                          THE SCIENTIST


VOLUME 7, No:12                                 June 14, 1993
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)

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                          NEWS

June 14, 1993


PEACE WORK: As the Cold War winds down, the United States 
Department of Energy's three national weapons laboratories are 
finding that they must shift the bulk of their research efforts 
away from nuclear weapons and into basic and applied life and 
physical sciences studies or go out of business  
PAGE : 1


JOB MARKET OUTLOOK: This year's science graduates face one of the 
tightest job markets in decades, but also one that may represent 
the beginning of stabilization in what has been a recent downward 
spiral in employment opportunities. Whatever the case, career 
placement experts point out several emerging trends in the 
science employment arena that young scientists should be aware of  


JOB FAIRS: Among the range of job-hunting options graduates will 
be exploring will be the impromptu interviewing opportunities 
that emerge in science job fairs. Over the past few years, the 
biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries have been 
participating in job fairs designed specifically for their 
employee-recruitment needs  
PAGE : 7


GAIRDNER WINNERS: For only the second time in the prizes' 36-year 
history, all five of this year's recipients of the Gairdner 
Foundation International Awards are United States-based 
researchers, being recognized for their contributions to gene 
targeting, epidemiology, brain functioning, and cerebral scanning  
PAGE : 3



COMPETITION AND COOPERATION: In his recently published book The 
Unnatural Nature of Science, British biologist Lewis Wolpert 
explores a broad range of areas in which the modern researcher is 
misunderstood by a suspicious and frequently ill-informed public. 
In an excerpt from the book, he focuses on the ways in which 
scientists ought to engage in the free exchange of information 
stemming from their laboratory investigations<197>and the reasons 
why they often try to keep their results to themselves  
PAGE : 11

COMMENTARY: Whether science competitions serve to indicate 
accurately a high school student's potential for success as a 
career researcher largely depends on the extent to which the 
competition is based on actual lab performance, suggests E.G. 
Sherburne, a former official of Science Service, which publishes 
Science News and is a cosponsor of the annual Westinghouse 
Science Talent Search  
PAGE : 12


DOE'S IMPACT: The Department of Energy's national laboratories 
are reorienting and expanding the focus of their research. In an 
article reprinted from the newsletter Science Watch, the impact 
of the various labs' investigations are examined and compared 
through citation analysis<197>with each other's and with other 
published research  
PAGE : 14


HOT PAPERS: A cell biologist discusses his studies of the 
functioning of the endothelium  
PAGE : 15


graphically, graphics software has replaced the exhaustive and 
expensive process of collaborating with artists, providing 
sophisticated visual presentation as well as enhanced statistical 
power  
PAGE : 18


SCIENCE FREE-AGENCY: With athletes, entertainers, and other 
artists negotiating increasingly lucrative deals for their 
services, the prospect of big-name scientists' routinely cutting 
their own megadeals with publications and research facilities 
does not seem as outrageous as it might once have, says Science 
Watch editor David Pendlebury  
PAGE : 1


DEBORAH L. PENRY, an oceanographer at the University of 
California, Berkeley, has become the second woman to receive the 
National Science Foundation's Alan Waterman Award  
PAGE : 22


NOTEBOOK  
PAGE : 4


CARTOON  
PAGE : 4

LETTERS  
PAGE : 12

CROSSWORD  
PAGE : 13

PEOPLE BRIEFS  
PAGE : 22

SCIENTIFIC SOFTWARE DIRECTORY  
PAGE : 30


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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NEXT:


June 14, 1993


       Science Grads


       Although the employment slump seems to be easing, good 
       positions remain scarce for scientists just out of school


AU   :  MARCIA CLEMMITT

TY   :  NEWS

PG   :  1


The job market for this spring's science graduates at all levels 
may well be one of the tightest in decades, university career 
development experts say. Many also point out, however, that this 
year's recruitment patterns indicate that employment prospects 
are no longer experiencing the precipitous decline of the past 
several years.



"Things seem to be finally leveling off and starting to go 
forward a bit," says Steven Kravinsky, director of career 
placement for the sciences, business, and liberal arts at Iowa 
State University of Science and Technology in Ames. "In the 
Midwest, we've never felt the fluctuations [in the job market] as 
severely as they were felt on the coasts. So a slight recovery 
for us probably means more in terms of the big picture."



The current employment dynamics for young scientists appear to be 
stabilizing into new, probably long-term, patterns, career 
placement professionals say. These include an employer pool made 
up chiefly of small and medium-sized organizations, an increase 
in temporary and contract employment, requirements that 
candidates have some work and research experience specific to the 
demands of their potential jobs, and more interest in hiring 
master's and even bachelor's degree holders rather than those 
with doctorates in technical and research disciplines.



While postdoctoral positions are still plentiful in most fields, 
tenured academic positions are relatively scarce. That paucity--
along with concerns that a scientist, once hired by a university, 
may still be unable to find research funding--seems to be causing 
more Ph.D.-level researchers to explore employment options 
outside academia. But some employers' growing interest in hiring 
and training science graduates without doctoral degrees may 
derail that effort, job counselors say.


"The market is asking for fewer and fewer Ph.D.'s and more 
M.S.'s. And it's not just that the Ph.D. ranks are full. It's 
that [employers] are putting more M.S. and even B.S. people at 
the lab bench, asking more of them, and finding that they can do 
it," says Catherine Connor, director of placement in the 
biotechnology center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-
Champaign.



"Companies are taking a hard look at paying the premium for all 
that education," says Richard Stewart, director of the university 
placement service at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. 
"For some jobs, the company's conclusion is likely to be that the 
kind of people they want are those who went on to get that 
[doctoral] degree," says Stewart, who is president of the College 
Placement Council, a Bethlehem, Pa.-based organization that 
tracks and analyzes job and salary trends. "But a number of firms 
are saying, `Do so many jobs really need the advanced degree?' "



At most universities, a large percentage of bachelor's and 
master's degree recipients in the sciences have traditionally 
gone on to graduate or medical school in any economic climate. 
Many career placement officers report that, with positions harder 
to come by, that percentage is increasing.



But if bachelor's and master's graduates were to explore 
permanent or temporary positions that allow them to use their 
science training, they would find that the job picture is 
brighter than they may think, professional placement experts say. 
Many kinds of laboratories hire bachelor's- and master's-level 
science graduates in biology and chemistry for technical and even 
some research positions, while new, nontraditional teacher 
certification programs in many states allow science majors 
without education degrees to teach.



"We've found that there are a lot of lab jobs available just in 
our local area," says John Buckner, director of the Center for 
Career Services at Columbia University in New York. "Many medical 
labs that do work for doctors, and the research and development 
wings of manufacturing companies that make stuff like household 
products and makeup, say they'd love to pick up some of our kids 
for technical and professional positions."



Career counselors at many universities report that undergraduate 
add that, for the most part, these students consider it only as a 
one- or two-year interim pursuit before they go on to graduate 
school or other employment.



"More people seem to be going into teaching, but not as a 
profession," says John Youngblood, career and student development 
coordinator for the Emory University career center in Atlanta. 
"They see it as a viable option when they find it hard to get 
into a lab. In teaching, you're being sought after. Somebody's 
saying, `We need you, we want you.' But for most, it's just a 
stepping stone before graduate school or other work."



Career development professionals say the current hirers' market 
means that virtually no scientists can now engage in the kind of 
field-hopping that was once common in the scientific job market.



"When opportunities were more bountiful, employers would hire 
graduates across discipline lines," says Dennis Ryan, director of 
the career center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. 
"They'd hire a physicist when they couldn't get an electrical 
engineer. They would use the person's general scientific 
background as a basis for training them for the job. Now, they 
absolutely will not. . . . That makes it difficult for lots of 
students, who may not clearly identify their precise interests 
till near the end of their educations, and so end up labeled as 
belonging to a slightly different field from the one they want to 
work in."



According to James Harris, interim director of career development 
and placement at Tuskegee University in Alabama, "The most 
noticeable trend today is that employers are asking point-blank 
for experience in the exact kind of work [they want prospective 
employees] to do. And many times it's `no experience, no offer,' 
regardless of other credentials."



This change shifts much of the burden of the job search from the 
companies to the graduates, career placement experts say.



"People who have hired bundles [of students from large 
universities] now aren't hiring any. The boom today, if any, is 
in medium-sized and small businesses," says Eugene Martell, 
director of career planning and placement at the State University 
pipeline, so that changes the recruiting picture drastically."



According to Martell and others, science job-seekers must now 
generate long lists of potential employers and research those 
employers' specific needs, in order to target correctly the ones 
who may be right for them.



"You have to be able to say, `I contact you because I know 
exactly what you're looking for. I hope I fit.' Small companies 
can't afford to bring in 10 people who might fit. They need to 
focus on those who certainly will," Martell says.



In addition, he says, potential employees need to pursue every 
opportunity. "You have to turn every rock and see what's there. 
These people may hire only one professional every other year, so 
no matter who you are, you're in a numbers game."



Martell and others say the switch to small employers for the bulk 
of industrial science and technology hiring means young 
scientists will also need to reconcile themselves to the somewhat 
lower salaries small companies can afford to pay as well as 
develop a well-rounded package of skills. To a small 
organization, a pure science specialty is less marketable than 
one that includes other skills useful to the company, such as 
fluency in a foreign language, or communications or computer 
science skills.




Industrial Hiring
Human resource professionals say that current uncertainties about 
the future of defense-related research and how best to compete in 
a global marketplace mean the employment situation in most 
scientific fields is in a kind of limbo, as employers try to 
anticipate and plan for future economic developments. While no 
field is experiencing anything that could be called a boom, 
career development experts do point to several areas--notably the 
environmental sciences and computer science--that remain stronger 
than most.


Among the life sciences, health care-related fields such as 
immunology, toxicology, and microbiology have the strongest 
markets, these experts say, largely because these disciplines 
have applications in such a wide variety of settings, including 
and biotechnology companies.



And, according to some career specialists, while biotechnology 
and biomedical engineering have never created the number of hires 
it was once hoped they would, those fields may still not have 
peaked in job-producing potential, since their medical 
applications are just beginning to be explored. Furthermore, some 
career development officers say, the small start-up companies 
that make up a large portion of these industries are not 
accustomed to recruiting their scientists straight from the 
university.



"I'm not sure we're seeing what we will see in biotech and 
biomedical engineering," says John Hannabach, director of career 
services at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. 
"Those fields are dominated by small entrepreneurs, and I'm not 
sure they see campuses as resources yet."



Major employers in physics, chemistry, and engineering have 
traditionally been the defense industry and other large companies 
that are currently hesitant to hire new staff, employment experts 
say. Since most such companies are in a slow- or no-hiring mode 
as they try to determine how best to compete in the global 
marketplace, times are especially tough for physical science and 
engineering grads, scientists long accustomed to being among the 
most employable science professionals. There are some bright 
spots in this generally dim picture, however.



In physics, health-related subfields such as nuclear medicine are 
still much in demand. And according to a study of 1992-1993 job 
recruitment published by Michigan State University, while demand 
for chemists and chemical engineers is down, those who do find 
posts are commanding the highest starting salaries of any 
profession.



Meanwhile, academic career development officials say, one of the 
most surprising developments in the current scientific job market 
involves electrical engineers. Since so many have traditionally 
been employed by large defense and manufacturing firms, many 
expected electrical engineers to be suffering along with other 
engineers and physical scientists. But the hiring picture for 
electrical engineers has turned out to be brighter than expected.


Employment opportunities for electrical engineers in large 
companies like IBM Corp. and General Motors Corp. have "been a 
casualty," says Carnegie Mellon's Ryan. "But their overall market 
has been much more expansive than anyone thought. An interesting 
number of start-up companies--chip-makers, makers of other 
computer peripherals--are offering employment to electrical 
engineers. Companies I've never heard of are turning up on our 
doorstep and asking."



