                          THE SCIENTIST

VOLUME 7, No:7                                  April 5, 1993
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)

===============================================================
Articles published in THE SCIENTIST reflect the views of their 
authors and not the official views of the publication,         
its editorial staff, or its ownership.                         
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     *** THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE SCIENTIST WILL APPEAR ON ***
     ***                APRIL 19, 1993                   ***
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THE SCIENTIST 
CONTENTS  PAGE
(Page numbers correspond to printed edition of THE SCIENTIST)


                            CONTENTS


Page 3 of Newspaper


SCIENCE UNDER CLINTON'S PLAN: High-tech company officials, 
association presidents, and many leading scientists are 
expressing optimism as their initial response to President 
Clinton's proposed economic program. But other observers are 
waiting for more details--including specific budget figures--
before commenting, though several scientist winners and losers 
are emerging under the plan  
Page 1


STARTUP ADVICE: Despite recent setbacks in the biotechnology 
industry, start-up companies are forming at a steady pace, though 
the rules of the game are changing--especially in the area of 
financing. In the first of a two-part series, analysts, venture 
capitalists, and company officials discuss a variety of funding 
strategies that today's biotech entrepreneurs should consider  
Page 1



BIOMEDICAL SUPPORT: The National Caucus of Biomedical Science 
Chairs, an association of 21 university biomedical department 
heads, is calling on Clinton to double current spending on 
biomedical research funded by the National Institutes of Health, 
a request that association members believe the new administration 
will look favorably upon  


END OF AN ERA: The final formal activity of the full Carnegie 
Commission on Science, Technology, and Government was held last 
week as the process of shutting down the prestigious panel 
begins. Commission members and staffers are expressing 
satisfaction with the work of the body over the past five years 
and are hopeful that at least some of its hundreds of 
recommendations will be acted upon  
Page 3


SCIENCE EDUCATION: More than a decade ago, it was obvious--
documentably so-that U.S. science and math education was heading 
toward a crisis and that improvement in the system would require 
heavy federal financial support. However, says Bill G. Aldridge, 
executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, 
a disastrous misunderstanding by government officials and 
educators, among others, has misdirected the needed funding, and 
the crisis is upon us  
Page 11


COMMENTARY: Researchers must look beyond their own disciplines 
and even beyond the bounds of science and join with other 
investigators as well as with doctors, lawyers, economists, and 
sociologists to solve the serious problems threatening the 
environment, says Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences 
Institute director Mark Robson  
Page 12


CONTROVERSIAL ALZHEIMER'S APPROACH: Among the extensive research 
being conducted into Alzheimer's disease, one theory--that the 
peptide fragment beta-amyloid holds the key to a cure--is gaining 
popularity and support; some say too much support  
Page 15


HOT PAPERS: A molecular biologist discusses the effects of 
certain proteins on insulin-like growth factors  
Page 16


CLASSICS ON CD-ROM: In addition to the multitude of references, 
periodicals, and databases now available on CD-ROM, several 
publishers are making classic works from the likes of Darwin and 
others, as well as prestigious reference books, available on disk  
Page 18


Books on CD-ROM (see also Science Publishers Directory on page 31)  
Page 20

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE BOOKS: Some scientists are making a 
contribution to the fight against science illiteracy while 
gaining personal satisfaction through writing children's science 
books. Though hardly a lucrative endeavor, the effort is being 
welcomed by publishers because of the authenticity and excitement 
researchers bring to their<R>subjects  
Page 21


Tips on writing science books for children  
Page 21


ROBERT W. PARRY, a University of Utah chemistry professor, has 
won the American Chemical Society's 1993 Priestley Medal  
Page 23


NOTEBOOK  
Page 4


CARTOON  
Page 4


LETTERS  
Page 12


CROSSWORD  
Page 13


SCIENCE PUBLISHERS DIRECTORY  
Page 31



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================




Despite Chill Winds On Wall Street, Investors Continue To Place 
Bets On Fledgling Biotechnology Companies


Stock market declines have taken their toll on established firms, 
but startup ventures still attract backing

(Page : 1 of newspaper)

BY SCOTT VEGGEBERG

Launching a new biotechnology company calls for a number of key 
ingredients, as any wide-eyed scientist who has tested the 
entrepreneurial waters will attest. You need your enlightened 
concept, of course, and the enduring visionary force that 
eventually is to hammer your concept into shape as a viable 
product.


You also need the right people--and the proper blend of them--to 
keep the startup's scientific and business plan exquisitely 
balanced, on track, and on schedule.


However, those who have succeeded and those who have failed will 
agree that no great idea--no matter how many inspired and capable 
people are behind it--will succeed without adequate financial 
cushioning from the outset.



Today, venture capitalists, while more selective than in the 
past, are generally willing, sometimes eager, to provide that 
cushion. But for some scientist-entrepreneurs--those who have 
nurtured their firms to the point at which they are listed on a 
stock exchange or are contemplating an initial public offering--
the task of maintaining the flow of investment has become 
daunting, thanks to the dramatically shifting winds coursing 
through the financial community.


Indeed, if one were to judge from stock market performance alone, 
it would appear that the biotech sector must be anything but 
attractive to investors nowadays. A run of grim news about 
stillborn efforts to create new pharmaceuticals and poor returns 
on investments has made it virtually impossible for companies to 
grow beyond the startup phase and parlay their fortunes by 
selling shares in an initial public offering. And it's not clear 
to analysts when the IPO window will open again; some predict 
that it won't happen until next year.


The really bad news began, analysts generally agree, in April 
1992, when the United States Food and Drug Administration 
questioned the efficacy of Centoxin--a monoclonal antibody-based 
drug produced by Malvern, Pa.-based Centocor Inc.-- and requested 
new clinical trials. At the time, the price of the stock fell by 
more than 70 percent. This was disturbing news, especially from a 
company whose stated goal was to be a "Merck of the year 2000" 
(Susan L-J Dickinson, The Scientist, May 14, 1990, page 1). The 
deadly blow for Centoxin came on January 18 of this year, when 
new clinical trials were called off after preliminary data showed 
than those on placebo, according to Associated Press reports. 



A more recent disappointment came from Boulder, Colo.-based 
Synergen Inc., which announced on February 22 of this year that 
its lead drug, Antril, was barely more effective in a clinical 
trial than a placebo was in preventing deaths from septic shock. 
Synergen's stock plunged about 68 percent on the same day. Then, 
on February 25, Amgen Inc. of Thousands Oaks, Calif., one of the 
most visible and respected biotech companies in the U.S., 
announced that its earnings would be far lower than expected. As 
of late March, Amgen stock, which once had been selling for as 
high as $78 per share, was trading at around $35. 



The cumulative effect of such announcements has been to seriously 
depress the price of biotech stocks overall. BioWorld Financial 
Watch, a San Mateo, Calif., newsletter that tracks biotech 
financial issues, called the first 2 1/2 months of 1993 "a grim 
year so far for biotech stocks," noting that between January 1 
and March 5, the AMEX Biotechnology Stock Index fell by 30 
percent.



But despite the gloom and doom prevailing on Wall Street, the 
biotech sector is by no means moribund when it comes to startup 
opportunities. This is because companies at their early stages 
depend not on the stock market, but on venture capital firms and 
individual investors for their funding. And the feeling among 
these investors is definitely bullish, according to a variety of 
analysts; as a result, they say, biotech startups are continuing 
to spring up at a fairly regular pace. 



"We believe in biotechnology," says a representative of E.M. 
Warburg, Pincus, & Co. Inc., a New-York-based venture capital 
company, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We are still 
actively starting up companies. I personally don't see any 
slackening in formation of what I'd call real companies."



By "real," the representative notes, he means those startups that 
can gain at least $5 million of private investment, an amount 
that will carry forward their work for the first 18 months to two 
years. In biotech's early days, by comparison, about $1 million 
in so-called seed money, spread over the same period, was 
typical. But today, with more than 1,000 biotech companies in 
existence, the financial demands have risen. Competition is more 
fierce, not just to get products to market, but to attract top 
research.



The latest startup from Warburg, Pincus is Supragen, which was 
founded in December 1992 in Boulder, Colo. This company is 
developing therapies based on the knowledge of superantigens, 
which stimulate the immune system. Superantigens were discovered 
in 1989 by influential immunologist Philippa Marrack. Marrack 
will be serving as a scientific adviser to the company, while 
retaining her position as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute 
investigator at the National Jewish Center for Immunology and 
Respiratory Medicine in Denver. 




The Clinton Factor
Arthur Klausner, director of research at Domain Associates, a 
venture capital firm based in Princeton, N.J., agrees that 
product development disappointments and a faltering public market 
for biotech stocks do not pose a threat to fledgling biotech 
firms; in his view, the venture capital firms still have plenty 
of money, and activity remains strong. However, he adds, startup 
activity could be adversely affected by what he refers to as "the 
uncertainties of the Clinton health care plan."



"I think any time there's uncertainty, that's going to chill 
entrepreneurial activity," he says.



One negative effect the weak stock market can have on start-up 
firms is to make private funding sources--the venture capitalists 
and wealthy individual investors--more insistent on striking the 
best possible deal for themselves, says Randy Scott, vice 
president of research and development at two-year-old Incyte 
Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., which is heavily 
involved in developing new drugs based on knowledge of DNA 
sequences. 



"When the public markets dry up, the private markets start to 
take a vulture approach," Scott says, noting that investors are 
very nervous about liquidity right now. And he shares with Domain 
Associates' Klausner a concern about the new administration's 
impact. Scott perceives that there is considerable wariness among 
investors over what Clinton's future policy on pharmaceutical 
prices will do to the ability of a company to make a public stock 
offering, thus converting the venture capital investment back 
into dollars that can be invested in still other companies. "If 
at a cheaper price," says Scott.



Meanwhile, at Domain Associates, progress on starting up 
companies continues despite stock market woes. This venture 
capital firm has helped form a number of companies, including 
Gensia Pharmaceuticals Inc. in San Diego. Most recently, Domain 
has funded a company called Trimeris Inc., based in Durham, N.C., 
which is tapping Duke University AIDS researcher Dani Bolognesi 
as a consulting scientist. Trimeris will initially focus its 
efforts on antiviral technologies, targeting HIV and related 
retroviruses. The president of Trimeris is Max Wallace, an 
attorney by training who, until recently, was director of Duke 
Management Co., which manages Duke University's assets.



"We have a venture commitment from Domain, and I'm its first 
employee," says Wallace, who has no formal business training. 
He's no neophyte to biotech startups, though, having previously 
been a cofounder of Sphinx Pharmaceuticals Inc., also in Durham, 
which specializes in signal transduction mechanisms. Sphinx went 
public in January 1992, before the stock market began to sour in 
the late spring, by selling stock on the NASDAQ exchange and 
raising about $75 million, he says. However, shares in the 
company, which sold for $15 at the initial offering, were trading 
at 4 1/2 last month.



Role Reversal
If an attorney can get wise in the ways of biotech, so, 
apparently, can scientists become adept in the financial 
community. One of a growing number of scientists who have become 
venture capitalists is Larry Bock, a partner in Avalon Ventures 
in La Jolla, Calif. In addition to his MBA, Bock has a bachelor's 
degree in biochemistry and was in on the early days of one of 
biotech's oldest companies, Genentech Inc. of South San 
Francisco, Calif. Such a science or medical background has become 
increasingly common at venture capital firms that specialize in 
biotech startups, he says, and notes that another partner at 
Avalon is immunologist Kevin Gorman, who has a Ph.D., with 
postdoctoral experience at New York's Rockefeller University.


For Bock, it's the successful pursuit of big deals on the cutting 
edge of science that really makes his work engaging. Says Bock: 
"When you're in on the cutting edge of a field, and no one else 
is doing that, and you know about developments that are happening 
six months ahead of time, and these scientists have not been 
approached by anybody yet, that's exciting."


Bock says that after moving over to the business world, he worked 
for a traditional venture capital firm, but he was happy to make 
a move to Avalon, which is aggressively proactive in its 
endeavors to conceive of and launch companies. "This is in 
contrast to the traditional venture capital firm that passively 
responds to reams of ill-conceived ideas in the hope that a good 
one will pass over their desk," he says. Avalon, which has 
started seven biotech companies, such as Athena Neurosciences 
Inc., based in San Carlos, Calif., claims that it has never 
formed a company that failed--that all have advanced to the stage 
of going public.



Avalon made a big splash in the biotech startup world in March of 
last year, when it and other firms not only pulled together a 
top-notch team of scientists but also pulled off the largest seed 
financing in biotech history--$48 million from venture capital 
firms and wealthy individuals--for Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. 
Ariad, based in Cambridge, Mass., will specialize in developing 
drugs based on knowledge of signal transduction pathways.



The management team at Ariad includes CEO Harvey Berger, formerly 
the president of research and development at Centocor Inc. As 
vice president of R&D, Ariad tapped a well-known and highly cited 
researcher, molecular biologist Joan Brugge, who left her 
prestigious position as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute 
investigator at the University of Pennsylvania to become vice 
president of research and development.



