The 22-year-old Whitaker Foundation, the largest private supporter of biomedical engineering, will close in 2006 to avoid becoming a bureaucracy in search of a reason for being. The foundation, with assets of about $442 million, will increase payouts until 1999, then decrease them as it spends its way out of existence. About 95% of grants go to…

Discusses errata, or corrections, in scientific and biomedical journals and compares errata in online versions of high-impact physical sciences journals across titles and publishers. Results show variability in presentation, linking, and availability of online errata and recommends the development of standards for the linking of original articles…

Examined 128 children for contributions of biomedical risk conditions, SES, and HOME scores to prediction of intelligence, and association of extreme scores on HOME and SES to intelligence-test performance. Found home environment was the most important predictor of intelligence at all ages, with SES showing a smaller effect beginning at age 5.…

Academia and industry both have an interest in the economic aspects of drug development, including the rising cost of new drug discovery, the decrease in the effective patent life of new drugs as the drug improvement process lengthens, and the impact of drug-related litigation. (MLW)

Presents an introduction to the Biochemical and Biomedical Engineering program at Rice University. Describes the development of the academic and enhancement programs, including organizational structure and research project titles. (YP)

Discusses the functions of the Working Group on Career Issues for Women Scientists. Functions include developing opportunities and support for the recruitment, retention, reentry, and advancement of women in biomedical careers. (DDR)

Describes a project that began as workshops for teachers in biotechnology and became a program that enables students to do hands-on biotechnology experiments in the classroom. The three parts of this program include the development of activities, access to equipment, and further workshops. (DDR)

Introduces an Electronic Libraries (eLib) project--Electronic Submission and Peer Review (ESPERE), which examines cultural and technical problems of conducting electronic peer review for biomedical academics and learned-society publishers. Describes interviews with seven learned-society publishers, analysis of a questionnaire sent to 200 editorial…

In the current climate of concern about the privacy of medical records, the following topics should be addressed in the education of health professionals: the moral grounding of informed consent, the moral and legal obligations of professionals, the promise and perils of genetics research, and responsible research conduct. (SK)

A telephone survey was conducted of 2002 or 2003 graduates (942 in total) from various bioscience degree programmes at 4 universities. A structured and scripted interview determined: title/class of degree; nature of current occupation (unemployed, further degree, job) and if regarded as "career related" post or just "filling in"; if current…

Undergraduate students in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of South Alabama, Mobile, are required to take a course entitled "Issues in Biomedical Sciences," designed to increase students' awareness about bioethical questions and issues concerning research integrity. This paper describes the main features of this…

Studies of the communication patterns among scientists in a biomedical research center should help in the assessment of the center's impact on research processes. Such a study at the National Heart and Blood Vessel Research and Demonstration Center (NRDC) at Baylor College of Medicine is reported. (LBH)

Information used in a brief lecture that introduces a biomedical ethics curriculum in an obstetrics and gynecology residency is described. Major components include theories of philosophic ethics (formalist and consequentialist) and principles of biomedical ethics (honesty, contract-keeping, nonmaleficence, justice, autonomy, beneficence,…

Describes a part-time master's program in biomedical science initiated by the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland and administered by Hood College. Coursework consists mainly of biology and biochemistry and prepares students for biomedical research. (MLH)

The data in these tables are collected biennially through the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Congressionally mandated Survey of Scientific and Engineering Research Facilities. The 1999 survey was sent to research-performing colleges and universities in the United States and to U.S. biomedical research institutions that received National…