Two other fields currently enjoying unusual prosperity are the 
computer and information sciences and environmental science, 
especially as it relates to air and water quality, industry 
hiring observers say.



Government agencies, especially those involved in the cleanup of 
Department of Defense and Department of Energy sites; newly 
formed environmental engineering and consulting firms; waste-
management companies; and even manufacturing companies are all 
recruiting scientists with environmental training.



"That interest has really grown over the past couple of years," 
says Georgia Tech's Hannabach. "Lots of companies, regardless of 
product line, are looking to hire specialists in water treatment, 
hydrology, air quality, and so on."



Computer scientists are being hired by a wide variety of 
organizations, from scientific research institutions in all 
fields to manufacturing companies to banks and other financial 
institutions. Hardware- and software-development and information 
management skills are sought after, career professionals say, 
with employers mainly looking for computer scientists whose work 
shows they can apply their computer skills to working out 
specific questions.



"Potential employers are asking, `How can you use your computer 
skill to help me solve my problem?' Those who've studied 
applications sufficiently to have insight into that kind of 
specific problem-solving do very well," says Tuskegee's Harris.




Government Work
The good news for scientists interested in working for a 
facilities means that some jobs are almost always available, 
despite defense cuts and hiring freezes, university placement 
officers say. In addition, they point out that, at present, many 
defense-oriented labs seem to be changing their research focuses 
rather than phasing them out.



"Government has always been a bit of a recruiting anomaly. 
There's not much on-campus recruitment. Instead, you just submit 
the paperwork, and after that it's survival of the fittest," says 
Purdue's Stewart. "But they're so big that even when they're 
shrinking, there are still jobs for those who target them 
properly."



"A lot of our hiring is federal and defense-related, and a lot of 
it has dried up," says Marjorie Austin, director of career 
services at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in 
Socorro. "But the labs are trying to plug into other jobs, and 
some are managing that quite well." In addition, Austin says, 
many government labs are "still looking at postdocs, co-ops, 
summer hires. They want to keep going so when they start hiring 
again, they'll still have the job pipeline going."




Contracting Science
Across all employment sectors, temporary and contract work is 
growing rapidly, career placement officers say.



"Many large companies are in a state of flux, so they're being 
very careful," says Craig Kopstain, director of engineering and 
science placement at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. 
"That's why many are hiring term employees, with few benefits, 
for nine months, or for three years, or one project."



Kopstain and others say they expect to see more term employment 
for scientists in the next few years, and some career specialists 
think it will be a long-term trend. "We've had [contract 
employment] forever, and we don't mind when we call it postdocs," 
says the University of Illinois' Connor. "My theory is, [with 
more term and contract employment] we're leaving a 60-year 
aberration, when we made companies responsible for our lives. 
Before that, our grandfathers were responsible for themselves. 
Now the market is returning us to the days of contract 
employment--of skilled workers, apprentices, journeymen, and 
masters."


Career officers say they also see promise for another group of 
science majors--those who choose to leave the field altogether. 
Banks and other financial institutions, as well as management and 
financial consulting firms, are eager to interview graduates with 
science training, and not just in computer science. Says William 
Corwin, associate director of career services at Princeton 
University, "Their quantitative aptitude and acquaintance with 
hard and demanding work" make science grads highly prized  in  
these  lucrative  professions.




Marcia Clemmitt is a freelance science writer based in 
Washington, D.C.


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)

  
              ================================


NEXT:




TI   :    In Hot Pursuit Of Post-Cold War Survival, Weapons Labs 
          Seek Industrial Partnerships


AU   :    SCOTT VEGGEBERG


TY   :    NEWS

PG   :    1


The end of the Cold War, coupled with President Clinton's desire 
to make federally funded research a better engine for national 
competitiveness, has left the Department of Energy's three 
weapons laboratories searching for new missions. While weapons 
development is down, nuclear nonproliferation research is 
growing, as are environmental and energy research. And 
Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs), which 
allow the national labs to join   with industrial partners to 
solve high-technology problems, are increasing at a rapid pace.


There are now more than 100 of these CRADAs linking the 
automobile, aerospace, textile, and other industries with the 
three weapons development labs--Lawrence Livermore National 
Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and Los Alamos 
National Laboratory. These three labs in total receive about half 
of the $6.5 billion budgeted for the 30 R&D labs managed by DOE 
in 1993. Each of them operates on budgets in excess of $1 billion 
and each has about 8,000 employees. 



While many people have ideas on how these three labs should 
change their organization and focus, clear direction at this 
point is still lacking, policy observers say.



"The weapons program is going to shrink," says Roger Werne, 
associate director of engineering and technology transfer at the 
Lawrence Livermore lab in Livermore, Calif. But, beyond that, 
much is still undefined because the Clinton administration 
doesn't have all the necessary DOE appointees in place, he says. 
Especially critical, he says, is the still-unfilled post of 
assistant secretary for defense programs. As a result, "we're 
sort of in a holding pattern," says Werne.



In an attempt to guide this new national mission, Rep. George E. 
Brown, Jr. (D-Calif.) introduced a bill on March 23 entitled the 
Department of Energy Laboratory Technology Act of 1993.



"Our goal with this bill is to create a process of disciplined 
evolution for the DOE laboratories--a process through which the 
enormous resources of these labs are carefully directed toward 
meeting some of the nation's most pressing needs, while ensuring 
that the labs are rigorously evaluated to determine whether they 
are meeting their new challenges in the years ahead," said Brown 
during an opening statement for the bill.



"The Cold War is over and we must now marshal our national 
science and technology resources toward the environmental and 
economic challenges of the next century," said Brown. "But 
without a plan for phased consolidation and conversion at DOE's 
defense labs, the outcome could be a budget-driven, ad hoc 
contraction that leaves the nation with a mediocre nuclear 
weapons R&D capability and a lost opportunity to redirect part of 
the DOE weapons lab system to new national missions."


The four key objectives of the bill are: (1) providing an updated 
and focused set of missions for the laboratories; (2) improving 
the organization of research, development, and technology 
transfer functions at DOE; (3) enhancing collaboration between 
DOE labs and industry by streamlining the technology transfer 
process; and (4) ensuring that activities at DOE labs are 
regularly subjected to performance evaluations.



This bill and similar legislation in the Senate will be the 
subject of hearings throughout the year. Still, even with a new 
administration and pending legislation, change is afoot at the 
weapons labs.




Nuclear Nonproliferation
As a percentage of Livermore's budget, nuclear weapons R&D stands 
at about a third "and falling," says Werne. And as a result, over 
the last three years about 700 laboratory worker and contractor 
jobs, out of a total of about 10,000, have been cut.



But as interest in building nuclear weapons flags, the United 
States is growing increasingly interested in preventing the 
spread of these weapons.



"The nonproliferation business is a growing program for us," 
Werne says. As an example of the kind of work involved, he points 
to the two Livermore weapons designers, a physicist and an 
engineer, who were among the group of United Nations weapons 
inspectors who confronted the Iraqi government for 25 days in the 
parking lot of the Agriculture Ministry in July 1992 over the 
issue of gaining access to that facility.



He says biotechnology research, currently funded at about $25 
million, should grow at the lab, which at present is involved in 
sequencing and mapping human chromosome 19. The lab is also 
conducting environmental research worth about $100 million, which 
includes development of technologies like waste minimization, as 
well as cleaning up its own polluted site. About 80 percent of 
the pollution at Livermore was caused by improper disposal of 
cleaning solvents when the Army used the site as a base during 
World War II, Werne points out.



national labs is research into fusion as an energy resource. But 
Werne acknowledges that developing fusion power is a tough 
challenge that may elude scientists for as much as another 
century. "It is the problem to solve, if you can do it," he says. 
The future of fusion funding, however, is not clear. And because 
it has turned out to be so costly and elusive to develop, "a lot 
of people in Congress are a little disenchanted with the fusion 
program," Werne says. However, Vice President Al Gore has 
expressed interest in pursuing fusion research, he says.



At Los Alamos in New Mexico, lab spokesman Jim Danneskiold says 
there's been a steady decrease in nuclear weapons work as 
expressed in the number of employees classified as full-time 
equivalents (FTEs). In 1985, there were almost 1,900 FTEs devoted 
to nuclear weapons and inertial confinement fusion work; this 
figure  has now dropped below 1,200. "And next year we know 
there's going to be a further decline," Danneskiold says. In 
terms of total number of lab employees, Los Alamos is bracing for 
a loss of 300 to 400 employees out of 7,500 next year. Some of 
these may opt for early retirement, though, he says. Others may 
be laid off.



In terms of projects, "bomb design is going down and things like 
hydrology and chemical engineering are going up," he says. Los 
Alamos also has a $15 million-per-year role in human genome 
research, with a focus on development of rapid DNA sequencing 
techniques, says Danneskiold. And research into environmental 
clean-up technologies has gone "way up," he says. In FY 1991, 
this research area was funded at $88 million, but that figure has 
jumped to more than $200 million in 1993, and officials expect 
that it will rise to $244 million in next year's budget--



"There is some growth in the hiring of scientists in the areas of 
environmental cleanup, waste management, and environmental 
technology development, but it's modest," Danneskiold says. For 
the most part, scientists in a declining area of research simply 
transfer to a growth area, but Danneskiold notes that there are 
some limitations: "Obviously, somebody who's a nuclear weapons 
designer won't have any skills in cleanup." 



At Sandia in Albuquerque, N.Mex., scientists' skills are seen as 
something akin to the lab's "box of tools" that can be moved from 
one division to another, says Virgil Dugan, director of planning 
and staff at that laboratory. "We've had a very fluid system here 
at the lab. People move  back  and  forth  between weapons-
related work and energy and environment work," he says. The 
million of Sandia's $1.3 billion 1993 budget, is expected to 
climb to $300 million in FY 1994. The defense funding sector is 
not expected to be flat for next year, Dugan says, because as 
weapons design declines it will be offset by an increasing 
emphasis on warhead dismantlement as well as on treaty 
verification and intelligence work relating to 
nonproliferation---




Looking Ahead
The real future for the labs, though, is in technology transfer, 
and CRADAs are one vehicle to make that happen, observers say. 
Livermore, for instance, signed a $6 million CRADA in March in 
which the lab will help Chrysler Corp. in Highland Park, Mich., 
apply the nondestructive testing techniques developed for nuclear 
weaponry to automobile transmissions. As is typical of most 
CRADAs to date, the labs are working in areas in which they have 
an existing expertise, rather than wading into new technological 
waters.



In this agreement, $3 million in funding for equipment and staff 
will come from Chrysler, with a matching amount coming to the lab 
from DOE's technology transfer budget. That budget, from which 
CRADA funding is competitively awarded on the basis of proposals, 
is also growing, says Werne. In 1993, the CRADA budget for the 
three weapons labs was $141 million, which is expected to rise to 
$191 million in the 1994 budget, he says.



Also in March, DOE announced a "historic" multimillion-dollar 
CRADA linking a textile industry research coalition, the American 
Textile Partnership (AMTEX), with eight national labs, including 
the three weapons labs. About $30 million in joint funding will 
be provided this year to develop improved materials and processes 
as well as for waste minimization, energy efficiency, and 
automation. "I believe this can be a role-model example of a 
total manufacturing industry/government/university collaboration 
dramatically increasing the competitiveness of the industry [and] 
to preserve and create tens of thousands of new jobs in the USA," 
says AMTEX board chairman Thomas Malone.



But there are negative aspects in the call for the labs to 
increase the nation's industrial competitiveness, Werne warns in 
a November 1992 report "U.S. Economic Competitiveness: A New 
Mission for the DOE's Defense Programs' Laboratories." 