Unusual Approach
In putting together this blockbuster startup, Avalon broke with 
biotech tradition, which calls for increments of money to be 
meted out as certain developmental milestones are achieved. This 
new approach has met with some disapproval in the biotech 
financing community, coming from those who fear that if one 
company gets such a large block of money and then ultimately 
falls far short of expectations, the venture capital market could 
be soured.



Bock has ready answers for these critics. "Traditional venture 
capital groups would say it doesn't make much sense to give that 
amount of money to a start-up company," he says. "But we say good 
management can handle a lot of money."



The problem with the incremental approach to startup financing, 
the next round of financing, rather than forging ahead with 
research, and with staying ahead of the competition.



Incyte's Scott agrees that the Ariad-style financing approach is 
"an interesting strategy," but says it remains unproven as to 
whether it is superior to the incremental approach. He contends 
that most of the companies that do this sort of financing find 
themselves needing money again fairly soon, anyway.



Like many of the ideas that have formed the basis of the 
companies Avalon has created, the Ariad concept was born out of a 
casual exchange between the venture capitalists and a prominent 
researcher. In this case it was Harvard University chemist Stuart 
Schreiber, who had been on the scientific advisory board of 
another company Avalon helped found, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. 
of Cambridge, Mass. According to Bock, just 15 months prior to 
Ariad's founding, Schreiber told Avalon, "What you guys ought to 
be looking at is this black box of cell biology--signal 
transduction and protein trafficking." 



Besides talking to researchers and reading the scientific 
literature, Avalon uses citation analysis as a means of 
identifying the cutting-edge areas of research. For example, the 
researcher whose scientific expertise Avalon tapped for its next 
company, Neurocrine Biosciences Inc., is Wylie Vale. This Salk 
Institute neuroscientist, according to the Philadelphia-based 
Institute for Scientific Information's Science Citation Index, is 
the eighth most cited scientist in 1981-90; his name appeared on 
nearly 350 papers in this period, which amassed a total of well 
over 16,000 citations. In founding Neurocrine, Avalon is once 
again going for big money up front, this time gathering between 
$30 million and $40 million in a private placement, meaning that 
it will bring together money not only from venture capital firms 
but also from wealthy individual investors.



Corporate Partners
Another financing approach that appears to be gaining popularity 
is to bring in, up front, a corporate partner for a start-up 
company instead of using the traditional tactic of waiting until 
product development has advanced to clinical trials.



Hal Brodersen, a partner at the venture capital firm Hillman 
Medical Ventures Inc. of Horsham, Pa., says that GenVec Inc., to 
be located near the National Institutes of Health's campus in 
giant Genentech. Gen-Vec will be developing simple, easy methods 
of delivering gene therapies. Genentech will have rights to 
proprietary technology as a result of the joint financing.



"It's common, down the road, for a biotech company to bring in a 
corporate partner, but it's uncommon for a corporate partner to 
be in on the founding," says Brodersen. Genentech is supplying 
$17 million, while Hillman is putting together an $8.5 million 
initial investment round for GenVec, he says.



 Hillman Medical Ventures' style of making direct contact with 
the scientists and their ideas is similar to the proactive 
approach that Avalon prefers. But GenVec, the result of a 
serendipitous encounter, was a special case. Both Brodersen and 
an official with Genentech were invited to speak at a meeting at 
the University of Pennsylvania. After the meeting, the two got 
together for a beer and found that both companies were looking to 
start a gene therapy company. And both said they were interested 
in tapping the same highly cited researcher, medical 
pulmonologist Ronald Crystal. Crystal, who pioneered the use of 
viral vectors to administer gene therapy to the lung tissue of 
cystic fibrosis patients, is among the top 100 cited scientists 
for  1981-90.  He  is  leaving  his  post as chief of the 
pulmonary branch at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute 
to move to Cornell Medical Center in New York City and to be 
chief scientific adviser to GenVec.



Brodersen is another venture capitalist with a science 
background. He has a medical degree, with a subsequent residency 
at the University of Pennsylvania. Halfway into this residency, 
"I realized I wanted to combine business and medical interests in 
some way," he says. The Wharton School of the University of 
Pennsylvania, a highly regarded business school, was right across 
the street, and so it was there he ended up taking his MBA.



Like many scientifically trained venture capitalists, Brodersen 
finds that dwelling in both worlds is uplifting.



"What's exciting to me is, every day is different. I learn more 
medicine being a venture capitalist than practicing medicine. I'm 
exposed to leading scientists in every specialty," he says.



alliance is Glyco Tech Corp., which, like GenVec, is setting up 
shop near NIH. In this case, says company president John Magnani, 
Glyco Tech is capitalizing on access to the abundant financial 
and scientific resources of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Ciba-Geigy 
AG.



Glyco Tech, which aims to develop novel immunotherapy drugs, is 
so new that Magnani, when reached via cellular phone last month, 
told The Scientist, "I'm in the middle of construction dust"; 
workers, he explained, were constructing laboratories for the 
startup in an industrial park adjacent to NIH.



Magnani formerly  was  a research scientist with BioCarb USA, a 
division of a Swedish biotech firm that failed after its sole 
investor  went bankrupt. Following that debacle, Magnani paid a 
visit to Ciba-Geigy Corp.'s pharmaceuticals division facility in 
Summit, N.J., where the company was interested in hiring him as 
an employee. He told them, however, that what he really wanted to 
do was form his own company.



Word of Magnani's entrepreneurial ardor filtered back to Ciba-
Geigy's biotechnology division in Basel, Switzerland, which had 
expressed some interest in BioCarb when it had been seeking a 
corporate partnership as a financial survival tactic just prior 
to its bankruptcy. Magnani was invited to deliver a lecture, 
which led to a corporate alliance/startup deal and the founding 
of Glyco Tech. He finds the arrangement advantageous, and not 
just for the $6 million, to be spread over five years, that it is 
supplying.



Says Magnani: "Not only do I get the financial resources to start 
the company, I also get a lot of [Ciba-Geigy's] guidance, not 
just in business matters but also in science."  Magnani, who left 
what he felt were the stifling bureaucratic confines of NIH about 
three years ago to enter the biotech startups fray, says, "What's 
exciting to me is to build something and watch it grow. At NIH, 
you're almost prohibited from growing. It has its sleepless 
nights, but I find it very invigorating."



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================


Editor's Note: In this first part of a two-part series on 
biotechnology start-up firms, scientist-entrepreneurs and venture 
capital investors discuss the challenging financial atmosphere in 
which today's young companies must function. They explore the 
strategies required by startups as they pursue necessary funding, 
and they discuss the diverse backgrounds and styles of 
individuals participating in today's startup arena. In the second 
part, to appear in the April 19, 1993, issue, scientists and 
others will address the prerequisites other than money that are 
needed to successfully launch a new biotech firm.


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================



Biomed  Caucus Members Express Cautious Optimism On Prospect  For 
Boost In Federal Research Funds


(Page 1 of newspaper)


BY RON KAUFMAN


Five billion dollars is not enough, according to a group pushing 
for the federal government to pump more money into the basic 
biomedical research funded by the National Institutes of Health. 
And with Bill Clinton now in the White House, members of the 
group--the National Caucus of Basic Biomedical Science Chairs--
say they are very optimistic about achieving their goal.


Composed of 21 biomedical department chairpersons from 19 
different United States universities, the caucus convenes 
annually at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., to 
try to educate lawmakers about the importance of increasing 
funding for the basic biomedical sciences and to lobby for more 
support. They say ripe fields for investment are molecular and 
cell biology, molecular genetics, immunology, and structural 
biology. 


In an editorial published last October in the FASEB Journal 
(6:3133-4, 1992), the caucus proclaimed that the level of NIH 
funding for basic research cannot be "the previous small and 
insufficient annual increments that were based largely on 
matching inflation," but rather "will require doubling current 
spending for biomedical research over the next few years."


Clinton administration, many of the members are hopeful that 
funding will increase under the new president. "I think that it's 
not likely that there will be less money," says caucus member 
John Matsen, vice president for health sciences at the University 
of Utah Health Sciences Center. "I don't know that Clinton has 
defined what the budget realities are, but I think we have to be 
optimistic at this point."


The newly elected chairman of the caucus, Robert Kelley, chairman 
of the department of anatomy at the University of New Mexico 
School of Medicine, says he is "very optimistic" that Clinton 
will heed their suggestions. "We were concerned that NIH was 
being undercut by what we saw as the increased emphasis on the 
funding of biotechnology for short-term gain in the previous 
[Bush] administration," he says. "I believe we'll now have an 
impact so that people in leadership roles see that the basic 
science community is concerned about the funding issue."


Kelley says if more money were to go to basic research, it would 
probably come from the expected cuts in the budget of the Defense 
Department.


Yet some caucus members are more skeptical. "Clearly, there's 
more hope now than there was six months ago," says caucus member 
Raymond Woosley, chairman of the department of pharmacology at 
Georgetown University School of Medicine. "Yet there's still no 
evidence that things are going to change. Our concern is that if 
Clinton's call for `sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice' goes on very 
much longer, the basic biomedical sciences are not going to be 
here when they're called on. There will be nobody home."


For fiscal year 1993, NIH is slated to spend a total of nearly 
$8.9 billion on biomedical research. About 60 percent of that 
($5.3 billion) will be spent on what NIH defines as basic 
research. To put this into perspective, what the federal 
government will give NIH this year for basic biomedical research 
is almost double the entire 1993 budget of the National Science 
Foundation ($2.73 billion), which also funds scientific research.


NIH allocations for applied research are less then half ($2.5 
billion) that of basic research and in the past year have 
increased only 5.1 percent, while basic research has increased 
6.1 percent.


However, Georgetown's Woosley disputes the numbers: "Even though 
they say some large percentage, like 60 percent, is `basic,' it's 
basic but directed research toward a disease or illness, like 
AIDS or curing cancer.

"The basic research that's directed is not pure basic research," 
he says. "Scientists are finding it very difficult to get funding 
for basic, undirected research into the basic principles and 
mechanisms of biology, which could possibly have a huge potential 
benefit....If you stop planting seeds, the fields are dead in a 
few years."


Former NIH director James Wyngaarden says that although he 
supports the general notion that increased funding would benefit 
basic biomedical research, the total U.S. investment in this area 
is equal to those of other highly industrialized countries, such 
as Germany and Japan.


"Every field competing for the federal dollar can make the claim 
that there are valuable aspects of research that cannot be 
explored because of lack of finances," says Wyngaarden, who was 
NIH director from 1982 to 1989 and is now the foreign secretary 
at the National Academy of Sciences. "There's no question that 
there is potentially valuable basic biomedical research that is 
not being addressed because of lack of funds. On the other hand, 
we have put forth a very substantial effort that is comparable to 
many other nations."


The next meeting of the caucus is scheduled to take place in the 
middle of April.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================




Science Community Is Mixed On Clinton's Economic Plan


While  some experts see virtue in the new president's  technology 
policy, others warn of hidden probems


(Page 1 of Newspaper)


BY BARTON REPPERT


High-technology company executives and association officials, 
along with leading scientists and others in the United States 
initial responses to President Bill Clinton's economic program 
and his ambitious effort to redirect U.S. technology policy.


At the same time, several science and technology policy-watchers 
interviewed by The Scientist say they will need further details 
about the administration's science and technology initiatives, 
including specific budget figures, before they can offer a more 
thorough assessment of the Clinton plan.


"I guess at this stage you could say there's a lot of 
excitement," says Fred W. Weingarten, executive director of the 
Washington, D.C.-based Computing Research Association, which has 
been distributing to its members--mainly university computer 
scientists--information about Clinton's proposals. "They're 
reading it, and they're talking about it on the [Inter]net."


But Weingarten adds that "there are still a lot of unanswered 
questions about how exactly it would be organized, what the 
funding would be."



Clinton's technology plan--emphasizing increased government 
assistance for the development of advanced industrial 
technologies--is estimated to cost about $17 billion over the 
next four years. It may amount to the most far-reaching R&D 
policy initiative since 1954, when the Eisenhower administration 
directed federal agencies to help support basic research.



According to White House science and technology adviser John H. 
Gibbons, "The nation urgently needs improved strategies for 
government/industry cooperation in the support of industrial 
technology. We cannot afford to wait for investments in defense 
and space to trickle down to civilian industry."



Key elements of the administration's technology policy include: 
making the research and experimentation tax credit permanent; 
accelerating efforts to create a national "information 
infrastructure" through development of more powerful computers 
and faster computer networks; directing federal laboratories to 
undertake more R&D partnerships with private industry; increasing 
funding for advanced manufacturing consortia, along with creating 
a national network of manufacturing extension centers; providing 
government support to assist the development of a new generation 
of efficient, nonpolluting automobiles; and improving technology 
for use in education and training.


A White House policy paper spelling out the technology plan 
contends that "this new policy will result in significantly more 
federal R&D resources going to (pre-competitive) projects of 
commercial relevance. It will also result in federal programs 
that go beyond R&D, where appropriate, to promote the broad 
application of new technology and know-how."



The announcement of the new technology policy on February 22--
during a trip by Clinton and Vice President Al Gore to a computer 
firm in California's Silicon Valley and a Boeing aircraft plant 
near Seattle--came less than a week after Clinton, in a speech to 
Congress, presented his overall economic plan, including proposed 
funding increases for certain research programs along with 
cutbacks for others.



