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Phone :(215)243-2205 // Fax: (215)387-1266 E-mail:garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu ================= THE SCIENTIST VOLUME 8, No:12 JUNE 13,1994 (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) =============================================================== Articles published in THE SCIENTIST reflect the views of their authors and not the official views of the publication, its editorial staff, or its ownership. =============================================================== *** THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE SCIENTIST WILL APPEAR ON *** *** JUNE 27, 1994 *** *** *** ******************************************************* Subscription rates for the printed edition are: In the United States: one year $58, two years $ 94 Canada : one year $82, two years $142 All other foreign : one year/air cargo $ 79 one year/ airmail $133 THE SCIENTIST (Page numbers correspond to printed edition of THE SCIENTIST) FOR SEARCHING PURPOSES: AU = author TI = title of article TY = type PG = page NEXT = next article ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : CONTENTS PG : 3 ============================================================ NEWS SCIENCE IN THE COURTROOM: A decision by the United States Supreme Court handed down a year ago is still spurring debate among scientists and legal scholars over the criteria for determining admissibility and validity of scientific evidence in court. In this first part of a two-part series on science and the courts, The Scientist examines the aftermath of the case and some of the fundamental questions it raises PG : 1 MODIFYING THE JOB SEARCH: Newly graduated scientists are about to enter what analysts are calling one of the toughest employment markets in years. Experts advise these job seekers to broaden their skills beyond the confines of the disciplines in which they have been trained and consider employers outside the traditional research areas in academia, industry, and government PG : 1 A SOUR NOTE: Although the nine women among the 60 scientists recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences represent the highest number of women ever chosen in one year, observers note that the overall representation of women in the prestigious organization is still quite low PG : 1 A FITTING FIRST: Members of the committee that selected Yale University biochemist Joan A. Steitz as the first recipient of the Weizmann Women and Science Award say their choice of the much-decorated, highly cited medical researcher sets a standard of excellence for the prize PG : 3 OPINION DANGEROUS DIAGNOSTICS: Two veteran observers of the science environment--Columbia University's Dorothy Nelkin, a sociologist, and Laurence Tancredi, a psychiatrist and lawyer--express their concerns about genetic research and other advances that increase our ability to predict the incidence of human diseases and conditions: While the virtues of the new diagnostics are abundant, so are the opportunities for these tools to be oversold and abused, with society the victim PG : 12 COMMENTARY: First published by the National Research Council (NRC) in 1963, the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals has become a standard reference work in laboratories in the United States and abroad that use animals in research. Numerous scientific advances necessitate a revised version of the booklet and Thomas L. Wolfle, study director for an NRC committee to revise the guide, is calling upon the scientific community to provide input and suggestions PG : 13 RESEARCH CALIFORNIA RESEARCHING: California institutions top the list and are well represented among the top 25 institutions producing high-impact neuroscience papers, as determined from citation data and reported on in the newsletter Science Watch PG : 15 HOT PAPERS: Biochemist Montserrat Camps discusses her paper on the regulation of phosphoinositide-specific phospholipases C by signal-transducing G-proteins; biochemist Rony Seger discusses his article establishing that MAP kinase "activator" is a dual-specificity kinase; atmospheric chemist Tim Wallington reports on his study of environmental effects of a form of hydrofluorocarbon PG : 16 TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY NEW SPIN ON AN OLD INSTRUMENT: Centrifuges, requisite instruments in most biological labs for decades to separate samples into their component parts, have given way over the past 15 years to microcentrifuges, which break down even smaller samples and have incorporated more sophisticated features over the years PG : 17 PROFESSION BEGINNING RESEARCH SUPPORT: The Dreyfus Faculty Start-Up Grants program provides funding for young faculty beginning their careers at non-Ph.D.-granting institutions to conduct research PG : 21 WILLIAM H. PICKERING, an emeritus professor of electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, has won the Japan Prize PG : 22 SHORT TAKES NOTEBOOK PG : 4 LETTERS PG : 13 CENTRIFUGE AND MICROCENTRIFUGE DIRECTORY PG : 19 NEW PRODUCTS PG : 20 OBITUARY PG : 22 CROSSWORD PG : 22 (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.3, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- NEXT: NEWS ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Science In The Courtroom: What Evidence Is Admissible--And Who Decides? Some scientists say a Supreme Court decision to deemphasize peer review has led to better court science AU : FRANKLIN HOKE TY : NEWS PG : 1 **** Editor's Note: This article, the first of a two-part series on the role played by science--and scientists--in the court, looks at the aftermath of a pivotal case involving scientific evidence and at some of the fundamental questions raised at the juncture between these two powerful sectors of society. The second part, to appear in the June 27 issue, will explore several ongoing projects aimed at increasing cooperation between science and law. **** A landmark Supreme Court decision concerning the use of scientific evidence in legal proceedings--although handed down a year ago--is still a subject of vigorous debate among scientists and legal scholars. Observers say that one clear effect of the drug-liability case, Daubert et al. v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., has been to spur a crucial dialogue between the institutions of science and law, contributing to a number of cooperative initiatives now under way in several settings. Also, they say, judges in subsequent cases are expressing a new appreciation for the values and methods of science. At issue in Daubert was what the criteria should be for admissibility of scientific evidence into the courtroom, scientists and lawyers say. Should peer review--the gold standard within science--be the measure, or should more flexible standards be used in admitting such evidence? And, by inference, who should be charged with deciding what constitutes good science in court--scientists or judges? "It's a question of institutional judgment," says David Kaye, a professor at the Center for the Study of Law, Science, and Technology at Arizona State University in Tempe, and editor of Jurimetrics Journal, a science-and-law publication affiliated with the American Bar Association (ABA). "Who's competent to decide what minimally acceptable science is?" Daubert exposed important tensions at the intersection of science and law, two powerful voices of authority in society. The case drew extraordinary attention from scientists, a number of whom were among the 22 parties who filed friend-of-the-court briefs on both sides. Scientists saw in the case a rare opportunity to weigh in directly, through the briefs, on the way their profession is represented in the courts. In the Daubert case, two children, Jason Daubert and Eric Schuller, and their parents contended that Merrell Dow's anti-nausea drug Bendectin, taken by the mothers while pregnant, had caused the children's birth defects. Each side marshaled its experts to interpret research on the drug, but only the evidence put forth by Merrell Dow (now Marion Merrell Dow Inc., Kansas City, Mo.) was backed by peer review and publication. Noting, among other things, that the plaintiffs' scientific evidence was "unpublished," the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco rejected their claim. The appeals court decision affirmed a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California summary judgment for the drug maker, and prompted the plaintiffs to appeal to the Supreme Court. In its June 28, 1993, decision, written by retiring Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the Supreme Court opted for the more "permissive" standard, remanding the case to the appeals court to be reargued. The Supreme Court also called on judges to play a more active, "gatekeeping role" in screening scientific evidence and, in doing so, for them to use only relevance and reliability as their guides (see story on page 5). Among the joint projects in progress to help judges fulfill the new, more active role the Court's decision would have them take is a reference manual for judges under development at the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C., a research, education, and planning arm of the federal judiciary. The manual is designed to help judges manage scientific evidence effectively. In another effort, the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, a group sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and ABA, is exploring ways that judges could better use court-appointed scientific experts and individuals called special masters, who are designated by a judge to help assess evidence. The Scientists' Stake For the courts and society generally, the need for reliable scientific evidence in deciding cases that will affect people's lives is perhaps self-evident. Also, the number of cases involving scientific evidence continues to grow each year, focusing more attention on this need. But why should scientists concern themselves with the question of what constitutes good science in the eyes of judges? Observers say that scientists, in fact, have a strong investment in how science is represented in the courts. "Maybe scientists should just stick to the laboratories and forget how their work is used or abused," says Dorothy Nelkin, a professor of sociology and law at New York University in New York City. "But that [view] is kind of passe these days, because science is a public endeavor." Scientists have a socially responsible role to play, others agree, and monitoring the uses of their work in the courts is one aspect of this. "Scientists have to become better citizens," says Daryl Chubin, director of the research, evaluation, and dissemination division in the education and human resources directorate of the National Science Foundation. "They have to develop a larger sense of what they're all about and the various arenas that they're asked to play in. Being a research scientist doesn't exempt you from other kinds of responsibilities." "And even for self-interested purposes, scientific funding depends on how the public sees science," says Nelkin. "The legal appropriation of scientific information is one of the ways in which science is visible." "The fact that there has not been research into birth control for many years is due in large part to a fear of litigation, for example," says Steven G. Gallagher, a senior staff associate with the task force on science and technology in judicial and regulatory decision-making of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government, which produced the March 1993 report Science and Technology in Judicial Decision Making. "More and more science is industry-funded now, and if industry is looking over its shoulder at liability, that's driving their [research] decisions." Scientists and lawyers have often viewed each other with suspicion, too, some say, a situation that exacerbates the questions surrounding the admissibility of scientific evidence in courts. Scientific expert witnesses are sometimes seen by lawyers and other scientists as mercenaries whose views are for hire. "The involvement of scientists as experts is generally belittled, denigrated, or unpleasant," says Gilbert S. Omenn, dean and professor at the school of public health and community medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle. "There's a legacy which has to do with the clash of cultures and clash of jargon between scientists and lawyers." Lawyers, Omenn says, are invested in the adversarial system of arguing legal cases, a system that tends to polarize the viewpoints of opposing parties. "Scientists, although they engage in this sometimes, like more to build consensus and to try to find common positions," he says. Partly as a result, lawyers are often seen by scientists as having no understanding of or regard for scientific findings. "Many people in this society take a fairly dim view of law," says Chubin, a sociologist and science-policy analyst. Scientists do that at their peril. If anything, we have to engage with other kinds of specialists who are linked to very powerful professions." Omenn says that scientists who serve as experts in court are involved in important work, despite its negative reputation. He also feels that if courts were to increase their use of scientists as nonpartisan advisers, more scientists would be willing to enter the courts. "We just don't see it as a truly professional activity for which there could be training and preparation, and it shows," Omenn says. "But scientists, I think, would respond well to the court asking them to be a court-appointed expert." Assessing The Case Immediately after the Supreme Court's decision, some scientists worried publicly that Daubert, by not relying on the peer-review standard for science, opened the way for substandard scientific evidence to enter the courts. But how, in fact, has the relationship between science and the law fared in the year since the Daubert opinion was handed down? Perhaps surprisingly, the purportedly lower standards for evidence have had less impact than the directive to judges to be more active, according to some scientists and lawyers. "This