BY NICOLE KRESGE
The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology recently announced the creation of a Diversity in Science Award for 2011.
BY SARAH CRESPI
This winter, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s Journal of Lipid Research and Molecular and Cellular Proteomics both received new homepages, and several new features appeared on their Web sites. The Journal of Biological Chemistry’s Web site underwent major changes in the fall and continues to evolve.
A recent article in the Texas Tribune reported on a survey revealing that 51 percent of Texans don’t believe in evolution, and 30 percent believe that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time. Ignorance of basic scientific principles has been a national problem for generations, and it isn’t getting any better.
I would start by saying that “El Presidente’s” messages are one of the reasons I browse ASBMB Today. I not only find myself generally in agreement with the opinions expressed in his messages on various subjects, but I also enjoy his refreshing outspokenness on controversial issues.
BY PETER FARNHAM
Continuing its tradition of staging a premiere symposium on a major public policy issue at each annual meeting, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s Public Affairs Advisory Committee has decided to go global at Experimental Biology 2010 in Anaheim, Calif., by sponsoring a symposium titled “Life Sciences and the Issues of Our Time.”
BY GREGORY A. PETSKO
We should make this our mantra as life scientists: There is no such thing as basic research and no such thing as translational research. There is only research. Period. If we must put an adjective in front of it, then let’s use “biomedical.” But we simply have to stop talking about our science as though there were different versions of it, with different objectives and different implicit worth.
Members spotlighted: John A. Corbett, Robert J. Lefkowitz, Perry A. Frey, James R. Knox, James C. Liao, Alexander Tzagoloff, Lucy Shapiro and Susan Wente.
BY KYLE M. BROWN
Although many of the COMPETES Act programs are just beginning, the House Science and Technology Committee already has begun the process of reauthorizing the legislation before it expires at the end of 2010.
BY JENNIFER A. HOBIN
The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology recently released a report highlighting the outcomes of an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-funded National Institutes of Health summer research program that enabled NIH-funded investigators to provide hands-on research opportunities to thousands of students and science teachers across the country.
Marshall Warren Nirenberg, a Nobel Prize winning biochemist and geneticist, died Jan. 15. He was the first federal employee to win a Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.
Philip Siekevitz, a pioneer in cell biology and a professor emeritus at The Rockefeller University, passed away Dec. 5 at age 91.