According to an analysis of Clinton's plan prepared by the House 
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, "S&T programs are 
relatively unscathed in the deficit reduction package. Of the $54 
billion in non-defense discretionary reductions which are 
identified, less than 2 percent (net) are in the S&T area."



At the same time, the committee analysis says, S&T programs are 
an important component of the additional "investment" spending 
proposed by Clinton. "Out of approximately $100 billion in 
spending incentives for FY [fiscal years] 1994-1997, over 10 
percent are in the S&T area.... If all these investments were in 
fact funded, they would probably come close to restoring a 50:50 
civilian/military R&D ratio by FY 1997." Currently, the civilian 
share of the total federal R&D budget is about 41 percent.



The panel's chairman, Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Calif.), said 
in releasing the analysis that he looks forward to working with 
Clinton on the S&T initiatives: "The administration clearly is 
committed to science, space, and technology as critical 
components of a long-term investment strategy aimed at job 
creation and sustained economic growth."



However, the science committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Robert 
S. Walker of Pennsylvania--reflecting the views of other 
conservative-oriented critics in Congress, private industry, and 
elsewhere--says he is concerned about several aspects of 
Clinton's plan.


"My principal concern about the package is its endorsement of 
overt government participation in technology development ... 
where we are now going to have government involved in commercial 
applications of one kind or another, and where you have 
government playing a more substantive role in picking technology 
winners and losers," Walker says.



Also, he says, "I believe that a substantial part of the problem 
that we face is as a result of excessive litigation, excessive 
regulation, and excessive taxation in the technology field. And 
until we deal with those issues, we are not likely to end up with 
a global competitiveness posture which is satisfactory."



Clinton's proposals have drawn statements of support--though not 
unqualified endorsement--from leaders of several R&D-intensive 
industries, such as aerospace, computers, and electronics, and 
bio- technology. But there have also been complaints from some 
sectors--such as the pharmaceutical industry, which is concerned 
over possible moves to impose government price controls on 
prescription drugs as part of an overall effort to deal with 
spiraling health care costs.



J. Richard Iverson, president of the American Electronics 
Association--a group based in Santa Clara, Calif., that 
represents about 3,000 high-tech companies across the U.S.--said 
in a press statement that "we applaud the president's leadership 
in presenting a long-term, serious plan to get the economy moving 
again. Like everyone else, we have concerns about the impact of 
some of the tax provisions, especially those related to foreign 
tax issues. However, on balance, the package is a significant 
step forward."



Martha Sloan, president of the Institute of Electrical and 
Electronics Engineers, an association with about 250,000 members 
in the United States, says Clinton's technology policy and its 
emphasis on aiding U.S. high-tech companies shows that "the whole 
attitude of the administration is very different from the 
previous one.... "



Adds Sloan, who is a professor of electrical engineering at 
Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich.: "His visit 
to Silicon Valley was very positive. The whole [area of] high-
speed computing and high-speed communication is certainly a very 



Don Fuqua, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Aerospace 
Industries Association, said in a statement that "we are 
encouraged by the president's statement that he will give special 
attention to the aerospace industry, which he singled out as one 
that is of critical importance." 



Another industry group that has come out in support of Clinton's 
economic package and technology policy is BIO--recently formed 
through the merger of the Industrial Biotechnology Association 
(IBA) and the Association of Biotechnology Companies (ABC)--also 
based in Washington. The group's president, Carl Feldbaum, said 
in a press statement that he believes Clinton "fully appreciates 
how government actions can strengthen or strangle the development 
of a high-technology-based industry such as biotechnology."



He specifically cited Clinton's support for making the research 
and experimentation tax credit permanent, for active R&D 
partnerships between industry and government, and for what 
Feldbaum called "a regulatory policy that encourages innovations 
and achieves social objectives efficiently."



At the same time, however, Feldbaum warned that "the government 
could destroy biotechnology through counterproductive policies 
such as imposing controls on the introductory prices of new 
biopharmaceuticals. If companies are not able to generate a 
reasonable return on these types of long-term, high-risk 
investments, then it will be impossible to attract the venture 
capital that has been the lifeblood of the biotechnology industry 
in the United States."



David L. Winter, president and chief operating officer of 
GenPharm International, a biotechnology company based in Mountain 
View, Calif., says he believes it is "really much too early to 
tell right now" what kind of longer-term impact Clinton's 
initiatives may have on the biotech industry.



With regard to the administration's proposal for making the 
research and experimentation tax credit permanent, Winter says: 
"Any tax credit in this area helps us, there's no question. We're 
just totally R&D-dependent."


 Overall, the GenPharm executive says of Clinton's economic 
program and technology policy: "We're very pleased that the 
administration is saying some of the right words. What we're 
concerned about is that the biotech industry be so wrapped into 
the pharmaceutical situation that it's not looked at as a high-
tech field distinct from the pharmaceutical industry, with its 
own problems and needs."



With S&T "megaprojects," the administration has decided to 
propose stretching out for another four years--until 2003--
completion of the superconducting supercollider, and also 
undertaking a fourth redesign of the space station. The SSC 
stretch-out will trim near-term outlays but result in raising the 
project's final cost from $8.3 billion to roughly $10 billion, 
while redesign of the space station is aimed at reducing costs of 
the project by $2.1 billion over the next four years.



Although the administration's main focus has been on technology, 
it has also called for sustained federal funding of basic 
research.



Presidential science adviser Gibbons told the House science 
committee at a March 4 hearing: "None of the innovations in 
technology proposed in our initiative will be funded at the 
expense of basic science. Our budget proposal ensures that 
support for basic science remains strong and that stable funding 
is provided for projects that require continuity. We will not 
allow short-term fluctuations in funding levels to destroy 
critical research teams that have taken years to assemble."



To underscore this commitment to basic research, the 
administration is requesting a fiscal year 1993 supplemental 
appropriation of $207 million for the National Science 
Foundation, along with further budget increases for NSF--over 
previously projected levels--totaling $2.297 billion during the 
next four years.



With regard to biomedical research supported primarily by the 
National Institutes of Health, Clinton's plan would involve 
spending an additional $8.182 billion in 1994-97 on HIV/AIDS, 
women's health, and other NIH research, along with child 
immunizations and other public health initiatives. No specific 
figures were provided on the portion of this overall amount going 



Shu Chien, president of the Bethesda, Md.-based Federation of 
American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), says that "I 
applaud the goal of emphasizing basic research, and also the 
point of the need for continuity--stable funding."



Chien, a professor of bioengineering and medicine at the 
University of California, San Diego, says FASEB will be urging 
Congress to provide enough additional funding to offset the $217 
million cut it imposed on NIH's budget last year. As for how he 
views the current research funding climate on Capitol Hill, Chien 
says: "It's still hard to assess. I think we need to do a lot 
more work, because there are a lot of new members of Congress."




Barton Reppert is a freelance writer based in Gaithersburg, Md.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================





THE CLINTON PLAN


(Page 6 of Newspaper)



The Clinton administration has proposed the following new 
initiatives in its technology policy, as presented in a White 
House  policy paper, "Technology for America's Economic Growth" 
(released on February 22):



Research and Experimentation Tax Credit: The administration is 
calling for permanent extension of this tax credit, which would 
apply to qualified research expenditures paid or incurred after 
June 30, 1992.



Performance Computing and Communications Program, to assist 
development of more powerful supercomputers, faster computer 
networks, and more sophisticated hardware; also, creating an 
interagency task force on information infrastructure; providing 
funds for networking pilot projects; and promoting dissemination 
of federal government information.



Advanced Manufacturing Technology: To provide increased federal 
funding for advanced manufacturing R&D, particularly to consortia 
such as SEMATECH; also, supporting "agile manufacturing," 
facilitating more flexible production; creating a national 
network of manufacturing centers; and promoting environmentally 
conscious manufacturing.



Technology for Education and Training: Includes expanding access 
to Internet and developing high-speed National Research and 
Educational Network (NREN); also enhancing programs being 
developed through Federal Coordinating Council for Science, 
Engineering, and Technology (FCCSET) to improve the teaching of 
science, mathematics, and engineering at all levels.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================


FUNDING INCREASES


(Page 6 of Newspaper)


Major science and technology agencies and programs for which the 
Clinton administration is proposing additional federal funding 
(amounts listed are the requested total increases over current 
projected budgets for fiscal years 1994-97):



NSF--including support for more "strategic research." Clinton 
also requesting $207 million supplemental appropriation for 
current fiscal year.  $2.297 billion



NIH--including HIV/AIDS, women's health, and other NIH research; 
also, immunizations and other public health initiatives. (Not yet 
specified how much of this total will go to biomedical research.)  



NIST--for Advanced Technology Program; manufacturing extension 
centers; other R&D to assist industry.  $1.306 billion



FCCSET research initiatives (climate, advanced supercomputers and 
networks, math and science education, materials processing, 
biotechnology, advanced manufacturing).  $1.206 billion



High-performance computing and networks (NSF, NIH, NIST, and 
NASA).   $  784 million


"Information highways"--Commerce Department (for 
telecommunications demonstration projects).   $  275 million



Industry/government civilian research at DOE laboratories.   $  
180 million



Advanced Neutron Source--for biomedical, materials, and other 
applied research (to be constructed at Oak Ridge, Tenn.).  $  420 
million


Tokamak Physics Experiment--for fusion energy research (to be 
constructed at Princeton, N.J.).  $  210 million



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================



FUNDING CUTBACKS


(Page 7 of Newspaper)



Major programs in which the Clinton administration is proposing 
federal funding cutbacks:

Space station--Undertaking fourth redesign of project in order to 
save $2.126 billion during 1994-97.


Superconducting supercollider--Administration proposing $640 
million for fiscal 1994, or $70 million cutback from previously 
projected budget. However, stretch-out of SSC completion over 
four years will raise total cost by $1.770 billion.


Indirect costs--Seeking to save $1.2 billion over next four years 
by capping overhead costs of university research grants.


Nuclear reactor research--Savings of $820 billion from phasing 
out advanced reactor program.




(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================




Blue-Ribbon Panel Begins Process Of Closing Up Shop


(Page 3 of newspaper)


BY BARBARA SPECTOR


At an April 1 meeting in Washington, D.C., the Carnegie 
Commission on Science, Technology, and Government formally began 
the process of going out of business. The commission's five-year 
charter ends June 30. 


The panel was convened in 1988 under the auspices of the Carnegie 
Corporation of New York to assess the ways in which policymakers 
take science and technology issues into account when making 
decisions. The blue-ribbon panel is cochaired by Nobel laureate 
Joshua Lederberg, former president of Rockefeller University, and 
William T. Golden, chairman of the board of the American Museum 
of Natural History in New York, who formerly served as a special 
consultant on scientific activities to President Harry Truman.


Included among the members of the commission and its advisory 
council are some of the United States' most prominent scientists, 
Republican Gerald Ford); three former U.S. senators (Republicans 
Charles McC. Mathias, Jr. of Maryland and Daniel Evans of 
Washington, as well as Democrat Lawton Chiles of Florida); three 
former U.S. representatives (Democrats John Brademas of Indiana 
and Paul Rogers of Florida, as well as Mathias, who served in the 
House before being elected senator); and three current or former 
governors (Democrat  Richard Celeste of Ohio, as well as Chiles, 
now Florida's chief executive, and Evans, who was Washington's 
governor from 1964 to 1977).



Winding Down
Commission staff, as well as the commissioners themselves, say 
the five-year limit on the panel's lifespan is a positive thing. 
"The types of studies the commission did could continue to be 
done by others, or the commission could go on," says Mark 
Schaefer, senior staff associate and director of the commission's 
Washington, D.C., office. "But it's a good idea to have a defined 
lifetime and then go on and do other things. I think it keeps 
people fresh."


In the five years that commission members have been working 
together, Lederberg says, "we all got to know each other, and 
personal axes to grind were all worn down. In that way, it's a 
shame to disband, but I think we all agree it's time. I don't 
think the world needs a permanent watchdog."



Vital Statistics
The panel's 15 committees and task forces, involving the efforts 
of more than 150 high-power volunteers, have made about 400 
recommendations. While commissioners acknowledge that some of 
these suggestions are more likely than others to be put into 
practice, they note that several have already been implemented 
(for example, the recommendation that the president move quickly 
to appoint a science adviser--as President Clinton did when he 
named John Gibbons to the post in December). Yet, as Golden 
notes, "One can never be sure of paternity; we weren't the only 
ones urging such action."


In addition to its eminent volunteers, the commission has eight 
professional full-time-equivalent staffers scattered among its 
three offices--two in New York and one in Washington. When the 
commission's charter ends, some $12 million to $15 million will 
have been spent on continued production and dissemination of its 
18 reports. In addition, the commission has contributed to a 
half-dozen other publications, as well as several dozen 
background or working papers.


"Commission on Everything" because of the wide range of topics it 
has addressed, according to one source who requests anonymity. It 
has issued reports on science and technology as they relate to 
societal goals; international affairs; and the executive, 
legislative, and judicial branches of government, among other 
subjects.



