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The Right Chemistry Kinesins || “Good” Bacteria || Lab Security WINTER 2005 www.hhmi.org/bulletin THE RIGHT CHEMISTRY HHMI investigator Carolyn Bertozzi is a bright light in a new field. CONTENTS Winter 2005 || Volume 17 Number 4 FEATURES 20 31 8 The Right Chemistry [ COVER STORY] hhmi Investigator Carolyn Bertozzi found her call- ing in a college course in organic chemistry. “I loved solving the problems,” she says. She still does. By Mary Beth Gardiner 14 We Get a Kick From Kinesins Under the hood of the cell, researchers get their hands dirty explor- ing the motors that propel molecular cargo along cellular super- highways. By Paul Muhlrad 20 Rules, Regs, and Red Tape Against the threat of bioterrorism, the government cracks down on lab security. But repercussions from the new laws could change the very culture of science. By Marlene Cimons 26 26 The Friendly Bacteria Within Us While we tend to think of bacteria as harmful, we all carry plenty of microbes that work to the good. Can we use them to prevent or treat diseases? By Maya Pines 31 Flying Glass At Janelia Farm, the walls of windows have a structure and sociology all their own. DEPARTMENTS 2 INSTITUTE NEWS NEWS & NOTES Science and Medicine: 3 4 Helping the Brain to Bridging the Gap Make Connections 3 PRESIDENT’S LETTER 35 Speed Reader Women in Science 43 36 Brain Work at the UP FRONT Worm Shack 4 The End of Our Genome 38 New Directions 6 Peaceful Revolution 40 Nerve Verve 13 Q & A 4 1 Hughes on the Big Screen Aging and Brain Function 42 Can Cancer Kill Itself? 19 INSIDE HHMI 43 Cranial Exploration The Eye of the Beholder in the Splash Class 2 5 RESEARCH NEWS Student Contributes Big 4 5 HHMI LAB BOOK to Anti-Cancer Research 48 NOTA BENE ON THE COVER: Carolyn Bertozzi is director of the Biological Nanostructures program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Photograph by Barbara Ries. HHMI TRUSTEES James A. Baker, III, Esq. Senior Partner, Baker & Botts Alexander G. Bearn, M.D. Former Executive Officer, American Philosophical Society; Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Cornell University Medical College Frank William Gay Former President and Chief Executive Officer, summa Corporation Joseph L Goldstein, M.D. Professor and Chairman, Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas Hanna H. Gray, Ph.D., CHAIRMAN President Emeritus and Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor of History, The University of Chicago Garnett L. Keith Chairman, SeaBridge Investment Advisors, L.L.C. Former Vice Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, The Prudential Insurance Company of America Jeremy R. Knowles, D.Phil. Dean Emeritus and Amory Houghton Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Harvard University William R. Lummis, Esq. Former Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer, The Howard Hughes Corporation Kurt L. Schmoke Dean, Howard University School of Law Anne M. Tatlock Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Fiduciary Trust Company International HHMI OFFICERS Thomas R. Cech, Ph.D., President Peter J. Bruns, Ph.D., Vice President for Grants and Special Programs David A. Clayton, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer Stephen M. Cohen, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Joan S. Leonard, Esq., Vice President and General Counsel Avice A. Meehan, Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs Gerald M. Rubin, Ph.D., Vice President and Director, Janelia Farm Research Campus Landis Zimmerman, Vice President and Chief Investment Officer HHMI BULLETIN STAFF Stephen G. Pelletier, Editor Jim Keeley, Science Editor Jennifer Donovan, Education Editor Patricia Foster, Manager of Publishing Mary Beth Gardiner, Assistant Editor Maya Pines, Contributing Editor Laura Bonetta, Katherine A. Wood, fact checking Steven Marcus, story editing Cay Butler, Kathy Savory, copy editing David Herbick Design, publication design Telephone (301) 215 8855 ■ Fax (301) 215 8863 ■ www.hhmi.org The Bulletin is published by the HHMI Office of Communications and Public Affairs. © 2005 Howard Hughes Medical Institute The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by authors in the HHMI Bulletin do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints or official policies of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. FROM TOP LEFT, CLOCKWISE: LOUIS PSIHOYOS; PAUL FETTERS; ASIA KEPKA; SCIMAT/PHOTO RESEARCHERS, INC. INSTITUTE NEWS goal is to increase the pool of people who are doing medically oriented research.” On December 1, 2004, the Institute opened Science and Medicine: a competition for grants for training programs that bring the knowledge and skills of medicine Bridging the Gap and pathobiology into biomedical graduate study. Awards will range from $400,000 to $1 New grants will help integrate medical knowledge into Ph.D. training. million over 4 years. Smaller grants will support modification of existing programs. Innovative he gap between basic biology and med- up to $10 million to stimulate the integration of new graduate programs that incorporate signif- ical practice is growing. As knowledge in medical knowledge into Ph.D. training. The goal icant pathobiological and medical knowledge Tmolecular genetics and cell biology is to prepare biomedical scientists to apply new and skills can receive up to $250,000 a year. accelerates, the biomedical community is find- biological knowledge to human health. A better “We seek creative, innovative, and cost- ing it increasingly difficult to harness the explo- understanding of medicine also can guide scien- effective solutions to this training challenge,” sion of new information and translate it into tists in research directions that are most likely to said Peter J. Bruns, hhmi vice president for medical practice. Bridging the Bed-Bench Gap, benefit the diagnosis and treatment or preven- grants and special programs.