phrase that Blackmun used--the gatekeeper--has really empowered judges and made them feel very comfortable that they can exclude so-called junk science," says Dan L. Burk, a molecular biologist and a visiting assistant professor of law at George Mason University, Arlington, Va. "All of the DNA identification-testing cases that have come up have passed through with flying colors," Burk says. "Judges are accepting DNA evidence, which has a strong scientific basis. Other kinds of things, including some claims of cancer caused by exposure to cathode ray tubes on computer monitors, are being thrown out. So, the practical effect of Daubert seems to be what the scientific community would want, even if the language of Daubert may not be everything that [some members of] the scientific community asked for." Others agree that the impact of the case has been substantial, even in some cases not directly citing Daubert. "Courts have become more aware of peer review as a phenomenon," says Arizona's David Kaye. "Many judges didn't have much sense of what scientists do and what creates prestige in the field." For example, Kaye says, the number of opinions using the phrase "peer review" has jumped dramatically since Daubert. "Even though the Supreme Court said peer review wasn't an absolute requirement [for admissibility], Daubert raised the consciousness of courts about the role of peer-reviewed articles in the scientific community." The fact that the court named peer review as only one factor for judges to consider when assessing scientific evidence is entirely appropriate, according to some observers. NSF's Chubin coauthored Peerless Science (State University of New York Press, Albany, 1990), a book critical of the peer-review process, and also helped write a friend-of-the- court brief on behalf of the plaintiffs. Some scientists' efforts to defend peer review in their court briefs, he says, were little more than "tradition for tradition's sake." "The significance of Daubert is that peer review is not going to carry the day," says Chubin. "Peer review can only take us so far." (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.1, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : HOW THE LAW ON SCIENCE CHANGED AU : FRANKLIN HOKE TY : NEWS PG : 5 In 1923, James A. Frye, convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, lost his appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. One important reason was that the court affirmed the original District of Columbia court's decision to exclude evidence from an early version of the polygraph, or lie detector. The appeals court's opinion served as one of the primary considerations in deciding admissibility of scientific evidence until the Daubert case. The relevant portion of the Frye opinion, lawyers say, is a mere two sentences: "Just when a scientific principle or discovery crosses the line between the experimental and demonstrable stages is difficult to define. Somewhere in this twilight zone, the evidential force of the principle must be recognized, and while courts will go a long way in admitting expert testimony deduced from a well-recognized scientific principle or discovery, the thing from which the deduction is made must be sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs." In subsequent cases, the decision, which became known as the Frye test or the "general acceptance" rule, was interpreted by many--including the lower courts in Daubert--as a requirement for peer review of scientific evidence admitted into court. In 1975, Congress enacted the Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 702 of which governs expert testimony. It states: "If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise." Conflicts between the Frye test and the Federal Rules constituted one of the main legal difficulties in Daubert. In deciding Daubert, the Supreme Court found that the Federal Rules of Evidence, and not the Frye test, provide the standard for admitting scientific testimony. "The rules--especially Rule 702--place appropriate limits on the admissibility of purportedly scientific evidence by assigning to the trial judge the task of ensuring that an expert's testimony both rests on a reliable foundation and is relevant to the task at hand," Justice Blackmun wrote. "Faced with a proffer of expert scientific testimony ... the trial judge ... must make a preliminary assessment of whether the testimony's underlying reasoning or methodology is scientifically valid and properly can be applied to the facts at issue," Blackmun wrote. Blackmun recognized that asking judges to make such pretrial assessments of science entails costs. "That even limited screening by the trial judge, on occasion, will prevent the jury from hearing of authentic scientific breakthroughs," Blackmun added, "is simply the consequence of the fact that the Rules are not designed to seek cosmic understanding but, rather, to resolve legal disputes." --F.H. (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.1, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Nine Women Among 60 Scientists Elected To NAS Equality advocates, while heartened by the relatively high number of females honored, stress the need for further progress. AU : NEERAJA SANKARAN TY : NEWS PG : 1 The election of nine women to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) this year is being greeted with tempered enthusiasm on the part of the scientific community. While scientists are pleased that the academy has chosen the highest number of women ever in its 131-year history, they recognize that this year's women still represent only 15 percent of the 60 members selected, and that the overall representation of women in NAS is still only 5 percent (85 out of a total active membership of 1,710 scientists). "There are more women this year than ever before, which is welcome," says Peter Raven, NAS home secretary and the director of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. "But the increase has been very, very gradual and still nowhere near where we would like it to be." "It's a movement in the right direction, but still not approaching parity," says Penelope Kegel-Flom, a professor of psychology and optometry at the University of Houston and the president of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., which boasts a membership of 5,000. "The numbers [of women] are still much too low, considering the relatively large increase in the women who are making significant contributions to science," says Vera Rubin, a staff scientist in astronomy at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. Rubin, an NAS member since 1981, is also on the board of AWIS. "It's amazing," says new member Pamela Matson, referring to the fact that nine elected women represented a landmark achievement at NAS. "I'm happy that the National Academy is paying more attention to women now." Matson is a professor of environmental science and policy management at the University of California, Berkeley. Congratulated by a fellow entomologist on breaking two of the three norms of the "too male, too pale, and too stale" demographics of NAS, another new member, May Berenbaum, says, "I still have a hard time believing I got elected. I'm not sure what I did, but I'm glad I did whatever it was that made them choose me." The 40-year-old head of the entomology department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, does research addressing insect-plant interactions and their impact on the environment. In addition, she is interested in conservation of biodiversity. Established in 1863, NAS, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a private organization of scientists and engineers for promoting science. The academy also acts as an official adviser to the federal government on matters of science and technology. Each year since 1977, the academy has chosen 60 United States scientists in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievement in science. In addition, 15 nonvoting foreign associates are elected. Any current active member can nominate a candidate, who is then voted on by members of the section pertaining to his or her field. Final acceptance is determined by a general election of NAS. Both Raven and Nina Fedoroff, a plant molecular biologist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Baltimore who serves on the governing council of NAS, feel that there is "a certain amount of historical inertia" in the academy as a result of its self-perpetuating electoral process. Rubin agrees; "Any time an organization elects new members, it attempts to reproduce itself," she says. While the academy is still "very male-dominated," Rubin says, there is a definite change in attitudes toward women scientists' issues. For example, she says, "Women's History Month was celebrated in the academy for the first time this year." The Academy's Newest The nine women among this year's NAS selections represent a wide mix of specialized fields (see accompanying list), including hard sciences like physics (for example, Myriam Sarachik, a professor of physics at the City College of New York) as well the social sciences (Matilda Riley, senior social scientist at the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md.). Their interests, in many cases, extend beyond research in their disciplines to issues of concern for the entire scientific community. Mary Ellen Avery, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, expects to "find plenty to do" as a new member. A member of the Institute of Medicine (IoM)--an affiliate of NAS that deals with medicine and health-policy issues--she served on the IoM Committee on Health and Human Rights and plans to continue her involvement in human rights issues at NAS. Avery also hopes to be involved in some of the academy's international affairs programs that deal with children. Stanford University's Lucille Shapiro is interested in making the public more scientifically literate. Shapiro, chairwoman of the department of developmental biology at Stanford's School of Medicine, is also concerned about issues of basic research support. "Allocating funds for targeted and nontargeted research needs to be thought about very carefully and dealt with logically--not emotionally," she says. "We need a multiple menu, because unless there is a reasonable amount of curiosity-driven, nontargeted research going on, targeted programs will also suffer." While lauding all the new members' scientific excellence, current members also stress the limitations imposed on academy membership due to its size. "The people who are elected are certainly among the very best in the U.S.," says home secretary Raven, "but an important thing to remember is that for every one chosen there are many more equally distinguished individuals who weren't--there are anywhere from 2 million or more qualified scientists in the country-- and the choices are thus bound to be somewhat arbitrary." THE ACADEMY'S PICKS FOR 1994 PG : 7 * Eric G. Adelberger, professor, nuclear physics laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle * Sankar Adhya, chief, developmental genetics section, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. * Frederick W. Alt, professor of genetics and pediatrics, and investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston * Frederick M. Ausubel, professor of genetics, Harvard Medical School, and molecular biologist, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston * Mary Ellen Avery, Thomas Morgan Rotch Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School * May R. Berenbaum, professor and head, entomology department, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign * Spencer J. Bloch, professor of mathematics, University of Chicago * Henry R. Bourne, professor of pharmacology and medicine, University of California, San Francisco * William S. Bowers, professor of entomology and chemical ecology, University of Arizona, Tucson * Marvin H. Caruthers, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder * Donald L.D. Caspar, professor of physics and research professor of structural biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass. * Leroy L. Chang, dean of science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology * Arnold L. Demain, professor of industrial microbiology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge * Stanley Deser, Ancell Professor of Physics, Brandeis University * Gerald D. Fasman, Rosenfield Professor of Biochemistry, Brandeis University * Alfred G. Fischer, professor of geology, emeritus, University of Southern California, Los Angeles * John H. Flavell, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, department of psychology, Stanford University, Calif. * Marye Anne Fox, Waggoner Regent's Chair in Chemistry, and director, Center for Fast Kinetics Research, University of Texas, Austin * Michael Freeling, professor of genetics and director, National Science Foundation Center for Plant Developmental Biology, University of California, Berkeley * David V. Goeddel, vice president of research (molecular biology), Tularik Inc., South San Francisco, Calif. * Eville Gorham, Regents' Professor (ecology), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis * John P. Hirth, professor of mechanical and materials engineering, Washington State University, Pullman * James R. Holton, professor of meteorology, University of Washington * David E. Housman, professor of biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and associate in neurology and genetics, Massachusetts General Hospital * Roger Howe, professor of mathematics, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. * Rudolf E. Kalman, Graduate Research Professor, Emeritus (electrical engineering), University of Florida, Gainesville; and Ad Personam Chair, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich * Charles D. Keeling, professor of oceanography, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, Calif. * Sung-Hou Kim, professor of chemistry, University of California, Berkeley * Judith P. Klinman, professor of chemistry, University of California, Berkeley * Herwig Kogelnik, director, Photonics Research