," but that there might be more funding for
the person who can put his or her research interests into a
"larger package that means something," in terms of solving
major environmental problems.
Education And Information
NIE's proposed educational function would help sustain a
future for the growing number of students interested in
environmental studies, its supporters maintain. Carole
Crumley, a professor of anthropology at the University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill, sees an urgent need for funding
and coordination of undergraduate and graduate programs in
environmental sciences. She says there are many examples of
North American universities developing interdisciplinary
curricula in environmental studies, but that there's also "a
huge demand out there washing at the doors."
Crumley says that, employment-wise, her students are
interested in managing collaborative efforts--"being the
people that make the interdisciplinary connections among the
many disciplines of environmental research."
She also mentions that she is in the midst of "kicking off"
a national university campaign to get support among
undergraduate and graduate students for the efforts of CNIE.
Regarding NIE's proposed information-sharing function,
Saundry explains that NIE would link databases like the ones
proposed by NBS with other environmental databases such as
those used by NASA, EPA, and NIH. "We're not going to
establish new information sources, but what we'll do is
provide a telecommunications network linking all of these
databases to a single channel of access and provide support
for people to navigate through the system," he says.
Cornell's Eisner predicts that NIE has the potential to be a
"giant intellectual clearinghouse where ideas could be
compared and given relative priority."
Although CNIE has already gained much ground toward making
NIE a reality, Saundry says, "We are very open to input from
bench scientists. The NIE is well developed, but we are
still evolving. This is the beginning of a partnership.
We're not saying, `Here's a product--buy this.'"
----------
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(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
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NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES AND INSTITUTIONS SUPPORTING NIE
TY : NEWS
PG : 6
Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia)
Air and Waste Management Association
American Academy of Veterinary and Comparative Toxicology
American Agricultural Economics Association
American Anthropological Association
American Association for the Advancement of Science
(Biological Science Section)
American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums
American Fisheries Society
American Geographical Society
American Institute of Biological Sciences
American Malacological Society
American Ornithologists' Union
American Phytopathological Society
American Society of Agricultural Engineers
American Society of Agronomy
American Society for Horticultural Science
American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
American Society of Mammalogists
American Society of Naturalists
American Society for Neurochemistry
American Society of Parasitologists
American Society of Pharmacognosy
American Society of Plant Taxonomists
American Society of Zoologists
American Sociological Association (Environment & Technology
Section)
American Solar Energy Society
Animal Behavior Society
Association of American Geographers
Association of Engineering Firms Practicing in the
Geosciences
Association of Environmental Engineering Professors
Association of Field Ornithologists
Association of Southeastern Biologists
Botanical Society of America
California Academy of Sciences
The Carnegie Institution of Washington Center for
Conservation Biology (Stanford University)
Crop Science Society
Council of Scientific Society Presidents
Council of Systematic Malacologists
Desert Fishes Council
Ecological Society of America
Estuarine Research Federation
Foundation for Microbiology
Herpetologists' League
Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences (Rutgers
University)
International Association for Hydrogen Energy
International Association for Impact Assessment
International Oceanographic Foundation
Mississippi State University Research Center
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Mycological Society of America
National Association of Environmental Professionals
National Association of Professional Forestry Schools and
Colleges
National Association of University Fisheries and Wildlife
Programs
New Jersey Marine Science Consortium
New York Botanical Garden
New York Zoological Society
Organization for Flora Neotropica
Rural Sociological Society
Society for Conservation Biology
Society for Economic Botany
Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
Society for Industrial Microbiology
Society for Ecological Restoration
Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
Society for the Study of Evolution
Soil Science Society
Soil and Water Conservation Society
Special Libraries Association
University of Maryland SeaGrant Program
U.S. Federation of Culture Collections
For information, contact: Committee for the National
Institute for the Environment, 730 11th St., N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20001-4521; (202) 628-4303.
Fax: (202) 628-4311.
E-mail: cnie@access.digex.net
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(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
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TI : Presidential Science Council Has Low Profile But Lofty
Objectives
Some observers laud body's work to date; others await evidence of
true progress
AU : BARTON REPPERT
TY : NEWS
PG : 1
Despite President Bill Clinton's headline-grabbing political
hassles and the furor surrounding the White House's campaign to
enact health-care reform, his comparatively low-profile National
Science and Technology Council--a Cabinet-level policy body he
formed late last year--is functioning undaunted.
So far this year, the 16-member panel, composed of the
administration's highest officials and created to provide
oversight and interagency coordination of United States research
programs, has convened two major science policy forums in
Washington, D.C., attended by hundreds of prominent scientists.
One of the forums focused on determining strategies for
maintaining America's leadership in basic science, mathematics,
and engineering; the other centered on environmental and natural
resources R&D.
Over the summer, NSTC will be using information gathered at these
forums in an ongoing, comprehensive review of the federal R&D
budget--a process that ultimately will affect, among other
things, future federal science funding and, therefore, the
careers and concerns of bench scientists across the nation.
Besides Clinton, the council includes Vice President Al Gore,
presidential science adviser John H. Gibbons, several Cabinet
secretaries, administrators, chiefs of the major independent
science agencies, and high-level advisers (see accompanying
list). Because NSTC is composed of officials who have the
authority to carry out its recommendations, the panel's formation
has won the support of many science policy observers.
"We're very pleased to see such an organization develop," says
Martin A. Apple, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based
Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP). "We're very
optimistic about what [NSTC] can do for the nation's future and
for the integration of science into the appropriate levels of
policy decision-making."
At the same time, some veteran policy watchers have voiced
concerns about how well NSTC, with numerous committees and its
component staff structure, will function, especially as compared
with the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering,
and Technology (FCCSET), which NSTC supercedes. FCCSET had drawn
criticism for being ineffective.
Erich Bloch, former director of the National Science Foundation
and now a distinguished fellow at the Council on Competitiveness,
a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, says that bureaucratic bloat
may hamper the Clinton panel.
"First of all," says Bloch, "you have nine committees. Each one
has two or three cochairs, and each committee will have umpteen
subcommittees. That, to me, is absolutely uncalled for--and a
complexity that will really be a handicap rather than a help. I
think it's too complicated. It will encompass a thousand people
before everything is said and done."
Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), chairman of the House Science, Space,
and Technology Committee's science subcommittee, disagrees. He
predicts that NSTC "is going to function much more effectively
than FCCSET--in part because there is real enthusiasm on the part
of this president... to have it play an active role."
Setting Up
In announcing the council's formation last November, Clinton said
that "the principal purposes of NSTC will be to establish clear
national goals for federal science and technology investments and
to ensure that science, space, and technology policies and
programs are developed and implemented to effectively contribute
to those national goals."
Clinton added that "one of the most critical tasks I expect the
NSTC to undertake is an across-the-board review of federal
spending on research and development. The council will prepare
coordinated R&D budget recommendations for accomplishing national
objectives in areas ranging from information technologies to
health research, from improving transportation to strengthening
fundamental research and international science and technology
programs."
At the operating level, most of the council's functions are being
carried out by its nine committees, addressing issues of
fundamental science; health, safety, and food R&D; information
and communications R&D; environment and natural resources
research; national security R&D; civilian industrial technology
R&D; education and training R&D; transportation R&D; and
international science, engineering, and technology R&D.
At a February hearing before Boucher's subcommittee, Gibbons
testified that during the start-up phase of NSTC, "top priority
has been given to reviewing various federal R&D agency budgets
with the intention of providing detailed advice to the Office of
Management and Budget.
"In the course of developing budget requests, the committees will
assist the NSTC in establishing priorities of research, in
generating criteria for evaluating progress toward national goals
for science and technology, and in refining those goals as
science and technology evolve."
Setting Priorities
As its maiden voyage on the science-policy seas, NSTC convened a
"Forum on Science in the National Interest" early this year at
the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) headquarters in
Washington, bringing together more than 280 scientists, research
administrators, and science policy experts.
In addition to plenary sessions featuring top-level speakers, the
program included meetings focusing on areas such as involvement
of industry in fundamental science and engineering; the
civilian/military balance in R&D; internationalization of
research programs; support of major research institutions; the
role of federal laboratories; and education and training programs
for science and engineering.
Speakers included Gore, Gibbons, NAS president Bruce Alberts,
biochemist Thomas R. Cech of the University of Colorado, Sen.
Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), and Rep. George E. Brown, Jr. (D-
Calif.). (A long-awaited "white paper" stemming from the
conference had not yet been released at press time.)
On The Environment
The second forum, held in late-March and sponsored by NSTC's
Committee on Environment and Natural Resources R&D, addressed a
broad array of environment issues, such as global change,
biodiversity and ecosystems, resource use and management, water
resources and coastal and marine environments, air quality, toxic
substances and hazardous and solid waste, natural disasters, and
risk assessment.
Speakers at the meeting included Gore; Gibbons; Secretary of the
Interior Bruce Babbitt; Peter Raven, director of the Missouri
Botanical Garden and NAS home secretary; and F. Sherwood Rowland,
a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine,
and former president of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science.
Robert T. Watson, Office of Science and Technology Policy
associate director for environment, says the most important
outcome of the forum was general agreement on the need to develop
strategies based on a partnership among government, academia,
industry, and various nongovernmental organizations.
"We did put some provisional, draft [policy] documents on the
table," he says. "And I think in large measure, the general
directions we laid out--more emphasis on ecological systems; more
emphasis on social sciences; more emphasis on economic sciences;
more emphasis on developing the tools for science policy, such as
integrated assessments; more use of risk assessments--most of
those things were largely endorsed by the group there."
Educated Guesses
Some science policy specialists say it is too early to tell
whether NSTC will prove to be a significant improvement over
FCCSET.
OSTP's Watson says: "I think that elevating [NSTC] to a
presidential council will put much more teeth into it. I think
you will have much more buy-in from all levels of the agencies--
from the Cabinet members themselves and the heads of the agencies
all the way down to the program managers. I believe that to get
anything to work, you need it to be both top-down and bottom-up
simultaneously."
However, Bruce L.R. Smith, a science policy analyst at the
Brookings Institution in Washington, is more cautious in his
assessment. "The question is--is this really anything different?"
he says. "They've got it renamed. Does this constitute new
energy, vigor, or what-not?"
He adds that "I haven't really come to a judgment on it.... It's
hard to sort out the P.R. from the operating reality."
D. Allan Bromley, former President George Bush's science adviser
and now a physics professor at Yale University, says that NSTC's
effectiveness may revolve around Clinton's commitment to it:
"If in fact the NSTC is chaired by the president, and if in fact
he finds the time to participate to any significant extent, that
is all to the good. It raises the visibility of science and
technology in the whole federal government."
Barton Reppert is a freelance science writer based in
Gaithersburg, Md.
----------
WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT
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(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
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TI : NSTC MEMBERSHIP
AU : BARTON REPPERT
TY : NEWS
PG : 7
The 16 members of the National Science and Technology Council
are:
* President Bill Clinton
* Vice President Al Gore
* Presidential science and technology adviser John H. Gibbons
* Secretary of Commerce Ronald H. Brown
* Secretary of Defense William J. Perry
* Secretary of Energy Hazel R. O'Leary
* Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna E. Shalala
* Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher
* Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt
* Neal Lane, director of the National Science Foundation
* Daniel Goldin, administrator of the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration
* Carol M. Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency
* Leon E. Panetta, director of the Office of Management and Budget
* Anthony Lake, national security adviser
* Robert E. Rubin, assistant to the president for economic policy
* Carol Rasco, assistant to the president for domestic policy
----------
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NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : New Internet Capabilities Fueling Innovative Science
AU : FRANKLIN HOKE
TY : NEWS
PG : 1
Editor's Note: This second part of a two-part
series looks at the Internet's growing capabilities for
scientists. For more and more researchers, the network
is making crucial information resources available
online. In addition, several ongoing demonstration
projects in remote instrument control and in networked
laboratories suggest a much-changed future for science
as a result of the Internet. The first part of this
series, which explored the increasing importance to
scientists of E-mail and other electronic
communication, appeared in the May 2 issue.