“We also are look- a National Research Council report published tion of human disease. ing for approaches that can serve as models for earlier this year, called training of Ph.D. “We envision a new cadre of Ph.D. the biomedical research training community.” researchers to translate science to clinical med- researchers who understand pathobiology and Any university in the United States that icine a “critical need.” know the language and processes of medicine,” offers Ph.D. training in a biomedical science is To address this problem, hhmi will award said hhmi President Thomas R. Cech. “Our eligible to apply. The grants can be used to sup- port planning of new curricula, development of new courses, and release of clinical faculty to participate in graduate training activities. Student-related expenses can also be covered, including stipend support and health insur- ance, travel to medical meetings, expenses of clinical training experiences, and tuition. “hhmi already supports two programs that give medical students insight into the world of basic science research: Research Fellowships for Medical Students and the hhmi-NIH Research Scholar Program,” said William Galey, hhmi’s director of graduate science education. “Basic scientists need a similar understanding of clini- cal medicine.” For details on the new hhmi Medicine into Graduate Training Initiative, see www.hhmi.org/ grants/institutions/medintograd.html. Applicant registration and proposal submis- sion are via hhmi’s Web-based competition 2004 Holiday Lectures Monica Joshi, 16, a student at Washington system at www.hhmi.org/grants/gcs. Applicants International School, is one of 95 high school students and 50 HHMI staff who volunteered to com- must register their intent to submit proposals plete a survey of their attitudes about obesity and weight control and to have their body fat and lean by April 20, 2005. mass measured in this air displacement capsule, the Bod Pod. Gregg Wintering from Life In another new graduate training initiative Measurements, Inc., is recording Joshi’s data. HHMI investigators Ronald M. Evans and Jeffrey M. announced late last year, is partnering Friedman discussed the pooled results of the body density experiment and the survey during HHMI’s hhmi 2004 Holiday Lectures on Science, “The Science of Fat,” in December 2004. Friedman and Evans with the NIH National Institute of Biomedical talked about their obesity research, examining why some people are overweight and others are lean, Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) to sup- what science can tell us about how human bodies control weight, and the future of drugs to treat port biological science Ph.D. programs that obesity. In the next Holiday Lectures, to be delivered in December 2005, HHMI investigators David incorporate the physical and computational M. Kingsley and Sean B. Carroll will speak on evolution. The Holiday Lectures are presented before science or engineering disciplines to foster an audience of 200 Washington, D.C.-area high school students and are Webcast around the world. interdisciplinary training. (See hhmi Bulletin, They also are produced as DVDs, which HHMI makes available at no charge to students and teach- Fall 2004, page 2, and www.hhmi.org/news/ ers. For more information, see www.hhmi.org/lectures/. 092704.html.) —JENNIFER BOETH DONOVAN FETTERS PAUL 2 hhmi bulletin | winter 2005 PRESIDENT’S LETTER Women in Science KAY CHERNUSH KAY arolyn Bertozzi, who is profiled in this issue of the Bulletin, Institute history. Going forward, we can augment that initial pool of appli- thrives on difficult scientific problems and, it turns out, cants by convening temporary nominating groups, an approach borrowed large dollops of peanut butter. Intellectual drive fueled by from that used by the National Academy of Sciences. A temporary nomi- complex carbohydrates makes perfect sense for a scientist nating group might be asked to introduce greater diversity into the pool of Cinterested in the myriad roles played by sugar molecules on nominees by identifying excellent candidates on the basis of their research the cell’s surface. Bertozzi’s research straddles departments area, career stage, and other factors, including gender and ethnicity. and disciplines and puts her in rarefied company: Nationwide, women We’ll continue to look at a host of factors that affect the success of account for only 5 percent of full professors in the chemical sciences.
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