May 2016 Asbmb Today 1 President’S Message
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lively lysosomes CONTENTS NEWS FEATURES PERSPECTIVES 2 18 32 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE LIVELY LYSOSOMES EDUCATION e promise of BEST 4 25 ANNUAL MEETING MEET TIMOTHY KARR 35 Meeting up in San Diego COORDINATES 29 Continental shift 6 AN ARTIST NAMED CRICK NEWS FROM THE HILL 38 Better funding to weather public health crises 18 OUTREACH Lysosomes are Know your audience 7 appreciated to be more than just the MEMBER UPDATE cell’s trash cans. 40 IMAGE COURTESY OF CAREER INSIGHTS 8 DYLAN J. BRITT AND JUAN S. BONIFACINO AT THE Research spotlight IN MEMORIAM NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH 38 10 RETROSPECTIVE 29 Osamu Hayaishi (1920 – 2015) 12 NEWS 12 Large donations fund new immunotherapy institutes 13 Fat mice lead researchers to new feeding control pathway 14 JOURNAL NEWS 14 Leukemia cells teach other cells not to self-destruct 15 Predicting pre-eclampsia 16 e Venus ytrap’s major protease 16 35 MAY 2016 ASBMB TODAY 1 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE THE MEMBER MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Citation corruption By Steven McKnight OFFICERS COUNCIL MEMBERS Steven McKnight Squire J. Booker President Karen G. Fleming Gregory Gatto Jr. Natalie Ahn Rachel Green f I understand things right, jour- ingenious phenotypic assays that President-Elect Susan Marqusee nals get scored for citation impact allowed timing of both pupal eclo- Karen Allen Jared Rutter via a metric that considers only sion and locomotor activity, Konopka Brenda Schulman I Secretary Michael Summers two years subsequent to the publica- and Benzer found mutations that Toni Antalis tion of their papers. Papers that get lengthened, shortened or eliminated Treasurer ASBMB TODAY EDITORIAL cited after this two-year window do the 24-hour circadian clock of ies. ADVISORY BOARD not enhance the impact factor of the Remarkably, all three categories of EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS Charles Brenner Squire Booker Chair journal in which they were published. mutations mapped to the exact same Wei Yang Michael Bradley For journals, this is big business — gene — dubbed by the authors the Co-chairs, 2016 Annual Floyd “Ski” Chilton Meeting Program Cristy Gelling they live and die by citation impact. “Period” gene. Committee Peter J. Kennelly For scientists, this used to be e accompanying gure shows the Peter J. Kennelly Rajini Rao an afterthought. But boy do Bob citation history, according to the Web Chair, Education and Yolanda Sanchez Dylan’s famous words ring true in of Science, of the landmark paper Professional Development Shiladitya Sengupta Committee Carol Shoulders this instance: “e times, they are a entitled “Clock mutants of Drosophila Daniel Raben changin’.” Whether we know it or not, melanogaster.” It was cited once in Chair, Meetings Committee ASBMB TODAY scientists are judged by the company 1971, once in 1972 and only 24 times Angela Hopp Takita Felder Sumter Executive Editor, we keep. If we publish our papers in in the decade after its publication. Chair, Minority Aairs [email protected] Committee journals that have high impact factors, ings sped up in the next decade, Lauren Dockett the benet rubs o in many ways. If during which the paper was cited omas Baldwin Managing Editor, Chair, Outreach Committee [email protected] we publish in journals that have mod- about seven times per year. Over Wes Sundquist Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay est citation impact numbers, we suer. the past two decades, since Michael Chair, Public Aairs Chief Science Correspondent, Advisory Committee [email protected] I see certain aws in the use of Rosbash, Jerey Hall and Michael Blake Hill Valery Masterson numerical scores to rank the value of Young cloned the Period gene (2) and Chair, Publications Designer, a scientist. Some of these aws have it became clear that the Konopka and Committee [email protected] Ciarán Finn been articulated by other critics of Benzer discovery was of watershed F. Peter Guengerich Web Editor, citation impact. Do a simple Google signicance, the paper has been cited Interim editor-in-chief, JBC [email protected] search, and Wikipedia will give you roughly 40 to 50 times per year. Herbert Tabor Allison Frick Co-editor, JBC Media Specialist, plenty of input regarding the pros Few would doubt that the paper [email protected] A. L. Burlingame and cons of citation impact. Despite by Konopka and Benzer describes Editor, MCP Barbara Gordon Executive Director, obvious aws, I do not dispute the one of the most signicant discoveries Edward A. Dennis [email protected] general thesis that there is a correla- ever achieved in the eld of circadian William L. Smith Co-editors, JLR tive relationship between the value of biology. By contrast, citation metrics a paper and the number of times it would have given reward neither to eventually is cited. PNAS nor to the authors. Publication I do choose to critique the two-year of this paper instead would have hurt For information on advertising, contact Pharmaceutical