The global Internet, with millions of individuals and
thousands of computer networks, is changing fundamental
aspects of the way scientists work. But the present,
researchers agree, should be seen as prelude to a future in
which an ever greater diversity of networked resources will
allow scientists to approach new and currently unanswerable
questions.
Today, electronic mail and an array of other data exchanges
move collaborative investigations forward that might
otherwise be difficult or, perhaps, impossible, researchers
say. Also, sophisticated online information resources are
giving scientists ready access to needed journal and other
databases.
Tomorrow, researchers foresee, the Internet will offer still
more to the growing number of disciplines dependent on the
extensive network. It will support online, multimedia
collaborations among scientists at different laboratories,
for example, and sophisticated information retrieval from
federated databases. The Internet of the future will also
provide remote control of expensive or unique scientific
instruments through what has been called "tele-
experimentation." Distant instruments, in time zones around
the world, will become increasingly accessible.
"I can't think of any reason why people should go to
[physically remote] telescopes, for example," says William
Wulf, AT&T Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at
the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. "Since most
optical telescopes use [digital images] now rather than
photographic film, there's just no reason to stay
up late at night and look through eyepieces."
Since serving as assistant director of the National Science
Foundation in the late 1980s, Wulf has worked to promote the
concept of the networked "collaboratory," a kind of common
work space that makes the tools scientists use communally
available through the Internet.
"What's in this collaboratory?" Wulf asks. "I don't know,
but there is a theme. Almost certainly, there is a common
set of characteristics in terms of database support and
collaboration technology to support interaction between
people."
As the Internet's capabilities grow during the 1990s, it
will begin to provide simultaneous access to more and more
databases of different types. As a result, scientists say, a
kind of informational synergy will develop to put the
answers to ever more complex queries within reach. This is
especially true in the life sciences, some scientists
assert.
"The Internet is one of the absolutely crucial tools for
modern biology," says Chris Fields, director of informatics
at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in
Gaithersburg, Md. "Biological research will become
increasingly dominated by the exchange of large amounts of
information and by cooperative work on large amounts of
information. And the only way to support that is through
networks."
The degree of planning possible as this process goes forward
is limited, researchers say, largely because of the
decentralized nature of the Internet. While this fact may
result in growing pains, they say, it is also one of the
strengths of the network, ensuring flexibility and depth of
expertise.
"It is a grand sociological experiment," Wulf says. "And
it's going to happen."
Information And The Internet
Databases accessible through the Internet are now central to
many investigations in genetics, protein biochemistry, and
related molecular biological sciences. Allied software tools
to perform efficient searches of these databases are also
available. Increasingly, these information resources are
able to link different types of data together into broadly
searchable federated databases. Sequencing data for a
particular gene can be coupled with related literature
references, for example, in a single search.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in
the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes
of Health in Bethesda, Md., is the home of some of the most
widely used of these biomedical informatics tools, including
GenBank, MEDLINE, BLAST, and Entrez. In both the amount of
information available and in the number of users, NCBI's
information resources are growing at astounding rates,
reflecting enormous biological research activity.
GenBank, for example, is a database of all known nucleotide
and protein sequences that includes supporting bibliographic
and other information. According to James M. Ostell, chief
of NCBI's information engineering branch, GenBank usage has
increased tenfold since NCBI took over the database in
October 1992 from an NIH contractor. In addition, more than
half of the sequences currently in the database have been
added since then.
NCBI works to structure its information resources so that
they are able to interact with each other as seamlessly as
possible, Ostell says. This requires a great deal of initial
interpretive work at NCBI as information from different
sources is integrated into the system, but the result is a
kind of unified "information space."
"From the user's point of view, this is a very large
integrated space with many different kinds of information
all linked together and available all at once," Ostell says.
"In reality, it's many different databases running in the
background. The service knows how to get from one to another
in a smooth way."
Ostell adds: "There are a couple of buzzwords floating
around. Collaboratory is one, and there's another one called
the federated database approach. They're all groping after
the same thing, this idea that you can have different groups
of people working in overlapping projects and have some way,
through computers, to get a view that includes all their
different projects together."
Although NCBI is responsible for putting several important
information resources for biologists on the Internet, there
are other groups--and individuals--contributing, too.
One key to the Internet's growth and success with scientific
users overall has been its distributed, nonhierarchical
nature. Put another way, the tools and information available
to the biological research community are also produced and
maintained by that same group.
Researchers at TIGR, headed by J. Craig Venter, are
developing a pair of powerful databases that they expect to
make network-accessible by early summer. TIGR is an
independent, nonprofit research laboratory using Venter's
expressed-sequence-tag method--based on automated partial
sequencing of cDNA--to hunt for new genes in humans and
other organisms.
According to Chris Fields, TIGR's informatics chief, the
databases will reflect ongoing investigations at the lab.
The Expressed Gene Anatomy Database (EGAD) will include gene
expression and function data; and the Sequences, Sources,
and Taxa (SST) database will incorporate phylogenetic,
specimen, and collection data.
TIGR's databases will contribute to the Internet's capacity
to help researchers find answers to increasingly complicated
questions, Fields says. The Internet is the only reasonable
way to approach such a goal, he says, with distributed,
federated information resources being "curated" by the
research community at large. With a museum collection of
specimens, Fields says, the curator must constantly add new
information about the specimens and relate them to each
other and to specimens in other collections.
"The same is true of data," Fields says. "But you can't
expect one place to have anything like the expertise
required to do the curation. These resources will be
produced by whole communities with entirely different sets
of expertise. And they need to be curated continuously by
those communities."
Fields adds: "With good federated database technology, all
of that can happen."
The Coming `Collaboratory'
Many scientific instruments are now controlled by computers,
and their output is digitally acquired and processed data.
Usually, the computers are an integral part of the
instrument physically or, at least, in the same laboratory
facility.
In the process of developing a million-dollar, one-of-a-kind
400 kV transmission electron microscope for neuroscience
applications, however, researchers at the Microscopy and
Imaging Resource of the University of California, San Diego,
realized that there was no necessity for this. Computer
control of the unique microscope also meant that it could
become an early entrant into what they call the "distributed
laboratory." It could be made available, over the Internet,
to neuroscientists elsewhere.
A crucial second element in putting the microscope online,
according to Mark Ellisman, a professor of neuroscience at
UC-San Diego who heads the project, is being able to process
the imaging data within the time span of a reasonable work
session. The three-dimensional data sets generated by the
microscope are huge and require considerable image
processing and computation before viewing--seven to 10 hours
on a powerful workstation. For this reason, his group linked
the microscope to the San Diego Supercomputer Center across
campus, where images can be returned in about 20 minutes.
"There are a lot of researchers who would like to
collaborate with us," Ellisman says, "but might not always
be able to fly out here. We make it possible for them to
send a specimen, for us to map it, and then, with software
we provide that allows them to look at the mapped specimen,
for them to drive the micro-scope remotely."
For one study involving an animal model of the neural
degeneration associated with Parkinson's disease,
collaborating investigators are located in Memphis, Tenn.,
and Edinburgh, Scotland. Interest in the microscope,
currently a demonstration project funded by NSF and NIH, has
been growing, according to Ellisman.
"I wasn't sure that the community would be that interested
in [the project]," Ellisman says. "I am now."
At the Pacific National Laboratory (PNL) in Richland, Wash.,
nuclear physicist Richard Kouzes is working to establish a
collaboratory on the model put forth by William Wulf. The
capacity for "tele-experimentation"--remote control of
experiments through the Internet--is one goal of the
collaboratory, Kouzes says. He organized a workshop held at
PNL in March to explore how the Environmental and Molecular
Sciences Laboratory, a $230 million effort scheduled for
completion in 1997, might best incorporate sophisticated
networking.
Kouzes hopes, through the Internet, to be able to link
researchers in an interactive group by better integrating a
number of existing software tools, some specifically de-
signed to enable online collaboration.
The graphical user interface for the Internet called Mosaic,
developed and distributed free of charge by the University
of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is one such collaborative
tool, he says. Another is called MBONE, available--again, at
no charge--from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley,
Calif. MBONE, which stands for multicast backbone, allows
sophisticated audiovisual teleconferencing among researchers
at different sites over the Internet. One feature of MBONE
is a "whiteboard" area on the screen where a researcher can
display pictures, graphics, or text for simultaneous viewing
by all conference participants. "It's a common work space,
if you like," Kouzes says.
Another software tool that is likely to be useful in the
collaboratory, Kouzes says, is the multimedia Virtual
Notebook System (VNS), available from the ForeFront Group
Inc. of Houston. VNS allows geographically separated
researchers to contribute information to a shared "notebook"
through the Internet. Researchers at Cornell University,
Ithaca, N.Y., have developed a similar tool called The
Scientist's Workbench, Kouzes says.
"The whole concept of the collaboratory is that it doesn't
have a geographical location," Kouzes says. "It is, rather,
everywhere."
----------
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================================
NEXT:
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TI : Sex Discrimination Case Hinges On Concept Of Mentoring
AU : FRANKLIN HOKE
TY : NEWS
PG : 3
Denial of mentoring in a research setting can constitute a
form of sex discrimination, according to a recent jury
verdict in federal court. But as a result of a subsequent
Supreme Court ruling, the case will go back to the presiding
judge for determination. If the judge agrees with the jury,
the case could set an important legal precedent, according
to the female researcher who brought charges, her lawyers,
and others.
For now, however, the significance of the jury's April 1
decision for junior women scientists and other professional
women remains unclear. One reason, cited by opposition
lawyers, is that the jury awarded only $1 in compensatory
damages to the plaintiff, the minimum possible in the case.
Also important, however, is that, based on an April 26
Supreme Court ruling concerning the relevant law, the case
should not have been decided by a jury, and the compensatory
damages, minimal as they were, cannot be awarded. Now, the
case will go back to the judge for a decision. Among other
options, the judge may yet make an award in the form of what
is called equitable relief.
In the near term, observers say, the jury's verdict is
serving to focus new attention on the influence of mentoring
in scientific careers, particularly for women.
In her suit, filed in United States District Court in
Baltimore in 1990, psychiatrist Margaret Jensvold claimed
that she was the victim of discrimination during her 1987-89
research fellowship at the National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH). Jensvold charged that career-enhancing
opportunities and support made available to male researchers
in the laboratory of David Rubinow, clinical director of the
NIMH intramural research program and chief of the behavioral
endocrinology section, were withheld from her.
"I was treated in stark contrast to how the male physicians
were treated," says Jensvold, who is now director of the
Institute for Research on Women's Health in Washington, D.C.
"I was shut out of a lot of the professional opportunities
that they had: treating patients on long-term treatment
trials, working with the drug companies, and working on the
more valued biological studies, for example. And, generally,
there was not the respectful, supportive mentoring that the
male physicians had."
Jensvold also says she was refused an additional year to her
fellowship that was offered to the male fellows. The extra
year of support is customarily used to write up the results
from studies performed in the first two years, Jensvold
says. Lacking this support, she says, she has yet to publish
the material.