"There is a potential downside to the National Laboratories if 
the competitiveness mission is not managed properly," the report 
says. "The Laboratories must not be expected to be a panacea to 
the competitiveness problems nor must they attempt to be `all 
things to all people.'



"If the Laboratory efforts become too  diffuse  with  many  small 
projects, then the critical mass and focus necessary to sustain 
and build technical excellence cannot be achieved."



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:



TI   :    Are New Riches In Store For Superstars Of Research?  
          If Some Current Trends Continue, The Answer Is Yes!


AU   :    DAVID A. PENDLEBURY


TY   :    NEWS

PG   :    1


A news story you might be reading in 2003:

LOS ANGELES--A bidding war broke out yesterday for the rights  to 
publish  a  scientific  study  identifying  a  master  gene  that 
con~trols aging. In the end, the journal Genes & Proteins  topped 
offers from four other journals and agreed to pay the authors  of 
the  breakthrough paper $137,000--a new record for  a  scientific 
paper sold at auction.



"With this money, we'll be able to hire a couple of postdocs, and 
that will help speed up the work in our lab," Robert Kildow, 
director of the Phoenix Institute for the Study of Cell 
Senescence in Arizona, told reporters immediately after the 
winning bid was accepted.


By late in the day, word of the record price had swept through 
the scientific community, rais~ing hopes of many researchers 
whose papers are coming up for auction next month ---



--- The practice of paying authors for the rights to publish their 
hottest papers began in 1997. Considered an outrageous maneuver 
at the time in the once staid and polite world of science 
publishing, the paper auction has since become a standard 
operating procedure, one that has helped support research at top 
labs around the world.




As the editor of Science Watch, a newsletter that tracks trends 
in research, I typically keep my eyes fixed on new scientific 
findings, the substance of science itself. But I see plenty of 
changes in the nature of the scientific profession, too. It's 
plain that over the last decade or so, there's been a lot more 
money circulating around elite scientists--the researchers 
universally recognized by their peers as leaders--particularly 
those working at the frontiers of molecular biology. 



Recent reports about and concerns over conflict of interest among 
leading molecular biologists exemplify this trend (see, for 
example, Christopher Anderson, "Hughes' Tough Stand on Industry 
Ties," Science, 259:884-6, 1993). The introduction of big bucks 
is, of course, due to the emergence of the multibillion-dollar 
biotechnology industry and the overheated financial markets that 
feed it. But, in the United States at least, elite scientists in 
other fields have also seen their economic value escalate as 
universities and corporations have started to fight ever more 
fiercely to sign on superstar or big-name scientists. 



If current trends to "bid up" the value of hot research and hot 
scientists continue, the news item above may one day not seem so 
unlikely. 



In fact, I can see two developments in prospect that would seem a 
logical consequence of the increasing advantage of the elites of 
science and the clear trend to commercialize their work and their 
celebrity status: science agents and bidding wars for papers. Let 
it be clearly understood that I do not advocate the introduction 
of either; I simply sense their inevitability. Perhaps, if some 
of these possibilities are aired openly, the scientific community 
might think about and discuss them before--instead of after--they 



First, let's look at the increasing economic power and value of 
superstar scientists.



The scientific community has always had its elite members. Even 
an outsider  can spot them. They're the ones with endowed chairs, 
generous funding, spacious and modern labs, many papers in top 
journals, and sizable citation counts. They've got collaborators 
worldwide, a constant stream of invitations to organize 
conferences and deliver keynote addresses, editorship of one or 
more journals, membership in the national and in foreign 
academies, and multiple prestigious (and frequently lucrative) 
prizes. 



These folks are the research world's equivalent of the rich. The 
scientifically rich, too, just seem to get richer and richer. 



Twenty-five years ago, the doyen of the sociology of science, 
Robert K. Merton of Columbia University, described how advantage 
accumulates for the scientific elite (Science, 159:56-63, 1968). 
He called this phenomenon "the Matthew Effect," after the 
biblical passage that reads: "For unto everyone that hath shall 
be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not 
shall be taken away even that which he hath." All pretty grim for 
the nonelite of science, but that's their lot, as, probably, it 
has always been.



The difference today, because of the unprecedented amount of 
money that's been introduced into science, is that the gulf is 
rapidly widening between the nonelite and the elite. If your star 
is going supernova, there's a whole world of opportunities that 
open up to you, and the opportunities just keep coming.



Two recent examples are Leroy Hood and Anthony Cerami. Lured by 
billionaire software developer William Gates III, Hood was 
convinced to close shop at the California Institute of Technology 
and move himself and his retinue of investigators to the 
University of Washington (Susan L-J Dickinson, The Scientist, 
March 30, 1992, page 1). Cerami and his troops broke camp a year 
ago after three decades at Rockefeller University and set up 
again at the new Picower Institute for Medical Research, in 
Manhasset, N.Y., which was established for Cerami and 
The Scientist, Feb. 22, 1993, page 1). The offers these days can 
frequently prove irresistible.



Is it any wonder, then, that many superstar scientists are on the 
move and many more are on the make?



Not just for great science are many institutions seeking to sign 
on a superstar. Many are also hungry to have a "hot property." 
The mere presence of a name scientist on the staff carries real 
economic benefits and newfound promotional power. For second-tier 
or third-tier universities that aspire to the first tier, it's 
the royal road to recognition. With a superstar comes new respect 
for the institution, a better ability to attract other top-flight 
investigators, a means to attract media attention, and a new way 
to wow well-heeled contributors and win donations. 



And the economic benefits go both ways. These scientists can be 
quite shrewd. Like any other professional, a scientist will seek 
to optimize opportunities and compen- sation. More than money is 
usually involved--lab space, staff, and other forms of support 
obviously enter into a scientist's decision about where to 
practice--but it's the best offer or package that generally gets 
taken.



Hood negotiated his own move directly with Gates: "We met for 
dinner," Hood told The Scientist a year ago, "[and] we discussed 
what I thought would be necessary resources for the kind of 
department I wanted to create and negotiated what turned out to 
be [Gates's] gift."



Should we not expect that scientists of Hood's stature will be in 
a position to play one offer off another? One day the stakes in 
these negotiations will go high enough to attract the attention 
of the legal profession. Enterprising lawyers, recognizing the 
amounts of money involved in some of these recruitment 
situations, will eventually offer their services to superstar 
scientists. Like agents who negotiate on behalf of professional 
athletes, best-selling authors, and entertainers, agents for 
scientists would attempt to secure the best deal for the client 
and then take a percentage or a fee.



The science agent, being a professional negotiator, would go 
well other things that a scientist has probably not thought of or 
never would think of. That's all part of their profession; they 
love it and they're good at it. A scientist, on the other hand, 
spends his or her days in other pursuits, likely finds such 
negotiation difficult or distasteful, and is probably not very 
good at it. The agent can be counted on to cut the better deal.



"It just never occurred to me [to have representation]," says 
chemist Barry Sharpless, who moved from the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology to the Scripps Research Institute a year 
ago. "I've never heard of that. Most scientists seem to do their 
own negotiating. At the highest levels I know of, that's what's 
going on. Most discuss these things with their spouse and their 
friends." Could Sharpless see science agents in the future? 
"Well, I don't know. If it did occur, I guess it would be a sign 
of the times, one that would make it even harder for the man in 
the street to appreciate science as something special."



Although now it is just not done in academia, deal-making through 
legal representation may nonetheless become routine for the much-
wooed superstar researcher juggling multiple mega-offers. Every 
day, more and more scientists are forming associations with 
biotechnology companies, and through these associations they can 
quickly pick up on the ways of the business world. 



Hard evidence of the number of elite scientists with close ties 
to the business world arose recently. Last fall, Irving Weissman 
of Stanford University was forced to resign his appointment as a 
Howard Hughes investigator because the Hughes Medical Institute 
objected to Weissman's financial ties with his startup Systemix 
Inc. Now, other Hughes investigators--who may, perhaps, be called 
the superelite of science--are worried that they, too, will be 
cut off from Hughes support, since so many have significant 
stakes in fledgling and maturing biotechnology firms. Conflict-
of-interest concerns are now coming to a boil at universities, 
independent labs, and government labs, such as the National 
Institutes of Health.



Payment by journals to scientists for the rights to publish their 
papers, while perhaps a more distant prospect, is almost 
thinkable. Perhaps, as in the hypothetical news story described 
previously, payment would be offered for a single hot manuscript 
containing the details of a breakthrough discovery. More likely, 
a journal might sign a contract with, and pay a fee to, a 
superstar scientist for the right of first refusal for his or her 
papers over a particular period. Journals today, especially the 
increasingly aggressive about securing and publishing the hottest 
reports. To get these papers, editors waive page charges, promise 
fast-track review, and commit to rapid publication (Leslie 
Roberts, "The Rush to Publish," Science, 251:260-3, 1991).



Just how far will journal editors go in giving special treatment 
to superstars to get their papers? 



Consider for a moment what's at stake for the leading journals. 
My phone rings off the hook with calls from employees on the 
business side of these publications who want to know what their 
journal's newest impact factor ranking (a citation-based measure 
of performance) is or how many highly cited, or "hot," papers 
I've listed in Science Watch from their journal. All of this 
information, or rather carefully selected pieces, go right into 
advertisements that tout their journal as "the best."



There can be significant money to made when your journal is the 
best. It works like this: Everyone wants to read and subscribe to 
the best journal. The journal that everyone wants to read and 
subscribe to is the journal advertisers want to place their ads 
in.



But would editors actually pay for the rights to certain papers? 
"That's a really manipulative, but intriguing, idea," says Janet 
Garman, managing editor of Neuron. She quickly adds, however, "I 
hope I'm not around when that happens." Simon Mitton, who directs 
science publishing for Cambridge University Press, acknowledges 
the increasing competition between leading science journals, "but 
for the moment, what a journal editor can offer is 
confidentiality and rapid publication. That's all."



How, then, could payment for papers actually come about? It's not 
as large a leap as you might think. First, note that an offer to 
pay for rights of first refusal neither guarantees publication 
nor eliminates the need for peer review. A manuscript could still 
be rejected by a journal; a journal would be paying only for 
"first crack" at publishing the paper. Second, a researcher 
wouldn't actually pocket any money for personal use. The money 
would go to furthering research; it would be a new source of 
"private funding" that would lessen the demand placed on 
government for funding, the argument might go.


And consider this: It would only take one iconoclastic editor of 
a leading journal and one fearless superstar scientist of 
entrepreneurial bent to blaze this new path in science 
publishing. Once that path is cleared, others could follow more 
easily. 



You can just see the gulf widening between science's haves and 
have-nots. Wheeler-dealer science agents who push salaries of 
superstar scientists into the stratosphere. Payment for the 
rights to publish research papers from the hottest labs. Is this 
where science is headed? 



Simply outrageous? Patently impossible, you say? 
That's what they said about Scott Meredith, the maverick literary 
agent who died recently. His obituary in the New York Times (Feb. 
13, 1993, page A10) reads as follows: "In 1952, Mr. Meredith 
initiated the book auction: the offer of a manuscript to many 
publishing houses at once, with publication rights going to the 
highest bidder. Considered an outrageous maneuver at the time in 
the once staid and polite publishing world, the book auction has 
since become a standard operating procedure, one that has helped 
increase the fees that publishers pay writers."




David A. Pendlebury is editor of the newsletter Science Watch, 
published by the Institute for Scientific Information in 
Philadelphia.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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June 14, 1993



TI   :    Five Americans Receive 1993 Gairdner Awards

AU   :    RON KAUFMAN

TY   :    NEWS
PG   :    3


For the first time since 1983 and only the second time in the 36-
year history of the prestigious Gairdner Foundation International 
Awards, all recipients of this year's prizes are United States-
based researchers. Traditionally, the awards have had a decidedly 
international flavor; over the years, winners have included 
scientists from 12 different nations, spanning four continents.