Bidding Adieu
The April 1 event was the final formal activity of the full 
commission. After a closed session in which the panel was 
scheduled to approve one of its last task force reports--
"Science, Technology, and Congress: Organizational and Pro- 
cedural Reforms"--it hosted a meeting and reception for about 300 
members of the U.S. scientific community as well as members of 
government and the media. Gibbons was among the invited speakers 
slated to address the group. At press time, the meeting had not 
yet taken place.


The open meeting marked the release of a report noting the 
highlights of the commission's tenure, "Science, Technology and 
Government for a Changing World." Also planned is a book-length 
summary document on the work of the commission, now being written 
by Lederberg and Jesse Ausubel, the commission's director of 
studies. The volume is scheduled for publication in the winter of 
1993-94.


The purpose of the meeting, says Golden, was "to review what we 
have done and plot for the future--to devise ways to stimulate 
continued attention to the issues to which we have paid 
attention."


David Z. Robinson, the commission's executive director, adds that 
another goal of the meeting was to thank the invited guests--many 
of whom had been sought out by the commission for advice--for 
their help and to get their reaction to the panel's five-year-
long work. "If they agree with the conclusions [of the reports]," 
Robinson says, "we want them to have `ownership' of them, and use 
the fact that the commission has recommended them to push them."



The Next Stage
"There will be an enormous letdown after [the commission 
disbands]," acknowledges Maxine L. Rockoff, senior administrator 
of the commission. "But there will also be a lot that gets 
launched." The chairpersons of the commission's various task 
forces, she says, "are committed to the ideas" set forth in the 
reports. "There will be continued growth and flowering of seeds 
that the commission planted, even though there won't be a central 


Golden says he hopes that some of the responsibility for seeing 
that the recommendations get carried out will be shouldered by 
"other organizations that will continue more or less in 
perpetuity," such as the national academies of science and 
engineering, scientific societies, and academic entities like 
Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "We 
hope they will use our reports and create their own."


As others take over, he adds, "there'll be mutations to our 
recommendations--and there ought to be as the years go on. Our 
recommendations won't last in perpetuity, but will mutate in a 
Darwinian way."


The Carnegie Corporation will support the distribution of the 
commission's reports to anyone who requests them for the next 
year or two, corporation staffers say. Robinson, a research 
physicist who was executive vice president and treasurer of the 
Carnegie Corporation before joining the commission staff, will 
return to the corporation and will work there on implementation 
of the commission's findings.


In addition, says the commission's creator, Carnegie Corporation 
president David A. Hamburg, "there are some grants that [the 
corporation] may make over the next three years to follow up in 
spirit." For example, he says, funds might be disbursed to 
university-based groups or scientific organizations that want to 
pursue the commission's ideas.


An important component of the follow-up process will be the 
efforts of the commission members themselves, commission 
officials say. "All of us who have been connected will be 
promoting these gospels as best we can as a sideline to our other 
activities by seizing every opportunity to bring these issues 
up," says Golden. Another way for commission members to keep the 
recommendations in the public consciousness, says Robinson, is by 
writing opinion pieces in journals and newspapers.


The level of interest in continuing the panel's activities will 
vary according to the commitment of the individual commission 
members, Golden acknowledges: "Some will be more interested than 
others; that's the way of the world. All of these things have a 
half-life, it's true. The next few years will be very important--
attention will taper off unless we keep the attention level up."


Rodney W. Nichols, chief executive officer of the New York 
Academy of Sciences and a member of the commission's advisory 
something on a pro-bono basis" will keep to their commitment 
after the commission has shut down. "Those of us involved will 
keep tracking [the recommendations] through networking and 
meetings," he says. "Would I be doing the same things if the 
commission had never existed? The answer is probably yes."


Robinson notes, however, that "the value of reports goes down 
over time." As the years go by, he says, it is possible that "the 
recommendations [will be] all in place or all rejected"--or that 
changing times have rendered some of the items moot.


"These things [recommendations] ought to be airborne," says 
Golden. "They'll go on their way, and in the next couple of years 
there'll be a need for another Carnegie Commission."



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================




                            NOTEBOOK


Page 4 of Newspaper


Colorado Amendment Gets Rocky Reception
Members of the scientific community are starting to express their 
opposition to Colorado's Amendment 2, a change in the state 
constitution passed in November that prohibits local 
antidiscrimination laws for homosexuals. Although the American 
Chemical Society went ahead with its meeting in Denver March 28-
April 2 (Barbara Spector, The Scientist, March 22, 1993, page 3), 
the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical 
Association of America (MAA) have voted to move their joint 
January 1995 meeting from the originally planned site of Denver 
to a location yet to be determined. According to the February 
1993 issue of Focus, MAA's newsletter: "The financial 
implications of a pull-out at this stage are not at all clear . . 
[but] not moving would also be costly. . . . Given the strong 
sentiment many felt on this issue, it seemed likely that a 
meeting held in Colorado . . . would be boycotted, leaving a 
greatly impoverished meeting." Meanwhile, the Committee of 
Concerned Scientists has passed a resolution stating: ". . . We 
express our grave concern about [Amendment 2] and strongly urge 
its repeal."


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================



This Party Could Be A Real Blast
Los Alamos National Laboratory, together with Los Alamos County, 
N.Mex., is sponsoring a number of events, beginning next week, to 
mark the 50th anniversary of the Manhattan Project and the 
opening of the lab. A series of seminars and panel discussions on 
the scientific and policy implications of the lab's work is 
slated for April 12-16, featuring speakers such as former 
laboratory directors Harold Agnew (1970-80) and Don Kerr (1980-
85); Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.Mex.) and Pete Domenici (R-N.Mex.); 
and Frank von Hippel, editor of the Bulletin of Atomic 
Scientists. On June 7-10, more than 900 people who worked on the 
Manhattan Project have been invited to Los Alamos to view an 
exhibit of project memorabilia, tour the project site, and dance 
to big-band music. On June 11-12, Los Alamos County will sponsor 
a "Bridge to the Future" festival, highlighting the Hispanic and 
Pueblo cultures of the region.


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================



Swimming Upstream
There is, undoubtedly, something fishy about this month's space 
shuttle Endeavor mission. An experiment on board will test 
whether mutations occur in brine shrimp that hatch and develop in 
the microgravity of space. Brine shrimp cysts will be injected 
into a saline solution and videotaped for seven days as they 
undergo their rapid growth cycles. A parallel set of Earth-
hatched shrimp will be brought along as a control group. After 
the shrimp return to Earth, the development, swimming patterns, 
and breeding habits of the two groups will be compared. The 
experiment's researchers, from Sierra College, Rocklin, Calif., 
suspect that mutations in the space-hatched shrimp may be an 
outcome. Andy Schmidt, president of Newark, Calif.-based San 
Francisco Bay Brand, which manufactures brine shrimp-based fish 
food and supplied the brine shrimp used in the study, points out 
that this is an experiment that keeps on giving: "The brine 
shrimp cysts produced during the space life cycle will be made 
available to other science programs, so the research will go on."



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================


Not Like Mama Used To Make
Purdue University scientists have genetically engineered a tomato 
plant that they claim will produce thicker spaghetti sauce, 
tomato paste, and ketchup because of its 10 percent increase in 
soluble solids. The West Lafayette, Ind., scientists found the 
gene that produces the enzyme pectin methylesterase involved in 
ripening, reversed it, and inserted it back into the tomato 
plants, yielding the more solid tomatoes. Other Purdue teams are 
investigating using biotechnology to make rice a complete-protein 
food and to develop ways to produce low-fat meats.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================



Environmental Focus
In a rare case of students demanding to be taught a subject, this 
fall the University of Southern California is launching several 
interdisciplinary degree programs focusing on the environment. 
Undergraduates in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences 
will be able to earn B.S. or B.A. degrees in environmental 
studies; students in the School of Engineering can receive a B.S. 
degree in environmental engineering. USC officials say the new 
majors are in response to a rapid rise in enrollments in existing 
environmental programs at USC and nationwide figures indicating 
that incoming freshmen believe the government is not doing enough 
to combat environmental pollution. All of the tracks are highly 
interdisciplinary, university officials note. Social science 
majors must take courses in biology, chemistry, geology, and 
other natural sciences. Natural science majors must sample 
courses in environmental law, economics, politics, ethics, or 
sociology. Engineering students, meanwhile, will be exposed to 
geology, biology, chemistry, physics, and political science, in 
addition to civil and chemical engineering.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================



The Doctor As Scientist
The Yale University School of Medicine is trying to close the 
"bench-bed" gap. Through a five-year, $2.1 million grant from the 
Miami-based Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust, Yale will train 
11 of its students to combine their knowledge of patient care 
creators hope these physicians will learn to swiftly correlate 
laboratory discoveries with classical clinical treatment of human 
ailments. During the first <P8M>six weeks of the course, the 
students will be exposed to advances in experimental cell and 
molecular biology in Yale's Life Sciences Research and Training 
Center. They will work on an individual research project for the 
next 2 1/2 years.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================





A Remedy For Science Education Crisis Is Long Overdue


(Page 11 of newspaper)


BY BILL G. ALDRIDGE


Science and mathematics education in the United States is 
desperately in need of reform, and any substantial remedy will 
demand not only the financial support of the federal government, 
but also a concerted effort by scientists, lawmakers, and 
educators. Although the current crisis has been in the making for 
decades, efforts at corrective action have been stymied by a 
fundamental and disastrous misunderstanding.



In December 1981, James Shymansky, a science education professor 
at the University of Iowa, and I surveyed 450 teacher placement 
offices at U.S. colleges and universities. We also polled 1,000 
high school principals to determine the qualifications and 
teaching assignments of science and math teachers. The results 
were startling: Half of the classes of newly employed science and 
math teachers and one-third of all science and math classrooms in 
the U.S. were, according to the school principals, staffed by 
teachers who were unqualified in those subjects. The number of 
men and women who had received teaching degrees and were 
qualified to teach science and math had dropped by a factor of 
four in only 10 years.



These results, which were incorporated into testimony presented 
by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) to committees 
immediately, a flurry of other studies and commissions was 
created to further analyze what appeared to be an emerging crisis 
in science and math education.



One such effort--the National Science Board Commission on 
Precollege Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology--
documented defects in science and math education and showed the 
relationship of this emerging crisis to the nation's needs, 
including its ability to compete in a global economy. The 
fundamental finding was that the U.S. was failing to educate both 
its general population and its needed specialists in science, 
math, engineering, and technical fields--the very areas most 
needed for commercial innovation and efficacy.



The NSB report also showed that the U.S. population was going 
through revolutionary changes in its makeup, with minority 
populations--largely underrepresented in science and technical 
fields--soon to become a majority. According to the report, the 
general level of scientific and technical literacy had to be 
raised in order to place a larger number of qualified people into 
the science and engineering job pool, while simultaneously 
addressing the problem of science and technology literacy for the 
general population.



However, not to be outdone by NSB, the U.S. Department of 
Education, under T.H. Bell, then Secretary of Education, created 
a commission on excellence in education. And an April 1983 report 
by this commission, titled A Nation at Risk, was the spark that 
ignited a broad-based call for reform not just in science and 
math education, but in all areas of education. In doing so, the 
report cited dismal statistics on U.S. student achievement 
compared with that of students of other nations--including sharp 
declines in U.S. students' Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and 
American Council on Testing (ACT) scores.



However, unlike the NSB report, the Department of Education 
report, proclaimed a crisis in all areas of education. But it 
failed to provide evidence linking the statistics it cited and 
the reforms it recommended. Indeed, A Nation at Risk had no 
bibliography or citation of sources for its data. Instead, a list 
was provided of authors of commissioned papers--papers that were 
unchecked by peer reviewers and were often presented in the form 
of opinion. As for the lower test scores reported, they were a 
function not of diminished capability or quality of education, 
but of the significant rise during the two decades prior to the 
study in the number of students entering and completing high 
fact that when larger numbers are involved, lower average scores 
will result.



Moreover, most of the test results cited in A Nation at Risk 
either were irrelevant or could be accounted for quite easily by 
demographic changes that had occurred in the schools studied. The 
truth is, except in science and math, there never was a 
documented crisis in education.



Nevertheless, as the various reports appeared, and were picked up 
by the media, the documented crisis in science and math education 
was erroneously broadened into something quite unreal. What 
resulted were mainly solutions to nonexistent problems. For 
example, at the federal level, support for foreign language 
instruction was increased. At the state and local levels, 
specialized high schools were created, in which the top (usually 
the most advantaged) students were skimmed from other schools and 
excessive resources provided to prepare even more specialists, 
while further impoverishing the schools from which these 
resources had to be drawn.



Although requirements for more science and math courses for 
graduation were imposed by some states, they were imposed without 
improving inappropriate courses and content. And they were 
imposed without providing the additional funds for teacher 
training, laboratories, or supplies that would make science 
experiences in the schools truly meaningful. Needed were 
incentives for more young people to go into science and math 
teaching; needed were massive retraining programs for current 
teachers of science and math. And curricula needed to be revised 
to make it possible for all students to learn science and math.



