BY ANGELA HOPP

Cheryl A. Kerfeld, a structural biologist and the head of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute’s Education and Structural Genomics Programs, has been named the recipient of the 2011 ASBMB education award.

ASBMB members in the news this month include Barry L. Karger, Kathleen Gould, Richard D. Smith, Joan Massagué and Phillip A. Sharp. We also look back on the lives of Philip Person and Marie W. Wooten.  

BY NICK ZAGORSKI

George R. Stark, the distinguished scientist of the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute and emeritus professor of genetics at Case Western Reserve University, is the recipient of the society’s 2011 Herbert Tabor Journal of Biological Chemistry lectureship.

BY SUZANNE PFEFFER

In many parts of the world, faculty appointments, promotions and grant evaluations are based on the number of papers a scientist has published combined with the impact factor of the journals in which the work appeared. Journals that publish few papers, of relatively high impact, have high impact factors. But not every paper in a high-impact journal is itself of high impact.

BY BENJAMIN W. CORB

At the end of last year, House Republicans met and chose the incoming leaders for House Committees, ushering in a new era of leadership and leaving those of us in the scientific community wondering exactly what these leadership changes will mean to the nation’s scientific enterprise.

BY ANGELO AZZI AND NICOLE KRESGE

Molecular biologist Britton Chance, whose multifaceted research advanced the understanding of biology, instrumentation and medicine, passed away on Nov. 16. He was 97.

BY NICOLE KRESGE

Harvey Akio Itano, University of California, San Diego emeritus professor of pathology, died this past May at age 89. He was best known for his work, with Linus Pauling, on the molecular basis of sickle cell anemia.

BY ANGELA HOPP

The Journal of Biological Chemistry's new editor in chief, Martha Fedor, talks about her background, her research and her plans for the journal.