This year, the Willowdale, Ontario-based organization will honor 
five American researchers in the fields of gene targeting, 
clinical epidemiology, brain functioning, and cerebral scanning 
with $30,000 cash prizes. The awards will be presented in Toronto 
on October 22 by Rose Wolfe, chancellor of the University of 
Toronto. The ceremony, including brief lectures from the winners 
describing their research, is held at the University of Toronto 
each year.




A Nobel `Predictor'
Since its inception in 1957, the Gairdner Foundation has honored 
230 scientists. Forty of these have subsequently won the Nobel 
Prize. The most recent Gairdner/Nobel winners are German 
biologist Bert Sakmann, who won the Gairdner in 1989 and the 
Nobel in 1991; University of Washington biochemist Edwin G. 
Krebs, who won the Gairdner in 1978 and the Nobel in 1992; and 
University of California, San Francisco virologist Michael 
Bishop, who won the Gairdner in 1984 and the Nobel in 1989.

1993 Honorees
Among this year's Gairdner recipients is Stanley B. Prusiner, a 
professor of virology and neurology at UC-San Francisco. Prusiner 
is being honored for "his contributions to our understanding of 
brain degeneration caused by novel infectious agents called 
prions," according to a Gairdner Foundation statement. Prions are 
infectious proteins that cause transmissible neurodegenerative 
diseases, often resulting in mental retardation and death.



Prusiner's most cited paper, with 385 citations, is entitled 
"Novel proteinaceous infectious particles cause scrapie" 
(Science, 216:136, 1982), according to the Institute for 
Scientific Information (ISI) in Philadelphia. Prusiner, 51, 
received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania 
in 1968. He joined the faculty of UC-San Francisco in 1974.



medicine and epidemiology at Yale University, "led the 
intellectual movement that established modern clinical 
epidemiology as a scientific discipline," according to the 
Gairdner Foundation.



The foundation notes that Feinstein's "methods have led to 
improved classification of disease and the quantitative use of 
clinical signs and symptoms in the study of disease and, for 
example, have contributed to the prevention of rheumatic fever 
and to improving assessment of prognosis in cancer."



"Science," Feinstein says, "is usually regarded as attempts to 
explicate nature: How does nature work? What are the mechanisms 
of disease and biology?



"One can also, however, ask basic questions of how to change what 
nature has done or how to prevent what nature might do. Those are 
questions of intervention rather than explication.



"In the world of medicine, those interventions occur as acts of 
patient care, and there hasn't been very much science devoted to 
that. It's usually thought of as art. What I've been saying is 
that if you can look at those things in a hardheaded, scientific 
way, you can find out what is happening to a patient at a human 
level as well as their white blood count."



Feinstein, whose work has been cited in thousands of publications 
over the years, is perhaps most widely known for two books: 
Clinical Judgment (Huntington, N.Y., Robert E. Krieger Publishing 
Co. Inc., 1967) and Clinical Epidemiology (Philadelphia, W.B. 
Saunders Co., 1985).



Feinstein, 67, is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where 
he received his bachelor's degree in 1947 and his medical degree 
in 1952. He has been at Yale since 1969.



Another winner, Washington University radiation scientist Michel 
M. Ter-Pogossian, is being recognized by the Gairdner Foundation 
for his contributions to the development of the positron emission 
tomographic (PET) scanner.


The device utilizes radioactive isotopes and gamma rays to 
produce a pattern of brain function  helpful in the diagnosis and 
treatment of epilepsy, cerebrovascular disease, and other mental 
disorders, such as depression and schizophrenia.



Ter-Pogossian says his work at Washington University in St. Louis 
has focused on increasing the number of practical clinical 
applications of cerebral scanning.



"I think in the long run, the strength of PET will be helping us 
to understand pathophysiology," he says. "Any form of illness 
results from and is accompanied by local biochemical changes. And 
this is very true of mental diseases. Therefore, if you can 
study--in vivo and noninvasively--biochemical changes in various 
organs, you have a tool of great importance in understanding what 
disease is."



According to ISI, Ter-Pogossian's most cited paper on PET, with 
about 130 citations, is entitled, "A positron emission tomograph 
utilizing cesium fluoride scintillation detectors" (Science, 
6:125, 1982).



Born in Berlin, Ter-Pogossian, 68, received his bachelor's degree 
from the University of Paris in 1942. He received his Ph.D. in 
nuclear physics from Washington in 1950 and then joined the 
faculty there.



Mario B. Capecchi, of the University of Utah School of Medicine 
in Salt Lake City, and Oliver Smithies, of the University of 
North Carolina, Chapel Hill, will each receive the Gairdner award 
for their independent but similar research into the technique of 
gene targeting, also called gene knockout.



"To me it's very appropriate that we both be recognized because 
we both made different contributions towards the total 
procedure," says Smithies, who, before joining the department of 
pathology at North Carolina in 1988, spent the previous 37 years 
as a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.


Smithies's early research into altering specific genes was aimed 
at globin genes in mammalian cells, specifically mice. "Both 
Mario and I, more or less at the same time, tried to apply this 
technique to embryonic stem cells and showed it effective," says 
Smithies.



"I was the first person to demonstrate that it was possible to 
modify a natural gene in a mammalian cell in tissue culture," he 
says. "What Mario did was develop a very simple vector for doing 
these experiments, making them more practically accessible to 
others."



Smithies's most cited paper on the subject, according to ISI, has 
acquired more than 260 citations, and is called "Insertion of 
DNA--sequences into the human chromosomal beta-globin locus by 
homologous recombination" (Nature, 317:230, 1985).



Smithies, 67, received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Oxford 
University, England in 1951.



Capecchi notes that this technique allows the researcher to 
replicate large numbers of mice with specific genetic diseases 
built in, such as cystic fibrosis. "In the long run, this 
technique will have a much wider application and allow you to 
systematically modify any of those genes and change its 
expression pattern," he says. "We will be able to perform a 
detailed analysis of what the gene is doing in the intact 
animal."



Capecchi is now working on unraveling the functioning of the 
complex hox genes, which are involved in specifying body 
structure, such as limb size and finger width.



Capecchi's most cited paper, with more than 290 citations, is 
called "Site-directed mutagenesis by gene targeting in mouse 
embryo-derived stem-cells" (Cell, 51:503, 1987). Born in Verona, 
Italy, Capecchi, 55, received his bachelor's degree in chemistry 
and physics from Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1961 
and his Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University in 1967. He 
has been at the University of Utah since 1973.


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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TY   :                        NOTEBOOK


PG   : 4



TI   :    International Finance


The Missouri Botanical Garden has signed an agreement with 
Madagascar's Central Bank allowing the St. Louis-based 
institution to purchase up to $750,000 worth of the country's 
international debt at 50 cents on the dollar. The agreement, 
reached this spring with Paris-based ING Bank--which holds 
Madagascar's national debt--will release funds, up to $250,000 in 
local currency per year for three years, that the botanical 
garden will use to finance its ongoing botanical research and 
conservation work, in concert with local institutions in 
Madagascar. The garden began working in Madagascar in 1972 and 
since 1983 has been researching the island nation's flora, among 
the world's most threatened. Botanists from the Missouri 
Botanical Garden train and assist Malagasy botanists in research 
techniques and participate in conservation programs.


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
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TI   :    Summer Colleagues

TY   :    NOTEBOOK

PG   :    4


United States, summer school this year will mean more than 
teaching remedial biology to bored students. As part of the 1993 
"Partners in Science" program, the teachers will be teamed with 
scientist-mentors and will conduct research. Many of the teachers 
will be working with eminent researchers on crucial projects. 
Patrick Ehrman of A.C. Davis High School in Yakima, Wash., for 
example, will assist molecular biologist Leroy Hood at the 
University of Washington in his research into the human T-cell 
receptor gene, possibly an important factor in AIDS, diabetes, 
multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and other diseases. The 
program, funded by Research Corporation and 10 other corporate 
and foundation sponsors, provides two-year grants of $14,000. The 
deadline for teacher candidate statements for the 1994 program is 
November 1, and applications for next year's research awards 
(from college or university scientists) will accepted through 
December 1. For information, contact Partners in Science, 
Research Corporation, 101 Wilmot Rd., Suite 250, Tucson, Ariz. 
85711-3332; (602) 571-1111, Fax: (602) 571-1119.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:




TI   :    Developing Third World Science

TY   :    NOTEBOOK

PG   :    4


The Third World Academy of Sciences supports high-level 
international and regional scientific meetings, workshops, and 
symposia in developing countries by providing travel grants of up 
to $4,000 to bring in principal speakers from abroad, as well as 
participants from other developing nations. The grants are 
offered for meetings in the agricultural, biological, chemical, 
engineering, geological, and medical sciences. Applications are 
accepted only from organizers of these scientific events. The 
deadline for the next round of grants is December 1 for meetings 
to be held from July to December 1994. For information and 
applications, contact M.T. Mahdavi, Third World Academy of 
Sciences, c/o International Centre for Theoretical Physics, P.O. 
Box 6586, 34100 Trieste, Italy; (39) (40) 2240-325, Fax: (39) 
(40) 224559, Telex: 460392 ICTP I.


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


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TI   :    Good News For Runts

TY   :    NOTEBOOK

PG   :    4


Researchers at the University of Wisconsin's College of 
Agriculture and Life Sciences report that fat supplements help 
baby pigs make it through their first days of life and may 
provide similar benefits to premature human babies. Animals and 
humans that are small at birth can't store much glycogen, which 
they need to fuel their metabolisms, according to food scientist 
N.J. Benevenga and colleagues. When the infants quickly run out 
of glycogen at birth, they start to burn body protein, the 
scientists say. But runt piglets fed medium-chain triglycerides 
(MCTs), such as those in processed coconut oil, have a greater 
chance of survival than those who aren't. The MCTs, similar to 
fats found in mothers' milk, give the runts a quick burst of 
energy and help them nurse and compete with the bigger piglets, 
the investigators say.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


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TI   :    Running Strong

TY   :    NOTEBOOK

PG   :    4


Other researchers on the Wisconsin campus are putting their 
porkers on a diet of exercise, specifically a regimen of 
Research Center, animal scientist Tom Crenshaw and colleague 
Everett Smith from the department of preventive medicine have 
found that when sows walked treadmills 20 minutes a day, seven 
days a week, the exercise stimulated mineralization in their 
thigh bones. The research could lead to insights into 
osteoporosis in humans and ways to reduce lameness problems in 
production animals, the researchers claim. Couch potatoes may be 
heartened to learn that Crenshaw's research indicates that, 
although there are physiological differences between pigs and 
humans, it is not intense exercise but an increase in exercise 
level that stimulates bone formation.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:



TI   :    Mind Reading

TY   :    NOTEBOOK

PG   :    4


Yale University School of Medicine researchers have developed a 
method of determining just how much "wood" is burning when people 
think. A multidisciplinary team led by Robert G. Shulman, a 
professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, believes 
itself to be the first to use magnetic resonance imaging to 
measure regions of the brain stimulated during cognitive 
functions. Nine adult men and women volunteers were asked by the 
team to repeat simple nouns or to conjugate verbs. Every three 
seconds, the researchers used a Tesla magnet MRI system to take 
images of their brains. The team then compared the images taken 
before, during, and after the language task to measure the 
increase in brain activity. The scientists say the technique may 
allow more sophisticated measurements on patients before 
operations or after trauma. It may also be used to track brain 
responses to medication for patients with dementing illnesses, 
like Alzheimer's disease.