Rubinow says, however, that Jensvold's clinical and research
performance did not justify an extension of her fellowship.
He calls Jensvold's claims of being denied mentoring
"ridiculous" and cites, for example, having given her a data
set to analyze, carefully supervising her work on the data,
and helping her prepare presentations based on the data that
she then gave at several professional meetings.
He also notes that he has supervised more than 20 women
physicians in the last decade, all of whom have had positive
experiences with him. He adds that he recently won a
National Institutes of Health distinguished teaching award,
having been nominated for the award by a number of women
fellows, among others.
"Given the fact that her view of me is very different from
that of all the other women whom I have supervised," Rubinow
says, "I would say that her view reflects far more on her
than it does on me."
On April 1, the federal jury agreed with Jensvold that she
had been discriminated against in the denial of mentoring,
resulting in "damage to [her] professional reputation." In
addition, the jury found that, after Jensvold had left the
lab and filed a complaint with NIH's Office of Equal
Opportunity, Rubinow retaliated against her by delaying
certain blood sample analyses that were needed to complete a
study she had been working on.
The jury did not, however, find that Jensvold was
discriminated against in being denied further fellowship
support beyond the two years originally granted. The jury
then awarded her $1 for the damage to her reputation,
although they could have given her up to $300,000 under the
provisions of 1991 amendments to Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964.
On April 26, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1991
amendments--including the right to a jury trial and the
right to seek compensatory damages--cannot be applied
retroactively. Presiding District Court Judge Deborah
Chasanow will now decide the pre-1991 case, and any relief
will have to be determined on an equitable basis.
The purpose of equitable relief, available under the pre-
1991 law, is to restore a victim of discrimination to the
position he or she would have been in but for the
discrimination. For Jensvold, this could take various forms,
her lawyers say, including assignment to a position at NIMH
in which she could receive the mentoring, award of a grant
from NIMH that would allow her to be mentored at another
institution, or, perhaps, award of the monetary equivalent
of the mentoring.
Michael Subit, a member of the legal team from the
Washington, D.C., firm of Bernabei and Katz, which
represented Jensvold, says the importance of the jury
decision remains undiminished, despite the meagerness of the
jury's award.
"It's a decision of major significance for women scientists
and other professional women," Subit says. "In such
professions, how one progresses in one's career depends to a
large extent on mentoring. Someone with an established
reputation can give you entre to all sorts of opportunities."
Subit adds: "As it stands, a lot of senior persons are men--
overwhelmingly so. We have many talented and brilliant women
at the junior levels. The question is, in terms of the next
generation, are they going to be treated the same way as the
men? Or is the old boys' network going to close itself off
and put into positions of power only men?"
Lawyers for the government, representing Rubinow, say that
the wider significance of the case has yet to be determined,
especially in light of the Supreme Court's recent ruling.
While they had contended that mentoring is not actionable
under the law--an argument they ultimately lost--they point
to the minimal monetary award as an equally significant
aspect of the verdict.
"The jury obviously didn't think her claim was worth much,"
says Kathleen McDermott, a lawyer in the U.S. Attorney's
Office for the District of Maryland and cocounsel for the
government in the case. "The truth is they heard all the
evidence and gave her a buck, and they could have given her
up to $300,000. They were sending a message--maybe to both
sides."
Legislating Mentoring?
Whatever the long-term legal ramifications of the case may
be, one of its early effects has been to reemphasize the
role played by mentoring in the early stages of a scientific
career.
"Everybody needs mentoring," says Stephanie J. Bird, special
assistant to the associate provost at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Bird was also project
director of a recent three-year women's mentoring program
organized by the Washington, D.C.-based Association for
Women in Science with $400,000 from the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation in New York. "The things that one needs to learn
in order to be a professional in science go well beyond
scientific principles and laboratory techniques," Bird says.
According to Bird, one of the difficulties with mentoring
relationships is that, despite their professional
importance, they are essentially personal relationships.
This means that there are no clear rules for what
constitutes appropriate men-toring.
"The whole system is pretty arcane and esoteric," Bird says.
"You just struggle along and try to pick things up as you go
along."
For this reason, Bird says, it is not clear that the court
system is the best avenue to promote the mentoring of women
in science.
"It is problematic when mentoring becomes something that
we're going to set in stone, in terms of the specific kinds
of opportunities that have to be offered," Bird says. "It is
discomforting to have that put into law.
"On the other hand, the law can be a very effective tool for
getting people to look at and be reflective about what it is
that they're doing--even unintentionally--that might be
unfair."
For Margaret Jensvold, who hopes to be able to reestablish
the research career she says was derailed in Rubinow's
lab, the impact of the verdict in her favor is more clear.
"The [verdict] is very important to me," Jensvold says. "The
adverse effects of the discrimination and the retaliation
upon my career as a researcher have been severe. With a
unanimous jury saying there was discrimination and there was
retaliation, hopefully, it will undo some of the damage
done. Prospective employers will probably view me somewhat
differently, having had a jury determine that there was
discrimination and retaliation."
----------
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================================
NEXT:
-----------------------------------------------------------
TI : Private Money Keeps Hunt For E.T.'s Alive
AU : NEERAJA SANKARAN
TY : NEWS
PG : 4
Renamed Project Phoenix, for the mythical creature that
rises anew from its own ashes, the world's largest, most
comprehensive atempt to search for signs of intelligent life
forms in other parts of the universe continues to function,
despite being cut out of the federal budget last year. The
effort--formerly under the aegis of the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) and called "Project SETI"
(Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)--will now be
funded by a number of private sources, rather than through
the money originally designated by NASA.
Even the principal faces on the project remain familiar,
particularly that of John Billingham, who has joined the
SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., as a distinguished
senior scientist. The British-born physician--who in the
early 1960s invented the liquid cooling garment that made
moon walking possible--was the chief of SETI operations at
NASA. He retired on April 22 and has signed on with the
institute to help with fund-raising efforts for Project
Phoenix.
Operating from the SETI Institute, a 10-year-old nonprofit
institution that houses and funds research and educational
projects relating to the search for extraterrestrial life,
Phoenix employs a staff of seven scientists and five
engineers and software specialists who are currently working
on upgrading the equipment needed for collecting and
analyzing data from radio telescopes (see story on page 8).
The raw data received will be in the form of radio signals
picked up by telescopes trained on specific target stars or
solar systems.
When Congress instructed NASA to pull all funding from its
Project SETI last October, the scientists at NASA Ames
Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and the nearby
SETI Institute began to look for alternative sources of
funding. Their efforts seem to have borne fruit: Six months
after the announcement was made, $4.5 million of the initial
goal of $7.3 million--estimated as the amount necessary to
carry the effort through mid-1995--is in hand. Much of the
funding for the project goes toward equipment upgrade and
deployment costs, as well as observations of outer space.
"We only barely broke stride," says Thomas Pierson,
executive director of the SETI Institute, referring to the
disruptions to the work in progress caused by the withdrawal
of NASA support. "Of course, we were all depressed over the
cutback news, and there were delays with getting some of the
equipment, but overall there was only a slight bump in the
road."
But Bernard M. Oliver, a retired vice president of research
and development for the Hewlett-Packard Co. in Palo Alto,
Calif., and now the senior technical expert and science
adviser for the SETI Institute, is apprehensive that the
elation over the funding may yet be premature.
"We still desperately need more money," he warns, noting
that the project will need about $3 million annually (after
the initial $7.3 million) if it is to continue with the
extraterrestrial search as originally planned. Staff members
of the SETI Institute and Project Phoenix are continuing
their efforts to raise money from the private sector for
both their immediate and long-term needs.
The bulk of the funding obtained so far has come from high-
tech entrepreneurs. Supporters include the founders of the
multinational Hewlett-Packard Co. (both David Packard and
William Hewlett have made substantial private donations);
Gordon Moore, a cofounder and the chairman of the board of
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel Corp.; Paul Allen, a
cofounder of Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Wash., and chief
executive officer of the Seattle-based Asymetrix Corp.; and
Mitchell Kapor, founder of Cambridge, Mass.-based Lotus
Development Corp. and chairman of the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, headquartered in Washington, D.C. A sixth
person, who has chosen to remain anonymous, and Oliver have
also made significant contributions, say SETI Institute
officials.
Indeed, Oliver has played a key role in ensuring the
relatively smooth ride Project Phoenix has enjoyed in its
transition from NASA to the private sector. Says Thomas
McDonough, an astrophysicist who heads a smaller-scale SETI
effort for the Planetary Society, based in Pasadena, Calif.,
"The reason for their [Project Phoenix's] spectacular
success in getting the money and raising the public interest
is Dr. Oliver."
"We had to act fast," says Oliver, who--having lived and
worked in California's Silicon Valley for several years--was
able to personally approach some of the major donors. "It
was either that or die."
"It would have been a crime to shut [Project SETI] down at a
time when the technology was in place and all the equipment
designed and built," says Intel's Moore, referring to the
availability of radio telescopes at various locations and
the development of the signal-processing equipment designed
by SETI scientists. "This is one of the most interesting
questions humans ask themselves."
Jill Tarter, formerly the project scientist of NASA's SETI
effort and now the manager of Project Phoenix, points out
the program's use of the scientific process, rather than
arcane religious or philosophical speculation, to address
the question of whether there is intelligent life
originating outside Earth.
"The implications of somebody being out there are most
profound," she says, "and throughout history the question
has been in the realm of priests and philosophers. Now that
we have the technology, [scientists] are in a position to
change that."
"It is extremely important that as many of us that can, get
into the effort of searching, so that the chances of finding
a signal are increased," says McDonough. "We [the Planetary
Society] were extremely disturbed when Congress ordered NASA
to shut down their effort."
Though it took up a very small percentage of NASA's annual
budget, SETI has been a constant target of attack by various
congressional leaders (S. Veggeberg, The Scientist, July 6,
1992, page 5).
According to Pierson, the final axe came as a result of
political maneuvering rather than any solid scientific
objections. "I think all scientists are alarmed at what is
happening to science and research funding," he says.
And should SETI efforts yield something that is truly a sign
from the heavens (scientists predict that radio signals from
an intelligent source will be decodable through the
application of mathematical or physical principles), what
will the next step be? The answer to that $60 million--the
sum spent by NASA on Project SETI--question, says Frank
Drake, SETI Institute president, is to "let the whole world
know."
Adds Tarter, "The signals are not being sent just to
California or America, but to the whole world. They are
everyone's property."
----------
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================================
NEXT:
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TI : EAVESDROPPING ON OUTER SPACE
AU : NIRAJA SANKARAN
TY : NEWS
PG : 4
Project SETI, as originally conceived by the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), had two
components: a targeted search effort of some 1,000 sun-like
stars closest to Earth; and a second, broader all-sky scan
(S. Veggeberg, The Scientist, July 6, 1992, page 5), in an
attempt to pick up very strong radio signals and investigate
their possible origins. The search was designed on the
rationale that intelligence can be equated with the
development of technology. Radio waves are the chosen
technological manifestation of intelligence, since they
travel through space with the least distortion.
Project Phoenix--as the new, privately funded effort is
called--will continue with the targeted search only.
According to Thomas Pierson, executive director of SETI
Institute in Mountain View, Calif., the all-sky scan--which
required 34-meter deep-space antennas--was "completely
dependent on NASA infrastructure and hence terminated" when
federal funding was cut off. The signal-processing equipment
that NASA developed for the targeted search will remain on a
semi-permanent loan to the institute.