Laboratory, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, N.J. * Robert B. Laughlin, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, department of physics, Stanford University * Anthony P. Mahowald, professor and chairman of molecular genetics and cell biology, University of Chicago * Andrew J. Majda, professor of mathematics, Princeton University, N.J. * Pamela A. Matson, professor of environmental science, policy, and management, University of California, Berkeley * Thomas J. Meyer, Kenan Professor of Chemistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill * Albert I. Meyers, University Distinguished Professor (chemistry), Colorado State University, Fort Collins * David R. Nelson, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. * Eugene W. Nester, chairman of microbiology, University of Washington * Roger A. Nicoll, professor of pharmacology and physiology, University of California, San Francisco * Maynard V. Olson, professor of molecular biotechnology, University of Washington * Donald W. Pfaff, professor of neurobiology and behavior, Rockefeller University, New York City * William H. Press, professor of astronomy and physics, Harvard University * Julius Rebek, Jr., Camille Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology * Matilda W. Riley, senior social scientist, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health * Michael G. Rosenfeld, professor, School of Medicine; and investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, San Diego * John M. Rowell, vice president and chief technical officer (physics), Conductus Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif. * Jeremy A. Sabloff, University Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh * Myriam Sarachik, professor of physics, City College of New York * Lucille Shapiro, Joseph D. Grant Professor and chairwoman of the developmental biology department, Stanford University School of Medicine * Burton H. Singer, Ira Vaughan Hiscock Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine * Steven M. Stanley, professor of geology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore * Edward M. Stolper, William E. Leonhard Professor of Geology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena * Stanley J. Tambiah, professor of anthropology and curator of Southeast Asian ethnology, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University * Thomas N. Taylor, professor of botany, professor of geology and mineralogy, and research scientist, Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University, Columbus * George Veronis, professor of geophysics and applied science, Henry Barnard Davis Professor of Physics, and director, applied mathematics program, Yale University * Ellen S. Vitetta, professor of microbiology and director, Cancer Immunobiology Center, University of Texas Southwest Medical Center, Dallas * Eric F. Wieschaus, professor of biology, Princeton University * Oliver E. Williamson, professor of business, economics, and law, University of California, Berkeley * Robert B. Wilson, Atholl McBean Professor of Economics, Stanford University * Henry T. Wright, professor of anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor INSIGHTS FROM INSIDE: NAS membership is still mostly male, but academy member Vera Rubin senses a definite shift in attitude. (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.1, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Job Prospects Termed Discouraging For This Year's New Science Grads Career analysts suggest that the latest crop of researchers hone their skills in other areas AU : KAREN YOUNG KREEGER TY : NEWS PG : 1 Clasping a diploma in one hand and a resume in the other, newly minted science graduates are celebrating their achievements all over the United States this month. However, their enthusiasm may be dampened somewhat when they get down to the hard business of job hunting in the tough employment climate that placement experts say has characterized the science profession in the past several years. Career counselors are advising graduates to broaden their skills and consider employers outside the traditional research areas in academia, industry, and government in their search strategy. These placement specialists say that while there may not be many openings in U.S. labs, there are alternative career paths in which a scientific background is becoming a major benefit--in law, business, public policy, and communications, for example. "People who have multiple skills and talents are much better off than people who are narrowly focused, especially at the master's level," says Joan Burrelli, a research analyst in the department of career services at the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Washington, D.C. Experts are warning that those graduates who have their heart set on a research job do not have an easy search ahead of them. Seasoned job hunters, recruiters, and counselors all advise new graduates to start early, maintain a flexible outlook, be assertive, and diversify their skills. "I started about 10 months before I planned on graduating, sending out about 30 letters of inquiry," says Daniel Kephart, who started postdoctoral work in late January in the molecular virology and host defense group at Philadelphia-based pharmaceutical company Smith-Kline Beecham. Philip McQueen, a physicist formerly with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., advises job hunters to "push the skills and attributes you are most proud of. Make sure prospective employers know about them." He adds that taking courses in areas outside his primary field opened him up "to new job possibilities." The need for new scientists to expand their job-search horizons is intensifying as several scientific societies report downward employment trends in their fields. For example, according to an internal report entitled "Employment Outlook for Chemists and Chemical Engineers," issued last month by ACS, the prospects for chemists worsened in 1993. Unemployment figures for experienced chemists (2 percent) and chemical engineers (3.5 percent) are the highest they have been in the last 10 years. For new graduates, the figures are much worse. ACS reports in its fall 1993 salary survey that unemployment was 19 percent for new B.S. grads (up from 10 percent in 1992), 13 percent for new M.S. grads (up from 5 percent), and 17 percent for new Ph.D. grads (up from 4 percent). Meanwhile, the American Mathematical Society, Providence, R.I., states that the 1993 unemployment figure for new math Ph.D.'s was the third highest since 1971--12.7 percent. The American Institute of Physics (AIP), College Park, Md., reports that unemployment among people who have earned their physics Ph.D.'s in the last two years is about 3.2 percent. While overall unemployment figures for scientists (about 2 percent to 4 percent) are low compared with the national average (about 6 percent to 7 percent), these statistics, especially for scientists entering the profession, can be jolting. "These are bad numbers relative to what scientists and engineers normally experience," says Burrelli, noting that, in general, current unemployment figures for science are "two to three times higher" than in the recent past. Uncertainty In The Life Sciences According to Robert Weatherall, director of career services at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at the Ph.D./postdoctoral level, it is "hard to keep track of the employment statistics in life sciences because postdocs [in these disciplines] are an unsurveyed group." However, the consensus among employment specialists in government, industry, academia, and professional societies is that the job outlook in the life sciences is, for the most part, flat. Although detailed, current data on employment trends are not systematically gathered for the biological sciences, the most recent statistics for employment in life and environmental sciences can be found in a National Science Foundation draft report (see accompanying table) entitled "Characteristics of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers in the United States: 1991." Another report--prepared by the Rockville, Md.-based consulting firm Westat Inc. for the American Society for Microbiology (ASM)--summarizes the views of employers, educators, and funders in the microbiological sciences about their discipline's employment and training needs, expressed at six ASM-sponsored focus-group meetings. These sessions, conducted between November 1993 and January 1994, were held to explore the need for and feasibility of conducting a nationwide survey on education and job-related issues in microbiology. In the ASM report, some industry participants in the focus groups are quoted as saying that a "volatile and uncertain job market faces the profession today." However, they note that there is a shortage of specialists in fermentation and microbial physiology, especially at the doctoral level. Regarding the situation in academia, university officials state in the ASM report that a bachelor's or master's degree in microbiology is more marketable than a general biology degree. They also say that new Ph.D.'s entering the job market will find their prospects worse than those with B.S. or M.S. degrees and that there does not appear to be a growing need for more university faculty in microbiology in the near future. Mary Alice Yund, a biotechnology consultant based in Berkeley, Calif., paints a very similar picture for the biotechnology industry in the San Francisco Bay area. "The overall outlook is not that rosy," says Yund. However, she says, some companies are hiring more and job seekers must do their homework to know where to target their efforts. "Smaller companies don't get as many c.v.'s as the larger companies," she says, so they are a good place to key in on. Yund also advises that, because there is such a diversity of biotechnology companies to apply to, job hunters should carefully match their skills with prospective companies. Yund and colleague Ellen M. Martin--communications director at DNA Plant Technology, Oakland, Calif.--run a weekly lunchtime seminar for job seekers held at the Bay Area Bioscience Center, a public-information organization. In their work there, Martin says, they recently have seen many life scientists recruited into law. "If you can stand the long educational road, it's a dynamite combination," Martin says. Yund and Martin's advice to people looking for alternatives is to combine a science background with training in business, finance, accounting, law, or communications. Also commenting on alternative career paths for life scientists, Melanie Graper, director of worldwide employment for research and development at SmithKline Beecham, says, "Patent attorneys are one of the hottest fields for employment. We are looking for people with a B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in life science and a law degree." Other high-demand combination fields in industry, according to Graper, are bioinformatics, pharmacoeconomics, and bio- statistics. Graper says that SmithKline is "hiring approximately the same number of people this year compared to last year," although she declines to give exact numbers. She also mentions that the general life sciences disciplines of molecular biology, pathology, immunology, and pharmacokinetics are fields in demand at present. In government laboratories, some observers cited in the ASM report noted, there is a need for broadly experienced clinical microbiologists at the Ph.D. level and people with more hands-on experience at the M.S./B.S. level. Michael Fordis, director of the Office of Education at the National Institutes of Health, says that although NIH is in the midst of a hiring freeze, this does not necessarily limit the number of postdoctoral fellows that the institutes will take on in the next year. "The NIH still has major opportunities for postdocs," he says. "We've instituted a new tenure-track program and anticipate that postdoctoral training positions will continue to be strongly supported. It's important for people to understand that these positions are limited by budgetary constraints and programmatic needs rather than a ceiling on positions." Physical Sciences Outlook ACS's Burrelli says the job market this year for chemists, compared with the recent past, is "still poor" and that it has "probably bottomed out." According to the May ACS internal report, opportunities are higher in pharmaceutical companies, analytical service labs, contract research firms, and environmental labs. Burrelli adds that "increasingly there is more employment for chemists in small or medium-sized firms rather than large firms." SmithKline Beecham's Graper adds that synthetic and organic chemists are in high demand at her company. Hiring is down in industrial sectors such as agricultural chemicals, coatings, electronics, plastics, and petrochemicals, as well as in academia and in government, according to the ACS report. But Burrelli views the environmental field as one that "will continue to grow." Chemical-industry recruiters are looking for people who are familiar with government regulations on laboratory practices and environmental clean-up, says Michael Aschner, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Albany Medical College in New York and chairman of the placement committee for the Society of Toxicology's 1994 annual meeting. In general, ACS officials say, recruiters need people with flexibility and good interpersonal skills as well as technical breadth and depth. Burrelli also says that having a degree or experience in such areas as information science, computing, or law-- especially patent law--is beneficial. Marketing and sales experience, especially for people now at the B.S. and M.S. levels, is important, says Burrelli, who predicts that this will be a "big area later." Edwin Goldin, manager of the career planning and placement division at AIP, says--citing AIP 1992 studies--that almost 60 percent of the new Ph.D.'s surveyed took postdoctoral fellowships. "Now that's astounding in itself because a decade ago only 40 percent took postdocs," says Goldin. He says the 1992 data show that