The Scientist articles from November 2000

The Scientist archives from November 2000

FOCUS ON bioinformatics.
November 27, 2000... With demand booming, researchers scramble for more powerful technology and a new paradigm Disentangling the good from the bad--gene and protein data, that is--may be the toughest task for today's bioinformatics scientists assembling new...

Patenting Life: The Harvard Mouse that Has Not Roared.(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... There has been little notice of the Canadian government's recent action in a 15-year patent dispute with Harvard University, even though it may restoke the fires of controversy about the patenting of life.[1] Last month, the government...

Merging IT and Biology.(information technology)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... Companies discuss next-generation strategies for processing raw genomics data Much of the promise of bioinformatics likely lies with the big money and novel approaches of the private sector. At a late October symposium titled "Biosilico...

New PTO Unit Examines Bioinformatics Applications.(United States Patent and Trademark Office)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... Predicted flood hasn't happened, but growth is likely Last year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) routinely assigned patent applications for bioinformatics inventions to examiners in diverse departments. Then the office made a...

Big Plans for Kansas City.
November 27, 2000... Stowers Institute inspires drive for biomedical leadership Predictions and plans abound these days concerning Kansas City--that border town straddling Missouri and Kansas known for its jazz, barbecue, and riverboat gambling--as a future...

The Scientific Muse.(genetics, creativity, and biology)
November 27, 2000... Will genetics boost creativity in biology ? The worldwide impact of discoveries over recent years in genetics is evident, but also worth considering is the potential effect on the performance of biology. Could these achievements spark an...

Accuracy in Recounts.(examining tissue)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... It can take a pathologist, moving a micrometer across a slide under a microscope, days to measure 10 different layers in a skin tissue sample. It can also take days to count regrown or restenosed endothelial cells to gauge the effect of a...

DOE: Getting the Bugs Out.(Department of Energy)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... The Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, Calif., announced in early November the completion of its "microbial marathon"--draft sequences of 15 bacterial genomes. According to Paul Predki, the institute's associate...

The Heat is On.(researching antibiotic resistance)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... In an effort to mitigate the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, researchers at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia are pursuing new strategies based on antimicrobial peptide molecules certain insects have as an infection defense....

Penn Gene Therapy Lawsuit Settled.(University of Pennsylvania; death during gene therapy)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... The case that sent shockwaves through the field of gene therapy may finally have attained some closure. The family of Jesse Gelsinger, the Arizona teenager who died a year ago during a gene therapy experiment at the University of...

Stem Cells Tapped to Replenish Organs.
November 27, 2000... Embryonic or adult? The superior source depends on the tissue. "All politics is local" was a famous maxim of Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, the late speaker of the House of Representatives, and the same can be said of medically useful stem cells....

Transdifferentiation.(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... Researchers will have to understand transdifferentiation better before they can deploy adult stem cells (ASCs) as broadly and effectively as possible. Transdifferentiation is the phenomenon whereby a muscle ASC, say, can give rise to a blood...

HD Cell Death Mechanisms.(Huntington's disease)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... Researchers use signal transduction findings to elucidate Huntington's disease cell death To identify potential therapeutic targets for Huntington's disease (HD), an inherited, dementia-inducing neurodegenerative condition, researchers...

SNARE Crystal Structure.(protein complexes)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... Structure of protein complex helps investigators explore membrane fusion The precise role of SNAREs, protein complexes known to be integral to cell membrane fusion--and, as a result, a number of cellular functions[1]--continues to elude...

Presursor Cells to the Rescue?(nervous system cell regeneration)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... Two reports out this month suggest that less-than-fully differentiated cells--whether embryonic or adult--could help humans recover from a host of nervous system ailments, ranging from motor neuron diseases to brain cancer. In a study...

HEADY Role in Hydra.(freshwater polyp)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... Hydra, a multicellular, lower-eukaryotic, freshwater polyp, is known for its developmental idiosyncrasies. Slice off its head or its foot, and within two days either regenerates perfectly at the proper location. Although developmental...

Mighty Mouse.(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... Although Burkitt's lymphoma is uncommon in the United States, the disease accounts for more than half of all childhood cancers in Africa. Research to define mouse models of this human non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has continued for more than 15...

A Perfect Ten.(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... Gentra Systems' AUTOPURE LS[TM] Nucleic Acid Purification System takes the drudgery out of large sample preparation Automated nucleic acid purification systems capable of handling small samples (up to 1 ml) have become a time- and...

Faster Diagnoses OnCyte.(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... CompuCyte's OnCyte[TM] System tackles cell-based assays When properly understood, knowledge of the interaction and communication of cells with each other and their environment can be applied to the diagnosis and treatment of disease. For...

Revealing Images.(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... There seems to be no end to the stream of optical technologies hitting the market. Cambridge Research & Instrumentation (CRI) Inc., of Woburn, Mass., has developed CellView and SpindleView imaging systems to apply the company's...

Bioinformatics, Genomics, and Proteomics.
November 27, 2000... Scientific discovery advances as technology paves the path High-throughput (HT) sequencing, microarray screening and protein expression profiling technologies drive discovery efforts in today's genomics and proteomics laboratories. These...

Up to Speed on PCR.
November 27, 2000... Real-time systems enable fast, quantitative analyses PCR--a technique so common in today's laboratories that it is easy to forget its revolutionary impact--enables the specific amplification and detection of as little as a single copy of...

Retooling for Bioinformatics.
November 27, 2000... A prerequisite for working in this field: love of computers Nurturing a career in bioinformatics takes a certain kind of aptitude, despite its popularity. First off, you have to like being intimately involved with computers, agree those...

Boosting Network Performance.(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... Information technology is playing an increasingly significant role in all facets of today's world, including scientific research. The National Science Foundation recently announced a new research collaboration to develop software that...