The first phase of the targeted search scanned nearby stars
for radio waves in the microwave frequency range using the
1,000-foot-diameter radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
Jill Tarter, manager of Project Phoenix, uses the analogy of
a whisper in a quiet room to explain why the microwave
region is used: "Nature is quietest in this part of the
electromagnetic spectrum and thus signals from other sources
would be most easily detectable in this range." The
observational phase, begun in October 1992, lasted for four
months, but scientists did not pick up any signals that
could be traced to extraterrestrial sources.
"We learned some important lessons about how to recognize
and cope with radio frequency interference [RFI]," says
Tarter, who was formerly the project scientist for the NASA
effort. RFI consists of radio signals from transmitters on
Earth and on man-made satellites that obscure the microwave
frequency bands where the interstellar signals are believed
most likely to operate. Currently, scientists are in the
process of upgrading the digital equipment that supports
radio telescopes to be used in the project. The upgrade will
improve the efficiency of the processors that digitize and
analyze signals picked up by the telescopes. It will also
involve building modifications to work more efficiently
around RFI, which are unavoidable.
"The best way to avoid wasting time on [RFI] is to use two
widely separated--by several hundred kilometers--telescopes
that are pointing at the same distant star or planet,"
explains Tarter. "RFI from nearby sources would not be
picked up by both telescopes, and we would concentrate on
only those signals that are matched on both telescopes."
This approach will be used for the second round of targeted
searches to be conducted on stars visible from the Southern
Hemisphere. The two radio telescopes to be used are a 210-
foot instrument located at the Parkes Observatory in New
South Wales, Australia, and a second, smaller one at the
Australian National Telescope Facility in Mopra. The upgrade
includes expanding the signal-processing equipment to
service both telescopes and establishing communications
between them.
"We expect to conclude the upgrade by September, and field
test the machinery at the site [in Mountain View]," says
Pierson. "After that we will be shipping it out to
Australia, where the observations should start some time in
January 1995." During this observational phase--scheduled to
last 16 weeks--says Tarter, the telescopes will be trained
on 200 target stars. Further observations have been
scheduled with the Arecibo telescope (currently tied up in
upgrades of its own) for mid-1995.
For more information, contact: SETI Institute, 2035 Landings
Dr., Mountain View, Calif. 94043; (415) 961-6633. E-mail:
phoenix_info@seti-inst.edu.
--N.S.
----------
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(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
NOTEBOOK
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Adam And Eve Online
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
After 2 1/2 years of looking, the Visible Human Project at the
National Library of Medicine (NLM) in Bethesda, Md., settled
recently on the cadavers of a 38-year-old man and a 59-year-old
woman to represent the online human body. Using digitized
photography, computerized tomography, and magnetic resonance
imaging in 1 mm sections of the cadavers, the project will build
a 42-gigabyte, three-dimensional image database of the two for
distribution over the Internet. Project planners hope to combine
the imaging data with other types of information--journal
articles, for example--using interlinked information structures.
According to project officer Michael J. Ackerman at NLM,
investigators had some difficulty finding the "average" man and
woman between the ages of 20 and 60 that they needed: two
individuals who were healthy but had died suddenly without
physical trauma. It seems that far more men than women die in
this way, usually from drug overdoses, he says. The pair, who
will, in a sense, represent the first human beings in cyberspace,
are called "Adam" and "Eve" by project workers.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Wanted: Words
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
Oxford University Press is soliciting contributions from
scientists for a comprehensive revision of its massive Oxford
English Dictionary, scheduled to be published in 2005. According
to the publisher, such information may include the coinages of
particular scientific words, factual errors in existing
definitions, scientific words and meanings not in the dictionary,
and earlier referenced examples of words and meanings already
treated in the dictionary (as well as later examples of those
described as obsolete). To contribute, contact the Chief Science
Editor, Oxford English Dictionary, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP,
U.K. E-mail: oed3@oup.co.uk.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Buoying Water Research
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
The fourth Stockholm Water Symposium will take place August 9-13.
The event is a series of water policy meetings that seeks to
address key environmental topics and provide viable scientific
solutions to current and future water-supply problems. The 1994
symposium is centered on the theme of "integrated land and water
management," and will feature an international cast of speakers
as well as workshop sessions on such topics as the "greening of
industry" and hazardous waste cleanups. The symposium is part of
the Stockholm Water Festival. Profits from the festival support
the $150,000 Stockholm Water Prize, given to an individual or
organization that has played a role in protecting the world's
water resources. For information, contact the Stockholm Water
Festival, Amiralitetshuset, Skeppsholmen, S-III 49 Stockholm,
Sweden; (46)-8-614-3400. Fax: (46)-8-679-6465.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Chemistry On Camera
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
The American Chemical Society (ACS) has a new 15-minute videotape
describing the importance of chemistry in everyday life. The
video, "People Who Took Chemistry, That's Who," intended for
middle and high school audiences, features male and female
chemists from different ethnic backgrounds talking about their
work. It also showcases the chemistry involved in recycling
plastics, analyzing pollution, and producing high-technology
products. A 52-page user's guide accompanies the video. For
information, call ACS at (202) 452-2113.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Bargains In Bone
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
"Own a Piece of the Rex" is a University of California, Berkeley,
Museum of Paleontology drive to raise money for preparing,
shipping, and erecting a life-size cast of Tyrannosaurus rex.
Piecemeal prices for donations range from $20 each for chevrons--
part of the tail--to $5,000 for the skull and jaws. (Teeth are
not included in the skull-and-jaws pricetag; they're $25 each.)
The 40-foot-long dinosaur will be housed in a three-story atrium
in Berkeley's newly renovated Valley Life Sciences Building.
According to museum officials, assembled skeletons can cost as
much as $75,000. Casts of the T. rex bones for this exhibit were
prepared by the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University
in Bozeman from a 1991 dig in the state's Hell Creek Formation.
For more information, call Mark Goodwin, a vertebrate
paleontologist at Berkeley, at (510) 643-9745.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Prized Dermatology
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
The Dermatology Foundation is accepting nominations for its 1994-
95 Clark W. Finnerud Award and 1994-95 Practitioner of the Year
Award. The Finnerud honor is awarded to an individual "who has
devoted extraordinary time and talent as a part-time teacher and
clinician" in dermatology, according to the foundation. The
practitioner award is given for "exemplary service as a
practitioner of dermatology." Letters of nomination should
include background information on the nominee. A curriculum vitae
is also requested. The deadline for nominations and supporting
letters is July 15. Nominations should be submitted to
Finnerud/Practitioner Award, Dermatology Foundation, 1560 Sherman
Ave., Evanston, Ill. 60201.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Natural Education
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
The National Consortium for Environmental Education and Training
(NCEET), based at the University of Michigan School of Natural
Resources and Environment, has produced a 132-page, illustrated
guide to help K-12 teachers of all subjects incorporate
environmental themes into their lessons. Getting Started includes
35 examples of teachers--many of whom have had little or no
environmental education--who have initiated successful ecology
and conservation projects in their classes and schools. For
example, seventh-grade students in Polson, Mont., are mapping
bald eagle sightings in their area and analyzing data to
determine migration patterns and habitat preferences as part of
learning about ratios, percentages, and other math concepts. The
guide also contains a sampling of environmental education
resources, funding opportunities, and listings of state and
regional environmental organizations. For information on
obtaining the guide, call (313) 998-6726.
(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Damage Control
TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK)
PG : 4
A Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist says the risks to life
on Earth from asteroids, meteorites, and comets is substantial
but that deflecting these Near Earth Objects (NEOs) is both
feasible and affordable. "Asteroid impacts have the potential of
wiping out life on Earth," says Greg Canavan. Astronomers say
that small, rocky asteroids strike the Earth once every 100 years
or so, and an encounter with a mile-wide asteroid might take
place once every million years. Canavan says that such an object,
known as the K-T Impactor, which struck near the Yucatan
peninsula 65 million years ago, may have caused global climate
shocks that wiped out the last dinosaurs. He suggests going
through with Spaceguard, a $50 million system of sensors and
telescopes discussed in a recent National Aeronautics and Space
Administration study, which might pinpoint most of the larger
NEOs threatening Earth.
================================
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(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
OPINION
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Science, Religion Must Share Quest For Global Survival
AU : VAN RENSSELAER POTTER
TY : OPINION
PG : 12
The continued degradation of the global environment and the
international population explosion that contributes to it are
matters that must concern every scientist. Each of us is capable
of participating in efforts in the interest of the biosphere and
human survival; each of us has something to contribute to the
solution of the seemingly intractable problems confronting us.
No longer can we relax in the assumption that, years from now,
"when things get bad enough," science will step in to provide the
answers. The time to step in and prove our ethical as well as
technical competence is now; things are already "bad enough." And
central to our efforts must be the promotion of dialogue between
science and religion concerning human and biosphere survival.
For centuries, the subject of human values has been regarded as
beyond the realm of science, the exclusive property of
theologians and secular philosophers. Now we must assert not only
that scientists have transcendent values, too, but also that the
values embedded in the scientific ethos need to be integrated
with those of religion and philosophy in order to facilitate
political processes beneficial to the global environment's
health.
`A Civil Society'
Many books and articles have focused on environmental problems
and human health, but relatively few have dealt with the issue of
whether the human species can survive in the long term in what
may be called "a civil society."
Two such books are The Technological Conscience: Survival and
Dignity in an Age of Expertise by sociologist Manfred Stanley
(University of Chicago Press, 1981) and The Imperative of
Responsibility: In Search of an Ethic for the Technological Age
by the late German philosopher Hans Jonas (University of Chicago
Press, 1993). Neither, however, deals with ways in which secular
views can or should be integrated with traditional religious
views. On the other hand, a beginning attempt along these lines
is presented in Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World
Ethic by Hans Kung (New York, Continuum Publishing Co., 1993).
Kung, director of the Ecumenical Institute at the University of
Tubingen (Germany), is a Swiss theologian who, although originally
trained as a Roman Catholic priest, has, since 1964, departed
from dogma in a series of provocative books and articles. In
Kung's thought and writings, concern for the future of the human
race has been a high priority. It was he who drafted the 5,000-
word "Declaration of a Global Ethic" at a meeting of the
Parliament of the World Religions held in Chicago last September
on the 100th anniversary of the organization's original assembly.
Thousands attended the week-long event, and Kung's declaration was
signed by 250 religious leaders.
Key Issue
In his works, Kung has taken a strong position in examining the
issues separating the diverse religions of the world and
deploring their record of killing each other in large numbers
right up to the present. At the same time, he has proclaimed
that--at the core--the world's religions all are grounded in
ethical insights that deserve one's attention and can justify
one's hope.
Unfortunately the core religious morality he depicts does not
incorporate--and therefore cannot respond to--scientifically
devolved demographics that project a doubling of the world's
population within the next century. Indeed, people embracing
several of the world's largest religions--Roman Catholicism and
Islam, in particular--are among the major contributors to the
current, frightening rate of increase. Only science has the
techniques for assessing population changes and their impact.
But at least, in formulating a global ethic, Kung has hit upon
human survival as the key issue confronting the world's people--
an idea that no other theologian has even dared to mention. While
other religious leaders have proclaimed that life is sacred and
have championed human rights, only Kung has put survival as such
on the agenda. In contrast, scientists have long embraced human
welfare and, implicitly, survival as the very heart of their
endeavors. They are thus well-suited for entry into the campaign
for human and biosphere survival.
Coalition Needed
To the more devout, the notion that scientists could step into
such a matter and take charge is bound to seem ominously
"antireligious," since, in general, religion's ultimate goal
rests not in long-term survival of Earth's fauna and flora, but
in the survival of individual souls, or whatever, in some form of
"life after death." Kung, on the other hand, made it clear that a
global ethic taking us beyond the 21st century was already in his
mind when he wrote Theology for the Third Millennium: An
Ecumenical View (New York, Doubleday, 1988).