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

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TI   :    Chance Encounters

TY   :    NOTEBOOK

PG   :    4

This spring, the University of California, San Diego, is offering 
a mathematics course that, on the surface, might seem better 
suited to nearby Santa Anita racetrack than the classroom. The 
new course, called "Chance," will require students to apply the 
principles of statistics and probability to real-life examples of 
chance events. The problems the students will address in the new 
course may range from such scientific issues in the news as the 
accuracy of AIDS tests, possible links between cancer and the 
environment, or DNA fingerprinting to playing the odds at the 
casino and in the stock market. The goal of the course, UC-San 
Diego officials say, is to arm students with basic skills in 
probability and statistics needed to survive in the scientific 
age. The students approach the problems by first examining 
accounts of a particular issue in the press or in scientific 
journals, and then, in many cases, reviewing the raw data used to 
arrive at the results and determining whether the statistical 
procedures used were appropriate or flawed. The students will 
also set up probability models for their own analyses of real-
world issues.


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:



TI   :    Super Forecast

TY   :    NOTEBOOK

PG   :    4


Industry experts from around the world issued a global market 
forecast for superconductor products and systems of $150 billion-
$200 billion by 2020. A joint communique by participants at the 
second International Superconductivity Industry Summit (ISIS), 
held in Hakone, Japan, last month, predicts that the world 
superconductivity market, currently at $1.5 billion annually, 
billion by 2010. The communique notes that, since its discovery in 
1986, superconductor research and development has grown so 
rapidly "it is no longer a question of if [superconductivity] 
technology will be commercialized, but when." The next ISIS will 
be held in Oxford, England, next May.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:




TI   :    Biotechnology Job Fairs---


AU   :    RON KAUFMAN

TY   :    NEWS

PG   :    8


Soon after finishing school, most new science graduates will 
utilize the entire spectrum of traditional job-seeking methods--
such as help- wanted ads, networking, university placement 
services, and assistance provided by scientific societies--to 
begin the next stage of their career.



Another method that has been gaining in popularity over the years 
is the science job fair--a large conference of company 
representatives accepting resumes and interviewing for new 
employees. Although these events have been around for decades, a 
relatively new phenomenon is the industry-specific job fair, and 
one in particular is becoming ubiquitous and effective, its 
organizers say--job fairs for biotechnology and pharmaceutical 
companies.



"In fact, right now the marketplace is becoming glutted with 
offerings of biotech and pharmaceutical job fairs," says Christos 
Richards, founder of Career Connection, a company based in 
Thousand Oaks, Calif., that arranges biotech/pharmaceutical job 
fairs.


Held in either a ballroom or a suite, usually in a large hotel, 
commercial job fairs of this type generally attract between 10 
and 20 national and local biotech companies looking for new 
employees. Job seekers can show up unannounced to submit resumes, 
and, in some cases, even conduct interviews with prospective 
employers.



Along with Career Connection, Life Science Associates in Oakland, 
Calif., and the Lendman Group in Virginia Beach, Va., are the 
United States' three largest producers of job fairs in the life 
and biological sciences; each company will sponsor between six 
and 10 fairs this year. A biotech or pharmaceutical company will 
pay one flat fee to the organizer, usually around $3,500; in 
return, company officials are allowed to interview as many 
candidates and make as many hires as they wish from the pool of 
applicants who attend the fair, organizers of the fairs say.



"The job fair forum can be exceptionally effective for both 
employers and employees," says Richards, whose five-year-old 
company was one of the original producers of biotechnology job 
fairs, running its first in 1990 in La Jolla, Calif. "For the 
employer, it's an opportunity to make multiple hires for a 
fraction of the cost of one hire through a search firm. And for 
the job candidate, the fair is a chance to submit a resume or have 
an interview with many companies in one afternoon."



Major biotech and pharmaceutical companies such as Amgen Inc. in 
Thousand Oaks, Calif.; Genentech Inc., San Francisco, Calif.; 
Serono Laboratories Inc. in Norwell, Mass.; Bristol-Myers Squibb 
Co. in Syracuse, N.Y.; XOMA Corp. of Berkeley, Calif.; and 
divisions of the Baxter Healthcare Corp., headquartered in 
Deerfield, Ill., often frequent the fairs.



The average number of hires per biotech company per job fair is 
between two and five, the organizers of the fairs say. Most of 
the companies that send representatives to the fairs are looking 
for scientists with Ph.D.-level education and between five and 10 
years of laboratory experience, according to Jo Curtin, president 
of Life Science Associates (LSA), a division of Career Expo 
Conference Planners, also in Oakland.



Though Career Expo has been producing job fairs in the areas of 
engineering/technical, sales, and business operations on the West 
bioscience fair in November 1992. "Biotech job fairs are still a 
fairly new idea to people, but I think it's going to become a 
more and more prevalent force in recruiting," Curtin says.



The Lendman Group, though it has produced job fairs for about 30 
years, only recently began running biotech-specific fairs in 
January. Steve Campbell, president of the company, says that its 
first biotech fair in Cambridge, Mass., called "Biotech '93," 
attracted 1,500 job- seekers, 57 percent of whom had a Ph.D.-
level education.



"The beauty of a job fair from the perspective of the job 
candidate," says Campbell, "is he or she can come and conduct a 
pretty sizable job search under one roof in a few hours and 
really know where they stand. That might take several weeks to do 
via the post office." Also, he says, the Lendman Group will 
accept resumes or CVs through mail or fax from job-seekers unable 
to attend the event and will distribute them to the participating 
companies.



However, some career counselors doubt that many new graduates 
find employment at the biotech job fairs. Mary Heiberger, 
associate director of the career planning and placement center at 
the University of Pennsylvania, says most Ph.D.-level scientists 
obtain their jobs through networking, applying directly to 
companies, responding to ads, availing themselves of job services 
provided by scientific societies, and obtaining referrals from 
advisers.



"We survey our graduating Ph.D. candidates every year and one of 
the questions we ask is: `How do you get your jobs?' And `I 
attended a commercial job fair and connected with it that way' is 
an answer I've never seen or heard about from students," says 
Heiberger. She says Ph.D.-level scientists are often searching 
for positions too specialized to have much success shopping at a 
random event.



"I think a scientist who wants to find employment is much better 
off getting involved in their own professional association than 
running around looking for some company that claims it will 
produce magic for them," she says.



Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says most of the 
graduating scientists he sees meet employers right on campus, 
rather than attending a job fair. "What can't be reproduced 
anywhere is the wealth of connections we're lucky to be able to 
have with individual companies," says Weatherall, who notes that 
in one year, between 350 and 400 companies visit MIT looking for 
hires.



Generally, when companies go to job fairs, they are looking to 
fill a number of highly specialized positions with experienced 
individuals, says Mark Iorio, human resource manager for the 
biotech manufacturing facility at Serono Laboratories. He says 
Serono attends around four job fairs a year and makes at least 
one hire per event.



"We usually hire new graduates right off campus," he says. "But 
what a job fair can do for a fresh-out graduate is give them 
invaluable interview experience and give them exposure to what 
the top companies are doing so they understand what opportunities 
might exist."




(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:





TI   :    JOB FAIR ORGANIZERS

TY   :    NEWS

AU   :    Ron Kaufman

PG   :    9


For more information about job fairs, contact:

Career Connection
299 W. Hillcrest Dr., Suite 106
Thousand Oaks, Calif. 91360

Life Science Associates
2100 Embarcadero, Suite 101
Oakland, Calif. 94606
(510) 436-3976

The Lendman Group
5500 Greenwich Rd.
Virginia Beach, Va. 23462
(804) 473-2480



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:




                             OPINION


TI   :    Science's Negative Public Image: A Puzzling And 
          Dissatisfying Matter


AU   :    LEWIS WOLPERT


TY   :    OPINION


PG   :    11

============

Editor's Note: Lewis Wolpert, a professor of biology as applied 
to medicine, University College, London, writes in his latest 
book, The Unnatural Nature of Science (Harvard University Press, 
1993), of a misconception widely held by the public that 
"scientists either pursue truth in a dispassionate manner...or 
that they are entirely competitive and selfish." The truth lies 
somewhere in between, says Wolpert. A blend of competition, 
cooperation, and commitment characterizes and informs the 
researcher's outlook and behavior; indeed, the coexistence of 
these factors is fundamental to scientific productivity. But the 
presence of these sometimes conflicting motives can be 
frustrating. On one hand, he points out, "scientists want other 
scientists to accept their ideas"; on the other hand, "scientists 
without good reason."



In the following excerpt from his book, Wolpert explores some 
manifestations of this apparent paradox, inspired as he is by a 
desire to help resolve what he considers "a dissatisfaction and a 
puzzle."



"The dissatisfaction is with the public image of science and with 
much of the writing about science in the media," he says, "as 
well as that by academics, including philosophers and 
sociologists. The puzzle is why the nature of science should be 
so misunderstood and why non-scientists have so much difficulty 
understanding scientific ideas."


============


Scientists cannot be treated as idealized animals and it is not 
legitimate to apply a sociobiological analysis to them. However, 
it does not seem unreasonable to assume that scientists wish to 
maximize the success of their ideas. Success can be thought of in 
terms of selection of their ideas by the community in the field 
in which they work. This is associated with personal success, 
which involves advancement in relation to jobs, promotion, praise 
by one's peers, money for supporting research, some personal 
financial rewards, and, on occasion, prizes. The value to the 
individual scientist of each of these rewards will vary, but they 
are closely interlinked and can be lumped together under the 
rubric of esteem by other scientists.



In order to promote the success of their ideas, and hence 
themselves, scientists must thus adopt a strategy of both 
competition and collaboration, of altruism and selfishness. Each 
must balance his or her behavior, in relation, for example, to 
sharing information, in these terms. Artists are confronted with 
such choices to a much lesser extent. Another special feature 
that characterizes modern science is the enormous number of 
collaborative research projects. Single-author papers are now a 
rarity in the scientific literature. Many papers have four or 
five authors, and in some cases in subatomic physics, the number 
of names attached to the paper may be fifty or even more.



It may not be unreasonable to think that the strategy scientists 
adopt is one that is entirely competitive and self-seeking, since 
there are, in a sense, only a limited number of golden 
"gold" has been claimed, the other "prospectors" are left 
penniless. But this view ignores the intensely cooperative nature 
of the scientific enterprise. Scientific success is not only 
about making discoveries about nature but about persuading other 
scientists of the validity of your ideas. In the process, one has 
to be part of a community which, with time, has developed quite a 
rigorous set of unstated norms for acceptable behavior. Included 
in these norms are the ideas that science is public knowledge, 
freely available to all; that there are no privileged sources of 
scientific knowledge--ideas in science must be judged on their 
intrinsic merits; and that scientists should take nothing on 
trust, in the sense that scientific knowledge should be 
constantly scrutinized. In addition, there have arisen a set of 
rules for the sharing of materials. In molecular biology, for 
example, once a paper is published which contains information on 
specific genes or proteins, then the authors are duty-bound to 
provide materials from their laboratory which enable other 
workers to pursue work on those genes or proteins. They may, of 
course, require that future research be collaborative, but it is 
not acceptable for them to keep all the materials for themselves.



There is an almost prurient fascination in the media with both 
competition and fraud in science. It is as if these contaminate 
the purity of science, and they are viewed almost in the same way 
as someone of note in the religious world being discovered to be 
wholly immoral. Competition between scientists is regarded as, at 
the very least, indecent--quite alien to the image of the ivory-
tower scientists pursuing knowledge for its own sake. But this is 
to fail to understand the special nature of the scientific 
enterprise and how scientists interact with one another. 
Scientists have to adopt a special strategy in order to be 
successful. They have both to compete and cooperate. Carl 
Djerassi, the chemist who first synthesized the birth-control 
pill, is one of the very few distinguished scientists who have 
written a novel about science; it is not surprising that he made 
fraud and the Nobel Prize its central themes. J.B.S. Haldane is 
reported to have said that his great pleasure was to see his 
ideas widely used even though he was not credited with their 
discovery.  That may have been fine for someone as famous and 
perhaps noble as Haldane, but for most scientists recognition is 
the reward in science.