academia gets the "lion's share" of money for postdocs and these have been slightly increasing "to take up the slack" in decreasing permanent positions. And, although industry and government research facilities usually have fewer postdoctoral positions to offer, he says that there is "perhaps a slight increase in [industry] postdocs." His overall view is that the situation is negative on the permanent employment side. The 1992 numbers, says Goldin, "are about as low as they go," and he expects the 1993 and 1994 figures to be much the same. Looking toward the future, he says that AIP, in addition to tracking traditional career paths, is beginning to amass much information on alternative careers for physicists. "I have a backlog of information about physicists moving into a number of areas that could be challenging and exciting," says Goldin. These are areas, says Goldin, that must "match the analytical lust a physicist has." For example, he says, large, multidimensional problems in environmental sciences such as designing transportation systems may be new fields for physicists to move into. Other topics he targets as growth areas are biophysics, computer hardware and software development, and information tech- nology. He advises all job seekers that "the more diverse they can make themselves, and the more they can combine interests and areas in their own education, the broader their options will be." (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.1, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : SCIENCE EMPLOYMENT TY : NEWS PG : 8 (Percentages of scientists who received their doctorates in 1991) Employed Degree field In Science Unemployed Underemployed* All sciences 89.0 1.5 1.8 Physical sciences 91.9 2.0 1.0 Mathematics 92.4 0.3 0.8 Computer sciences 95.3 1.4 0.3 Environmental sciences 94.1 1.1 1.9 Life sciences 92.6 1.7 1.6 Psychology 90.3 1.2 1.0 Social sciences 75.7 1.4 3.5 *Underemployed doctoral scientists are those who reported that they were either (1) holding part-time positions when they would have preferred working full time, or (2) working in nonscience occupations when they would have preferred science jobs. Source: Characteristics of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers in the United States: 1991, Science Resources Studies Division, National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C., forthcoming. (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.8, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : First Winner Of New Award For Women Scientists Sets High Standard AU : BARBARA SPECTOR TY : NEWS PG : 3 Members of the committee that selected Joan Argetsinger Steitz, a biochemist at Yale University's School of Medicine, as the first recipient of an award honoring women in science say their choice has established a standard of excellence for the prize. Steitz, the Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator at Yale, received the prize--the Weizmann Women and Science Award--at a ceremony at the New York Academy of Sciences on June 7. The $25,000 award is sponsored by the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, a promotion and fund-raising arm of the research center located in Rehovot, Israel. It honors an outstanding woman researcher in the United States who has made a significant contribution in either basic or applied science. "There was the sense [among the nominating committee members] that it was important to find someone whose work was absolutely of unimpeachable quality," says committee member Harriet Zuckerman, vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a professor, emerita, of sociology at Columbia University, both in New York City. "Joan Steitz fits that very well." Steitz, 53, is best known for defining the function of small nuclear ribonucleo-proteins, or snRNPs--which she pronounces "snurps"--cellular complexes that play a role in the splicing of messenger RNA. She and her student Michael Lerner first described snRNPs in 1979; she has been studying them ever since. Another `First' Being the initial recipient of the Weizmann award is only the latest in a series of "firsts" in Steitz's career. In 1989, she became the first woman to win the Warren Triennial Prize, shared with Thomas R. Cech of the University of Colorado, Boulder. The prize, considered a "predictor" of the Nobel Prize (Cech won the 1989 Nobel in chemistry), is given by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston (The Scientist, Jan. 22, 1990, page 21). Steitz was also the first woman to win the National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology in 1982 and the first female recipient of the American Chemical Society's Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry in 1976. But her latest honor is one she particularly treasures, she says: "This one is very special because there aren't any [other] significant prizes targeted to women in science." According to the Washington, D.C.-based Association for Women in Science, the new Weizmann award is the only national, pandisciplinary prize (in contrast to a research grant) in the U.S. that is given to women exclusively; other women's awards have been discipline-specific or limited to women from a specific region. Sara Lee Schupf, national chairwoman of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science--whose main office is located in New York City, with 15 regional offices around the U.S.--says she devised the award as a way of calling attention both to the accomplishments of women scientists in the United States and to the Weizmann Institute. "We want to give recognition to a woman in science and, hopefully, to promote women scientist role models," Schupf says. "I've been doing a lot of reading about how important role models are," says Schupf, who is studying the contributions of women in science for a bachelor of arts degree in women's studies from Sarah Lawrence College and is a member of the board of the New York Women's Foundation. "I feel quite strongly about this." When it comes to role models, the first Weizmann award winner unquestionably fills the bill, according to one Nobel Prize-winning biomedical researcher. "I am so admiring of Joan Steitz," says Joshua Lederberg, University Professor at Rockefeller University in New York. "She is one of the country's outstanding scientists, male or female." Steitz's long list of professional accomplishments includes receipt of the National Medal of Science in 1986 and membership in the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. In 1990, she was named by The Scientist as one of the 10 most-cited women researchers of the 1980s (A. Grissom, The Scientist, Oct. 15, 1990, page 18). Her most cited paper of the period 1980-93, which has been referenced in nearly 400 subsequent articles, is S.M. Mount, I. Pettersson, M. Hinterberger, A. Karmas, J.A. Steitz, "The U1 small nuclear RNA-protein complex selectively binds a 5' splice site in vitro," Cell, 33:509-18, 1983. Another paper- -D.L. Black, B. Chabot, J.A. Steitz, "U2 as well as U1 small nuclear ribonucleoproteins are involved in pre-messenger RNA splicing," Cell, 42:737-50, 1985--accumulated almost 390 citations through 1993. These totals put both papers in the 99.9th percentile of all cited publications from 1945 to the present, according to data from the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information. Steitz earned her B.S. in chemistry from Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1963. She did graduate work at Harvard University, where she studied with DNA double helix codiscoverer James D. Watson, earning her M.A. in 1967 and her Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology in 1968. She then worked as a postdoc at Cambridge University, England, with Watson's colleague Francis Crick. In 1970 she joined the Yale faculty, becoming a full professor in 1978 and an HHMI investigator in 1986. Steitz says she has visited the Weizmann Institute in Israel once--in 1980, as part of a conference at which she gave a lecture on protein-nucleic acid interactions. An interesting aspect of her research on snRNPs and "one of the points I make in my talks," Steitz says, is that while usually basic scientific discoveries lead to advances in clinical medicine, in this case clinical studies provided materials that proved to be "absolutely essential" for basic research. The immune system of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus makes antibodies against their bodies' own molecules and thus often makes autoantibodies against snRNPs. Steitz and colleagues have used these antibodies to study the roles of different kinds of snRNPs in gene expression. Picking A Winner In addition to Schupf and Zuckerman, the award nominating committee consisted of Ruth Arnon, a professor in the chemical immunology department at the Weizmann Institute in Israel; Florence Haseltine, director of the Center for Population Research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.; psychologist Frances Degen Horowitz, president of the graduate school and university center of the City University of New York; Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., a professor of biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and editor of Science; Ellen Levine, editor-in- chief of Redbook and a member of the board of directors of the National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations; Suzanne Braun Levine, editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journalism Review; Rodney W. Nichols, chief executive officer of the New York Academy of Sciences; Mary Reuchlin Rifkin, associate director of cell biology at the Brookdale Center for Molecular Biology of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York; David Z. Robinson, executive director of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government in New York; and Maxine F. Singer, president of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. Despite their numerous other commitments, nominating committee members say, they were willing to devote the time to read up on the various candidates and select a winner because of their respect for the award's sponsor. "The Weizmann Institute is one of the world's outstanding institutes," says Koshland. It is especially appropriate that a science award for women be given under the auspices of an Israeli research center, Koshland says, because in that young country "women have always been part of the work force." Candidates for the award were culled from names submitted for consideration by various academies of science, from lists of nominees for other prizes, and from suggestions contributed by nominating committee members The pool of nominees "was not in the hundreds, but it was not just three or four, either," says Nichols, noting that the field was "rather wide open and extremely competitive." The scientific contribution of each candidate was judged according to "where it fit into the whole field and how pioneering the discovery was," says Koshland. Nichols adds that the committee was looking for individuals who demonstrated "the highest standards of professional accomplishment, particularly over a long period of time--not just one paper or one patent." Because they were selecting the first winner of the award, committee members say, they found it necessary to establish certain criteria. Among the questions they addressed, says Schupf, was "What sciences do we [honor] with this award?" After some discussion, she says, the committee decided to consider researchers in "the kinds of sciences that Weizmann supports," namely the "hard" sciences--mathematics, physics, chemistry (including environmental science and energy research), biophysics-biochemistry, and biology. Another matter that needed to be settled, committee members say, was whether the award should be given to a young scientist or an older, more established researcher. "There was some sense that it was a good idea to pick someone in mid-career, rather than someone who had gotten a ton of awards and was at the end of her career," says Nichols. Schupf adds that the panel opted not to select a younger recipient because "young scientists could get the award later on." After some discussion, it was decided not to take personal issues--such as whether a nominee had had to balance research and childrearing--into account, says Nichols, because the committee decided that "we'd never know enough" about each candidate. Steitz says she understands how important role models can be for young women wanting to pursue careers in science because she herself did not know any such women. "At the time I was a graduate student, there were no women professors in the biological sciences at any major university," she says. "There were [women] who worked in research positions for many years who were later appointed to professorships but didn't follow the traditional career path of assistant to associate to full professor--the university [where they had worked for many years] finally woke up and made them professors." Consequently, "I never envisioned myself as being what I am today," she says. "I thought I would be a research associate in someone else's lab. I never thought that I would teach; I never thought that I would mentor graduate students; I never thought that I would be an active and prominent faculty member at a prominent institution." Steitz recalls that, when she and her husband, Thomas A. Steitz (now also a professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale), were preparing to return to the United States from England in 1970, it came as a great shock to her that "various institutions offered us both jobs. It was such a scary prospect because there were no role models out there." But, she says, as the result of "my husband being very supportive, and friends and previous mentors being very supportive," she came to the realization that "it was my responsibility to do it [accept a faculty position]." The Merits Of Segregation In an ideal society, some nominating committee members acknowledge, there would be no need for a separate science prize for women, because they would be receiving a sizable proportion of the major science awards open to everyone. "I would like to get to the point where [a women's science award] was not necessary," says Zuckerman. "But I think there's continuing evidence that women who do very important scientific work get rewarded later and less often than male scientists." Committee member Haseltine agrees, citing as one of many examples Salome Waelsch, Distinguished University Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York, who received the National Medal of Science last year, at the age of 86 (P. Beck, The Scientist, Nov. 15, 1993, page 7). Waelsch, who helped lay the foundation for modern genetics, "hardly got any awards before that one," Haseltine says. "The men know how to get attention--women aren't as good at it." Haseltine adds that her desire to see excellent women researchers get the accolades they deserve was one of the reasons she accepted the invitation to serve on the committee. "I'm in a position now to help other women get [awards]," she says. "I feel it's a responsibility once you identify it [lack of recognition for women] as a problem." (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.3, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: NOTEBOOK ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Weissmann Honored TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK) PG : 4 Heidi Weissmann, the radiology researcher who in 1989 prevailed in a copyright case against her former lab chief and earlier this year settled a sex-discrimination case against her former employers for $900,000 (B. Spector, The Scientist, April 18, 1994, page 1), was honored last month with a $3,000 special recognition award from the Cavallo Foundation. The Cambridge, Mass.