Not only theologians, but also secular philosophers (other than
the likes of Stanley and Jonas) have failed to think of human and
biosphere survival as an ethical issue. Rather, the examination
of ethics has been confined to matters involving interpersonal or
social relationships among humans and thus excluding questions of
behavior relating to the vast population and ecological problems
facing Earth's inhabitants.
In his recent book, however, Kung (while avoiding certain specific
and important matters) takes a step forward: In addition to
declaring that there can be "no survival without a world ethic,"
"no world peace without peace between the religions," and "no
peace between the religions without dialogue between the
religious," he goes still further when he says that a "coalition
of believers and non-believers [atheists, agnostics, and so
forth] in mutual respect may also be necessary for a common world
ethic."
Scientists should applaud the efforts of Hans Kung in urging
reconciliation between "believers" and those who are not
essentially characterized as religious; included among these, I
believe, are the great majority of scientists. And we need to
join forces with his drive toward global responsibility for
survival and his call for the "mutual respect" necessary for "a
common world ethic."
Certainly the involvement of biological scientists is required;
more than others, it is likely, these scientists are aware that
world population is increasing too rapidly. And although major
religions have a stake in the issue, it is the duty of the
biological scientists to point out--while respectful of the
various religious tenets--that ultimate survival of the human
race is contingent upon limiting the world population to what is
compatible with a healthy biosphere. While it is up to the
various religions to enter into dialogue and defend their
positions, it is up to scientists to proclaim the severity of the
overpopulation problem and insist, for example, that it cannot be
solved while major religions oppose any attempt to limit
fertility.
And yet, while dialogue on the matter is bound to be frustrating,
bioethicists must recognize that science alone will not prevail--
that there can be no survival without religions' agreement on
population ethics. The key question, of course, is whether
dialogue can achieve consensus and political acceptance by
national governments. Can the pursuit of a world ethic shared by
religion and science be laid out in concrete principles for
action?
Basic Agreement
In my opinion, the burden of addressing global problems through
what German philosopher Jurgen Habermas termed "communicative
rationality" rests upon scientists. It is they who are capable of
reviving the idea of a civil society and conveying the
transcendent motivation of long-term human survival. But the role
of science in this dialogue is not by itself sufficient--since
the role of religion as a motivating force is paramount.
Kung insists that, if it is to be effective, the dialogue must
indeed begin by agreement on basic assumptions before proceeding
to the details of survival. Indeed, he writes that "whatever the
basis for the unconditional character of the ethical demands in
the various religions . . . one thing is certain: religions can
present their ethical demands with a quite different authority
from a merely human one." Thus, one may consider Kung's global
ethic as actually a global theology for survival that de-
emphasizes God-images but steadfastly utilizes universal
religious-given precepts. Kung, however, has avoided mentioning
such important population-problem specifics as abortion,
contraception, and reproductive freedom for women. Therefore,
these key issues on which human survival may depend are excluded
from his demand for global responsibility. But we do indeed need
rational discourse to guide political decisions on such matters--
and it is necessary for every scientist to stand up and be
counted.
Is there hope for reasonable dialogue between science and
religion that would yield progress toward the desired global
ethic? To what extent, really, are the religions concerned about
the fate of the biosphere? Unfortunately, although a high
percentage of denominations in the United States support the
general concept of stewardship for the Earth and many have put
forth official statements on population or family planning, no
surveys are available to reveal the attitude of religious leaders
on the concept of global survival.
To Do What Is Right
Today, many conscientious scientists have already embraced
stewardship as a worthy pursuit whose goal is the survival of the
human species and of a viable biosphere. In my opinion, the
world's religions--if they, too, are to embrace stewardship--need
science to tell them what paths they should follow. With religion
then generating the universal motivation for stewardship, a
forceful coalition of believers and nonbelievers will, I hope,
materialize to preserve the biosphere and ensure human survival--
to do, in short, what is right.
As individual scientists, we can do much to proceed according to
an evolving bioethic conditioned by a combination of personal
humility and proud display of professional competence. In
addition to our individual disciplinary associations, we should
be aware of the many organizations that deal with environment
problems, human rights, and local politics. We can join such
groups--the Union of Concerned Scientists, for example--and
express our opinions through them on issues of human survival. We
can do this without sacrificing our technical productivity.
Of course, to move effectively toward forging the matrix for
productive dialogue between secular science and organized
religion--traditionally separated by a vast gulf of mutual
misunderstanding and mistrust--we face a daunting task. Is the
situation hopeless? I am compelled to think it is not. And I
suggest that science must make the first move. As far as the
United States is concerned, the National Academy of Sciences may
be a linchpin for such an operation; and if it succeeds, the
effort could serve as a model for national academies elsewhere.
Van Rensselaer Potter is Hilldale Professor of Oncology,
Emeritus, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison 53706; E-mail:
vpotter@oncology.wisc.edu. He is the author of numerous articles
and books on global bioethics, most recently Global Bioethics:
Building on the Leopold Legacy (Michigan State University Press,
1993).
----------
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(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
COMMENTARY
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Global Change: A Challenge And Opportunity For Basic
Research
AU : THOMAS F. MALONE
TY : OPINION (COMMENTARY)
PG : 13
For hundreds of millions of years, the changes in global
environment that nourish human life have had their natural roots
in the interaction of physical, chemical, and biological systems
driven by solar energy. Within the last century, however,
socioeconomic forces--manifestations of the expanding power of
human activity on planet Earth--have emerged as a perturbing
influence in that environment, strong enough to seriously deplete
stratospheric ozone, to foster ominous changes in climate, and to
threaten biodiversity.
At present, with the rate at which these socioeconomic forces--
along with structural changes under way within them--are growing,
global society is following a trajectory that will lead, by the
middle of the next century, to an unsustainable, inequitable, and
unstable world. For example:
* If regional population growth between now and 2050 were to
proceed at the rates of the 1990s, world population would grow
threefold (from 5 billion to 15 billion).
* For every person added to the population in the 46 industrial
nations, 12 would be added in the 62 poorest and least-developed
countries.
* In 2050, 11 percent of the world's population (in industrial
nations) would be generating and consuming 41 percent of the
world's economic output, while 50 percent of the people (in the
poorest countries) would have to share only 11 percent.
The resulting stress on the environment from soaring economic
development in some parts of the world would combine with severe
stresses from exploding population growth in other parts, thereby
jeopardizing the environment's capacity to nourish and sustain
human life. The socioeconomic result would clearly be
inequitable. It would almost certainly be unstable.
In August 1993, several dozen natural scientists, engineers,
social scientists, and others gathered at a conference sponsored
by Sigma Xi in Research Triangle Park, N.C., to explore ways in
which future demographic and economic growth might be modified to
change the societal trajectory. The endpoint of the desired
trajectory would be a society in which all of the basic needs and
an equitable share of human aspirations could be met by
successive generations, while maintaining in perpetuity a
healthy, physically attractive, and biologically productive
environment.
The conclusion was reached at the conference that achievement of
this goal during the 21st century would require an unprecedented
international effort to (1) deepen an understanding of how
physical, chemical, biological, and social systems interact to
regulate the global environment; (2) stabilize world population;
(3) transform an energy- and technology-driven economy into one
that is environmentally benign; (4) reduce poverty everywhere;
and (5) re-examine societal goals and human behavior in order to
give greater emphasis to the quality of life in both industrial
and developing countries. The keystone of this effort would be a
program aimed at fully utilizing the constant torrent--the
"cascade"--of knowledge that drives human progress.
In this effort, scientists would be called upon to play a major
role. For this cascade largely rushes forth from a process
involving discovery (basic research), integration
(interdisciplinary collaborations), and dissemination (through
formal and informal education) of knowledge concerning the nature
and the interaction of matter, energy, living organisms,
information, and human behavior.
The fountainhead of this cascade--discovery--is the primary
mission of basic research and the major concern of the individual
investigator. Thus, given its vital role in human progress, a
strong case for its support can be made, even in the current
period of fiscal austerity. New patterns of interdisciplinary
collaborations among physical, biological, and social scientists,
engineers, and scholars in the humanities will be imperative to
develop the cascade's integrative stream. Revolutionary changes
are needed in the educational system to strengthen dissemination.
And new modes of communication and cooperation will be necessary
among business and industry, governments, and academia to
facilitate application of new knowledge.
Already, dramatic advances in computer and communications
technologies are enabling the fluent exchange of information
across the globe--and developments to come are likely to open
still more avenues for worldwide cooperation among individuals
and institutions. For example, a four-tiered "Global Array of
Nested Networks" (GANN) proposed during the Sigma Xi workshop is
an innovation that would link individuals, educational
institutions, researchers, and policymakers in an interactive
communications system geared to both stimulate and apply the flow
of new knowledge worldwide.
For now, the challenge for the scientific community includes the
exercise of leadership in inaugurating an era in which the
cascade of knowledge is channeled to change the potentially
tragic trajectory that society currently is following.
Thomas F. Malone is Distinguished University Scholar at North
Carolina State University and director of the Sigma Xi Center in
Research Triangle Park, N.C.
A summary report of last August's meeting--"International
Networks for Addressing Issues of Global Change"--may be obtained
by writing: Sigma Xi Center, Box 13975, Research Triangle Park,
N.C. 27709.
----------
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(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
LETTERS
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Crediting A Leader
AU : THE VERY REV. JAMES PARKS MORTON
TY : OPINION (LETTERS)
PG : 13
In your Dec. 13, 1993, article "Scientists Join Forces With
Clergy in Addressing Environmental Issues" [E.R. Silverman, page
1], you describe the effort as "being led" by Henry Kendall.
Kendall has indeed very recently become active in the work of the
National Religious Partnership for the Environment. But he, as
well as the numerous religious leaders and other scientists
enlisted in this effort, would surely want your readers to know
that it was Carl Sagan who, in 1990, authored the "Open Letter to
the Religious Community" from eminent scientists, which catalyzed
our undertaking, and it is he who has continued to be a leader in
this unique collaboration.
He and I served as the cochairmen of the Joint Appeal by Religion
and Science for the Environment from 1990 until 1993, when we
announced the formation of the National Religious Partnership for
the Environment, on whose board both Sagan and Kendall now serve.
THE VERY REV. JAMES PARKS MORTON
National Religious Partnership
for the Environment
1047 Amsterdam Ave.
New York, N.Y. 10025
----------
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(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Women In Science
AU : JUDITH S. WEIS
TY : OPINION (LETTERS)
PG : 13
The commentary by Neal Lane, director of the National Science
Foundation, regarding the need for more women in science [The
Scientist, Jan. 24, 1994, page 12] was very welcome. Lane would
do well to examine his own agency's programs to encourage more
women to enter science.
I investigated NSF's educational programs for women and
minorities several years ago (Journal of College Science
Teaching, 21:11-13, September-October 1991) and found that the
Career Access program, the major educational one for
"underrepresented groups," involved major programs for minorities
(multimillion-dollar "centers"), while the only programs that
could focus on women and girls were small "Model Projects."
In 1989, $5.7 million supported the Comprehensive Centers for
minorities, while only $0.3 million supported Model Projects, of
which $0.15 million supported projects focused on women.
That year, only six model projects were funded out of about 150
applications, a success rate of under 5 percent. Of these six,
two focused on women. In 1990, the success rate and funding was
not significantly greater. I do not have more recent data but
would be surprised to find that the situation has changed
considerably.