The massive support required for dealing with the crisis in 
science and math education would have had to come from the 
federal government, since states did not have the resources. But 
Congress is so constituted that it cannot seem to target any 
problem. The only way to get votes is to provide general support. 
It is the shotgun approach: Throw money at every geographical 
area and every possible constituency. Thus, from Congress' point 
of view, our whole educational system had to be regarded as 
flawed and, therefore, the entire system had to be reformed.



The right-wing conservatives in the government of the 1980s, 
meanwhile, saw the situation as an opportunity to dump public 
involvement in education, but to any government involvement--even 
that of local governments and their school boards. They wanted 
schooling to be entirely separate from government, with the task 
of improving education entrusted either to private schools or 
profit-making companies.



As a result, then, of Congress' inability to target a single area 
of concern, compounded by the disinclination of the Reagan and 
Bush administrations to get government involved in addressing the 
concern, we find the U.S. suffering today from a crisis in 
science and math education that is harsher than ever.



In our efforts to resolve the crisis, we must be careful not to 
place blame on either our teachers or our schools. Teachers are 
doing as well as they can with the resources provided. The so-
called unqualified teachers are, more often than not, teachers 
who are fully qualified in one field, but are being required to 
teach in several fields, irrespective of their credentials. They 
are therefore not unqualified teachers; they are misassigned 
teachers.



Nor can our schools and teachers be accused justly of being 
uncooperative, resistant to change, or hostile to the use of new 
and expensive technologies. What, after all, can they do to 
innovate or become responsive when the nation has cut its federal 
support for schools in half over the past 12 years, and when 
states are unable to provide even baseline support, having had 
dumped on them the financial responsibilities previously assumed 
by the federal government? How do teachers teach meaningful 
science with no labs or no money for supplies or equipment? How 
do we reform our schools with $5 per year per student (the 
national average) for educational materials for an entire course? 
And how do we inspire teachers who are burdened by misassignment 
to subjects for which they have no preparation, who are still 
paid far less than they would earn in similar positions in the 
private sector, and when they no longer enjoy even the respect 
and admiration that once substituted for salary?



It is possible for us to leverage the problem in science and math 
education, but this will require a concerted effort by lawmakers, 
scientists, and educators. Lawmakers will have to respond to the 
fact that we must dedicate a disproportionate amount of federal 
education support to science and math. Educators, for their part, 
should seriously question the notion, common among them in the 
U.S., that most young people cannot learn real science, and that, 
therefore, we should focus science education on personal and 
applied to decision-making that they will need in their daily 
lives. But this is without learning the underlying science, if 
any, and it assumes that the methods of science are appropriate 
for making decisions in a wide range of areas where emotion, 
belief, political preference, and aesthetics often dominate.



And what can scientists do?  Well, there is a desperate need, for 
example, for university scientists to work with their colleagues 
in science education and with high school science teachers to 
address the serious problems we have. Science teachers need 
greater depth of understanding of the various subjects they are 
expected to teach, and all teachers need to pay more attention to 
research on how people learn.



All scientists should work at the local, state, and federal 
levels to secure support to address the problems. There currently 
are serious efforts being undertaken to create national standards 
and to pursue reforms in science and math education. Almost all 
of these efforts have as a component prestigious panels of expert 
advisers. In addition to scientists, science educators, and 
science teachers, some panels include people from the social 
sciences or from political office. It is my observation that 
scientist panel members rarely attend meetings, much less offer 
substantive advice. As a consequence, unsupported positions, some 
of which I have already described, go unchallenged. When called 
upon to serve on these panels, scientists should lend more than 
their names.



The need for revolutionary reform in science and math education 
is real. If scientists do not take this very seriously and lend 
their expertise as well as their names, the reform will fail 
miserably.




Bill G. Aldridge is executive director of the National Science 
Teachers Association, Washington, D.C.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================



                           COMMENTARY

(Page 12 of Newspaper)


by Mark Robson


Interdisciplinary  Efforts  Are  Needed  As  Researchers   Battle 
Environmental Threats


In an old parable, each part of the body claims superiority: The 
head boasts of its intelligence, the feet of their fleetness, the 
eyes of their vision. The respective claims don't pan out, 
though, the moral of the parable being that, to function most 
effectively, each of the parts must learn to work with the 
others. This is a lesson that the scientific community should 
heed--especially now that science and society must join in 
thwarting serious threats to our environment.


Traditionally, it's been rare for biologists, chemists, 
physicists, and engineers to communicate with ease, let alone 
pursue cooperative research. Rarer still has been the inclination 
for researchers to reach beyond their hard-science disciplines in 
shared endeavors with economists, lawyers, public health experts, 
sociologists, and so forth.


What we're only now beginning to understand is that to solve 
today's problems--especially environmental problems--we need to 
draw on the expertise available across disciplines, scientific 
and otherwise. Currently, the most successful environmental 
solutions are being developed by laboratory scientists, field 
researchers, doctors, and lawmakers, all working together. But 
attaining a really productive level of cooperation is far from 
easy. In a college environment, professors are used to sharing 
their results, but they balk at sharing in the research process. 
Communication is lacking, and, to make matters worse, the typical 
campus rarely sees science faculty classrooms and offices in 
proximity to those of the nonscientists; indeed, they may be on 
different campuses altogether, making informal exchanges of ideas 
all but impossible.



Three strategies may help to overcome the factors impeding 
interdisciplinary endeavors:
* Different disciplines should be housed under one roof. If 
psychologists could easily consult with toxicologists over 
coffee, we might more quickly gain an understanding of the 
perplexing syndrome known as multiple chemical sensitivities. If 
specialists in exposure measurement and education were in 
adjoining offices, we might better mobilize people to  reduce  
analysts attended the same departmental meetings, we might devise 
better plans to protect the health of those living near toxic 
waste sites.



* Granting agencies should reward interdisciplinary efforts by 
giving special consideration to interdisciplinary proposals. A 
single proposal, for example, might seek funding for research 
into better ways of measuring blood lead levels accurately; at 
the same time, it would seek support for studies on methods to 
assess sources of lead within the home, and it would solicit 
funding to support education and training for parents trying to 
protect their children from lead poisoning.



* Institutions should consider hiring a science coordinator 
charged with locating areas of overlapping interest and 
encouraging researchers across disciplines to work together. Such 
a person can play a key role in organizing interdisciplinary 
conferences, lectures, and colloquia.


At the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute 
in Piscataway, N.J., we are beginning to see the fruits of some 
of these interdisciplinary strategies. Jointly sponsored by 
Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry 
of New Jersey, the institute houses under one roof medical 
doctors, toxicologists, biochemists, environmental scientists, 
molecular biologists, pathologists, pharmacologists, geographers, 
engineers, educators, and policy analysts. Additionally, there's 
a clinic on campus for evaluating patients who may have been 
exposed to environmental contaminants, a worker training center, 
and a resource library open to the public. Primarily because of 
our interdisciplinary format, we've been able to attract funding 
for a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center 
of Excellence and to win grants from state and federal agencies 
to study pesticides, lead, and toxic waste.



Certainly all has not gone smoothly. Turf quarrels have erupted 
from time to time as people struggle to work within a new and, to 
some, alien framework. Overall, however, we are rapidly learning 
that--as an alternative to the parable of the warring body parts-
-two heads are better than one. With environmental studies, this 
certainly seems to be the case.



Mark Robson is acting executive director at the Environmental and 
Occupational Health Sciences Institute, a joint project of 
Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry 



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================


                             LETTERS


Animal Research


(Page 12 of the Newspaper)


As president of Americans for Medical Progress (AMP), I am 
writing on behalf of our 1,600 members concerned with the radical 
"animal rights" movement's threat to medical progress. AMP is a 
nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the future of 
medical research that eases human suffering and saves human life.



The article "Opponents Set 1993 Tactics For Animal Rights 
Showdown" (Ron Kaufman, The Scientist, Jan. 25, 1993, page 1) 
doesn't tell the whole story with respect to the issue of the use 
of animals in biomedical research.



First, any discussion of the tactics planned by "animal rights" 
activists should include threats, distortion, and violence. To 
simply say that "animal rights" fanatics are going to concentrate 
on education is to ignore their 10-year history of criminal 
activity.



Furthermore, their idea of education is nothing more than the 
dissemination of their deceptive propaganda. Those who heed the 
lessons of the radical "animal rights" crowd will certainly not 
have a proper understanding of the issue, nor will they have the 
opportunity to make a well-informed decision of their own.



The scientific community, on the other hand, is dedicated to 
helping young people understand the value of biomedical research, 
while allowing individuals to make their own ethical decisions.



protectionists" suggests a misunderstanding of the difference 
between "animal rights" and "animal welfare." AMP supports the 
concept of animal welfare. Like all human beings, scientists have 
an obligation to treat animals in a humane, compassionate manner.



But the philosophy of "animal rights" transcends the traditional 
concept of animal welfare, and argues that animals have the same 
rights as human beings, and therefore cannot be used for any 
purpose, including food, clothing, and medical research.



Finally, to suggest that two-thirds of the students polled 
support "animal rights" because of their "natural sensitivity to 
animals and the environment" is to suggest that to be pro-
research indicates insensitivity. The two (pro-animal and pro-
research) are not mutually exclusive. Those of us who are pro-
research simply realize that thousands of human lives depend on 
responsible medical research.




SUSAN E. PARIS
President
Americans for Medical Progress Inc.
Arlington, Va.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================





Dissenters Suppressed?


The Scientist (Notebook, Feb. 8, 1993, page 4) announced that a 
PBS show on Rachel Carson and Silent Spring would include 
"interviews with foes and friends." The interviews with "foes" 
were with only one person: myself. The only other opponent was 
Professor Robert White-Stevens of Rutgers University, who died 
several years ago and thus, for obvious reasons, was not 
interviewed. Instead, two or three selected film clips were 
shown, to represent him as a spokesman for the pesticide 
industry. Several "friends" came on camera for a total of about 
30 times, plus a number of character witnesses.


Topics that were not mentioned were the use of DDT by the World 
Health Organization, and the fact that it saved millions of lives 
from malaria. I had discussed such matters when I was videotaped, 
but these parts of the tape were not used.




THOMAS H. JUKES
Department of Integrative Biology
University of California
Berkeley



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================


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




Controversial Theory Sparking Research On Alzheimer's


(Page 15 of Newspaper)


BY DIANA STEELE


Research on Alzheimer's disease is one of the hottest topics in 
the biological sciences today. In 1992, for instance, two Alz-
heimer's papers made it into the list of the top 25 cited papers 
Information of Philadelphia. And in 1991, one paper occupied the 
second-most-cited slot for that year.



But despite the excitement among researchers, there remains a 
number of unanswered questions about the underlying mechanisms of 
the disease. While the most popular theory--that the key to the 
disease is beta-amyloid, the peptide fragment that accumulates in 
patients' brains--continues to gain ground, some worry that 
devoting all research to the beta-amyloid theory may be 
dangerous.



"If it doesn't pan out, you take about 100 steps backward," says 
one knowledgeable research scientist at an East Coast biotech 
company heavily involved in developing drugs that target beta-
amyloid production, speaking on condition of anonymity. He and 
other researchers say that while the beta-amyloid theory holds 
the greatest promise for developing a cure, if the notion 
ultimately fails to pan out, little has been done to test other 
approaches, forcing scientists in academia and industry to go 
back to the drawing boards in developing new approaches to 
treating this disease.



The beta-amyloid peptide contains approximately 40 amino acids 
and is the primary constituent of the distinctive plaques that 
accumulate in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. It's not clear 
what the normal function of beta-amyloid is, much less its role 
in the pathogenesis of the disease. Beta-amyloid is a derivative 
of a much larger, membrane-bound protein called the amyloid 
precursor protein (APP), and there have been some tantalizing 
clues discovered in the course of research as to how the larger 
protein might be broken up to produce the peptide fragment, but 
the enzymes involved have not yet been found. Biotech and 
pharmaceutical company researchers are vigorously working to 
characterize these enzymes and developing compounds that block 
their action. They see this approach as the fastest route toward 
developing drugs that will halt the disease's progress.



Beta-amyloid's role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease--
whether it's a primary cause of the disease or a secondary 
symptom--continues to engage scientific debate. But Dennis 
Selkoe, a noted Harvard University neuroscientist who is one of 
the chief proponents of the beta-amyloid theory, says its role is 
becoming more firmly established. "In the last five years there's 
been a steady drumbeat of support for the notion that beta-
amyloid deposition can initiate the disease," he says.
Others are still not convinced. Robert Terry, an Alzheimer's 
"Everybody thinks beta-amyloid is the key, and I don't." Terry 
has correlated the degree of dementia in Alzheimer's patients 
with the loss of synapses in the brain. The proponents of the 
beta-amyloid hypothesis say that beta-amyloid causes the loss of 
synapses, but he says, "I don't see the evidence." He says 
"amyloidophiles" still have to answer the question why the amount 
of beta-amyloid deposits in a patient's brain doesn't correlate 
with the severity of the disease. "After all, it's the dementia 
we care about--we don't care about plaques and tangles if they 
aren't doing any harm," he adds. "But if they're right, so much 
the better. Truth will out--that's the great thing about 
science."



