Research

Washington -- For a quick course in wacky policy-making, look at George Bush's latest plan for divvying up the U.S. government's bountiful funds for research and development.With the Cold War ended, the threats now facing this country are economic rather than military. But the president proposes to give the Pentagon 60 percent of the $76 billion budgeted for R&D next year. That's the same share that defense received last year, before the ex-Soviet military establishment went into a catatonic state.

With time running out, Maryland's political and academic leaders are offering public money and research space in what Gov. Parris N. Glendening calls a "full-court press" to lure world-famous AIDS researcher Dr. Robert C. Gallo to Baltimore.Dr. Gallo, who discovered two leukemia viruses and is credited with crucial findings in the biology of AIDS, has made numerous visits to Baltimore in recent months -- meeting with Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke on Monday.He has dined with Mr. Glendening, toured research facilities at the University of Maryland at Baltimore and conferred with academic leaders, including Dr. David J. Ramsay, president of UMAB; Dr. Donald Wilson, dean of its medical school; and Dr. Rita R. Colwell, president of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute.

Worried that radiation from your computer terminal is turning your ovaries into sand dollars? Troubled over the rising cost of alfalfa? Concerned abut overcrowding in the Yellowstone National Park and looking for an alternative wilderness vacation?Chances are the federal government has either published a study on the subject or has assigned someone to research it. Hungry researchers will drool at this juicy factoid: While all of the major commercial publishers in our country generated approximately 50,000 books in one year, the National Technical Information Services sells almost 90,000 titles.

When Helen Der began looking for things that first happened in Baltimore, she wondered if there would be all that much.Three-hundred ninety-five factoids later, she knows the answer.After more than a year of research, Der has compiled an impressive list of inventions, events, buildings and honors, all of which occurred here before the same thing happened anywhere else. Except for a handful of items contributed by co-workers, Der has found or verified each and every one.She might well be called the first expert on Baltimore "firsts."

There are at least four Neha Deshpandes. There is Neha the scholar, who earned her first A in a college course as an eighth-grader and will graduate Thursday after finishing her pre-med track at the Johns Hopkins University in three years. There is Neha the researcher, who nagged a Rutgers professor into letting her work in his genetics lab at age 13, and is attempting to publish research comparing 70 mother-child pairs in Baltimore and India. That Neha recently won a $30,000 Truman Scholarship, which she'll use to study transplant outcomes in the next year in medically underserved sections of Baltimore.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is looking for a few good men and women to volunteer for a battle it's waging at home — against disease. Actually, more than a few are needed. Officials overseeing health care for the nation's veterans are undertaking what may be the largest effort of its kind in the nation, to collect medical records and blood samples from a million former service members for a bank of genetic information. The idea is to give researchers enough DNA and other data to link specific genes to mental and physical maladies, from post-traumatic stress disorder to heart disease, and eventually develop new preventive measures or treatments.

The Maryland Industrial Partnerships research awards program has set an Oct. 26 deadline for submitting research proposals for its second round of awards later this year.Under the program, companies team up with University of Maryland faculty members to carry out corporate research.Winners will receive matching grants for cooperative projects in technical or scientific fields. Past winners have represented a a spectrum of industries, including manufacturing, biotechnology, software, aquaculture and communications.

AT FIRST he didn't want me to watch him plunge the needle into his belly. It seemed a kind of private thing. But because I am his wife and should learn the procedure, I watched.Before that we practiced on an orange with a hypodermic needle filled with water instead of insulin.That's just one of the first hurdles after you get over the shock that someone you love has diabetes.Then you get a certain routine, almost like brushing your teeth. Deep down you are never quite the same; there are new shades of worry patterns.

Vice President Al Gore came to Baltimore yesterday to open a new front in the election year political debate, accusing the Republican Congress of harboring a disdain for science that threatens to create a "know nothing society."Speaking to the annual gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Mr. Gore denounced GOP budget proposals that he said would slash civilian research and development spending by one-third."Everything that ought to be up with this Congress is down, and everything that ought to be open is closed," the vice president said.

THE HISTORY of the ethics of research involving human subjects is a history of progress propelled by scandal. Perhaps it is too soon to tell whether the tragic death of 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger in September during a gene-therapy experiment at the University of Pennsylvania will join the canon of notorious cases of failure to protect subjects. It is not too soon, however, to use the impetus in public consciousness riveted by this heartbreaking loss to take overdue steps to improve protections for human subjects, especially in innovative areas such as gene therapy.