Since the rationale for these programs is to get more members of
underrepresented groups into scientific careers, it is hard to
understand why NSF has paid only lip service to the largest pool
of underrepresented individuals, females, who constitute more
than half the United States population.
JUDITH S. WEIS
Professor of Biology
Rutgers University
Newark, N.J. 07102
----------
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(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
WHERE TO WRITE:
Letters to the Editor
The Scientist
3501 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Fax:(215)387-7542
E-mail:
Bitnet: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu
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=====================================
RESEARCH
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : NIDR Supports New Research Pathways
AU : KAREN YOUNG KREEGER
TY : RESEARCH
PG : 14
Arthritis, AIDS, and signal transduction may not be areas of
investigation that immediately come to mind when one thinks of
dental research. But the National Institute of Dental Research's
(NIDR) range of interests and achievement has in recent years
broadened well beyond the institute's original 1948 mandate to
improve the oral health of the American people.
Noting NIDR's advances in preventing and understanding the cause
of tooth decay and some periodontal diseases over the last 40
years, NIDR director Harald Loe says, "We are [also] moving
research in the preventive frontiers into other diseases," such
as craniofacial disorders as well as "an array of systemic
diseases," including AIDS and diabetes. Other current research
areas under NIDR's broad umbrella include osteoporosis, cancers
of the mouth, chronic pain disorders, and alternatives to
traditional silver amalgams.
Lois Cohen, director of the NIDR grants program, describes the
current "portfolio" of grantees as covering "disciplines at the
very basic molecular-biological level all the way to the applied
areas of health promotion and disease prevention" (see
accompanying story).
Dental researchers say that some in the medical community remain
unaware of the extensive implications dental research has for
other areas of human health, as well as its intimate connection
with molecular biology--for example, the use of common molecular
techniques such as cloning as a means of studying the microbes of
the mouth.
Walter Cohen, chancellor of the Medical College of Pennsylvania
and former dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of
Dental Medicine, both located in Philadelphia, cites the current
curriculum of medical schools as one possible reason for dental
research's low profile. "The average physician is given very
little information about the oral tissue" in his or her training,
Cohen says.
According to Harold Slavkin, the George and Mary Lou Boone
Professor of Craniofacial Molecular Biology at the University of
Southern California, Los Angeles, the situation is changing.
Still, he says, "for some people it's counterintuitive to think
of dental research being done by molecular biologists. I think
they perceive teeth as being dead. There is also a perception
that dental research means tooth decay and gum diseases rather
than [including] the nuances of taste perception, and
craniofacial disorders such as cleft lips and palates."
Battle With The Bugs
Despite advances in understanding the causes of tooth decay and
some periodontal diseases, examining these conditions on a
molecular level is a fairly recent development in dental
research. About 300 species of bacteria interact in their own
ecosystem in the human mouth. To cause disease, these bacteria
colonize the surface of teeth and gums, forming networks of
interacting species, NIDR scientists explain.
Paula Fives-Taylor, a molecular microbiologist at the University
of Vermont, Burlington, who is funded through NIDR, has been
studying the molecular mechanisms of attachment and invasion by
oral microbes--or "bugs," as she calls them--for the last 15
years.
To understand the ecological succession of oral bacteria--what
species attach first and how they influence the living conditions
for later colonizers--Fives-Taylor uses molecular techniques such
as cloning and making genome libraries to isolate the gene for
hairlike structures called fimbriae that allow bacteria to attach
to teeth. Specifically, she is interested in the fimbriae of the
bacterium Streptococcus sanguis.
One of the areas she is currently studying is "how the fimbria
gene is regulated and expressed, with the hopes of eventually
understanding how to interfere with colonization" of bacteria. In
addition, for the past three years, Fives-Taylor has been looking
into the attachment mechanisms of bacteria thought to cause
periodontal disease, whose mechanisms are not as clear-cut as
those in tooth decay. Her lab has recently cloned genes from a
candidate bacterium that attaches to surface, or epithelial,
cells of the gums, which "at least confer upon E. coli the
ability to attach to oral tissue."
Although not the first group to show bacterial invasion of
epithelial cells--this has already been shown in the gut by
others--her lab is the first to do so for the mouth. The
importance of this finding for general medical science, she says,
is that invading organisms that get inside cells are immune to
host defenses and antibiotics.
It is known that, in the gut, epithelium-invading bacteria "fool"
the cell into "thinking" that it is a molecule in the signal-
transduction pathway of gastrointestinal-tract epithelial cells,
thereby gaining entry, she says. "So we're very interested to see
if our bug also goes through this. We have some early evidence to
suggest that it might."
These oral bugs do not stop at wreaking havoc with cellular
signal transduction. Sharon Wahl, chief of the cell immunology
section at NIDR, explains that many of these oral disease-causing
bacteria release "a whole host of antigens, toxins, and cell-wall
fragments, which engage the immune system." But the effects of
microbes are not limited to oral systems. She notes that her
research area extends to inflammation and wound healing, and,
more specifically, understanding the regulation of connective
tissue metabolism by growth factors and cytokines--hormone-like
substances--released by inflammatory cells during an immune
response.
Using rodents, Wahl studies "what cells are activated in the
immune system, what they produce or don't produce, or how these
functions might be regulated by growth factors or cytokines."
Bacterial cell walls are not digested by the rats, Wahl says, so
their persistent presence produces an overactivation of the
immune system, "leading to an overproduction of substances such
as nitric oxide, or certain cytokines." These, in turn, can
eventually cause tissue destruction, damaged DNA, or bone
resorption.
With nitric oxide-inhibiting chemicals, Wahl's group has shown
that they can block the pathology of too much nitric oxide--
inflammation of the joints, liver, and spleen--in rats.
Relating these findings to humans, she explains that her group
did find increased nitric oxide production in inflamed
periodontal tissues. She suggests that if nitric oxide can be
blocked, it might be an important future therapy for periodontal
disease, as well as for chronic inflammatory diseases like
arthritis.
Saliva Science
Although outside the walls of NIDR the research theme of the
Clinical Investigations and Patient Care Branch is not often a
subject mentioned in polite conversation, it is an area that many
of its intramural researchers drool over. The focus of the
branch, according to its chief, Bruce Baum, is salivary gland
biology and pathology. Over the last several decades, research at
NIDR and elsewhere has revealed the myriad functions saliva has
for human health.
"It's the main protective [medium] in the mouth," says Baum,
referring to saliva's antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, and
wound-repair capabilities. In preliminary studies, NIDR
researchers have even found that salivary glands secrete a
substance that blocks HIV from infecting cells.
Two sections of the branch study the physiological mechanisms of
ion transport and neurotransmitter signal transduction of the
salivary gland. The scientists are trying to understand the
molecular chain of events involved in salivation and how this
applies to oral and systemic diseases.
Knowing the details of these events has allowed the researchers
to apply their knowledge of a correctly working system to
understanding one that's gone awry. For example, Sjogren's
syndrome, an autoimmune disease in which the immune system
attacks the body's exocrine glands--such as the salivary gland--
results in decreased or absent production of saliva, tears, and
vaginal secretions. Destruction of exocrine glands, resulting in
low to no water flow, is also caused by radiation treatment to
the head and neck for cancer.
"In autoimmune diseases, everyone would like to know what is the
switch that suddenly means a tissue is going to be recognized as
foreign by our bodies. It's a real tough problem, but what we can
deal with is a damage mechanism," Baum says, referring to NIDR
work on "a whole host of potential therapeutic implications."
Baum, who is also head of the branch's relatively new Gene
Transfer Unit, says that the unit's researchers use gene therapy
to repair damaged salivary glands. Referring to the biochemical
pathway that leads to normal salivation, he says, "we have cloned
a gene for a water channel; so, using recombinant adenovirus
vectors, we can insert a water-permeability pathway into a water-
impermeable cell," such as those damaged by radiation or found in
Sjogren's syndrome.
AIDS Research
According to NIDR, "the variety and severity of oral diseases
associated with HIV infection were recognized early by all
components of the dental community," thus leading to their
increased involvement in AIDS research in the mid- to late 1980s.
NIDR-related AIDS research covers basic studies in epidemiology,
virology, immunology, and molecular biology.
Charles Barr, director of dental medicine at Beth Israel Medical
Center, New York, began working on NIDR-sponsored studies of the
effect of HIV on saliva and oral tissues about seven years ago.
The results of one of his lab's earliest studies--at a time when
there was still public concern over transmission of AIDS via
saliva--conclusively established that, compared with blood,
saliva contained practically no live HIV. In fact, only 1 percent
of the homosexual and bisexual male subjects Barr and colleagues
studied carried live HIV in their saliva, although 38 percent of
them had HIV in their blood.
Other aspects of this work dealt more closely with opportunistic
oral infections associated with AIDS, such as candidiasis, a
fungal infection. In this study, he set out to show that,
although not an unequivocal test, "the health of the oral cavity
can function as a surrogate marker for relative immunostatus."
For example, Barr explains, "if patients have candida in their
mouth, their T cells are probably below a certain level,
according to our data, and other aspects of their immune-system
capabilities may warrant a closer look."
Under a grant from NIDR, Barr and colleagues are now extending
their HIV-in-saliva-vs.-blood work to the intravenous-drug-using
population--a study group that contains 35 percent women.
Preliminary data from this study indicate that the same 1 percent
as in the homosexual male group studied earlier have live HIV in
their saliva.
"This is not surprising, because between now and the time that we
started the initial study, there have been several reports by
NIDR and others that show saliva does have an inhibitory effect
on the proliferation of HIV," says Barr.
"Identifying this factor is of interest to the scientific
community now. It has been published in the AIDS literature, but
what's surprising to me is that it hasn't seemed to elicit too
much interest on the part of people in other areas." Currently,
he explains, "all we know in general is that the factor has an
inhibitory effect."
However, a preliminary collaborative effort of investigators at
Beth Israel and colleagues at Thomas Jefferson University in
Philadelphia showed that epithelial cells shed into the saliva
contain pro-viral HIV DNA in their nucleus. They hypothesize that
if the epithelium does take up HIV and it replicates there, it
might do the same in other mucosal tissues, thereby becoming
another possible repository for HIV.
For information on research grants offered by NIDR, contact
Norman Braveman, chief of the Program Development Branch, NIDR,
Westwood Building, Room 503, 5333 Westbard Ave., Bethesda,
Md., 20892; (301) 594-7648. Fax: (301) 594-9720. E-mail:
bravemann@wwpo.nidr.nih.gov.
----------
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================================
NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : NIDR AT FORTYSOMETHING
AU : KAREN YOUNG KREEGER
TY : RESEARCH
PG : 14
In 1948, a congressional mandate set up the National Institute of
Dental Research (NIDR), the third-oldest of the National
Institutes of Health, to "address the then deplorable state of
oral health in the United States," according to the institute.
NIDR, which today covers 19 areas of research--including such
diverse investigations as craniofacial disorders and salivary
gland physiology, as well as the traditional areas of periodontal
disease and tooth decay--funds both intramural and extramural
projects.
Some current NIDR statistics:
* NIDR's budget for fiscal year 1994 is $169.5 million, 75
percent of which goes to extramural research.
* The extramural program supports more than 700 grants and
contracts to the scientific community for research and training.
* Intramural laboratory and clinical research takes place at
eight laboratories, a dental clinic, and a pain research unit
at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md.
* NIDR employs a staff of about 400 scientists, technicians,
trainees, and support personnel.