Honing Genomics Tools.(Brief Article)
November 27, 2000... The recent growth in genomics has created the need for cutting-edge research tools. Corning Inc. in Corning, N.Y., and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., have signed an agreement to promote development of new...

Funding Opportunities in the Life Sciences.(list of foundations)
November 27, 2000... ORGANIZATION SUBJECT Biotechnology & Non-medical life sciences Biological Sciences Research Council The Whitaker Collaborative life sciences/ Foundation biomedical engineering research ...

CELLULAR PHONES: ARE THEY SAFE TO USE?
November 27, 2000... Resolving the question of whether cellular phones are safe has been complicated by conflicting information about electromagnetic fields (emfs): no danger; yes there is danger; well, we don't know. This has been unsettling for the public and...

STEM CELL DISCOVERIES STIR DEBATE.
November 13, 2000... Issues take on greater urgency as NIH guidelines go into effect Researchers first isolated embryonic stem cells (ESCs) from mouse blastocysts almost 20 years ago, and a paper announcing the discovery of human ESCs emerged in 1998....

Keeping Aging Minds Sharp.(Brief Article)
November 13, 2000... "I'm having a senior moment." We've all heard that one, land the countless other jokes about getting old. In our I culture, it is generally accepted that older people will gradually begin to forget things or become less logical in their...

A Double Life for a Very Visible Human.
November 13, 2000... Virtual cadaver by day, then skeleton at play Joseph Paul Jernigan, 38, executed Texas murderer, flourishes in his resurrection in cyberspace and shows every sign of fulfilling his promise as a peerless instructor of anatomy and unique...

An Orphan Disease Gets Adopted.
November 13, 2000... Malaria, scourge of the developing world, begins to be readdressed by the West Researchers and physicians, open your guides to rare diseases, for that may be the only place you'll encounter Jumping Frenchmen of Maine. There you also will...

Stepping Up Mouse Sequencing.
November 13, 2000... Consortium emulates previous collaborations and will aid in annotation of human genome At a featured symposium of last month's American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) meeting in Philadelphia, Bob Waterston, director of the genome...

SIDS Cause Discovered?(Brief Article)
November 13, 2000... While child care experts have suspected for some time that the prone sleeping position of infants can be related to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), the reason for this major cause of postneonatal death in the developed world has long...

Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis: The Next Big Thing?
November 13, 2000... Researchers try to sort out the specifics of an emerging technology with considerable ramifications In early October, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) made headlines when a Colorado couple used assisted reproductive technology...

Sorting the Messages.(Brief Article)
November 13, 2000... When multipotent calcium sends signals, oscillations help to select the right pathway Just about everything binds in a cell, but some things bind more than others. Take calcium. As a messenger it's multipotent, capable of sending signals...

The Molecular Clock.(Brief Article)
November 13, 2000... In analyzing sequence substitutions, more genes tell better evolutionary time Thirty-five years ago, researchers proffered the remarkable hypothesis that substitution of amino acids in proteins, and of nucleotides in genes, occurs in a...

Seeing a Solution.(Brief Article)
November 13, 2000... The discovery that 14 genes are differentially expressed in the extraocular muscles and limb muscles in rats may offer a route to better understanding of and possible treatment for Duchene's muscular dystrophy and diseases affecting the...

Marijuana Biology.(Brief Article)
November 13, 2000... Studying the biological basis of marijuana addiction has typically proven to be a tricky prospect. A recent study from the National Institute on Drug Abuse might help elucidate the biological factors of marijuana dependence by demonstrating...

A CF-Sinusitis Connection.(Brief Article)
November 13, 2000... Some sufferers of chronic sinusitis can attribute their debilitating headaches to carrying a mutation in the cystic fibrosis (CF) gene, according to striking results from a study at the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns...

It's All in the Backbone.(Brief Article)
November 13, 2000... Boston Probes' PNA Probe Technology offers an alternative to conventional DNA probes Molecular biologists who happen upon the Boston Probes Web site might grin at what seems, at first glance, to be an apparent typo. "Partner with the...

Special Delivery.(Brief Article)
November 13, 2000... Active Motif's Chariot [TM] reagent simplifies transfection of a variety of macromolecules into mammalian cells The delivery of biomolecules into cells has typically been achieved through the use of chemicals, electroporation, or viral...

Bench Buys.(Brief Article)
November 13, 2000... See You Later Ambion of Austin, Texas, introduces RNA later[TM], a tissue storage reagent that protects cellular RNA from degradation before RNA isolation and eliminates the need to freeze samples immediately in liquid nitrogen for later...

Research Tools for Plant Nucleic Acids.
November 13, 2000... Isolating and manipulating the plant genome By most accounts the world's population will increase to about 8 billion by 2025.[1] Ironically, as population increases, arable land acres committed to agriculture are slowly but surely...

Escaping the Heat.
November 13, 2000... A host of kinase assay formats gives nonradioactive options to researchers Safety concerns and economic considerations have fueled a growing trend in the biomedical sciences: to shun the use of radioactivity when practical....

Researchers in Administration.
November 13, 2000... There's much more to it than the proverbial paper pushing Much of the administration of the scientific endeavor can be neatly placed into two groups: those who work at acquiring the money, and those who work at bestowing the money. Mostly...

Francis Collins Preaches to the Choir.(Brief Article)
November 13, 2000... Since the staged June 26 unveiling of the "working draft" of the human genome sequence, National Human Genome Research Institute director Francis Collins has hit the meeting circuit, not to hype what was, but to get people thinking about...

SCIENTIFIC MEDICINE AND CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME.
November 13, 2000... There has never been a better time, technologically, for our federal health agencies to launch a significant effort to prevent and control a chronic disease that has inflicted suffering on mankind for centuries. Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)...