There are cases where scientists have plagiarized the work of 
others and where results have been manufactured to support a 
particular hypothesis. It is inevitable that among the many 
thousands involved in scientific research there should be a small 
number who behave dishonestly and quite against the accepted 
norms. In several cases even distinguished scientists have been 
involved, by putting their name on a paper containing fraudulent 
results obtained by a junior colleague. They may, in some 
detail and so also have been deceived, since it is one of the 
dangers of ever-increasing collaborative work that scientists 
must have complete trust in the colleagues with whom they 
collaborate. For the functioning and the image of science, fraud 
is inexcusable; but for the advancement of science in the long 
run it really does not matter much, because it is so rare. 
Moreover, many respectable papers will themselves turn out to be 
wrong or irrelevant. A fraudulent result in an important area 
will soon be discovered when others fail to replicate the work, 
and this is exactly what has happened in several cases. More 
subtle is the scientist's desire to "massage" the results so as 
to support a viewpoint. Distinguished scientists have been 
accused of doing just this. Mendel's results that established his 
ideas on inheritance were, it is claimed, just too good to be 
believable. The desire to present one's results in the best light 
can be difficult to resist.




Excerpt from The Unnatural Nature of Science, copyright 1993, 
Harvard University Press, is used with permission of the 
publisher.




(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:




                           COMMENTARY




TI   :    What Is The Best Way To Determine A Student's Aptitude 
          For The Science Profession?

AU   :    E.G. Sherburne, Jr.


TY   :    OPINION (COMMENTARY)


PG   :    12

The article "Do High School Science Competitions Predict 
Success?" (Linda Marsa, The Scientist, April 19, 1993, page 21) 
is excellent but misses a very important point: Precollege 
science competitions are not all the same. Some are based on 
written examinations, some on students' essays, and some on 
independent scientific research. With such differences, one can 
well ask whether the different categories of competitions predict 
entry into a field--or adult occupational success in that field--
equally well.



There has not been, to my knowledge, any research aimed at 
answering this question. However, Harold A. Edgerton's 1973 study 
of Westinghouse Science Talent Search participants (Identifying 
High School Seniors Talented in Science, Washington, D.C., 
Science Service) is relevant. The study looked at that year's 300 
recipients of honorable mentions, who had been selected on the 
basis of the quality of their research papers. The names of these 
300 young people were checked against a list of 300 names 
selected from the total pool of Westinghouse entries on the basis 
of their high academic achievement (grades, SAT scores, and class 
rank).




The study compared the two groups to see how many students were 
in both. There was only one-third overlap. Two-thirds of the 
students chosen on the basis of scientific research performance 
did not have high enough scores to be in the top 300 if academic 
achievement had been the criterion for selection. And two-thirds 
of those chosen on the basis of academic achievement failed to be 
among the 300 honorable mentions chosen on the basis of 
scientific performance.




Not surprisingly, we see that different selection criteria tend 
to select different students. And so the question asked in the 
title of The Scientist's recent article might be rephrased as 
"Which High School Science Competitions Best Predict Success?" 
While there is no positive answer, a clue is offered in a 1985 
paper by Leonard L. Baird ("Do grades and tests predict adult 
accomplishment?" Research in Higher Education, 23[1]:3). After  
reviewing a large number of studies on the relation of academic 
achievement to success, Baird concluded that, in general, the 
studies demonstrated low positive relationships between academic 
aptitude or grades and adult accomplishment, although he does 
note that "The closer the content of the measure of academic 
aptitude to the demands of the field, the stronger the 
relationship."


If academic achievement does not accurately reflect the demands 
of scientific research, does it have any relevance? In 1981, 
educational psychologists Richard S. Mansfield and Thomas S. 
Busse commented on a threshold effect that has been suggested by 
some psychologists (The Psychology of Creativity and Discovery: 
Scientists and Their Work, Chicago, Nelson-Hall). Their findings 
imply that a threshold of academic achievement in a discipline is 
required for entry and effective functioning in that discipline. 
But beyond this threshold, additional academic achievement is not 
as important to success as other abilities, such as creativity or 
motivation. On the other hand, successful scientific performance 
presupposes a certain level of academic achievement, because 
successful research cannot be done without the necessary 
knowledge.



This suggests that precollege science competitions based on 
written tests would predict ability to enter a particular field 
more effectively than practical achievement in that field. 
However, precollege science competitions based on performance in 
independent research would predict success in a field but not 
necessarily ability to enter that field. This is because it is 
possible to do good research but still not have high enough 
grades for admission to some colleges or universities, since most 
institutions consider academic achievement to be of far greater 
importance than scientific performance in determining acceptance.



My opinion is that competitions based on research projects are 
better predictors of adult success in science than are 
competitions based on written tests, since the demands of a 
project more closely resemble the demands that professional 
scientists must meet. Written examinations, which establish 
exclusionary thresholds of academic potential that may preclude a 
student's entry into science, are most valuable in predicting who 
among them will not go on to become successful scientists.



E.G. Sherburne, Jr. is former president of Science Service, which 
publishes Science News and administers two major precollege 
science competitions: the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and 
the International Science and Engineering Fair.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================

NEXT:





                             LETTERS



TI   :    Duplicate Research

TY   :    OPINION (LETTERS)

PG   :    12


I read with interest the story by Paul McCarthy on the problem of 
redundant publication in the March 8, 1993, issue of The 
Scientist (page 1) and the commentary on the subject by Eugene 
Garfield in the April 19 issue (page 12).



Garfield is right, of course, that there is a long-standing 
problem that could be solved by editors' and researchers' making 
better use of citation searches. However, I believe the emphasis 
on "publication" is misplaced.



Duplication of the research itself is more important than 
redundant publication. "Better yet," as Garfield says, 
investigators should run a literature search "before fully 
embarking on a research project." Much duplication could also be 
avoided by use of citation searches by the panels that authorize 
the research, at the proposal stage, just in case the author of 
the proposal missed something important with too narrow a search.



I estimate that the cost of redundant research exceeds the cost 
of redundant publication by a minimum factor of 100. In other 
words, I would focus on the real waste of money in research 
design, equipment, labor, supplies, and use of facilities rather 
than the trifling waste associated with redundant publication. By 
the time a report of such a waste of time and money is submitted 
to an editor, the damage is done.



ALBERT HENDERSON
Bridgeport, Conn.

(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:



TI   :    Chemistry Opportunities



TY    :   OPINION (LETTERS)


PG   :    12


This letter is in response to Ronald Breslow's Commentary titled 
"Let's Put an End to `Chemophobia' " (The Scientist, March 22, 
1993, page 12). As a 1984 Ph.D. who has held entry-level 
industrial chemistry positions, I agree with Breslow's claims 
that chemistry is important. He concludes by encouraging students 
to consider chemistry.



The real reason that students are not going into chemistry does 
not have much to do with "image." Instead, students are 
recognizing that while chemistry is very important, the economic 
consequences of such a choice are very negative. Usually, unless 
a young scientist achieves "superstar" status, he or she will be 
looking forward to substantial periods of unemployment or 
underemployment. Depending on one's perspective, the reason for 
this is either (a) overproduction of scientists and engineers or 
(b) underabsorption of scientists and engineers by prospective 
employers of scientists and engineers. With either perspective, 
the imbalance is a supply of about three scientists and engineers 
per projected opening through 2005.



The primary goal of the Young Scientists Network (YSN), a group 
with no membership fee and whose members are linked primarily by 
computer electronic mail, is to debunk the myth of a soon-to-
materialize shortage of scientists and engineers.



YSN shares with several other organizations the long-term goal of 
improving the utilization of scientists via the allocation of 
more resources. In addition, a bibliography with about 50 
(large) dimensions of the problem. I urge readers of The 
Scientist to examine the real reasons for "chemophobia," and to 
work to correct the root causes.



To use the network via Internet, send general questions and 
add/delete requests to: ysn-adm@zoyd.ee.washington.edu


GENE A. NELSON
Member, Editorial Board
Young Scientists Network
Cleveland 


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(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


                       ==================

NEXT :



                            RESEARCH



TI   :    United States National Labs: How Does Their Research           
          Measure Up?

TY   :    RESEARCH


PG   :    14


Editor's Note: An article on page 1 of this issue addresses the 
government officials, and the United States public concerning 
ongoing funding and focus of the major national weapons labs--
Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia. The article points 
out that this shift, in fact, marks a time of vast change for all 
Department of Energy-managed labs, as the quest for global 
economic gain supplants the fear of global war as the prime 
reason for continued support of these facilities. Among the most 
dramatic signs of change, as these labs take new aim through 
creative partnerships with private-industry firms, is their 
increasing involvement in the life sciences. Heretofore, their 
achievements--individually and collectively--centered for the 
most part on the physical sciences, and it is worth pondering how 
well they will adapt to the inevitable challenges accompanying 
the demand to redirect their efforts.



Earlier this year, the newsletter Science Watch, published by the 
Institute for Scientific Information in Philadelphia, undertook 
to evaluate through citation analysis the influence that the 
largest national labs have had on research during the past 
decade. The newsletter compared the labs' citation records in 
several categories--physical as well as life sciences--weighing 
the impact of their published work against one another, and also 
against the impact of all U.S.-published papers in these fields. 
A report on this study appeared in the March 1993 issue of 
Science Watch. It is reprinted here with the permission of the 
newsletter and of ISI.



For some time now, the national laboratories of the United States 
Department of Energy (DOE) have been the subject of increasing 
scrutiny. Policymakers are openly questioning the necessity of 
funding the weapons labs--Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, and Los 
Alamos--at the same levels as during the 1980s, when the threat 
from the Soviet Union was considerable.



Those wrestling with the ever-expanding federal budget deficit 
are wondering how much of the billions currently spent each year 
on the national labs might be saved. And some politicians, 
worried about America's economic competitiveness, are asking 
whether the DOE labs can shift their missions toward civilian 
research and work more closely with industry--in fact, in some 
cases to become contract research shops for industry.



There is little question that changes are coming for the national 
labs, but when, how much, and what type of changes are yet to be 
determined. In light of all this, it seems appropriate for 
Science Watch to examine how scientists themselves regard the 
citation analysis, which reflects the influence that research at 
a given facility has had on others in the scientific community.



Science Watch surveyed the scientific papers from eight large DOE 
labs that were published in journals indexed by ISI from 1981 to 
1992. The papers of each were divided into subfields based on the 
journals in which they appeared and a journal-subfield 
classification scheme employed by Current Contents, an ISI 
publication. The labs were then ranked according to their mean 
citations-per-paper record in 1981-92 (papers published during 
1981-92 and cited over the same period) and in the most recent 
five-year period, 1988-92 (papers published during 1988-92 and 
cited during the same period). To be ranked in a subfield, a lab 
had to have produced at least 100 papers in a given period; an 
exception was made for Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 
analytical, inorganic, and nuclear chemistry in 1988-92, when it 
produced 90 papers.



For each subfield, and for each period surveyed, the average 
citation impact scores for all U.S. papers are indicated at the 
top of each ranking.



The results show that the research impact of these large DOE 
labs, as measured by citations per paper, generally exceeds the 
U.S. average. In fact, there are signs of improvement: More of 
the labs surpassed the U.S. average in 1988-92 than they did in 
1981-92.



Different labs clearly have different areas of strength and 
weakness. As for strengths, Brookhaven ranked first in general 
physics; Argonne topped the list in applied physics; Ames placed 
first in analytical, inorganic, and nuclear chemistry; Berkeley 
bested all others in materials science; and Sandia took top 
honors in nuclear engineering, for both periods.