The two main dental research professional societies,
headquartered at the same location, are:
American Association for Dental Research (AADR)
International Association for Dental Research (IADR)
1111 14th St., N.W.
Suite 1000
Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: (202) 898-1050
Fax: (202) 789-1033
John Rugh, president, AADR
Barry Sessle, president, IADR
John Clarkson, executive director, AADR and IADR
E-mail: 72614.3643@compuserve.com
----------
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================================
NEXT:
RESEARCH
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : PLANT BIOLOGY
TY : RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS)
PG : 16
G.F.J.M Van Den Ackerveken, J.A.L. Van Kan, P.J.G.M. De Wit,
"Molecular analysis of the avirulence gene avr9 of the fungal
tomato pathogen Cladosporium fluvum fully supports the gene-for-
gene hypothesis," Plant Journal, 2:359-66, 1992.
Pierre J.G.M. De Wit (Department of Phytopathology, Wageningen
Agricultural University, Wageningen, the Netherlands): "Many
plant pathologists interested in communication between plants and
their pathogens were puzzled for many years about the molecular
basis of the so-called gene-for-gene hypothesis, put forward by
H.H. Flor more than 50 years ago (Phytopathology, 32:653-69,
1942). This hypothesis states that resistance of a plant against
a fungal pathogen is based on interaction between a resistance
gene of the plant and an avirulence gene of the invading
pathogen. Such an interaction generally leads to a hypersensitive
response, an active process in plants whereby a few host cells
die rapidly around the site of penetration. This local death of
plant cells at the same time inhibits further growth of the
pathogen. "In our laboratory we had already discovered and
characterized a peptide from Cladosporium fulvum that induced the
hypersensitive response in a tomato cultivar containing the Cf9
resistance gene. In this paper we have proved that this peptide
is the product of a true fungal avirulence gene according to the
definition of Flor. "The described peptide is the product of
avirulence gene avr9, which interacts with the resistance gene
Cf9. When strains of the tomato pathogen, which could infect
tomato plants containing resistance gene Cf9, were transformed
with the avirulence gene avr9, those transformed strains could no
longer infect Cf9-containing tomato plants again (R. Marmeisse,
et al., Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions, 6:412-7, 1993).
"Avirulence gene avr9 is the first fungal avirulence gene ever
cloned. The excitement over the cloning of the avirulence gene
avr9 occurs because its product (the AVR9 elicitor) facilitates
the cloning of its receptor in tomato plants, the putative
product of the Cf9 resistance gene.
"At the same time, the AVR9 elicitor is a molecule amenable
to the study of signal transduction pathways in Cf9-containing
tomato plants, which eventually lead to resistance. "Since the
cloning of the aviru-lence gene avr9, a second avirulence gene,
avr4, was cloned by our research group (M.N.A.J. Joosten, et al.,
Nature, 367:384-6, 1994). The success of cloning the two
avirulence genes has speeded up efforts by many molecular plant
pathologists to clone avirulence genes from other plant
pathogenic fungi, such as Magnaporthe grisea (a rice pathogen)
and Rhynchosporium secalis (a barley pathogen)."
----------
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(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : NEUROSCIENCE
TY : RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS)
PG : 16
K.W. Culver, Z. Ram, S. Wallbridge, H. Ishii, E.H. Oldfield, R.M.
Blaese, "In vivo gene transfer with retroviral vector producer
cells for treatment of experimental brain tumors," Science,
256:1550-2, 1992.
Kenneth W. Culver (Human Gene Therapy Research Institute, Iowa
Methodist Medical Center, Des Moines, Iowa): "The first
observation in our study was that murine retroviral vectors (MRV)
could efficiently transfer genes into tumor cells in vivo. MRV
appeared to selectively deliver genes into tumor cells, since MRV
require proliferating target cells. Our subsequent studies have
confirmed this selectivity in the central nervous system (Z. Ram,
et al., Cancer Research, 53:83-8, 1993; Z. Ram, et al., Journal
of Neurosurgery, 79:400-7, 1993). This high-efficiency, selective
gene transfer method holds promise for gene therapies of a
variety of solid tumors, since most normal tissues are not
rapidly dividing. "We also identified a `bystander tumor killing
effect.' Current evidence suggests that the transfer of the
herpes simplex-thymidine kinase (HS-tk) gene followed by
administration of the anti-herpes drug ganciclovir results in
death of the HS-tk (+) cells and neighboring HS-tk (-) cells. The
mechanism is thought to relate to the transfer of toxic
phosphorylated derivatives of ganciclovir by gap junctions into
adjacent tumor cells. (W.L. Bi, et al., Human Gene Therapy,
4:725-32, 1993). Since no gene transfer system is 100 percent
efficient, the bystander killing effect may allow the possibility
for complete tumor eradication with as few as 10 percent of the
cells containing the HS-tk gene. "Preliminary data are available
on the first eight patients treated with this technique at the
National Institutes of Health. These studies have demonstrated no
apparent toxicity related to the intra-tumoral injection of
xenogeneic murine vector producer cells. Second, treatment with
ganciclovir has resulted in changes in the size and radiological
appearance of the tumor in five patients. The potential clinical
usefulness of the system will depend upon the efficiency of gene
delivery throughout the tumor mass. "As a result of these early
encouraging phase I findings, Genetic Therapy Inc. of
Gaithersburg, Md., will sponsor three additional clinical trials
to attempt to further optimize gene delivery into recurrent brain
tumors in children and adults. This will include a trial to
combine surgical resection of the tumor with the direct injection
of vector producer cells into the surrounding, unresectable,
infiltrating tumor (K.W. Culver, et al., Human Gene Therapy,
5:343-77, 1993). It is hoped that these applications will
determine if this gene therapy approach will have the potential
to improve the grave prognosis for these recurrent tumors."
----------
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================================
NEXT:
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : BIOCHEMISTRY
TY : RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS)
PG : 16
R.A. Kahn, P. Randazzo, T. Serafini, O. Weiss, C. Rulka, J.
Clark, M. Amherdt, P. Roller, L. Orci, J.E. Rothman, "The amino
terminus of ADP-ribosylation factor (ARF) is a critical
determinant of ARF activities and is a potent and specific
inhibitor of protein transport," Journal of Biological Chemistry,
267:13039-46, 1992.
Richard A. Kahn (Laboratory of Biological Chemistry, National
Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Md.): "Identified in 1980 as a factor
required for the efficient ADP-ribosylation of the stimulatory,
regulatory component of adenylate cyclase, Gs, ADP-ribosylation
factor (ARF) remained a curiosity. By the late 1980s evidence
accumulated that ARF proteins were involved in the regulation of
protein traffic, though details were lacking. The lack of a
neutralizing antibody and difficulty in obtaining subcellular
fractions devoid of ARF made it difficult to define specific
role(s) for ARF proteins using biochemical assays. "Our study led
to the identification of a critical functional domain of ARF1,
which in turn allowed the synthesis of a specific inhibitor of
ARF action. This peptide inhibitor, derived from the amino
terminus, has proved to have a number of remarkable properties
that have provided insight into the structure and function of the
family of ARF proteins. (There are currently six mammalian ARF
proteins and even more structurally related ARF-like [ARL]
proteins in the ARF family.) In this and the accompanying two
papers (J.M. Lenhard, et al., J. Biol. Chem., 267:13047-52, 1992;
W.E. Balch, et al., J. Biol. Chem., 267:13053-61, 1992) it was
shown that ARF proteins are involved in one or more specific
steps in both the exocytic and endocytic pathways. These studies
also demonstrated the importance of the amino terminus (and the
attached myristic acid) in regulating both the activity and
structure of the protein and its interaction with phospholipids.
This last aspect has proved to be particularly important as ARF
has recently been identified as an activator of phospholipase D
(A. Brown, et al., Cell, 75:1137-44, 1993). The intimate
association of ARF proteins with specific phospholipids and the
ability of ARF to alter the phospholipid content of membranes
through activation of lipases or simple seques- tration is
leading to a new awareness of the dynamic interplay between
lipids and proteins as they work together to coordinate membrane
traffic and intracellular signaling."
----------
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NEXT:
TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------
TI : Radioimmunoassay: A Proven Performer In The Bio Lab
AU : REBECCA KRUMM
TY : TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY
PG : 17
Radioimmunoassay, which har-nesses the specificity of the immune
system to allow the measurement of minute quantities of
substances, is a 35-year-old technology that has been key to
important advances in many biological disciplines. Endocrinology,
immunology, and toxicology all owe much of their rapid
development over the last few decades to this workhorse of the
lab.
But many who produce alternative immunoassays seem to feel that
the radioimmunoassay (RIA) technique has outlived its usefulness,
eclipsed by newer detection techniques that use chromogenic,
fluorescent, or luminescent tags. "It's horse-and-buggy
technology," says one developer of ELISA (enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay) immunoassay kits for environmental
detection. ELISA has emerged in recent years as an alternative
technology to RIA.
But is RIA really ready to be retired? Others emphatically
disagree. RIA is "still the cheapest, and in many, many cases,
the best," says Marilyn Senior, technical manager of the
endocrinology lab at the University of Pennsylvania Medical
Center in Philadelphia. "Don't fight it. It's a good technology."
The technology was initially developed in the 1950s by Rosalyn S.
Yalow and her colleague Solomon A. Berson. They first published
their technique, developed for the detection of insulin, in 1959.
In 1977, Yalow won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for
"the development of radioimmunoassays of peptide hormones."
In a typical RIA, the substance to be measured--the unlabeled
sample antigen--competes with radiolabeled antigen for a limited
number of antibody binding sites. Although several different
isotopic tags can be used, a radioactive isotope of iodine
(125I), which emits gamma radiation as it decays, is the most
common. The antibody-antigen complex is precipitated out of
solution, separated from the unbound reagents, and measured in a
gamma counter.
Because the labeled and unlabeled antigen have equal affinity for
the binding sites, they bind in direct proportion to the amounts
of each that are present. A small amount of sample antigen allows
a greater amount of labeled antigen to bind. Thus, the higher the
number of counts on the gamma counter, the lower the amount of
sample antigen that is present. To quantify the concentration of
the unknown sample, its radioactivity is compared with a standard
curve created by measuring the radioactivity in a number of
samples in which the proportion of labeled to unlabeled antibody
is known.
RIA is most widely used in clinical labs, to measure such
substances as pregnancy and growth hormones; drugs ingested
therapeutically or illegally, such as antibiotics, cocaine, and
steroids; antigens that are characteristic of autoimmune thyroid
disease and other autoimmune disorders; and antigens that
indicate infection by various bacteria, parasites (such as
schistosoma), and viruses. In research settings, the technique is
used to identify and quantify an even broader range of
substances, such as the tiny opioid peptides that com- municate
neurological information, or a desired protein expressed by a
spliced gene in gene therapy experiments.
Reagents and supplies for RIA are available from many sources,
among the larger of which are Sigma Chemical Co. in St. Louis and
ICN Biomedicals Inc. of Costa Mesa, Calif. Supplies usually come
in the form of kits, which generally include the labeled antigen,
the antibody for it to bind to, and a precipitant, often a second
antibody, to bring the bound complex out of solution. Some kits
supply the antibody in solid phase, covalently bound to the
surface of test tubes. Researchers can also purchase reagents "
la carte" for designing their own protocols. Some scientists
purchase unlabeled antigen and radiolabel it themselves.