Media Inc. at 212-904-0374 or [email protected]. time window. both the journal and the authors. In Take the case of a paper published the two-year interval subsequent to in the Proceedings of the National publication of this paper, it was cited Academy of Sciences back in 1971 (1). only two times. It is hard to get a www.asbmb.org/asbmbtoday e report was authored by Ronald worse score than that! PRINT ISSN 2372-0409 Konopka and Seymour Benzer and e consequences of the insidious Articles published in ASBMB Today reect solely the authors’ views and not the ocial positions of described the results of a forward infection of citation impact, at least in the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular genetic screen in search of genes that its current form, are huge. Both jour- Biology or the institutions with which the authors are aliated. Mentions of products or services are might tell us something about the nals and scientists want papers to have not endorsements. circadian rhythm of fruit ies. Using immediate impact. After the two-year ©2016 ASBMB 2 ASBMB TODAY MAY 2016 greatness? In its present form, this measure of citation impact conspires heavily in favor of what is trendy and fad- dish. Journals will die if they publish Konopka/Benzer-like science. Worse yet, scientists — if scored by these measures — will wither professionally if they fail to follow what is in fashion. It is hard to think of anything worse for our profession than this insidious form of citation corruption. We should desire and create a system The citation history, according to the Web of Science, of the landmark paper “Clock mutants of Drosophila that encourages scientists to take risks melanogaster” and work on new horizons. We should reward and encourage Konopka/ window, forget it — the stu is yester- immediate post-publication window Benzer-like creativity. What a pathetic day’s news. e corruptive inuences but having gained recognition later. mistake of unintended consequences of this awed system are obvious: We e journal that publishes these sorts we have created in allowing science to are forced to work on what is faddish of papers should be rewarded, not be led around by the lunacy of citation or trendy. penalized. Likewise, we all know that corruption. If anything, I think a paper should Konopka and Benzer were sage scien- be revered if blessed with the unusual tists. ey set the trend decades ahead Steven McKnight (steven. feature of having been ignored in the of others. Is this not the testament of [email protected]) is president of the American Society for Biochemistry and REFERENCES Molecular Biology and chairman 1. http://www.pnas.org/content/68/9/2112.full.pdf of the biochemistry department at the University of Texas-Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. 2. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v312/n5996/pdf/312752a0.pdf 2017 Annual Aards Nominations for the 2017 ASBMB awards are now being accepted. Nominate a colleague for a prestigious ASBMB award and recognition at the 2017 annual meeting in Chicago. Deadline: June 1 To learn how to nominate, visit www.asbmb.org/awards. MAY 2016 ASBMB TODAY 3 ANNUAL MEETING Meeting up in San Diego Lila Gierasch, incoming editor-in-chief of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Fred Guengerich, the journal’s interim editor-in-chief, talk with a booth visitor. University of Georgia Graduate School Dean Suzanne Barbour advises an attendee during ASBMB career hour. Marketing Director Jennifer Dean holds up a hot sale item in the ASBMB booth. 4 ASBMB TODAY MAY 2016 Plenary lecturer Xiaowei Zhang and opening lecturer A busy poster presenter describes her work Robert G. Roeder From left, plenary lecturer Peter Walter, Federation of American Societies for Experiemental Biology President Parker Antin, FASEB Award lecturer Bonnie Bassler, incom- ing ASBMB President Natalie Ahn and current ASBMB President Steven McKnight Attendees smiling through poster session time Experimental Biology attendees goof off. MAY 2016 ASBMB TODAY 5 NEWS FROM THE HILL Better funding to weather public health crises By Benjamin Corb ate in 2014, at the height of is year, one of those other, less pace with research needs for nearly the Ebola epidemic that took understood diseases is in the spotlight. a decade, and as a result, the NIH L the lives of more than 10,000 e Zika virus, currently wreaking hasn’t had the resources to research a people in western Africa, President havoc in Brazil, is predicted to spread multitude of diseases that are health Barack Obama requested more than to the U.S. mainland within the year. threats to many, such as heart disease, $6 billion in emergency funding. e To date, more than 300 American cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. money was for research that would citizens have contracted the virus, Disease-focused translational research expedite understanding of the virus and globally more than 4,000 birth has moved slowly into the spotlight, and help speed approval of an Ebola defects are blamed on the mosquito- leaving basic discovery research — treatment that could bring the disease borne illness.