Harvard Medical School neuroscientist Kenneth Kosik, who does 
research on Alz-heimer's neurofibrillary tangles, says the amount 
of research on beta-amyloid is out of proportion to other areas 
of interest in the field. But that's not because there's too much 
research on beta-amyloid, he says, just not enough on other 
aspects. "Beta-amyloid is extremely interesting," he says, and 
when it comes down to divvying up the limited resources, 
decisions about what gets priority need to be made. But, he 
cautions, "we need to keep an open mind about other things that 
may be happening in Alzheimer's disease."



Those "other things" include investigating the role that the 
tangles play in the disease, since plaques without tangles don't 
produce Alzheimer's dementia. The tangles are composed primarily 
of an abnormally overphosphorylated protein called Tau, whose 
normal function in the brain is to help sculpt the shape of 
neuronal processes--axons and dendrites. How it becomes 
phosphorylated to such an extent and what causes it to form 
tangles are unclear.



Funding Unclear
The funding outlook for Alzheimer's research is uncertain, 
especially with a new administration in the White House, says 
Zaven Khatchaturian, the National Institute on Aging's associate 
director for the neuroscience and neuropsychology program. Given 
the federal budget crisis, he says, "under the most optimistic 
scenario, the funding will not go down."



Kosik says simply spending the same amount on Alzheimer's 
research is insufficient. "When you weigh the costs incurred by 
Alzheimer's patients, and the emotional and financial costs to 
families," he says, "the amount of research is still very small."


Selkoe says potential funding cuts in the federal budget will 
have to be made up by private sources, like nonprofit fund-
raisers, philanthropists, and pharmaceutical companies. While the 
media can be an ally in calling attention to the need for more 
funding, he likens Alzheimer's research today to working in a 
"goldfish bowl," and adds, "I think the scrutiny of the press is 
understandably a double-edged sword." Selkoe says the press leaps 
on every paper with the word "Alzheimer's" in the title. "While 
it's exciting to follow the pace of research," he says, "the 
public should  understand that none of this translates into a 
treatment today."




Beta-amyloid Advances
Recent developments tend to shore up the theory that beta-amyloid 
plays a pivotal role in the disease. The discovery in 1991 of a 
genetic mutation that ties APP to Alzheimer's disease was the 
first real indication of a link between beta-amyloid production 
and the pathology of the disease. Alison Goate and her 
colleagues, then at St. Mary's College in London, made an 
exciting discovery--a link between an inherited version of 
Alzheimer's disease and a genetic defect on chromosome 21. That 
paper, "Segregation of a missense mutation in the amyloid 
precursor protein gene with familial Alzheimer's disease," which 
appeared in Nature, was the second-most-cited paper for 1991, and 
to date has been referred to about 250 times in other 
publications (A. Goate, et al., 349:704, 1991). The point 
mutation results in a one-amino-acid substitution in a region of 
the APP protein just outside what ends up as the beta-amyloid 
fragment. That discovery was followed by other research reporting 
similar abnormalities.



Harvard's Selkoe says: "That linkage is so clear, even the 
naysayers agree that in those cases APP appears to be causal."



More recently, genetic defects on chromosomes 14 and 19 have also 
been linked to familial Alzheimer's. Goate and Selkoe say if 
beta-amyloid is central to the disease process, then in all 
likelihood, the genes on those two chromosomes are involved in 
the processing, transcription, or regulation of APP. Goate says 
finding out what the gene on chromosome 14 does will either 
confirm that hypothesis or prove it's caused by a completely 
different mechanism.



The next key step is to identify how the genetic mutations on all 
this end, Goate, now at Washington University in St. Louis, is 
trying to incorporate the defective APP gene into the genome of a 
mouse. If the mouse develops Alzheimer's-like plaques as a 
result, that would be a clear indication. "Human genetics can 
only give you a statistic," she says. "You need to demonstrate 
that the mutation is sufficient to cause the disease."



She's battling difficult odds to create an animal model, however. 
Two of three recently published papers, purporting to show Alz-
heimer's-like pathology in transgenic mice, were withdrawn after 
the data were questioned (D. O. Wirak, et al., "Deposits of 
amyloid beta protein in the central nervous system of transgenic 
mice," Science, 253:323, 1991; and S. Kawabata, et al., Nature, 
356:23, 1992). And rodents don't normally produce plaques, aged 
or not; whereas humans, even in the absence of Alzheimer's 
disease, accumulate beta-amyloid plaques in old age. That's not 
necessarily an indication that the animal model won't work, just 
that if it's a negative result, it can't be interpreted as 
meaning the defect doesn't cause the disease. In estimating her 
chances of success, Goate says, "you can pick examples on either 
side."



Other recent findings that lend credence to the beta-amyloid 
theory are the papers published last fall in the same issue of 
Nature, by Selkoe and his collaborators, which show evidence that 
beta-amyloid can be detected in the spinal fluid of both "normal" 
individuals and Alz-heimer's patients, and is a normal cell 
product (C. Haass, et al., "Amyloid beta-peptide is produced by 
cultured cells during normal metabolism," 359:322, 1992; and P. 
Seubert, et al., "Isolation and quantitation of soluble 
Alzheimer's beta-peptide from biological fluids," 359:325). What 
causes it to form the brain deposits and its role in causing 
dementia still remain important, but unanswered, questions. But 
the discovery is important because researchers had previously 
postulated that some sort of injury or genetic defect was 
necessary to start the cascade of events which produced the beta-
peptide.



More important, says Selkoe, now researchers have a way of 
identifying drugs that could inhibit beta-amyloid production, by 
testing them in cultured cells. Before, the only place beta-
amyloid was seen was in post-mortem Alzheimer brain deposits. The 
researchers also found that some animals, like guinea pigs, have 
measurable amounts of beta-amyloid in their cerebrospinal fluid.



"Now there's a way of getting to proof of concept," Selkoe says. 
amyloid production in the brain, or in the circulatory system, 
retard the progression of Alzheimer's disease?"



Of course, he acknowledges, that's a leap of faith. "There's 
plenty of room for healthy skepticism that inhibiting beta-
amyloid production would ever help an Alzheimer patient," he 
says, "and I can't tell you if it will or will not."



Biotech companies, like Athena Neurosciences Inc., based in San 
Carlos, Calif., which Selkoe helped found, are targeting the 
enzymes that may liberate beta-amyloid from APP. Although the 
specific enzymes have not yet been identified, general protease 
inhibitors are being tested for their ability to reduce the 
production of beta-amyloid. Dale Schenk, Athena's director of 
immunochemistry,  says his firm's scientists aren't ignoring 
other possibilities, and are continuing to develop drugs based on 
nerve growth factors, which may extend the life of neurons.



But these don't get at the essential mechanism of the disease. 
That's where APP and the beta-peptide come in. "You have to take 
risks," he says, "and as long as the beta-peptide is the best 
approach out there, we'll continue to take it."



Indiana University's Merrill Benson, who discovered one of the 
mutations in the APP gene, says the metabolism of APP is very 
important in understanding Alzheimer's disease. But the field is 
getting overcrowded, and he feels there are a lot of extraneous 
papers published on Alzheimer's. He says the key discoveries thus 
far are finding the beta-peptide, cloning the gene, finding 
mutations that predict the disease, and discovering the linkages 
to chromosomes 14 and 19. The hundreds of other papers out there, 
evidence of the popularity of Alzheimer's research, he says, 
"clog up the literature." But, he adds, they may add useful 
insights. "Only after you get to the top of the hill and look 
back," he says, "can you tell what steps were important along the 
way."



As for the future, Selkoe says it may be seven, 10, or even 15 
years before we understand fully what causes Alzheimer's disease. 
But, he adds optimistically, "we don't need to understand the 
whole picture to treat the disease." He estimates that drug 
trials of a credible candidate that block the early mechanism of 
the disease could be as little as three to six years off, and 
possibly even less.



Diana Steele is a freelance writer based in Takoma Park, Md.


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================


                           HOT PAPERS


Page 16 of the Newspaper


PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY

D.E. Manolopoulos, "Proposal of a chiral structure for the 
fullerene C76," Journal of the Chemical Society<197>Faraday 
Transactions, 87:2861, 1991; P.W. Fowler, D.E. Manolopoulos, H.C. 
Batten, "The higher fullerenes<197>A candidate for the structure 
of C78," J. Chem. S.F., 87:3103, 1991.


David Manolopoulos (Department of Chemistry, University of 
Nottingham, England): "The summer of 1991 was an exciting time to 
study the fullerenes. The beautifully symmetric structures of the 
C60 and C70 molecules had recently been confirmed by infrared and 
13C NMR spectroscopy, and preliminary spectroscopic results had 
been reported for C76, C78, and beyond. These latter results 
suggested that the larger carbon clusters were also likely to be 
fullerenes, but they were not sufficiently resolved to 
characterize their precise structures (F. Diederich, et al., 
Science, 252:548, 1991). Our two papers addressed the question of 
these structures by using a simple computer program for 
generating fullerene polyhedra in conjunction with qualitative 
molecular orbital theory.



"The results were unexpected and interesting. C76 was found to 
have just two isolated-pentagon fullerene isomers, one with cubic 
Td and the other with chiral D2 symmetry. Huckel molecular 
orbital calculations revealed that the Td isomer would be open-
shell, however, with a comparatively modest bonding resonance 
energy. Since the lower- symmetry D2 isomer was found to be 
closed-shell, with a larger resonance energy, it was proposed as 
the most  likely C76 structure. This prediction seemed to fit the 
experimental results of Diederich and associates, but with one 
important exception. Whereas the proposed structure should have 
given rise to 19 13C NMR lines of equal intensity, the 
preliminary experimental report was of 16. The discrepancy was 
missing lines in a better-resolved 13C NMR spectrum, providing 
conclusive confirmation of the proposed D2 symmetry structure (R. 
Ettl, et al., Nature, 353:149, 1991). Thus D2 C76, the first 
higher fullerene to be characterized and the first chiral 
fullerene to be found in nature, was something of a triumph for 
elementary molecular orbital theory.



"Of the five isolated-pentagon C78 fullerene isomers reported in 
our second paper, three have also since been discovered 
experimentally, giving valuable new insights into fullerene 
synthesis and stability (F. Diederich, et al., Science, 254:1768, 
1991; K. Kikuchi, et al., Nature, 357:142, 1992).


"Further progress has been made since this C76 and C78 work was 
completed. The experimental C84 product is now thought to consist 
of an entropic 2:1 mixture of isoenergetic D2 and D2d symmetry 
isomers, for example, and numerous other experimental, semi-
empirical, and theoretical studies of the higher fullerenes have 
been published. Much of this new work is summarized in a book 
scheduled to be published this year, An Atlas of Fullerenes (P.W. 
Fowler and D.E. Manolopoulos, Oxford University Press, in 
press)."



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================



MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

S. Shimasaki, L. Gao, M. Shimonaka, N. Ling, "Isolation and 
molecular cloning of insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-
6," Molecular Endocrinology, 5:938, 1991.


Shunichi Shimasaki (Whittier Institute for Diabetes and 
Endocrinology, La Jolla, Calif.): "There are two types of 
insulin-like growth factors: IGF-I and IGF-II, which act on a 
wide variety of target cells to regulate growth and 
cytodifferentiation. The IGF ligands interact with plasma 
membrane receptors, and the interactions are transduced into 
signals that evoke the biological responses. Physiologically, 
most of the IGFs do not exist as free ligands, but rather are 
bound to specific proteins called the IGF-binding proteins 
(IGFBPs). At present, the precise function of the IGFBPs is 
unknown. However, there is an increasing body of evidence 
demonstrating that the IGFBPs can modulate--either enhance or 
suppress--the biological responses of the IGF ligands. Thus, the 
determining the cellular responses to IGF-I and IGF-II.


"As described in this paper, we undertook a comprehensive 
purification scheme to isolate all of the IGFBPs present in 
porcine follicular fluid. During this research, we isolated three 
novel IGFBPs and completed their structural characterization by 
molecular cloning of their cDNAs in both the human and rat. We 
named them IGFBP-4, -5, and -6. This paper, concerning IGFBP-6, 
is the last one in the series of the cloning of the amino acid 
sequences of all six IGFBPs in both human and rat, which is 
undoubtedly one reason so many researchers have cited the paper.


"As a result of our efforts to characterize these IGFBPs, our 
cDNA clones are now used in more than 150 research groups 
throughout the world to study structure/function aspects of the 
IGFBPs and to produce recombinant molecules. I anticipate that 
the structural information of these molecules will provide the 
insight into how the six types of IGFBPs are intertwined with the 
actions of the IGFs in both physiology and pathophysiology."



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================




IMMUNOLOGY


E.L. Berg, M.R. Robinson, O. Mansson, E.C. Butcher, J.L. Magnani, 
"A carbohydrate domain common to both Sialyl Lea and Sialyl Lex 
is recognized by the endothelial cell leukocyte adhesion molecule 
ELAM-1," Journal of Biological Chemistry, 266:14869, 1991.