As for weaknesses, Oak Ridge was last in physical chemistry and 
in biochemistry/biophysics for both periods, and it fell from 
sixth to last in applied physics, comparing 1981-92 with 1988-92; 
Brookhaven ranked at the bottom or near to it in physical 
chemistry and materials science during both periods; Livermore 
placed last or next to last in applied physics; and Los Alamos 
was last in analytical, inorganic, and nuclear chemistry during 
both periods.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:




                            RESEARCH
                           HOT PAPERS


TI   :    PLANT SCIENCE


TY   :    RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS)


H. Ohta, K. Shida, Y.-L. Peng, I. Furusawa, et al., "A 
lipoxygenase pathway is activated in rice after infection with 
the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea," Plant Physiology, 
97:94-8, 1991.



Hiroyuki Ohta (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan): "When 
plants are infected with a pathogen, they show a series of quick 
protective responses. A well-known response to fungal attack is 
production of phytoalexins, which have inhibitory effects on the 
growth of the fungus. When fungi infect plants, the phytoalexins 
are coincidentally accumulated in the infected cells, and then 
suppress the invaders. One of the important points to understand 
in this resistance mechanism is when and how the phytoalexins are 
produced in the plant cells. Recently, several metabolites of 
unsaturated fatty acids have been isolated as antifungal 
substances from plants, and thus, the potentially important role 
of lipoxygenase and subsequent metabolic pathway (lipoxygenase 
pathway) in producing such compounds has increased the interest 
in plant pathology.



"Our paper clearly showed that a lipoxygenase pathway producing 
antifungal hydroxy fatty acids was highly activated in rice after 
infection with the rice blast fungus. Furthermore, this event of 
early induction of lipoxygenase pathway was much higher in 
response to the infection with an `incompatible' strain than that 
with a `compatible' one, which caused severe disease in host 
cells. The phenomenon strongly suggests that the lipoxygenase 
plants against fungal attack. Our group also confirmed that the 
activation of the lipoxygenase was also observed at the mRNA 
level (unpublished data).



"There remains another question that we should consider: How do 
plant cells recognize the fungal infection, and communicate it to 
other cells around infection sites? It is noteworthy that an 
alternative lipoxygenase pathway in plant cells is known for 
producing jasmonates, growth inhibitors of plants, which have 
received renewed interest as important signaling molecules. Now 
we presume that the induction of lipoxygenase by fungal infection 
has an additional important meaning in activation of the 
signaling pathway following early responses of plants to fungal 
attack."



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:




TI   :    MATERIALS SCIENCE


TY   :    RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS)


PG   :    15


P. Bruno, C. Chappert, "Oscillatory coupling between 
ferromagnetic layers separated by a nonmagnetic metal spacer," 
Physical Review Letters, 67:1602-5, 1991.



Patrick Bruno (Institut d'Electronique Fondamentale, Orsay, 
France): "Magnetic multilayers are currently attracting 
considerable interest as new artificial materials. Among them, 
those consisting of an alternated stacking of a ferromagnetic 
metal (such as iron, cobalt, or nickel) and a nonmagnetic metal 
(such as copper, silver, chromium, or ruthenium), with individual 
layer thicknesses in the range of a few atomic layers (AL), 
exhibit unique magnetic and electrical properties that make them 
very promising for the development of novel magnetic sensors and 



"In 1990 the observation was published that, in iron/chromium, 
cobalt/chromium, and cobalt/ruthenium multilayers, the magnetic 
coupling between two ferromagnetic layers across the nonmagnetic 
spacer oscillates periodically as a function of the spacer 
thickness (S.S.P. Parkin, et al., Phys. Rev. Letts., 64:2304, 
1990). This announcement stimulated intense experimental and 
theoretical activity. One of the challenges was to understand the 
period of the oscillations, which in early experiments ranged 
between 5 and 10 AL.



"We proposed a theory of this phenomenon based on the Ruderman-
Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) model, originally developed to 
explain the magnetic coupling between magnetic atoms embedded in 
a nonmagnetic host metal. In the RKKY theory, the Fermi surface 
of the host metal (a geometric construction characteristic of the 
electronic structure of a given metal) plays a central role. Our 
theory shows that the period of oscillation is an intrinsic 
property of the spacer metal and is determined by its Fermi 
surface. It is quite general and takes into account the peculiar 
atomic and electronic structure of the multilayer.



"We think that the impact of our paper is due to the fact that, 
for the first time, we derived precise rules for determining the 
period of oscillation from the shape of the Fermi surface; since 
the latter is usually anisotropic, the oscillation periods are 
expected to depend on the crystallographic orientation of the 
multilayer. Moreover, we predicted the coexistence, in the 
general case, of several periods, which had been unobserved.



"By using experimental data (from de Haas-van Alphen experiments) 
on the Fermi surfaces of noble metal, we made explicit 
predictions for the period of oscillation of the interlayer 
coupling across copper, silver, and gold spacer layers. For the 
(001) orientation, we found the striking result that a 
superposition of a short period (about 2 AL) of oscillation and a 
long period (6 to 8 AL) of oscillation should be observed. 
Experimental investigations have undertaken to check the validity 
of these predictions; this yielded very satisfying quantitative 
agreement with our theoretical predictions, for gold, copper, and 
silver (A. Fuss, et al., Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic 
Materials, 103:L221, 1992; M.T. Johnson, et al., Phys. Rev. 
Letts., 68: 2688, 1992; J. Unguris, et al., to be published)."



(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:



TI   :    CELL BIOLOGY


TY   :    RESEARCH (HOT PAPERS)


PG   :    15


A. Lerman, B.S. Edwards, J.W. Hallett, D.M. Heublein, et al., 
"Circulating and tissue endothelin immunoreactivity in advanced 
atherosclerosis," <BI>New England Journal of Medicine, 325:997-
1001, 1991.



Amir Lerman (Mayo Clinic, Ro-chester, Minn.): "It is clear that 
the endothelium is much more than a semipermeable barrier between 
the blood and the vascular smooth muscle. Indeed, the endothelial 
system must now be regarded as a highly active endocrine organ. 
The endothelium contributes to local vascular regulation by 
releasing vasodilating substances such as endothelium-derived 
relaxing factor (EDRF) with associated antiproliferative 
properties and releases as well vasoconstricting substances such 
as endothelin with associated mitogenic properties.



"A role for endothelial dysfunction in the pathophysiology of 
atherosclerosis continues to emerge. We have recently 
investigated the role of plasma and tissue endothelin in humans 
with symptomatic atherosclerotic vascular disease requiring 
arterial revascularization. In this study, plasma endothelin 
concentrations were elevated in humans with advanced 
atherosclerosis, and correlate with the number of disease sites 
involved. Specific immunohistochemistry staining of endothelin-1, 
like immunoreactivity of human atherosclerotic aorta, 
demonstrated that endothelin was present in the cytoplasm of both 
vascular smooth muscle and endothelial cells. This observation 
suggests a role for endothelin as a marker for arterial vascular 
injury and as a participant in the atherogenic process.



"It has become apparent that a critical balance between EDRF and 
and regional hemodynamic functions and cellular proliferation. 
Future investigations should be focused upon such endothelial 
function in physiologic and pathophysiologic states through the 
development of endothelin receptor antagonists and endothelin-
converting enzyme inhibitors as well as activators of EDRF 
synthesis and release to further define the role of the 
endothelium in the pathophysiology and therapeutics of human 
vascular disease."



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:



                            RESEARCH



TI   :    Scientific Graphing Software Tools Fill Important Niche


AU   :    FRANKLIN HOKE

TY   :    TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY


PG   :    17



Scientists have tough demands when it comes to presenting their 
data graphically, whether for presentation or publication. To 
meet these demands, they used to call upon the skills of 
technical graphic artists, but the resulting cycles of 
corrections and alterations were often inefficient and taxing to 
both parties.



"You handed a rough idea of what you wanted to a graphic artist," 
says former biologist Robert Simons, explaining how he came to 
write the graphing package CoPlot, from CoHort Software, 
Berkeley, Calif. The artist then would produce an approximation 
of the conception, says Simons, and lengthy revisions would 
follow. "It cost a lot of money, it was a pain, and it took a 
long time. And then the journal would come back and say, `These 
two lines are too  thin,  these are too thick, and everything 



In the 1980s, however, software developers like Simons began to 
release scientific graphing and plotting packages for the 
personal computer (PC) that, as a group, gave the individual 
scientist increasingly powerful, precise control over his or her 
data presentation. These packages grew in quantity and 
sophistication; today, there are a number of very capable 
software tools designed to meet technical needs. The majority are 
MS-DOS based, but several are available for the Windows operating 
environment, as well, with more planned for release soon.



Among these packages are: Fig. P from Biosoft, Ferguson, Mo.; 
CoPlot from CoHort Software, Berkeley, Calif.; SigmaPlot from 
Jandel Scientific, San Rafael, Calif.; Origin from MicroCal 
Software Inc., Northampton, Mass.; PlotIT from Scientific 
Programming Enterprises, Haslett, Mich.; Graftool and Stanford 
Graphics from 3-D Visions, Torrance, Calif.; and Axum from 
TriMetrix Inc. in Seattle.




Filling The Gap
In terms of functionality, the scientific graphing packages can 
be said to fill a gap between two other families of software. One 
is presentation graphics software, designed primarily for the 
business community and offering good control over aspects of 
appearance such as fonts and color. The other is statistical or 
computational software, providing the brute number-crunching 
capability scientists need.



"Our niche is definitely publication and presentation for 
scientists," says Robin Rafferty, product manager for Jandel 
Scientific's Sigma-Plot graphing software. She says that some 
business programs have edged into the scientific market by adding 
technical features, but that the new features tend to be 
"somewhat hidden underneath the business features." Also, she 
says, their mathematical analysis capabilities are likely to be 
inadequate.



"At the other end of the spectrum," Rafferty says, "are the math 
and statistics packages, which have much greater functionality 
[in those areas of operation], but may be weaker on the graphics 
side."


Historically, many scientists have managed to get by with  
presentation software specifically designed for the business 
community. The business market has been well served by commercial 
software developers, so that there is a good selection of 
programs to choose from. Also, the business packages are able to 
deliver some computational support while providing attractive 
output.



But scientists have particular needs in presenting their data 
graphically that are not met by most business-oriented software 
packages. Among these are the ability to automatically plot error 
bars, to do curve-fitting of data, to create three- dimensional 
graphs, and to handle very large data sets.



According to Cheryl Mauer, communications director for Tri-
Metrix, error bars are a graphical way for researchers to 
represent the degree of statistical confidence in a given data 
point.



"Your X and Y data coordinates plot a point on the chart," Mauer 
explains, "and in experimental data you often have an error value 
around each point."



James B. Smith is a professor of behavioral pharmacology at 
Mercer University, Atlanta, and a Fig. P user. His studies look 
at the effect of different drugs on behavior in animals.



"When we plot data and record it for a journal," Smith says, 
"we're expected to show basic descriptive statistics indicating 
the variance in that sample of animals, or test tubes, or 
whatever we're measuring."



Before packages like Fig. P became available, Smith says, 
programs required the user to calculate standard error separately 
and then enter the results into a spreadsheet-type format. The 
graphed points would then show error bars. But, with Fig. P, he 
says, this is no longer necessary.



"The program itself will compute standard error on the basis of a 
number of different conventions," Smith says, "and then it will 



Curve-fitting is another feature important to scientists that the 
business packages don't offer and that the technical packages do.



"Typically, with business graphics," says Mauer, "you tend to 
know what sales were down to the last penny, whereas, with 
experimental data, the package needs to be able to handle missing 
values.