Working With Radioactivity
For various reasons,125I is the most commonly used isotope for
tagging proteins. Jimmy Wong, manager of clinical and technical
affairs at Nichols Institute Diagnostics in San Juan Capistrano,
Calif., explains that 125I attaches easily to most antibodies or
antigens, binding to a tyrosine residue on the protein. Another
reason 125I is preferred by scientists is that counting gamma
radiation is relatively quick and easy, and most labs have access
to a gamma counter. The relatively short half-life of 125I--60
days--also eases the problem of disposal, although the cost of
radioactive waste disposal continues to rise in most localities
as environmental concerns and regulations increase.
The low half-life also means a short shelf life, however. At the
Penn Medical Center's endocrinology lab, says Senior, iodinated
stock must be purchased every month or so.
Other isotopes used to tag proteins and peptides include tritium
(3H) and 57Co. Tritium is generally troublesome to use, and
scientists tend to avoid it when possible, according to Senior. A
beta emitter, it requires a liquid scintillation cocktail and a
beta counter to measure its emissions. "It's a mess," Senior
says. Furthermore, because of its long (12.5 years) half-life, it
must be disposed of as low-level radioactive waste, which is
expensive and time-consuming.
RIA is particularly handy for measuring very small amounts of
very small molecules, and can attain sensitivities in the
picogram, or parts-per-trillion (10-12), range. Ann Tempel,
director of the laboratory of molecular pharmacology at the Long
Island Jewish Medical Center in Glen Oaks, New York, uses RIA to
study the effects of maternal drug addiction in newborn rats. She
points out that because she is measuring neuropeptides in various
portions of the infant rats' brains, she has a minuscule quantity
of material to work with, and exquisite sensitivity is required.
Using RIA kits marketed by IncStar Corp. of Stillwater, Minn.,
Tempel can measure the neuropeptide methionine enkephalin at the
picogram level of sensitivity.
Yemiliya Berman, a postdoctoral fellow in the Millhauser
Laboratories of the New York University Medical Center, has taken
RIA sensitivity even a step further. In her work with
neuroscience researchers in the lab, she has been able to detect
neuropeptides in the femtomolar (10-15) range. Berman, who came
to the United States from the former Soviet Union a year and a
half ago, does not use kits. Rather, she purchases the antibodies
she needs and iodinates them herself. She has been able to attain
such sensitivities by adjusting a myriad of assay conditions. "I
have some tricks," she explains. "It's just like a kitchen."
Researchers, using kits or by other means, often tweak a variety
of conditions, such as pH, temperature, sample size, and
incubation time, to make the assay work for their unique project.
The gamma counters most commonly used in RIA are also available
from a number of manufacturers. Two of the larger suppliers are
Wallac Inc. in Gaithersburg, Md., and Packard Instruments of
Meriden, Conn. ICN Biomedicals also markets a line of gamma
counters and liquid scintillation counters.
Variations On A Theme
A variation on the RIA technique is immunoradiometric assay
(IRMA), also known as a "sandwich" assay. A sandwich assay uses
at least two antibodies: a capture antibody in a solid phase,
often covalently bound to a test tube, which binds the analyte
and immobilizes it; and a second signal antibody, which is
tagged, and binds to the analyte at a different site. The unbound
reagents are washed off, and the sample is measured. This time,
the signal is directly proportional to the amount of analyte: The
unknown sample antigen has essentially been tagged by the signal
antibody.
A sandwich assay, says Senior, can be more accurate at low
concentrations of an analyte, because it is a direct measurement
of the sample antigen. In comparison, in the competitive assay,
the quantity of unlabeled, sample antigen is calculated by
subtracting the number of gamma counts that a sample emits
(indicating the quantity of labeled antigen) from the maximum
number for a sample that is 100 percent labeled antigen. If the
sample antigen is at a low concentration, both of these numbers
will be very high, introducing a source of error into the assay.
When you are measuring 50 of something, Senior points out, you
can do it more accurately by actually counting 50 than by
subtracting 999,950 from 1,000,000.
However, a major limitation of sandwich assays is that they do
not work with the very small peptides, says Senior. An antigen
being quantified by this method must have at least two binding
sites, one for each antibody, and many peptides are too small to
offer two such sites. For these substances, competitive assays
remain the method of choice.
Because of the problems of working with radioactivity--health
hazards and the costs of complying with the handling and disposal
regulations intended to reduce those hazards--nonisotopic
immunoassays have been developed for many substances. Instead of
a radioisotope, reagents are tagged with molecules with
chromogenic, fluorescent, or luminescent properties. But although
these nonisotopic techniques offer an attractive alternative for
assaying many substances, they are far from elbowing RIAs out of
the research market.
Many researchers find, for example, that the nonisotopic
techniques aren't yet able to achieve comparably high sensitivity
and specificity, particularly for the small molecules that must
be measured by competitive assays. Senior explains that in order
to get a high degree of specificity in a competitive immunoassay,
the labeled antigen must "look" as much like the unlabeled
antigen as possible, so that they bind to the antibody with equal
affinity. The tagging molecules in nonisotopic systems can be
large compared with the tiny peptides being assayed, which can
throw off the specificity of the system. This can lead to
interference by other substances, reducing the accuracy of the
assay.
Dorothy Herlyn, an associate professor at the Wistar Institute in
Philadelphia, uses nonisotopic methods whenever possible "because
nobody likes to be exposed to radiation," but she also finds that
enzyme immunoassay techniques such as ELISA don't work as well in
competitive assays, possibly, she believes, as a result of the
number of washings necessary in ELISA. Because of reduced
sensitivity, her lab has gone back to RIA for competitive
immunoassays.
For many researchers, nonisotopic assays are just not available
for the substances that they wish to measure. If an assay has a
clinical use, it is much more likely to be developed in a
nonisotopic form, because the number of assays run is so much
higher in the clinical laboratory. As IncStar's director of
marketing, John Roesler, points out, "You need to have a much
bigger market in order to justify the cost of development for
enzymatic or luminescent systems." Because radioim- munoassays
are more well known and more cost-geffective to develop than
their nonisotopic counterparts, he says, assays for peptides such
as methionine enkephalin, important to neuroscientists but with
no clinical purpose, will continue to be available as RIAs.
Some clinical assays are performed so infrequently that they too
will remain RIAs indefinitely. For example, says Senior, 11-
deoxycor-tisol is a hormone that she rarely needs to test for--
two or three times a month. "I would doubt sincerely if they
would ever turn that assay into a nonisotopic one," she says.
"It's just not commercially useful."
Finally, many researchers have been using RIA for a long time,
and are loath to change methods when their current technique is
performing to their satisfaction. "If the technique is working
well in my lab, I have no intentions of changing it in the middle
of a study," says neuroscientist Ann Tempel. "We've been using
radioimmunoassay [in a current study], so I'm not about to switch
at this point to another technique."
However, in future projects, she says, she would certainly
consider nonisotopic techniques, if any are developed for the
neuropeptides that she is measuring in her laboratory.
For now, although radioimmunoassays are being replaced in many
applications, they are still central to others. Observes Nichols
Institute's Jimmy Wong: "I think they will always be around, just
like there will always be Volkswagen Beetles."
Rebecca Krumm is a freelance science writer based in Audubon, Pa.
----------
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(The Scientist, Vol:8, #10, May 16, 1994
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
================================
NEXT:
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TI : SUPPLIERS OF RADIOIMMUNOASSAY KITS, REAGENTS, AND SUPPLIES
TY : TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY
PG : 19
The following companies offer radioimmunoassay supplies and
equipment.
Please contact the companies directly for more information
concerning specific products.
Advanced Chemtech
5609 Fern Valley Rd.
Louisville, Ky. 40228
(502) 969-0000
Fax: (502) 968-1000
AMAC Inc.
160B Larrabee Rd.
Westbrook, Maine 04092
(207) 854-0426
Fax: (207) 854-0116
Amersham Corp.
2636 S. Clearbrook Dr.
Arlington Heights, Ill. 60005
(708) 593-6300
Fax: (708) 437-1640
Becton Dickinson Microbiology
250 Shilling Circle
Cockeysville, Md. 21030
(410) 771-0100
Fax: (410) 584-7517
Bel-Art Products
6 Industrial Blvd.
Pequannock, N.J. 07440
(201) 694-0500
Fax: (201) 694-7199
Bio-Rad Laboratories
237 Putnam Ave.
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
(617) 868-4330
Fax: (617) 499-4519
Bioscan Inc.
4590 McArthur Blvd., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20007
(800) 255-7226
Fax: (206) 775-8000
Biotecx Laboratories Inc.
6023 South Loop East
Houston, Texas 77033
(713) 643-0606
Fax: (713) 643-3143
Brendan Scientific
15000 Kercheval
Gross Pointe Park, Mich. 48230
(800) 824-8842
Fax: (313) 824-1918
Calbiochem-Novabiochem Corp.
10394 Pacific Center Court
San Diego, Calif. 92121
(619) 450-5578
Fax: (619) 453-3552
Cambridge Research Biochemical
Gadbrook Park, Northwich
Cheshire, U.K. CW9 7RA
Phone: 44606-41100
Fax: 44606-49366
Capintec Instruments
6 Arrow Rd.
Ramsey, N.J. 07446
(201) 825-9500
Fax: (201) 825-1336
Cavro Scientific Instruments
242 Humboldt Court
Sunnyvale, Calif. 94089
(408) 745-7400
Fax: (408) 745-0309
Ciba-Corning Diagnostics
115 Norwood Park South
Norwood, Mass. 02052
(508) 660-4745
Fax: (508) 359-3599
Crescent Chemical
1324 Motor Pkwy.
Hauppauge, N.Y. 11788
(516) 348-0333
Fax: (516) 348-0913
Diagnostic Systems Laboratories Inc.
445 Medical Center Blvd.
Webster, Texas 77598
(800) 231-7970
Fax: (713) 338-1895
Du Pont Biotechnology Systems
Barley Mill Plaza, P22-2278
Wilmington, Del. 19898
(302) 992-4785
Fax: (302) 992-4442
Dynal Inc.
5 Delaware Dr.
Lake Success, N.Y. 11042
(516) 326-3270
Fax: (516) 326-3298
Hybritech Inc.
P.O. Box 269006
San Diego, Calif. 92129
(619) 455-6700
Fax: (619) 453-4124
ICN Biomedicals Inc.
3300 Hyland Ave.
Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626
(714) 545-0113
Fax: (714) 641-7216
Immuno Diagnostics Center Inc.
9978 Monroe Dr., Suite 303
Dallas, Texas 75220
(214) 351-1231
Fax: (214) 351-1231
INAMCO Chemicals & Lab Equipment
78-44 Parsons Blvd.
Flushing, N.Y. 11366
(718) 969-0926
Fax: (718) 591-4453
INCSTAR Corp.
P.O. Box 285
Stillwater, Minn. 55082
(612) 439-9710
Fax: (612) 779-7847
Kallestad Diagnostics
2000 Lake Hazeltine Dr.
Chaska, Minn. 55318
(612) 448-4848
Kronus Inc.
1000 Calle Amanecer
San Clemente, Calif. 92673
(714) 366-9100
Fax: (714) 366-9300
Nichols Institute Diagnostics
33608 Ortega Highway
San Juan Capistrano, Calif. 92690
(714) 728-4000
Fax: (714) 728-4972
Nuclin Diagnostics
3322 Commercial Ave.
Northbrook, Ill. 60062
(708) 498-5210
Fax: (312) 564-1830
Organon/Teknika
100 Akzo Ave.
Durham, N.C. 27704
(919) 620-2152
Fax: (800) 432-96822
OT/Biotechnology Research Institute
E-Mail Fredric L. Rice / The Skeptic Tank