-based organization "was created in 1987 to recognize and reward acts of moral courage in business and government." The award was presented to Weissmann at a ceremony held at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., by John Edsall, a professor, emeritus, of biochemistry at Harvard University, who had nominated her for the honor. "The way she was treated was really outrageous," says Edsall, noting that Weissmann's former institutions, Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, N.Y., removed her from her job (they contend that she resigned) while promoting and paying the legal expenses of Leonard Freeman, who ultimately lost the copyright suit. Weissmann says that the fact that the 91-year-old Edsall came to Washington at his own expense to present the award to her "means more to me than I can express." She notes: "In addition to his contributions to medicine, he is revered for his long history of advocating for issues of individual responsibility and social justice. We need more people like him in society and medicine." (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.4, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Long-Term Helping Hand TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK) PG : 4 The Burroughs Wellcome Fund of North Carolina is accepting nominations for its new Career Awards in the Biomedical Sciences, which provide up to six years of support to help United States and Canadian biomedical investigators from their advanced postodoctoral positions through their first three years of faculty service in making the transition to independent investigators. A maximum of 12 awards will be made each year, with six reserved for Ph.D.'s in the biomedical sciences and six for M.D.'s or M.D./Ph.D.'s. Nominations for the awards are made by the candidate's institution, which must be a nonprofit entity that is not classified as a private foundation. The deadline for applications is October 1 for awards beginning on or after July 1, 1995. For information and nomination materials, contact The Burroughs Wellcome Fund, 4709 Creekstone Dr., Suite 100, Morrisville, N.C.; (919) 991-5100. Fax: (919) 941-5884. (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.4, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : NYNEX Winners TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK) PG : 4 A team of four high school juniors from the Wheeler School in Providence, R.I., took the top prize in the first NYNEX Science and Technology Awards competition last month in Washington, D.C. In the NYNEX contest, students propose scientific solutions to community problems and winners are provided with grants to enable them to work with scientists to develop a prototype or set up a pilot program or laboratory to test their ideas (L. Katterman, The Scientist, Nov. 15, 1993, page 3). The four winners--Christopher Gordon, Alison McLennan, Aimee Olin, and Lillian Shuey--will each receive a $15,000 scholarship and the opportunity to begin work on their proposal to improve the quality of the Runnins River located near their school. Their project requires extensive testing for and identification of pollutants in the river. They plan to build fish ladders at two impassable dams to bring back the shad population to the river and restore its official fishable classification. A total of 398 high school teams in the Northeast competed, from which 12 teams were chosen to face off against each other in Washington. Second place, and individual $10,000 scholarships, went to a team from Ward Melville High School in Setauket, N.Y. A combined team from Stuyvesant High School in New York City and Brookline High School in Boston took third place and $5,000 scholarships. (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.4, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Brandeis' First Genetic Counseling Class TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK) PG : 4 Among this year's graduates of Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., were the first six students of a master's degree program in genetic counseling--the only one of its kind in the New England area. The program is designed to train students in all aspects of genetic counseling, from interpreting DNA tests in the laboratory for the diagnosis and screening of disorders to counseling families about various human genetic conditions. The two-year curriculum combines academic courses such as reproductive biology and medical genetics with field work to acquaint students with new technologies for screening, diagnosis, and treatment, as well as long-term internships at hospitals and genetic centers in the Boston area, such as the Perkins School for the Blind. For program information, contact Judith Tsipis, director, Genetic Counseling Program, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass. 02254; (617) 736-3165. E-mail: tsipis@binah.cc.brandeis.edu. (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.4, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Government Software Guide TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK) PG : 4 The 1994 edition of the Directory of U.S. Government Computer Software for Mainframes and Microcomputers, published by the Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service (NTIS), is available. The directory describes more than 800 programs developed by hundreds of federal agencies and covers applications software, graphics software, and modeling and simulation programs, arranged under 18 subject areas. Each entry summarizes the package and provides information on programming language, operating system, hardware, and memory requirements. The directory also contains a subject index and a U.S. government agency index. For information, contact NTIS at (703) 487-4650. (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.4, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Creature Comforts TY : NEWS (NOTEBOOK) PG : 4 The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has released a revised edition of its popular booklet Classroom Creature Culture: Algae to Anoles, which contains articles on the collection, care, and study of more than 30 plants and animals that can be cultured or raised in the classroom. The first Classroom Creature Culture, published in 1986, was culled from articles in NSTA's Science and Children journal. The revised edition includes new articles from the journal and has been reorganized in a sequence based on evolutionary relationships, from simpler organisms to the more complex. Among the creatures featured are protozoa, earthworms, crayfish, daddy longlegs, tiger salamanders, newts, snakes, and anoles (chameleons). For information, contact NSTA Publication Sales, 1840 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Va. 22201; (800) 722-6782. (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.4, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: OPINION ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Dangerous Diagnostics And Their Social Consequences AU : DOROTHY NELKIN AND LAURENCE TANCREDI TY : OPINION PG : 12 Research in molecular biology and the neurosciences is increasing our ability to predict the incidence of an expanding number of diseases and conditions. Geneticists are beginning to isolate the genes that predispose people to common kinds of cancer, and attention has also turned to detecting susceptibility to complex conditions such as heart disease, leukemia, juvenile diabetes, mental illness, alcoholism, and Alzheimer's. The hope is to discover clues to these conditions before symptoms appear. The goal is to detect susceptible individuals--those who are "at risk." Reflecting the growing focus on the hereditary basis of disease, genetic testing is becoming a part of general medical practice--so much so that, in 1992, the American Medical Association recognized medical genetics as a separate subspecialty of internal medicine. Scientists should be aware of the potential abuses of the predictive information generated by their research and how such information is influencing social policy. The significance of this information in the 1990s stems from the current social and political climate--the increasing sense of crisis over the cost of health-care services, the prevalence of criminal violence, and the general state of the economy. In the field of health care, the Clinton administration has proposed reforms that call for cost containment and a rational distribution of benefits through changes in the organization of services. Meanwhile, the criminal justice system is struggling ever more urgently to deal with the growing public fear of crime. And employers, faced with economic survival, seek ways to avoid insurance costs. Dilemmas And Options Economic and social imperatives are enhancing the social value of presymptomatic testing. In a society preoccupied with health-care costs, fetal diagnosis can be a form of preventive medicine, allowing family planning to avoid costly medical conditions. Mass screening can detect susceptibility to common diseases, allowing individuals to take preventive or therapeutic measures. But as programs are organized to detect those with an increasing range of predisposing conditions, they face clinical and social- policy dilemmas. The identification of specific genes allows the development of clinical tests for diseases well in advance of therapeutic possibilities. Thus, individuals at risk deal with difficult options. Should a healthy woman diagnosed as genetically susceptible to breast cancer undergo a prophylactic mastectomy? Or participate in trials of tamoxifen, an experimental cancer-prevention drug? For those diagnosed as predisposed to a hereditary disease, what are the implications for family planning? Such questions are assuming broader social dimensions as scientists seek biological sources of behavioral and personality traits. Geneticists originally promoted genome research for its importance in locating the genes for disease. But attention is now turning to the documentation and anticipation of psychiatric disorders and socially important behavioral traits. Research on the brain, for example, is focusing on the biological basis of addiction and aggression. Scientists have discovered correlations between the tendency toward violence and the levels of serotonin in the brain, revealing a genetic variation in serotonin levels mapped to chromosome 11. This opens the possibility of predicting those who may be predisposed to violent behavior by measuring serotonin or studying chromosome 11 in the fetus. Also, research on addiction suggests that the receptor sites for cocaine involve those regions of the dopamine system that are specifically associated with obsessive compulsive behavior. The disruption of this system favors compulsive drug taking and other tendencies that could prevent individuals from controlling violent behavior. Predictive possibilities are also emerging from studies of the brain using positron emission tomography (PET). Refinements in imaging technologies during the 1990s have expanded reliance on biological tests. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can now be used effectively to study the function as well as the structure of the brain. Less costly and less invasive than PET, it is becoming much more widely applied. Policies And Practices There is considerable popular support for the use of these diagnostic techniques for predictive purposes. A pervasive belief in the importance of biological predispositions encourages expectations that inherent qualities largely explain an individual's past performance and can be used to predict future behavior. Such expectations help to legitimate social policies and institutional practices based on biological predictions. The courts have been especially receptive to biological explanations. Several recent custody decisions, for example, have turned on whether genetic relationships should take precedence over other values. Establishing genetic relationships as the criteria for such complex decisions appears to be an easy way to clarify ambiguities and to permit the resolution of disputes with dispatch. Assumptions about genetic predisposition have also guided decisions about responsibility and punishment and encouraged efforts to predict and prevent future crime. Biological defenses are used to mitigate punishment on the assumption that biological predisposition precludes free will. Thus, some courts during the 1980s allowed brain images from PET scans to enter sentencing decisions. In 1991, a New York court for the first time admitted information from a PET scan in a trial to determine the sanity of a defendant who had thrown his wife out the window of their apartment. To support the insanity defense, the defendant's lawyers introduced a PET image revealing a cyst on his brain, arguing that this prevented the man from controlling his behavior. After specialists testified that PET was an established diagnostic tool, the judge accepted the information. Broad Implications Growing public fears of crime have stimulated interest in using biological indicators to predict who may be predisposed to violent behavior. The appeal of genetic prediction is apparent in both journalistic and scientific speculations. A writer for Science Digest wondered whether children who are suspected of being genetically prone to criminal behavior should be isolated just as defective cars are recalled to the factory (L. Taylor, "The genetic defense," Science Digest, November 1992, page 44). And in a 1992 editorial, Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., editor of Science, wrote about acts of criminal violence: "When [we] can accurately predict future behavior, we may be able to prevent the damage" (Science, 255:777, 1992). The appeal of genetic explanations--and of predictive testing--grows as the intransigence of social problems converges with disillusionment about the efficacy of existing social reforms. As economic tensions increase, so too do the social implications of predictive testing. Many people find themselves ineligible for health insurance benefits, or constrained to remain in their current jobs because they would lose their insurance if they were to move on. Cases of genetic discrimination call attention to the difficulties of protecting medical information. The military and the FBI maintain repositories of genetic data for purposes of identification. Pathology laboratories store blood samples that are potential sources of genetic information. While data banks contain genetic information about a growing number of individuals and their families, there are no uniform standards to control access to records, to ensure the privacy of genetic information, and to prevent its abuse. The Americans With Disabilities Act (1992) defines disability to include asymptomatic disease. Designed to prohibit discrimination in hiring, it limits pre-employment testing to the assessment of a person's ability to perform a job. But the legislation does not preclude the use of "sound actuarial data" as a basis of limiting health-care benefits. Thus, the standard underwriting assumptions of the insurance industry are not affected. And the scope of the issues covered by the act has yet to be tested. Meanwhile, the growing ability to predict diseases in asymptomatic people and the increasing information about future health risks are expanding health-care needs, with implications for reforms that are intended to control costs while ensuring universal access to medical services. Current economic incentives are bound to encourage health-care insurers and providers to demand predictive information from tests and to avoid high-risk patients. The challenge will be to ensure fairness in the coverage of genetic conditions at a time when pressures for cost containment are forcing health providers to find ways to classify and categorize individuals, and limit institutional obligations. Exaggerated Expectations The promise of "scientific" prediction has become increasingly seductive, for science appears to offer definitive answers to institutional dilemmas at a time when 14 percent of the gross national product is used to finance the health-care system, crime is regarded as a crisis, and employers are concerned about costs. Scientists themselves are feeding exaggerated public expectations. As they seek to improve their public image and communicate the excitement and the benefits of their work, they use rhetorical strategies that encourage the social appropriation of predictive biological information. Geneticists, for example, refer to the gene as a "Delphic Oracle," a "blueprint of life," a "medical crystal ball." They describe their work with deterministic metaphors: "Our fate is in our genes." Defining the genome as a "dictionary" or a "map," they suggest that science will reduce ambiguity in complex social situations, enhancing control over behavior as well as disease. Such promises clearly capture public interest, but in communicating their research, scientists must recognize that the use of scientific information depends on its relationship to social needs, that scientific findings are always interpreted in a cultural terrain and appropriated to support prevailing beliefs. Ultimately, the power of science depends less on questions of validity than on political and social concerns. And in the current social context, biological information is bound to have more and more powerful consequences for social policy and individual rights. Dorothy Nelkin is University Professor in the department of sociology and the School of Law at New York University; Laurence Tancredi is a psychiatrist and lawyer affiliated with NYU's School of Medicine. For further development of the themes in this essay, see the second edition of Nelkin and Tancredi's Dangerous Diagnostics: The Social Power of Biological Information (University of Chicago Press, 1994). (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.12, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: COMMENTARY ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : In Revising The Guide For Lab Animal Use, We Welcome Comments From All Quarters AU : Thomas L. Wolfle TY : OPINION (COMMENTARY) PG : 13 For the past several months, the National Research Council's (NRC) Committee to Revise the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals has been poring over an 83-page booklet that provides humane guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals. The committee's charge from NRC is to revise and update the booklet--first published in 1963-- while keeping its original tone and approach intact. Work on this revision of the booklet--better known simply as "the Guide"--has generated more than 200 written comments from researchers and others and has attracted sizable crowds at public meetings across the United States. Those who use, care for, and oversee the use of animals in biomedical research are following the progress of our work. The Guide, now in its sixth edition, has had an important impact both in the U.S. and abroad; nearly 400,000 copies have been distributed since its initial appearance. The Public Health Service and other agencies that set guidelines for government-funded research consider it the standard reference for activities involving laboratory animals. Numerous advances have been made in laboratory-animal science since the booklet was last revised in 1985, and considerable experience has been gained from its use by federal agencies as well as the American Association for the Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, a private organization whose accredited institutions account for nearly 80 percent of all animals used in U.S. labs. New information has been obtained during the past decade about animal behavior; improved methods for the care and use of laboratory animals have been established; experimental animal models, such as transgenic mice, have been developed that require new husbandry and veterinary-care practices; and new techniques have been created for animal husbandry that may permit more flexibility in facility design. At the same time, there has been a dramatic increase in public awareness of and concern over the use of animals in research. These developments pointed to the need to revise the Guide. Two committees--one appointed to make recommendations to NRC as to whether a revision was needed, and the other to accomplish the revision--have agreed that new information must be incorporated in the Guide's current coverage of institutional policies, husbandry, veterinary care, and physical plant, so that it will be consistent with current scientific knowledge, major changes in animal-welfare regulations, and changes in patterns of animal usage, and will refer to published materials to support recommendations where possible. The revision committee was appointed by NRC, the administrative arm of the National Academy of Sciences, with oversight provided by NRC's Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources. The 15 people on the committee represent various scientific disciplines and backgrounds, including laboratory-animal medicine, behavior, husbandry, medical ethics, education, and testing. Two are nonscientists--a philosopher and a community representative of an animal care and use committee. The latter--appointed in response to recommendations from participants at public meetings--is, among other things, gathering comments from animal- protection organizations and concerned individuals. The committee, and ultimately the success of the seventh edition of the Guide, depend on community involvement. It welcomes and encourages input from the scientific community, animal-protection groups, and the general public. As a part of the revision process, the committee has held six public meetings to date, and written comments have been received from 216 organizations and individuals. Much of this information has come from people familiar with laboratory-animal medicine literature and practice, as well as from members of the public. The committee invites comments from scientists and others at any time during the revision process, which is expected to be completed in 1995. With the help of the scientific, animal-welfare, and lay communities, we trust that the document will continue to be considered the standard of laboratory animal care and use worldwide. Thomas L. Wolfle is program director of the Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources, National Research Council, and study director for the revision of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Reader comments for the Committee to Revise the Guide may be sent to Wolfle at the institute, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20418; E-mail: twolfle@nas.edu. (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.13, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Library Funding AU : ALBERT HENDERSON TY : OPINION (LETTERS) PG : 13 Lest Franklin Hoke's excellent article, "Scientists Press for Boost in Federal Library Funding" (The Scientist, Feb. 21, 1994, page 1), leave the wrong impression, I would like to emphasize that many of my consulting clients since 1981 have been not-for-profit organizations interested in achieving performance objectives in terms of the marketplace and their mission statements. No publisher, commercial or otherwise, dictated my writing or speech. I have openly disagreed with and criticized many publishers, such as the American Physical Society, when I believe they have failed the interests of their members, not without some reluctance and disappointment. My consulting services are for hire, not for sale. If, after reading the comments of Association of Research Libraries spokeswoman Ann Okerson, any of your readers are interested in another librarian's point of view, they might like to read "The treason of the learned. The real agenda of those who would destroy libraries and books," by Michael Gorman, Dean of Library Services, California State University, Fresno (Library Journal, 119[3]:130-1, Feb. 15, 1994). His comments clarify why the typical university spends today half what it spent 25 years ago to keep its research collections up-to-date--and where the money goes. ALBERT HENDERSON Box 2423 Noble Station Bridgeport, Conn. 06608-0423 E-mail: 70244.1532@compuserve.com (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.13, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Scientists With Disabilities AU : E.C. KELLER, JR. TY : OPINION (LETTERS) PG : 13 The article in The Scientist by Neeraja Sankaran (March 7, 1994, page 3) discussing a report on the "composition of the United States work force" by the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology (CPST) completely ignores the presence of people with disabilities in the science and technology work force. This deficiency may be a reflection not on the author, but rather on the state of affairs in science and technology professions. Unfortunately, it is not at all uncommon to ignore people with disabilities throughout the science, engineering, and technology communities. There are some 43 million people with disabilities, with some 100,000 employed in the scientific work force (as compared with some 85,000 African American scientists). People with disabilities have been recognized for years as an underrepresented group in science, engineering, and technology. Even with the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, it is difficult for the scientist/ educator with disabilities to see how CPST can claim "its purpose is to collect, analyze, and disseminate information about human resources in the sciences and technology" and yet ignore a very large segment of those human resources that are universally recognized as being underrepresented. The article states that the next step is the retention of qualified women in the work force, but the absolute next step is the inclusion of people with disabilities (men and women, including all ethnic backgrounds) in the dialogues and concerns of the entire science, engineering, and technology community. E.C. KELLER, JR. Treasurer and Past President Foundation for Science and Disability 236 Grand St. Morgantown, W.Va. 26505 (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.13, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- 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 71764.2561@compuserve.com ===================================== The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : Citations Reveal Leaders In Neuroscience TY : RESEARCH PG : 15 *** Editor's Note: In 1989, the