Leon Rosenberg proposes that: Academia establish a more supportive environment. "The students hear nothing but how hard it is to get research money and the time to do research," Rosenberg says. He wants to change the way students, deans, department chairs, hospital CEOs, and others involved in medical training think. Our "words and actions should underscore the value we place on the research cont...
U.K.-based plant biologist Giles Oldroyd talks about his work on one of the most complex symbiotic interactions found in the natural world. Networking is the route to success for both scientist and plant.
PRIZE ENCOURAGES SCIENTISTS TO THINK LIKE ENTREPRENEURS BIOLOGIST THINKS BIG, WINS CASH RESOURCES Don't let your great idea gather dust on the dissertation shelf. Turn it into cash. Last week, the Merrill Lynch Forum announced the second round of winners of their Innovation Grants Competition, awarding almost a quarter-million dollars in 2 years to young scientists and engineers who could success...
BACK TO THE FEATURE INDEX Merrill Lynch Innovation Grants Competition Potential entrants can view winning proposals from a previous year at the contest's Web site. Other prizes based on dissertation thesis: Amersham Pharmacia Biotech & Science Prize for Young Scientists in Molecular Biology 2000 This international prize will be awarded for the most outstanding thesis in the general area of molecu...
Next Wave asked Bill Joy, chief scientist at Sun Microsystems and author of Wired's April cover story, " Why the Future Doesn't Need Us," what he thought of Varmus's answer to our question about ethical responsibilities. Joy responded in an e-mail: "I think Varmus does not understand the full scope of the danger, which comes from the confluence of incredibly powerful computational tools (i.e., 1,...
When Leon Rosenberg, M.D., began a 6-year research stint at the National Institutes of Health in 1959, NIH had just built the monolithic clinical research facility known as Building 10. The new center offered established and promising clinical scientists the opportunity to work in state-of-the-art labs adjoining comfortable patient wards. "We were all eager to prove we had the right stuff," Rosen...
BACK TO THE FEATURE INDEX BACK TO "IT'S NOW A FAMILY AFFAIR" Below is our compilation of funding opportunities for women in science. To suggest an addition, contact nextwave@aaas.org American Association of University Women (AAUW) - Educational Foundation www.aauw.org/3000/fdnfelgra.html AAUW offers several opportunities, including dissertation fellowships, postdoctoral research leave fellowships...
NEW YORK, NEW YORK--A piece of masking tape covers the men's room sign, reclaiming the bathroom for women. And justifiably so: Practically the only men at the United Nations spin-off forum on women in science and technology are the guards checking bags at the door. Over 200 women came here from around the globe for 3 days' worth of speakers, receptions, and meetings on women and science. The gath...
"Biomedical Research has changed dramatically over the past 25 years," said Marvin Cassman, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, at a meeting of biomedical funders hosted last week at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in Bethesda, Maryland. "The question is: Has biology education changed?" Over 100 individuals representing over 70 public and private grant-maker...
Finding financial support for science outreach is "a real problem," says Mark Hertle, program analyst for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Precollege Science Education Program. "Basically, you have to create a job for yourself." But whether you want to make a career change or just get involved with science outreach on the side, Hertle recommends first trying your hand at volunteering. O...
In this special feature, we take a closer look at scientists who left the lab to manage research portfolios at funding organizations. Our contributors from around the world give you a perspective on their jobs and the skills needed to make the transition. Dave Bowen tells us about the wide variety of activities that go into his day as a program officer at Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering...
BACK TO THE FEATURE INDEX Scientists looking to break into grants administration and research planning have two options: government funding agencies and private foundations. Yet "it's not a large job market," warns Sarah Caddick, director of Award Programs at the Cancer Research Fund of the Damon Runyon Walter Winchell Foundation. Not all science foundations hire scientists to run their grants pr...
Three years ago, Françoise Cyrot-Lackmann tallied the number of female scientists in France by counting female-sounding names. The name Dominique, used for both men and women, gave her trouble. She arbitrarily assigned 50% as women. "The data are much better now," says Cyrot-Lackmann, the chief of a government office called MPST (Mission for Parity in Science and Technology) that was created in S...
NEW YORK, NY--Harold Varmus, who recently left his post as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, to become president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, spoke to reporters at a media briefing sponsored by the nonprofit Gene Media Forum on 1 May. Varmus, who was a co-recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize for his work on the genetic basis of cancer, addre...
Melanie Egorin doesn't usually think about obscure government guidelines and audits. But when Egorin, president of the Graduate Student Association at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), learned of a new report that claimed UC graduate students were making too much money, she was perplexed. On 29 June, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report claiming that 24% of U...
Why aren't more women plotting to take over the world, create weapons of mass destruction, or steal Austin Powers's mojo? A recent report by the National Academy of Sinister Sciences shows that evil male scientists outnumber evil female scientists 100 to 1 as tallied by mentions in movies, TV, and literature. Of all the lab coat-wearing, diabolical geniuses that litter the landscape--Dr. Evil, Me...
1) Interdisciplinary Programs Train Scientists for Non-academic Positions 2) Report Links Career Path with Source of Graduate Funding 3) Budget Boosts for NIH and NSF 4) Interest Rates Lowered for New and Consolidated Student Loans 5) NSF Spells Out an Electronic Future (from the pages of Science) 6) NIH Program Announcements Older Than Three Years to Retire 7) Caltech Receives $18 Million for Bi...
On a warm, windy afternoon in late June of 1999, I took a walk with Joseph Rotblat, the 1995 co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Pugwash Conferences on World Affairs, an international movement originally formed by physicists fighting for disarmament. Rotblat and 200 other people from 31 countries had come to the campus of the University of California, San Diego, to celebra...
LIST OF GRANTS FOR WOMEN Pati Irish was in the second year of her postdoctoral fellowship when she decided to take 5 years off to raise her four children. Looking to return to academia, she spent 2 years as a technician before finding another postdoctoral position at the University of Washington, Seattle, where her family is rooted. At the suggestion of a university administrator, she applied to ...