"With curve-fitting," she explains, "the scientist has an idea, 
an equation that might fit their data, but they're not sure. What 
they can do is plug in the equation, plug in some initial 
estimates for parts of the equation that are unknown, and then an 
internal algorithm goes through and kerchunks away until it gets 
closer to a fit through the data points. Then it draws it out on 
the screen."



The latest version of Axum, released May 10, includes these 
features, Mauer says.



"We've added nonlinear curve-fitting and automatic error bars, in 
response to the biological community, in large part," she says.



Three-dimensional graphs are another area of importance to 
scientific users. Plotting on three axes is a computationally 
demanding feature not usually offered by the business packages.



Similarly, the ability to handle very large data sets is 
important to scientists. Some of the business programs have 
spreadsheets limited in, say, the number of rows allowable, while 
many technical graphing packages are virtually unlimited.



"In CoPlot," says Simons, for example, "you can work with files 
that are limited only by the disk space that you have."



There are other features of significance to scientists that the 



"They often don't have the full Greek character set," says 
Simons, "and they often don't support subscripts or superscripts. 
Those things are common and important to scientists."



While most of these features--automatic plotting of error bars, 
curve-fitting of data, three-dimensional graphing, and large-
data-set handling--are available on each package discussed here, 
there are differences in approach and degree. Before deciding on 
a particular software tool, a scientific user would be wise to 
study the fine print on the package's features list.



Windows On The Horizon
While several of the packages are currently available in a 
Windows version--Fig. P, Origin, PlotIT, and Stanford Graphics--
several others are scheduled for release soon, including 
SigmaPlot. Axum developers also are working on their Windows 
product, although a release date is not being predicted.



The majority of scientific users are trying to get as many of 
their software tools as possible running under Windows. Besides 
the increased ease of use that the graphical user interface 
offers, there is increased compatibility between programs in 
Windows. The DOS-based programs do not have this compatibility, 
explains David Ulmer, vice president of marketing for 3-D 
Visions. Ulmer's company sells Graftool, which runs under DOS, 
and Stanford Graphics, which runs under Windows.



"If you want to take an image out of SigmaPlot or Graftool or 
Axum to put it into a word processor," Ulmer says, "you're going 
to lose something. What it is that you lose is up for grabs. In 
some programs, it's the style of fonts. In other programs, it's 
the style of lines you have. Something  gets  lost  in  the  
translation from the proprietary format into another kind of 
format. And then when you import it back into the word processor, 
again, you lose something.



"Now, with Windows," Ulmer continues, "you point [with the mouse] 
at what you want to keep and say, `copy.' Then you go over to 
your word processor and point where you want it to go and say, 
`paste,' and it's there." 


"Windows really gives you the ability to have a Macintosh-like 
environment in the IBM box," says William Emerides, a University 
of Pittsburgh researcher doing muscle fatigue studies. "Instead 
of having to type in a bunch of cryptic commands, you can just 
use the point-and-click technology."



Like Ulmer, Emerides cites the increased compatibility among 
Windows programs as a strong plus.



"You really want to have all the programs you can running in that 
environment," Emerides says, "because you take output from one 
program and put it into another, which you sometimes can't do 
with [DOS-based] programs without sitting down and entering the 
data all over again."



Emerides says most of his graphing needs revolve around X/Y plots 
of such variables as blood flow vs. time or force output over 
time. Currently, he is using Stanford Graphics, although he also 
is investigating the other Windows-based scientific graphing 
packages.



While it is true that Windows is becoming more and more 
commonplace on the scientific desktop, not every scientist doing 
technical graphing is ready to commit to the Windows environment.



"I like the increased power and speed of the newer, faster 
[microprocessor] chips," says Mercer's Smith, "but I don't like 
Windows. I think it's cumbersome, and I get tennis elbow working 
that mouse all over the place."



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:






TY   :    TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY

PG   :    19


The  following companies are among those providing  graphing  and 
plotting software for scientists.

Biosoft
P.O. Box 10938
Ferguson, Mo. 63135
(314) 524-8029
Fax: (314) 524-8129
Product: Fig. P (MS-DOS, Windows: $499)

CoHort Software
P.O. Box 1149
Berkeley, Calif. 94701
(510) 524-9878
Fax: (510) 524-9199
Product: CoPlot (MS-DOS: $159)

Jandel Scientific
2591 Kerner Blvd.
San Rafael, Calif. 94901
(415) 453-6700
Fax: (415) 453-7769
Product: SigmaPlot (MS-DOS: $495)

MicroCal Software Inc.
22 Industrial Dr. East
Northampton, Mass. 01060
(800) 969-7720
Fax: (413) 586-0149
Product: Origin (Windows: $495)

Scientific Programming Enterprises
P.O. Box 669
Haslett, Mich. 48840
(517) 339-9859
Fax: (517) 339-4376
Product: PlotIT (MS-DOS: $495; Windows: $595)

3-D Visions
2780 Skypark Dr.
Torrance, Calif. 90505
(310) 325-1339
Fax: (310) 325-1505
Products:  Graftool (MS-DOS: $495), Stanford  Graphics  (Windows: 
$495)

TriMetrix Inc.
Suite 210
Seattle, Wash. 98115
(206) 527-1801
Fax: (206) 522-9159
Product: Axum (MS-DOS: $495)

(See also the Scientific Software Directory on page 30.)



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:




                             PEOPLE



TI   :    Berkeley Oceanographer Is Second Woman To Receive NSF's 
          Alan T. Waterman Award

AU   :    Ron Kaufman


TY   :    PROFESSION (PEOPLE)

PG   :    22



Biological oceanographer Deborah L. Penry, an assistant professor 
at the University of California, Berkeley, has become the 18th 
recipient of the National Science Foundation's Alan T. Waterman 
Award for outstanding research by a scientist under the age of 
35. The award, which includes a $500,000, three-year research 
grant, was presented to Penry on May 12 at the National Science 
Board's annual dinner.



Penry, now 36, was honored for her investigations of how marine 
animals feed and process food. She has applied the principles of 
chemical reactor theory and design to explain how the digestive 
processes of marine life fit into the ocean ecosystem (D.L. 
Penry, P.A. Jumars, "Modeling animal guts as chemical reactors," 
American Naturalist, 129: 69-96, 1987).


According to Penry's theory, phytoplankton produce organic 
matter. Animals eat those phytoplankton and then excrete fecal 
waste. The waste is either consumed by other planktonic animals 
or settles on the ocean floor to be degraded or buried in 
sediment. "The common step in all of this," she says, "is that 
the material goes through some animal's gut.



"Because every animal has a different digestive strategy, I 
wanted a framework where I could generalize the process," she 
says. "So I used chemical reactor theory. That is, that animal 
guts are like chemical reactors because, essentially, you put 
material in, chemical reactions oc-cur, and material comes out 
again."



The Waterman award has been presented annually since 1976. Penry 
is only the second woman to win it; the first was Columbia 
University biochemist Jacqueline K. Barton in 1985.



Penry says the scarcity of women among the award winners is "sort 
of typical" of the general way women are represented in science. 
"But I do think that women of my generation have it a whole lot 
better than women of 15 or 20 years ago, when it was much more 
difficult to be taken seriously in science. Back then, women had 
to make a lot more sacrifices to pursue a career in science, and 
they would often have to accept lesser positions than a man  with 
the same qualifications.



"I can't say I've had any problems in science being a woman 



Penry received her B.S. in biology from the University of 
Delaware in 1979 and her Ph.D. in oceanography from the 
University of Washington in Seattle in 1988.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:



TI   :    Foundation Honors Radiation Pathologist For Lifetime Of 
          Environmental Research

AU   :    Ron Kaufman


TY   :    PROFESSION (PEOPLE)


PG   :    22



Arthur Canfield Upton a lifelong researcher in radiation 
pathology, has been named the first recipient of the Lovelace 
Medical Foundation's Award for Excellence in Environmental Health 
Research. Based in Albuquerque, N.Mex., the 46-year-old 
foundation established the award this year to recognize 
excellence in basic or applied research dealing with the 
relationship between the environment and human health. The award, 
an engraved crystal statue accompanied by a $2,500 cash prize, 
was presented to Upton in April.



Currently retired and living in Santa Fe, N.Mex., Upton, 70, has 
devoted his career to teaching and researching many aspects of 
environmental health sciences. He received his bachelor's and 
medical degrees in 1944 and 1946, respectively, from the 
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.



He spent 18 years, 1951-69, as a pathologist in the biology 
division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, where 
he began research on the carcinogenic affects of ionizing 
radiation. He then moved to head the department of pathology at 
the State University of New York at Stony Brook until 1977.



>From 1977 to 1979, Upton served as director of the National 
Cancer Institute under President Jimmy Carter. From 1980 until 
his retirement last year, he was director of the Institute of 
Environmental Medicine and chairman of the department of 
environmental medicine at the New York University School of 
Medicine.



For the most part, Upton says, his scientific and medical 
concerns have focused on the effects of toxicants created by 
toxic wastes.



"We are just now beginning to recognize the limits to which we 
can pollute the planet and the planetary ecosystem without 
suffering adverse consequences," he says. "We need to try and set 
priorities, lest we scatter our efforts and waste our limited 
resources.



"Scientists must figure out how to address the many environmental 
health problems in ways that make the most sense and give us the 
best bang for the buck."



Upton notes that atmospheric problems such as the increase of 
carbon dioxide and decrease of ozone levels make the future of 
environmental health research a global endeavor.



"There is a new dimension that will require attention and that is 
the global ecosystem. The scientific community is going to have 
to address these issues because of the global nature of the 
problems," he says. "There is going to have to be widespread 
scientific understanding and public cooperation on a scale 
unprecedented in the past."



The Lovelace Medical Foundation is a private, nonprofit 
biomedical research institution housing nearly 300 scientists and 
support staff. It has a research budget of about $25 million each 
year.

-- Ron Kaufman


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


NEXT:




TI   :    PEOPLE BRIEFS

TY   :    PROFESSION (PEOPLE BRIEFS)


PG   :    22



Leonard Mandel, a professor of physics at the University of 
Rochester in New York, will be awarded the 1993 Frederic Ives 
Medal from the Washington, D.C.-based Optical Society of America 
(OSA) for "his contributions to coherence theory and to the 
fundamental understanding of quantum mechanics and the nature of 
the photon." The award, which is OSA's most prestigious honor, 
consists of a silver medal and $2,000. It will be presented to 
Mandel at OSA's annual meeting in Toronto in October.



According to OSA, Mandel was one of the first physicists to 
investigate the phenomena of optical bistability, first-order 
phase transitions, photon nonlocality, photon amplification, 
phase conjunctions, and chaos. His early work paved the way for 
further understanding of photons.



Mandel received his Ph.D. from the University of London in 
physics in 1951 and joined the faculty of the University of 
Rochester in 1964. Founded in 1916, OSA is a nonprofit 
professional society of optical engineers and scientists with 
more than 12,000 members worldwide.



Physician, biologist, and essayist Lewis Thomas is the first 
recipient of Rockefeller University's Lewis Thomas Prize. The 
award, which consists of $10,000 cash, was presented to Thomas at 
a May 18 ceremony. According to the citation, the prize 
recognizes "the scientist whose voice and vision can tell us of 
science's aesthetic and philosophical dimensions, who gives us 
not merely new information, but cause for refelection, even 
revelation, as in a poem or painting."



Thomas, 80, is well-known for his books The Lives of a Cell 
(1974), The Medusa and the Snail (1979), The Youngest Science 
(1983), and Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth 
Symphony (1983), all published by Viking Books in New York. He 
received an M.D. from Harvard University Medical School in 1937.



A researcher in virology, immunology, experimental pathology, and 
of medicine. He has served as dean of the Yale University School 
of Medicine and New York University School of Medicine.




(The Scientist, Vol:7, #12, June 14, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
  
              ================================


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