John Magnani (Glyco Tech Corp., Rockville, Md.): "A greater 
understanding of the physiological functions of carbohydrate 
structures is currently being pursued by an exciting new field of 
research termed `glycobiology.' My coauthors Eugene Butcher and 
Ellen Berg at Stanford University have pioneered the study of 
lymphocyte recirculation. The first step in the extravasation of 
these cells from the bloodstream is their binding to the vascular 
endothelium of the blood vessel wall. Binding proteins classified 
as `selectins' recognize unique cell surface carbohydrate 
structures, thereby selecting specific cells from the blood for 
extravasation. Transfected mouse L cells expressing human E-
selectin on the cell surface were used in cell binding studies 
with purified complex carbohydrates chemically linked to 
nonglycosylated proteins.

"This paper first showed that human E-selectin bound not only to 
the known carbohydrate ligand sialyl Lex but also to its 
structural isomer, sialyl Lea. To determine the common three-
dimensional domain shared by these two structures, hard sphere 
exoanomeric (HSEA) calculations were used to compute bond angles 
at the minimal energy conformation. By comparing these 
structures, we first demonstrated that the minimum epitope for E-
selectin is the positioning of the Neu5Aca2-3Gal to the fucose 
residue. These results explain the binding of many sialyl Lex 
negative cells to E-selectin.


"The structure of sialyl Lea was first elucidated in 1982 as a 
tumor-associated antigen. Likewise, the expression of its 
structural isomer, sialyl Lex, on cell surfaces was shown to be 
positively correlated with the presence and stage of cancer. 
Thus, it is likely that tumor cells expressing high 
concentrations of sialyl Lea/sialyl Lex surface carbohydrates 
have a distinct advantage in extravasating from the bloodstream 
and forming metastases by a similar selectin-mediated pathway 
used by normal leukocytes.


"Determining the chemical structure of this functional 
carbohydrate sequence has great potential in the design of a new 
class of pharmaceuticals for the therapy of inflammatory and 
metastatic disease, which is currently reflected by the enormous 
academic and commercial interest in this field."



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================




                       TOOLS & TECHNOLOGY


Classic Scientific References And More Becoming Available On CD-ROM


(Page 18 of Newspaper)


BY FRANKLIN HOKE


Tempted by the enormous data storage capacities of CD-ROM disks 
and spurred by recent drops in their production costs, scientific 
publishers are making available to researchers an increasing 



Among these is a geological reference work that includes original 
mineral spectra data sets on a CD-ROM accompanying the printed 
text. Also available is a disk containing several of Charles 
Darwin's full texts with maps and illustrations in facsimile--as 
well as audio recordings of the songs of bird species Darwin 
encountered on his travels. In addition, several other classic 
scientific reference works are being considered or actively 
prepared for release in CD-ROM versions, including The Merck 
Index (11th ed., S. Budavari, et al., eds., Rahway, N.J., Merck & 
Co., 1989) and Mendelian Inheritance in Man (10th ed., V. 
McKusick, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).


For the most part, these new tools build on the searching 
software and other strengths of the CD-ROM bibliographic 
databases that have proved so valuable in scientific literature 
searches. But now, they can include the full text--with full-text 
searching capability--or complete images of the original printed 
pages with the photos, graphs, and charts accompanying the text.



"What everyone in publishing has realized in the last few years 
is that the mastering costs have just plummeted," says Richard 
O'Grady, science editor with Johns Hopkins University Press. 
"Only a few years ago, it was almost $10,000 [per CD-ROM]--now, 
it's less that $1,000. And unit costs afterwards are only about 
$2 to knock off copies." "Mastering" a CD-ROM refers to the 
process of creating the prototype product from which the copies 
are then made.



The work O'Grady shepherded through production last year was 
Infrared Spectra of Minerals, by John W. Salisbury and associates 
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). The printed book contains 
about 500 spectra of characterized minerals plotted on X/Y 
graphs, along with analysis of the information. In a pocket at 
the back of the book is a CD-ROM disk containing the raw spectral 
data upon which the graphs are based, so that scientists can work 
directly with those data if they need to do so.



Because of the approximately 600 megabytes of available storage 
capacity on a CD-ROM, the raw data could be provided in both 
Macintosh and MS-DOS formats. In fact, the data take up only 
about 50 megabytes, even with the doubling to accommodate the 
needs of those two groups of users.


The book and disk are designed to complement each other, 
according to O'Grady. "It's not as if we're replacing books--it's 
just value added, this product," he says. "It allows you to do 
more with the information the book communicates."



Joy Crisp is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration 
volcanologist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, 
Calif., using spectral data collected by remote sensing 
satellites in her research. She worked closely with O'Grady as a 
reviewer of the book to ensure that it would be as useful as 
possible for researchers. After an early look, she recommended 
that the data be included in some form along with the printed 
text and graphs.



"The book is almost useless to me as a scientist if I don't have 
the raw data so that I can, using my computer, plot up the data 
and compare it against spectra that I take off my own rocks," she 
says.



Crisp explains that the graphs in the book, which represent a 
library of the spectra from "perfect" minerals, are helpful but 
not precise enough to help her work with a typical specimen.



"If you grab a rock in the desert," Crisp says, "some rock that 
has a mixture of minerals, and you're trying to interpret it, you 
need to go back to the raw data to compare."



According to press representative Judy Adkinson, another CD-ROM 
project under way at Johns Hopkins University Press aims to put 
Victor McKusick's classic genetics reference, Mendelian 
Inheritance in Man, on disk. The disk version should be finished 
in time for the October 5-9 meeting in New Orleans this year of 
the American Society of Human Genetics, she says. In addition, 
the text will be fully searchable--once a search program has been 
decided upon.



"The most complicated thing has been trying to figure out what 
would be the best search program to use," Adkinson says, "because 
there are a lot out there." 



pages, she says, and the CD-ROM will include both Macintosh and 
MS-DOS format files, there still will be storage capacity on the 
disk for other uses.



"We have a nice core of genetics reference books," Adkinson says. 
"I want to start adding some of those other references to the 
McKusick CD-ROM, because there will be plenty of room."



Adkinson anticipates that purchasers of the McKusick CD-ROM will 
include some individuals, departments, and research groups as 
well as academic libraries. One reason for this may be the low 
cost: Adkinson expects to release updates to the work every six 
months, with one year's pair of disks starting at $250.



Among the growing number of scientific references now available 
on CD-ROM is ALDRICHEM Data Search, containing data on 50,000 
chemicals drawn primarily from The Aldrich Catalog Handbook of 
Fine Chemicals (Milwaukee, Aldrich Chemical Co., 1992). Another 
is The Physicians' Desk Reference, containing the complete text 
of the print volume of the same title (47th ed., Montvale, N.J., 
Medical Economics Data Inc., 1993.) And others are likely to 
follow in the next few years. According to a company 
spokesperson, for example, a CD-ROM version of The Merck Index 
also is under consideration.



Even the venerable Charles Darwin is now available on CD-ROM. In 
fact, Darwin is available in several versions.



The general-interest reader may want to have the full texts of 
Darwin's The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man on a CD-ROM 
product called Library of the Future from World Library Inc., 
Garden Grove, Calif. That reader will also be able to enjoy the 
other 900-plus full-text titles available on that disk, including 
many of the world's more prominent religious, philosophical, 
historical, and literary--as well as scientific--titles.



A scholar of Darwin, on the other hand, is now able to work with 
the complete texts and original illustrations of those titles, 
along with original maps from the surveying voyages of the HMS 
Beagle and the HMS Adventure, sound recordings from the Cornell 
University Laboratory of Ornithology, and an array of 
supplemental study materials related to Darwin's work and life. 
San Francisco.



Back Issues On Disk
For scientists, reference to primary research literature, usually 
journals, is paramount. Discipline-specific bibliographic 
databases on CD-ROM and in other formats have eased the task of 
tracking down references to needed articles, but it has still 
been necessary to then find a copy of the article.



But now, a growing area of CD-ROM science reference publishing is 
providing full image files of journal articles along with the 
bibliographic reference. These files are, for the most part, 
scanned images of the journal pages themselves, complete with 
charts, graphs, and other illustrations.



According to Andrew Berks, a research chemical information 
scientist with American Cyanamid Co., Pearl River, N.Y., such 
products are used analogously to a microfilm collection.



"But the copies are better," he says, "and it uses off-the-shelf 
computer hardware that's less expensive than good-quality 
microfilm readers."



One CD-ROM image product, called ADONIS from a company by the 
same name located in Amsterdam, is especially targeted for 
biomedical researchers. Articles, letters, and abstracts from 497 
biomedical journals published by Blackwell Scientific 
Publications, Elsevier Science Publishers, Pergamon Journals, 
Springer Verlag, John Wiley, and others are included.



The Persistence Of Books
Many of those involved in developing CD-ROM versions of works 
more familiar in their text forms note that the printed page will 
still retain its appeal for some time to come.



One editor, mulling the possibility of creating a CD-ROM version 
of a respected, century-old scientific reference, who requests 
anonymity because of company restrictions, puts it this way:


"If you're a lab scientist, and you have a single-volume book 
that sits on your shelf in your lab, and you need to look 
something up quickly, it's right there at your fingertips--vs. 
your CD-ROM player, which is probably attached to your computer 
back in your office. If you're familiar with a book, and it's 
sort of an old friend, and you're looking up a specific item, 
then do you really need electronic search capabilities?"



This editor adds: "Everybody still learns from books right now, 
so it's habit, also. There is persistence to the book--we would 
not give up the book in favor of a CD-ROM product."



Perhaps because students do still learn from books, primarily, 
scientific textbook publishers do not seem to be in a great hurry 
to bring their products out on CD-ROM. For example, a 
spokesperson for Worth Publishers Inc. in New York City, 
publishers of Principles of Biochemistry, 2nd ed., by A. 
Lehninger, D. Nelson, and M. Cox, says there are "no plans in the 
works" to bring the text out on CD-ROM.



Andrew Berks of American Cyanamid agrees that books will hold 
their places in a researcher's reference collection, although the 
use of CD-ROM publications will continue to grow.



"A CD-ROM is really not as convenient as opening a book," Berks 
says, "if a book is conveniently available."



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================



SCIENTIFIC REFERENCES ON CD-ROM


(Page 20 of the Newspaper)


Further information about CD-ROM titles discussed in the 
accompanying article is available from these publishers:


ADONIS
NL-1000 Amsterdam, Netherlands
020 6842206
Product: ADONIS


ALDRICH CHEMICAL CO.
P.O. Box 355
1001 W. St. Paul Ave.
Milwaukee, Wis. 53233
(800) 231-8327
Fax: (800) 962-9591
Product: ALDRICHEM Data Search



JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
2715 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, Md. 21218
(410) 516-6960
Fax: (410) 516-6968
Products: Infrared Spectra of Minerals, Mendelian Inheritance in 
Man (in press)



LIGHTBINDERS INC.
2325 Third St.
Suite 320
San Francisco, Calif. 94107
(415) 621-5746
Fax: (415) 621-5898
Product: DARWIN



MEDICAL  ECONOMICS DATA, INC.
5 Paragon Dr.
Montvale, N.J. 07645
(201) 358-7200
Fax: (201) 664-1902
Product: The Physicians' Desk Reference


WORLD LIBRARY INC.
12914 Haster St.
Garden Grove, Calif. 92640
(800) 443-0238
Fax: (714) 748-7198
Product: Library of the<R>Future, 2nd ed.

(See also the Science Publishers Directory on page 31.)



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


                           PROFESSION



Scientist Authors Lend Expertise To Kids' Books


(Page 21 of Newspaper)


BY RICKI LEWIS


One way to combat future science phobia and illiteracy is to 
bring children closer to scientists, educators say. And because 
scientists often have many stories to tell, publishers have found 
that using them as authors of children's science books can help 
bring the excitement of research to youngsters with an 
authenticity and perspective that nonscientist-authors cannot 
easily convey.



Because scientists with riveting children's stories to tell and 
the talent for writing them are rare birds, publishers track them 
down, in contrast to typical fledgling writers, who generally 
need to seek out publishers for their work. But why would a busy 
scientist invest the time to write and nurture a book for kids? 
The benefits, though rarely significant from a monetary 
standpoint, can be substantial, say those who have done it.




Telling Stories
If a new book series called Face to Face with Science (New York, 
Crown Books for Young Readers) is as big a hit as its publisher 
expects, demand for scientist-authors may grow. This series 
showcases scientists at work, in their own words. The first three 
volumes were published late last year.



The series debuted with two favorite children's topics--space and 
dinosaurs. Voyager was written by Sally Ride and Tam 
O'Shaughnessy, and Digging up Tyrannosaurus Rex by John Horner 
and Don Lessem. Ride, the first female astronaut, and Horner, 
curator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies at Montana 
State University in Bozeman, are well-known scientists. 
O'Shaughnessy knows Ride from their national junior tennis 
Diego Community College. Lessem is the founder of the Boston-
based Dinosaur Society, a nonprofit organization to promote 
dinosaur science.



The third volume, Elephants Calling, was written by Katharine 
Payne, a research associate at Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology 
at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and best-known for 
discovering the poetic quality of humpback whales' songs. But it 
was her discovery of elephants' use of infrasound to communicate 
that led to Elephants Calling. It is uniquely told from the point 
of view of an elephant.



