Critical Report Leaves NASA's Station Strategy up in The

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ago, but could not afford to use them rou- tinely. Now, because of a new microarray facility on campus, funded in part by the Critical report leaves NASA’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, he is getting back into station strategy up in the air microarray work. “Cost is the driving force,” he says. William Triplett, Washington Incyte seems to have concluded that there NASA should completely reform its man- is little money to be made from DNA chips. agement of the International Space Station In a statement, Roy Whitfield, its chief execu- (ISS), continue with its current, curtailed tive officer, pointed to “increasing competi- plan for the project, and come back in two tion and margin erosion”. As a result of the years time for permission to restore some of decision, some 400 workers at the company’s the project’s previous scope. facilities in Fremont, California, and That is the recommendation of the ISS StLouis, Missouri, will lose their jobs. Management and Cost Evaluation Task Steven Gullans, who heads the micro- Force, a blue-ribbon panel established by the array centre at the Brigham and Women’s space agency and the White House Office of Hospital in Boston, says: “Microarrays are Management and Budget to assess NASA’s becoming more of a commodity. The only largest and most problematic programme. way to compete is on price.” Alternatives are If the station’s crew is ever to rise to six Brought to book: NASA will need to curtail its

available for researchers in the middle of or seven — the curtailed plan allows ambitions for the International Space Station. NASA projects with Incyte. Microarrays made for only three — NASA must first prove it has using Incyte’s gene collections will still be the “credibility” to manage the expansion science”, says Young. The third option, of available through third-party providers properly, says the task force. But the smaller building to the original design, is simply “not such as Motorola, Agilent and PerkinElmer, version of the station “will not achieve the credible” within the agency’s likely future the company says. unique research potential of the ISS”, the budget, the task force found. The ISS has But this has led to uncertainty over com- task force says, because three crew will have already cost US$25 billion, plus billions of patibility, as different companies use differ- practically no time to run experiments. dollars in launch costs. ent printing technologies. Agilent, for The wait-and-see approach is the best Even the first option may not be fiscally example, uses an inkjet printing method of three options open to NASA, says the viable: it will cost $500 million more over the rather than direct DNA spotting. Several task force, which was chaired by Thomas next five years than the $8.5 billion cap that appeals for advice on alternatives have Young, former president of defence contrac- Congress has placed on the project. appeared on a microarray listserv at the tor Martin Marietta, now part of Lockheed The task-force report contains a dozen University of California, San Francisco. Martin. recommendations on how to fix the project Incyte users will not be left in the lurch, One of the others is to build only the and control its costs, including the consoli- says Gullans. “For the typical user in the scaled-down version, with no possibility of dation of all ISS-related staff and activities street looking to get their sample analysed, returning to the original design. But this at NASA centres across the country under a they can find somewhere to do it,” he says. would have “a significant adverse impact on single programme office.

Universities address mail security as anthrax fears rise Jonathan Knight, San Francisco Mail deliveries to Princeton University in Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, estimates that Worries about the mail being used for New Jersey were suspended for two days 40 or 50 envelopes received there have anthrax attacks have disrupted the normally from 27 October after anthrax spores were already been tested for anthrax and other benign security environments at university found in a mail-bin at the US post office in biological hazards, although none has come

AP campuses across the United States. nearby West Windsor, which serves the back positive. campus. The building remains closed, but Most university websites now include the post office began sorting mail in its advice on how to deal with suspect mail, and parking lot. Princeton is requiring mail handlers to take An administrative building at Stanford a special training course. University in California, meanwhile, was Some campuses have felt the impact of evacuated and closed twice, once on 22 the anthrax attacks in the form of subpoenas October and again on 30 October, while or FBI visits. A spokesman for Louisiana suspect letters were tested. In each case, an State University in Baton Rouge confirmed employee reported finding a “suspicious that the FBI had asked anthrax researcher substance”, according to the university’s own Martin Hugh-Jones to provide a list of all news service, accompanied by a threatening visitors to his laboratory since January 2000. letter. Both samples tested safe and in each And officials at the Brookhaven National incident the building reopened the next day. Laboratory in New York State received a Security is becoming a top priority on subpoena asking them to testify in the US most university campuses, as reports of District Court in Miami regarding the lab’s Sealed off: staff leave the West Windsor post suspicious envelopes and packages have anthrax work, which has consisted of office after anthrax traces were discovered there. become commonplace. For example, Ron studies of a protein produced by the anthrax Ozio, a spokesman for the University of bacterium.