United States Congress declared the 1990s as the Decade of the Brain. In an effort to assess the neuroscience research being conducted during this period, the newsletter Science Watch compiled a list of the top neuroscience research centers and most-cited papers for the five-year period 1988-92. Science Watch--published by the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)--used the ISI Science Indicators Database to identify leaders in neuroscience, a field that has been producing breakthrough after breakthrough in areas such as Alzheimer's disease and neuronal function in recent years. The following article is reprinted from the February 1994 issue of Science Watch (5[2]:1-2), with permission of the newsletter and ISI. *** Perhaps forever destroying the stereotype that Californians are wanting when it comes to gray matter, two research institutions in the Golden State--the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla and California Institute of Technology in Pasadena--have captured the top two spots in Science Watch's latest ranking for neuroscience research. The survey examined about 147,000 papers published and cited during the period 1988-92. Half of the top 12 institutions in this field call California home. The other four from the sunny state ranking near the top are Stanford University, at fifth; the University of California, San Francisco, at sixth; and Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif., and the University of California, Irvine, at 11th and 12th, respectively. In the table at right, the top 25 institutions (among those that published at least 200 papers during the five-year span) are ranked according to their citations-per-paper scores, a weighted measure of research impact. The current ranking actually updates a survey of neuroscience research that Science Watch featured three years ago, based on papers published between 1986 and 1990 (Science Watch, 2[6]:1-2, July 1991). In the previous study, neuroscience papers from the multidisciplinary journals Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences were not included in the analysis, since such papers could not, at the time, be selected out from the countless other types of reports appearing in those journals. This time around, however, neuroscience papers appearing in the Big Three multidisciplinary journals were taken into account. And, not surprisingly, the heavyweight trio provided nearly all the action in terms of highly cited papers. The table at left lists the most cited neuroscience papers of each year from 1988 through 1992. Of the 17 papers, Science and Nature published 15 between them, and PNAS and Neuron published one apiece. Among the top three institutions from the table, two managed to get more than one paper on the list of most-cited reports: the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry, Martinsried, Germany, fielded three of the papers (J. Leibrock et al., in 1989; K. Keinanen et al., in 1990; and A. Hohn et al., in 1990), while the Salk Institute fielded two papers (M. Hollman et al., in 1989; and J. Boulter et al., in 1990). Although Science Watch examined only those institutions that produced more than 200 papers between 1988 and 1992, a few smaller producers, whose output of papers was just below the cutoff for inclusion in the study, deserve mention. They include the international pharmaceutical firm Merck, Sharp & Dohme (United States offices, under the name Merck & Co., located in Rahway, N.J.; 176 papers; impact of 14.41); the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, based in Bethesda, Md. (173 papers; impact of 8.18); the University of Geneva, Switzerland (186 papers; impact of 7.82); and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City (189 papers; impact of 7.58). As the table of papers illustrates, the hot areas of investigation in neuroscience during 1988-92 include amyloid proteins in Alzheimer's disease, glutamate receptors, and the role of calcium channels in neuronal function. NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH, 1988-92: INSTITUTIONS RANKED BY CITATION IMPACT (among those publishing at least 200 papers, 1998-92) Rank Institution Papers Citations Impact 1 Salk Institute, La Jolla, Calif. 304 5,019 16.51 2 California Institute of Technology, Pasadena 210 2,740 13.05 3 Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry, Germany 547 5,633 10.30 4 Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston 236 2,367 10.03 5 Stanford University, Calif. 1,001 9,810 9.80 6 University of California, 1,268 11,626 9.17 San Francisco 7 Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 1,454 13,100 9.01 8 Washington University, St. Louis 1,034 9,251 8.95 9 Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. 2,194 19,373 8.83 10 Rockefeller University, New York 604 5,308 8.79 11 Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif. 288 2,523 8.76 12 University of California, Irvine 862 7,520 8.72 13 University of Heidelberg, Germany 587 5,086 8.66 14 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 419 3,583 8.55 15 National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, Md. 1,062 8,768 8.26 16 National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Md. 1,490 12,249 8.22 17 University of Chicago 620 4,919 7.93 18 University of London, 513 3,902 7.61 University College 19 Columbia University, New York 1,539 11,650 7.57 20 Massachusetts General Hospital, 807 6,048 7.49 21 University of California, San Diego 1,478 11,061 7.48 22 University of Miami, 518 3,808 7.35 Coral Gables, FL 23 Georgetown University, Washington,D.C. 371 2,697 7.27 24 McLean Hospital, Belmont, Mass. 267 1,882 7.05 25 Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore 1,698 11,909 7.01 Source: ISI's Science Indicators Database THE MOST-CITED PAPERS IN NEUROSCIENCE, 1988-92 Rank 1988 Total Citations 1 N. Kitaguchi, Y. Takahashi, Y. Tokushima, 432 S. Shiojiri, H. Ito, "Novel precursor of Alzheimer's disease amyloid protein shows protease inhibitory activity," Nature, 331:530-2, 1988 2 E.S. Levitan, P.R. Schofield, D.R. Burt, 348 L.M. Rhee, W. Wisden, M. Kohler, N. Fujita, H.F. Rodriguez, A. Stephenson, M.G. Darlison, E.A. Barnard, P.H. Seeburg, "Structural and functional basis for GABAA receptor heterogeneity," Nature, 335:76-9, 1988 3 L.D. Hirning, A.P. Fox, E.W. McClesky, 315 B.M. Olivera, S.A. Thayer, R.J. Miller, "Dominant role of N-type Ca2+ channels in evoked release norepinephrine from sympathetic neurons," Science, 239:57-61, 1988 4 N.W. Kleckner, R. Dingledine, "Requirement 298 for glycine in activation of NMDA receptors expressed in Xenopus oocytes," Science, 241:835-7, 1988 1989 1 M. Hollman, A. O'Shea-Greenfield, S.W. Rogers, 241 S. Heinemann, "Cloning by functional expression of a member of the glutamate receptor family," Nature, 342:643-8, 1989 2 J. Leibrock, F. Lottspeich, A. Hohn, M. Hofer, 221 B. Hengerer, P. Masiakowski, H. Thoenen, Y.-A. Barde, "Molecular cloning and expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor," Nature, 341:149-52, 1989 3 M.C. Raff, "Glial cell diversification in the 206 rat optic nerve," Science, 243:1450-5, 1989 4 M.R. Plummer, D.E. Logothetis, P. Hess, 202 "Elementary properties and pharmacological sensitivities of calcium channels in mammalian peripheral neurons," Neuron, 2:1453-63, 1989 1990 1 P.C. Maisonpierre, L. Belluscio, S. Squinto, 225 N.Y. Ip, M.E. Furth, R.M. Lindsay, G.D. Yancopoulos, "Neurotrophin-3: a neurotrophic factor related to NGF and BDNF," Science, 247:1446-51, 1990 2 K. Keinnen, W. Wisden, B. Sommer, P. Werner, 222 A. Herb, T.A. Verdoorn, B. Sakmann, P.H. Seeburg, "A family of AMPA-selective glutamate receptors," Science, 249:556-60, 1990 3 A. Hohn, J. Leibrock, K. Bailey, Y.-A. Barde, 212 "Identification and characterization of a novel member of the nerve growth factor/brain-derived neurotrophic factor family," Nature, 344:339-41, 1990 4 J. Boulter, M. Hollmann, A. O'Shea-Greenfield, 158 M. Hartley, E. Deneris, C. Maron, S. Heinemann, "Molecular cloning and functional expression of glutamate receptor subunit genes," Science, 249:1033-7, 1990 1991 1 R.K. Sunahara, H.-C. Guan, B.F. O'Dowd, 152 P. Seeman, L.G. Laurier, G. Ng, S.R. George, J. Torchia, H.H.M. Van Tol, H.B. Niznik, "Cloning of the gene for a human dopamine D5 receptor with higher affinity for dopamine than D1," Nature, 350:614-9, 1991 2 M. Masu, Y. Tanabe, K. Tsuchida, R. Shigemoto, 144 S. Nakanishi, "Sequence and expression of a metabotropic glutamate receptor," Nature, 349:760-5, 1991 3 V.M.-Y Lee, B.J. Balin, L. Otvos, 110 J.Q. Trojanowski, "A68: a major subunit of paired helical filaments and derivatized forms of normal tau," Science, 251:675-8, 1991 4 B.T. Hope, G.J. Michael, K.M. Knigge, S.R. 97 Vincent, "Neuronal NADPH diaphorase is a nitric oxide synthase," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 88:2811-4, 1991 1992 1 T.E. Golde, S. Estus, L.H. Younkin, 52 D.J. Selkoe, S.G. Younkin, "Processing of the amyloid protein precursor to potentially amyloidogenic derivatives," Science, 255:728-30, 1992 Source: ISI's Science Indicators Database (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.15, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: HOT PAPERS ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : BIOCHEMISTRY TY : RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS) PG : 16 M. Camps, C. Hou, D. Sidiropoulos, J.B. Stock, K.H. Jakobs, P. Gierschik, "Stimulation of phospholipase C by guanine nucleotide-binding protein bg subunits," European Journal of Biochemistry, 206:821-31, 1992. Montserrat Camps (Molecular Pharmacology Division, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany): "This work was done in the laboratory of Peter Gierschik at the University of Heidelberg department of pharmacology. We were studying the regulation of phosphoinositide-specific phospholipases C (PI-PLCs) by signal-transducing heterotrimeric (a,bg) guanine nucleotide-binding proteins (G-proteins). G-proteins couple a large variety of cell-surface receptors to second messenger-generating effectors such as PI-PLC. In certain cells--for example, granulocytes--receptor-mediated stimulation of PI-PLC is blocked by pertussis toxin, while in other cells it is not. In 1990-91, PI-PLC was shown to be regulated by members of the aq subfamily of the G-protein a- subunits in pertussis toxin-resistant systems. In contrast, the pertussis toxin-sensitive pathway of PI-PLC stimulation remained obscure until the publication of our work in 1992. "In this paper, we report that a PI-PLC present in cultured human HL-60 granulocytes is stimulated by G-protein bg- subunits, rather than by a-subunits. This finding contradicted the commonly held dogma that G-proteins generally regulate their effectors via their a-subunits and not via bg-dimers. Consequently, our findings, although presented at international meetings and submitted for publication as early as 1990, were not accepted by the scientific community for a very long time. Acceptance of our work emerged only when a number of other laboratories obtained findings similar to ours, using the same or other cellular systems. "In subsequent studies, we have identified the bg-dimer- stimulated PI-PLCs as PLCb2 and PLCb3 (M. Camps et al., Nature, 360:684-6, 1992; A. Carozzi et al., FEBS Letters, 315:340-2, 1993), and have shown that aq- and bg-subunits stimulate PLCb2 via independent domains (P. Schnabel et al., Eur. J. Biochem., 217:1109-15, 1993) and that postranslational processing of the G-protein g-subunit is required for bg-subunit stimulation of PLCb2 (A. Dietrich et al., Eur. J. Biochem., 219:171-8, 1994). On the basis of our own results and observations obtained in other laboratories, it is now very likely that free bg-subunits are the active subunits of pertussis toxin-sensitive G-proteins involved in stimulation of PI-PLC." (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.16, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : BIOCHEMISTRY TY : RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS) PG : 16 R. Seger, N.G. Ahn, J. Posada, E.S. Munar, A.M. Jensen, J.A. Cooper, M.H. Cobb, E.G. Krebs, "Purification and characterization of mitogene-activated protein kinase activator(s) from epidermal growth factor- stimulated A431 cells," Journal of Biological Chemistry, 267:14373-81, 1992. Rony Seger (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Washington, Seattle): "MAP kinases are a family of protein kinases known to participate in a growth factor-stimulated kinase cascade. The question of how these kinases are activated attracted a considerable amount of attention. Work in our laboratory led to the identification of two forms of potent MAP kinase activator in Swiss 3T3 cells (N.G. Ahn et al., J. Biol. Chem., 226:4220-7, 1991). Although these activators promoted phosphorylation on both tyrosine and threonine residues of MAP kinase, their mechanism of action was not clear. In particular, it was important to establish whether these enzymes are protein kinases or autophosphorylation-enhancing factors. "In this report two forms of MAP kinase `activator' were purified to homogeneity and were shown to be capable of catalyzing the phosphorylation of an enzymatically inactive mutant of MAP kinase; phosphorylation occurred on threonine and tyrosine residues. The pure enzyme also underwent autophosphorylation on tyrosine, threonine, and serine residues. Inasmuch as homogeneous `activator' was used in this study, the work established that this protein, like MAP kinase itself, is a dual-specificity kinase and therefore was a MAP kinase kinase. Both 46- and 45-kilodalton forms of the enzyme demonstrated a unique specificity toward the native form of the MAP kinase and seemed to activate equally both MAP kinase isoforms--ERK1 and ERK2. "Recently, we were able to corroborate the identification of this enzyme as a protein kinase by molecular cloning of the MAP kinase kinase from human T cell library (R. Seger et al., J. Biol. Chem., 267:25628-31, 1992). The cDNA clone predicted an amino acid sequence containing all of the conserved protein serine/threonine kinase domains. The sequence also showed homology to the yeast signal- transduction kinase STE7, suggesting evolutionary conservation in the signal-transduction mechanisms." (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.16, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY TY : RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS) PG : 16 T.J. Wallington, M.D. Hurley, J.C. Ball, E.W. Kaiser, "Atmospheric chemistry of hydro-fluorocarbon 134a: Fate of the alkoxy radical CF3CFHO," Environmental Science & Technology, 26:1318-24, 1992. Tim Wallington (Ford Motor Co., Dearborn, Mich.): "Recognition of the adverse impact of chlorofluoro-carbons (CFCs) on stratospheric ozone has prompted an international effort to replace CFCs with environmentally acceptable alternatives. Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are an important class of CFC replacements. HFC-134a (CF3CFH2) is a replacement for CFC-12 (CF2Cl2) in domestic refrigeration and automobile air conditioning units. Investment in HFC- 134a is on the order of a billion dollars! "Prior to the large-scale industrial use of HFC-134a, the environmental impact of its release into the atmosphere needs consideration. HFC-134a does not contain chlorine and so has no ozone-depletion potential associated with the well-established chlorine catalytic cycles. However, there has been speculation that CF3 radicals (formed during the atmospheric degradation of HFC-134a) could impact stratospheric ozone. To define the environmental impact of HFC-134a requires assessment of its ability to impact stratospheric ozone, contribute to potential global warming, and produce noxious degradation products. This assessment requires a detailed knowledge of the atmospheric chemistry of HFC-134a. "Our paper describes the first study of the atmospheric fate of a key transient radical species formed during the degradation of HFC-134a--namely, the alkoxy radical CF3CFHO. We found that 70 percent of these radicals undergo C-C carbon fission to field CF3 radicals and HC(O)F. The remaining 30 percent react with O2 to yield CF3C(O)F. Subsequent work in several laboratories has confirmed these results. "Additional work in our laboratory and many others worldwide (notably the group headed by Ole John Nielsen at Ris National Laboratory, Denmark) has defined the atmospheric chemistry of CF3 radicals, HC(O)F, and CF3C(O)F. It is now clear that the atmospheric degradation of HFC-134a has little or no adverse environmental impact." (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.16, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : New Microcentrifuges: Emphasizing The Fundamentals AU : FRANKLIN HOKE TY : TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY PG : 17 For decades, centrifuges have been requisite instruments in most biological labs. Spinning test tubes at thousands of revolutions per minute (rpm), the devices use centrifugal force to separate experimental samples within the tubes into their constituent parts. In the last 10 to 15 years, researchers in such disciplines as microbiology, molecular biology, genetics, and biochemistry have turned more and more frequently to microcentrifuges--smaller cousins of the venerable centrifuges--to separate the minute samples of DNA, RNA, and protein characteristic of their studies. As their usefulness has grown, microcentrifuges, in turn, have become correspondingly more sophisticated. In just the past half-dozen years, for example, manufacturers have added refrigeration and computer control (see story on page 18), extending the applications of the instruments. With new features, however, have come higher prices, and not every lab director feels the need for--or can afford--every advanced feature. The response from developers, in the past three or four years, has been a kind of "back to basics" movement that has led to a new generation of smaller, less expensive instruments. In some laboratories, these smaller microcentrifuges are becoming more of a personal item at the individual lab bench, rather than a shared laboratory resource. "I look at the microcentrifuge as a basic laboratory tool, like a micropipette," says Gerry Gendimenico, a pharmacologist at the Robert Wood Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute in Raritan, N.J. "It doesn't have to have a lot of features." As their name implies, microcentrifuges often are, in fact, relatively small instruments, but it is not only the space they occupy on the lab bench that earns them the "micro" prefix. Rather, the size of the sample tubes that the centrifuge can accommodate defines a micro-centrifuge. Generally, microcentri-fuges handle tubes with capacities ranging from 0.25 ml to 2.0 ml. Other centrifuges are designed to spin much larger samples into their individual components or, in the case of the ultracentrifuge, to spin at much higher rates. "It's a different animal," says Rudy Rosenberg, president of Accurate Chemical & Scientific Corp., Westbury, N.Y. "The microcentrifuge is really used for centrifugation of small amounts." Although the spin rate of a microcentrifuge is an important factor in its effectiveness, the relative centrifugal force is a more significant measure, according to Ursula Jablonski, assistant product manager for centrifuges at Brinkmann Instruments Inc., Westbury, N.Y., distributors of Eppendorf centrifuges. Usually given as a multiple of the force of gravity, or g, the relative centrifugal force-- which actually causes the separation--is a function not only of the rpm, but also of the radius of the rotor. (Rotors are the central, removable centrifuge parts with slots into which the sample tubes are fitted.) Spin capabilities range from a few thousand rpm to more than 20,000 rpm, with centrifugal force ratings climbing from about 2,000 og to more than 50,000 og. On Every Bench Some manufacturers, seeking to place a microcentrifuge on every lab bench, have recently designed several small and inexpensive instruments that offer basic functionality. These so-called personal centrifuges spin fast enough to, for example, separate DNA or protein samples from a buffer solution, but offer little in the way of precision control, according to manufacturers. One such instrument, the Nanofuge MC 200, is marketed by Hoefer Scientific Instruments in San Francisco for $340. Only 12 cm--less than 5 inches--in diameter, the device spins at a relatively slow 5,000 rpm, generating 2,000 og. It holds six tubes of either 1.5 ml or 2.0 ml capacity; with adapters, it can be used with 0.25 ml, 0.4 ml, or 0.5 ml tubes. The Nanofuge has minimal controls--it begins spinning when its lid is closed and stops when the lid is popped open. "This is not a high-powered centrifuge," says Zack Taylor, a Hoefer technical service representative. "It's [used] just to quickly spin down a sample to the bottom of the test tube. It's designed for individual benches, so people don't have to run over to a central area just to spin down one little sample." Similar microcentrifuge instruments include the ProFuge 10K and the PicoFuge, both from Stratagene Cloning Systems in La Jolla, Calif. Priced at $495, ProFuge 10K spins at 10,000 rpm, generates 5,600 og, and can accommodate either six 1.5 ml tubes or 12 0.5 ml tubes, depending on rotor choice. It offers pulse, continuous spinning. The 13 cm-diameter PicoFuge costs $295, holds six 1.5 ml tubes, and spins at 6,400 rpm to generate 2,000 og. Like Hoefer's Nanofuge, the PicoFuge starts spinning when its lid is closed and stops when it is lifted. Rugged Individual "Centrifuges have been growing into [overly] sophisticated things," says Accurate Chemical's Rosenberg, joking that "they'll prepare your coffee and all of that. Here, we're offering a basic centrifuge." Accurate Chemical's Koala-ty Series Eight microcentrifuge has two speeds, 6,500 rpm and 13,500 rpm, generating 4,000 og and 17,350 og, respectively. Programmable for up to 30 minutes, the instrument holds 24 2.0 ml tubes and costs $985 with rotor. According to Rosenberg, simplicity is a virtue, and his company is building its customer base by offering, in the Series Eight, a straightforward, very durable microcen- trifuge. An alternative rotor available for the Series Eight, for example, is made of materials resistant to the corrosive effects of the commonly used solvent phenol. Rosenberg says that a new version of the microcentrifuge, due out in early summer and called the Series Eight F, is battery-powered--designed for use in the field, where electricity, for example, may not be available. Scientists who might use the instrument include wildlife biologists taking blood samples from animals or environmental toxicologists taking water samples. "The microcentrifuge will be able to run off the 12-volt battery of a car, Jeep, or truck, whatever you have," Rosenberg says, "so that people doing work in the wilds of Alaska or the swamps someplace will be able to run the microcentrifuge simply by connecting it with clips to the battery." Run Silent, Run Cheap Because many microcentrifuges perform approximately the same functions--spinning microtubes at thousands of revolutions per minute--one differentiating factor that may not be adequately considered is the sound they make while running. This is especially significant because the newer, smaller instruments tend to share space with the researcher at his or her bench, according to Dominick Nicastro, director of sales and marketing for Integrated Separation Systems (ISS), Natick, Mass. "When they go up to speed, they can whine," says Nicastro. "It can drive you nuts. So, the thing that sets them apart, one over the other, I think, is how quiet they are. You don't want to be sitting next to one of these things howling." The ISS 112 fixed-speed and 113 variable-speed microcentrifuges both can achieve 13,000 rpm with centrifugal forces of 11,400 og and will hold 12 tubes. They are also driven by a spring-loaded motor that absorbs vibrational effects caused by mild imbalances, according to company literature. R.W. Johnson's Gerry Gen-dimenico uses the ISS 112 microcentrifuge for his work with nucleic acids. He agrees that the noise produced by a microcentrifuge can be a distraction and that the ISS 112 is quiet. More important, Gendimenico says, was the instrument's price of $899, because it allowed him the practical advantage of being able to stay under his purchasing authority limit of $1,000. The companion model, the ISS 113, costs $1,099. (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.17, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : COOL RUNNING AU : FRANKLIN HOKE TY : TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY PG : 18 In just the past few years, the number of microcentrifuges able to cool samples during centrifugation has grown significantly. While this feature had been available in larger-capacity centrifuges for some time, only recently have microcentrifuge manufacturers begun to consider it a central feature of their more sophisticated instruments. "When they first came out with the microcentrifuge tubes, these little 1.5 ml tubes, people didn't think it was too important to get a refrigerated centrifuge for those," says Lawrence Rosenberg, a biochemist at Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, N.Y. "But in the past three or four years, everybody's come out with them. It's no novelty anymore." Before the advent of these refrigerated microcentrifuges, researchers concerned about the temperatures of their samples could move the entire microcentrifuge into a laboratory cold room--if one were available. Beyond the inconvenience, this practice had its limitations. "You depended on the temperature of the cold room to keep the microcentrifuge at a certain temperature," Rosenberg says, "but the temperature was not adjustable." About five years ago, Rosenberg says, Heraeus Instruments Inc. of South Plainfield, N.J., offered one of the first refrigerated microcentrifuges, and his group bought one. Heraeus markets at least three microcentrifuge models with refrigeration: the Contifuge 17 RS, with a maximum rpm of 17,000 capable of generating a centrifugal force of 25,850 og; the Biofuge 22 R, with a maximum rpm of 22,000 and force of 31,925 og; and the Contifuge 28 RS, with a maximum rpm of 28,000 and force of 51,710 og. These instruments are microcomputer-controlled with up to 32 user programs, which, in addition to regulating cooling and other parameters, include nine acceleration and braking profiles. Depending on rotor choice, the instruments can hold up to 24 tubes. Prices range from about $6,000 to $8,000. The model 5402 refrigerated microcentrifuge from Eppendorf, at $6,695, is programmable for temperature, time, and speed. Speed can be calibrated in either rpm or g force, up to 14,000 rpm or 16,000 og. Different rotors can accommodate up to 30 tubes, depending on tube size. Another manufacturer of refrigerated microcentrifuges is Sorvall, distributed by Du Pont Medical Products, Wilmington, Del. The Sorvall RMC-14 model is relatively small, reaches 14,000 rpm and 18,500 og, and holds 24 tubes ranging from 0.25 ml to 2.0 ml. The price, without rotor, is $5,950. Beckman Instruments Inc. of Fullerton, Calif., also manufactures refrigerated microcentrifuges. --F.H. (The Scientist, Vol:8, #12, pg.18, June 13, 1994) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu 71764.2561@compuserve.com The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104 U.S.A. -------- NEXT: ------------------------------------------------------------ TI : SUPPLIERS OF CENTRIFUGES AND MICROCENTRIFUGES TY : TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY PG : 19 The following companies manufacture or distribute centrifuges and microcentrifuges, as well as rotors, microtubes, and other supplies related to centrifugal separation. Please contact the companies directly for more information concerning specific products. Accurate Chemical & Scientific Corp. 300 Shames Dr. Westbury, N.Y. 11590 (516) 333-2221 Fax: (516) 997-4948 Circle No. 166 on Reader Service Card Action Scientific P.O. Box 765 Forest Hill, Md. 21050 (800) 678-1033 Fax: (410) 836-7771 Circle No. 167 on Reader Service Card Alltech Associates 2051 Waukegan Rd. Deerfield, Ill.