The simple and true story, captured by Payne's camera, follows 
the lives of a family of elephants on the Amboseli plain in 
Kenya. While the elephant elders are distracted by two battling 
males, four-year-old Raoul wanders off, finding a hole into which 
he pokes his inquisitive trunk. Out jumps a startled warthog, and 
Raoul yelps. The response of his clan is a fascinating study in 
animal communication.



The Face to Face with Science series was a response to complaints 
about children's books from scientists, who cited inaccuracies 
and datedness. "We thought it was a good idea to go to some 
people and give them the opportunity to write for children, to 
give kids the sense of what doing science is like, as opposed to 
just giving them information," says Simon Boughton, the editor at 
Crown who created the series.



The intimate perspective of Elephants Calling is due to Payne's 
ability to think like a child. "There are a lot of things one 
can't say through the voice of the scientist," she says. "What I 
love to do is to just notice--and children are the best 
observers. The big thing is being undistracted. You can see this 
in a one- or two-year old, those moments of intense attention in 
simply examining something. We lose that ability later on."



Payne was steered off the Ph.D. track by the arrival of four 
children. Before that, she had trained with noted ethologists 
Thomas Eisner of Cornell and Edward O. Wilson at Harvard 
University. But lack of a Ph.D. didn't stop her from doing 
extensive fieldwork.



mainstream because he enjoys the humanistic side of science. He 
relishes writing children's books "mostly because there were some 
things I wanted to express that I couldn't in the scientific 
literature," he says.



Myers is an assistant professor at Western College, an 
interdisciplinary arm of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where 
he teaches courses on ecology, evolution, the imagination, and 
technology. Myers and his wife, Lynne Born Myers, penned 
McCrephy's Field (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1991), a tale of 
ecological succession.



The Myerses weren't well known enough to be asked to write a 
children's book, as the Face to Face authors were. After they 
wrote their book in 1989, they sent it to three companies. 
Houghton Mifflin signed them immediately, and they've been 
writing ever since.



Mark Chartrand, another eclectic scientist who has attracted 
publishers, puts his finger on just how and why a scientist 
brings a special ring of authenticity to a children's book. "I 
consider writing a science book a little like [working in] a 
museum, and, having done both, I can see parallels," he says. "In 
a typical major museum, only 2 to 5 percent of the collection is 
on display. So it is with an author. The museum director must 
know the other 96 percent so that he or she can know the proper 4 
percent to choose to display." Today, Chartrand spends about half 
his time writing and half as a private consultant, giving 
seminars on satellite technology and telecommunications.



Chartrand became interested in writing from a man who influenced 
many science writers--the late Isaac Asimov. While working on a 
Ph.D. in astronomy at Case Western Reserve University, Chartrand 
heard Asimov speak. "I thought, well, if he can do it, so can I," 
he recalls. Realizing that he preferred explaining to 
researching, after grad school Chartrand took a position as 
director of education at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. 
Three years later he was promoted to chairman of the planetarium, 
and also taught astronomy at nearby Fordham University.



Chartrand's first book was an astronomy textbook written with 
Franklyn M. Branley, also a Hayden planetarium astronomer. Their 
text fell into a black hole when the publisher was sold, but 
Chartrand's prolific work soon attracted attention at Western 
him to revise its Skyguide and other how-to astronomy books. 
Chartrand "cut his teeth" on these projects, viewing the requests 
to update them as "being asked to revise the Bible." But revise 
he did, so well that he was soon asked to revamp guides to the 
planets and space exploration.




Teachers' Turf
Research is the scientist's niche; designing easy-to-do projects 
demonstrating scientific principles taps a teacher's expertise. A 
pro at this type of book is Janice VanCleave of Otto, Texas. 
Since 1989, she has written three series of hands-on science 
books for John Wiley & Sons Inc. of New York--six volumes of 
Science for Every Kid, six of Janice VanCleave's Spectacular 
Projects, and her current effort, for high school students, A+ 
Projects.



VanCleave accumulated her material from 26 years of teaching 
science in the sixth through 12th grades, having to make do with 
very little. "When I was teaching, most of the time I was 
designing something for the kids to do," she recalls. "It was a 
real rarity to be in a school that had money to buy science 
equipment. Indirectly, all that training of not having anything 
to work with, well, that's what I do in the books now." 
Recognizing that her readers probably have limited resources, 
too, she designs her projects to involve commonly found, cheap, 
or free materials.



VanCleave calls her entry into book publishing "a Cinderella 
story." When she was teaching at a grade school in Fort Smith, 
Ark., she shared her classroom approaches to teaching science 
with other instructors in workshops called "Teacher to Teacher." 
Someone from a local junior college heard of her workshop and 
asked her to teach an enrichment class. This program, "The Magic 
of Science," was described in the college's catalog, which caught 
the attention of an editor at Prentice-Hall Publishing Co. Inc. 
of Englewood Cliffs, N.J.



But when the publisher asked her to send a prospectus, VanCleave 
recalls, "I didn't have the foggiest idea what that was." So the 
editor sent her an outline on how to write a prospectus. Later, 
after she had signed a contract, she confessed that she didn't 
know how to write a book. "So they sent me a book on how to write 
a book," she says. That original editor moved to John Wiley, 
which continued publishing VanCleave's books.



Money Matters
"For most scientists who write children's books, it's not the 
only thing they do," says Chris Myers. An exception is VanCleave, 
who supports herself by writing many children's science books as 
her sole occupation. But a children's book best-seller is not as 
lucrative as a top-flight novel.



"If a book is very successful, it could make $5,000 over its 
lifetime. And it takes at least a year to write it," says Chris 
Myers. A writer usually receives a small advance against 
royalties, and the royalty is generally 10 percent of the cover 
price.



But Boughton of the Face to Face series points out that for 
scientists writing about their own work, not much effort is 
required to translate it for children: "We don't ask anyone to do 
research, we ask them to write about what they have already done 
and  probably  already  written about."



Despite the lack of financial reward, writing a children's 
science book can be very satisfying. Says Boughton of his best-
known Face to Face author: "Sally Ride did not need to do this 
book; she has plenty else to do. She just really enjoys it. She  
feels she  has  something  to say." Adds Chartrand, "Like 
teaching, writing science books for children  is very rewarding, 
when  you see the light go on in somebody's eyes."




Ricki Lewis, of Scotia, N.Y., writes college biology texts.


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================





SEVEN STEPS TO WRITING A CHILDREN'S SCIENCE BOOK


(Page 21 of Newspaper)


The secret of good writing is for the final product to look 
effortless. But writing a successful book requires a great deal 
of planning, even if the final product will be only a few dozen, 
liberally illustrated pages. Here are some tips on how to write a 
children's science book from those who have done it.


1. Identify a topic. Start in the children's section of a 
library. If you hope to write yet another book on the weather, 
planets, dinosaurs, or warm, fuzzy creatures, decide how yours 
will differ. If your topic is hot in scientific circles but 
hasn't quite made it to the Berenstain Bears set yet--such as 
anything pertaining to molecular biology--think about how you 
will make the material exciting and understandable.



2. Know your audience. Mark Chartrand, astronomer and author of 
numerous star and planet guides, says that writing at an 
appropriate level is difficult, because one must deal with 
science illiteracy without talking down to the reader.



3. Choose an approach. If you plan to write a how-to project 
book, be sure to test the projects on real kids. Fact-based books 
tend to deal with the familiar (recent books describe the 
seashore, a telephone, and the digestive system) or the 
unfamiliar (moon rocks or superconductivity).


A popular type of children's science book follows a scientist at 
work, such as The Triumph of Discovery: Women Scientists Who Won 
the Nobel Prize by Joan Dash (New York, Simon & Schuster Inc., 
1991). Says Rachel Cassidy, a senior at Watervliet High School in 
Watervliet, N.Y. "The peek at the personal lives of these women 
made the reading more interesting because the reader could see 
the scientist as a real person, rather than just some name from a 
textbook."


4. Organize. "Knowing the way you will organize and select topics 
is three-quarters of the way there. Like in science, a well-posed 
question is three-quarters of the way to the answer," says 
Chartrand. Like a scientific paper, a children's science story 
needs a planned unfolding of events.


5. Sell yourself. Why would you, a scientist, be better able to 
handle the topic than an educator or writer? Consider what Alan 
Harris, supervisor of the earth and planetary physics group at 
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Paul Weissman, a research 
scientist with JPL's earth and space sciences division, had to 
Voyager Adventure in 1990.


"Working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory," they write, "we were 
privileged to be able to watch it grow from the drawing board to 
reality, and then to be there as the spacecraft sent back their 
incredible photographs and scientific data."


Children's publishing is highly visual, which may explain why 
pachyderms, volcanoes, and asteroids far outnumber viruses, 
biochemicals, and quarks in books. If you are an artist or 
photographer, or know someone who will work with you, so much the 
better.


6. Find your voice. Style is hard to define, but Katharine Payne, 
author of Elephants Calling (New York, Crown Publishers Inc., 
1992), captures it well: "Think back to your childhood, and be 
that child again."


7. Send it off! You don't necessarily have to send a completed 
manuscript, but at least dispatch an introductory letter, a 
prospectus (a detailed outline), and some sample of your writing 
style to a publisher of children's books. If you've never written 
anything other than a scientific paper or a grant proposal, say 
so. If you have talent and expertise, an interested publisher 
will guide you along.


Compile a list of publishers from books in the library, and make 
some phone calls to get the names of appropriate editors. Consult 
Writer's Market, an annual compendium of publishers by Writer's 
Digest Books of Cincinnati, which lists requirements of specific 
publishers. Tailor your idea to a publisher's needs, and you may 
be in business.
--R.L.



(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================


                             PEOPLE


(Page 23 of Newspaper)


Entomologist To Get Wolf Prize In Agriculture

John Casida, a professor of entomology and director of the 
Pesticide Chemistry and Toxicology Laboratory at the University 
of California, Berkeley, will receive the 1993 Wolf Prize in 
Agriculture.


Since 1978, the Israeli-based Wolf Foundation has been granting 
four $100,000 prizes annually for individual achievements among 
the five fields of agriculture, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, 
physics, and the arts. No prize in medicine will be awarded this 
year. The prizes will be presented on May 16 by Israeli President 
Chaim Herzog at the Knesset building in Jerusalem.



Casida, 63, is being honored by the Wolf Foundation for his 
research into the mode of action of insecticides, other 
pesticides, and toxicants. The award citation highlights his 
"unique contributions to basic science and to the development of 
safer pesticides for agricultural use."



Casida's lab, which is supported by a grant from the National 
Institutes of Health, investigates the fundamental underlying 
mechanisms that are the basis for modern pest control.



"For example," Casida says, "we recently completed discovering 
the mode of action for a chemical inside a blister beetle called 
cantharidin" (Y.M. Li, et al., "Cantharidin-binding protein--
identification as protein phosphatase-2A," Proceedings of the 
National Academy of Sciences, 89[24]:1867-70, 1992).



The blister beetle can be lethal to farm animals if swallowed. 
Casida's lab team put tritium in a molecule of the toxic chemical 
and tracked it to locate a binding site. Using the liver as a 
model, he says, "we discovered a single protein that cantharidin 
seemed to bind to in correlation to its toxicity. It turned out 
to be protein phosphatase-2A." This enzyme is probably also the 
target for the action of a related compound, endothall, as an 
herbicide.



Casida received his B.S. in entomology (1951) and his Ph.D. in 
biochemistry (1954) from the University of Wisconsin. He was on 
Wisconsin's faculty from 954 to 1963 before moving to Berkeley in 
1964.




(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================



Utah Researcher Receives ACS's Priestley Medal



(Page 23 of Newspaper)


Poring over textbooks is fine, but real science education happens 
through lab work, according to Robert W. Parry, a chemistry 
professor at the University of Utah and winner of this year's 
Priestley Medal, presented by the American Chemical Society 
(ACS).


The Priestley Medal, the highest honor awarded by ACS for 
lifelong service to the field, was given to Parry March 30 during 
the society's annual meeting in Denver. Noted former winners 
include Nobel laureates Glenn Seaborg (who received the Priestley 
Medal in 1979) and Linus Pauling (who received the medal in 
1987).


Parry, 74, who has taught at the Salt Lake City campus since 
1969, is a strong proponent of increased laboratory work in high 
school and college science classes. In the early 1960s, he worked 
with Seaborg and the late chemist George Pimentel (a 1990 winner 
of the Priestley Medal) on the CHEM (Chemical Education 
Materials) Study. This government-sponsored program was charged 
with the task of developing a new thematic approach to teaching 
high school chemistry.


"The product of the CHEM Study program was a book [ed. G.C. 
Pimentel, Chemistry: An Experimental Science, New York, W.H. 
Freeman & Co., 1963] showing that science is the result of 
laboratory observations, which today is called `hands-on 
chemistry,' " Parry says. "So instead of memorizing paragraph 37 
in one of the common books of the day, we tried to show people 
how knowledge is obtained in the lab."


Parry received his B.S. in soil chemistry from the Utah 
Agricultural College (1940). The research for his Ph.D., which 
Parry received in inorganic chemistry in 1946, was directed by 
John Baylor (who won the Priestley Medal in 1961) at the 
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He taught at the 


--Ron Kaufman


(The Scientist, Vol:7, #7, April 5, 1993)
(Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)
                ================================


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