n e w s of t h e w e e k
NSB HONORS SCIENCE LEADERS Waterman Award goes to MITs Cummins, first public service awards given
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he National Science Board (NSB) has awarded the Alan T. Waterman Award, the National Science Foun dation's highest honor for young re searchers in science and engineering, to Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemistry professor Christopher C. (Kit) Cummins. The award, presented by Rich ard N. Zare, NSB chairman and Stanford University chemistry professor, consists of a medal and a three-year, $5()(),()00 re search grant. Robert M. White was the recipient of NSB's Vannevar Bush Award for lifetime contributions to science and engineering. White is past president of the Na tional Academy of Engi neering, a post he held for 12 years, and former vice chairman of the National Research Council. NSB also inaugurated two awards for contribu tions to public understand ing of science. The first of these public service awards was presented to the Nova television series. Receiving the award were Michael J. Cummins Ambrosino, who originat ed the series in 19^4, and Paula S. Apsell, Nova's executive producer. Primatologist Jane Goodall received the second award for communicating the results of her re search on chimpanzees to the broadest number of people. Last week's Washington, D.C., awards ceremony was Zare's last official event as NSB chairman. This week, a new7 chair man, Eamon M. Kelly—president and pro fessor of economics, Tulane University, New7 Orleans—begins his three-year term. Diana Natalicio, president of the Universi ty of Texas, El Paso, will continue as the board's vice chairman. The Waterman Award continues an im pressive string of honors for Cummins, 32, who also received the 1998 American Chemical Society Award for Pure Chemis try He was a Wilson Prize lecturer in 1995
and is currently a Sloan Foundation Fel low. His research is also supported by fel lowships from the Packard Foundation and a career award from NSF. Upon taking an assistant professorship at MIT immediately after receiving his doc torate from that institution, Ciimmins fo cused on the synthesis and reactivity of three-coordinate transition-metal complex es. Cummins and his group were quickly successful in cleaving the strong nitrogennitrogen triple bond under mild condi tions, a goal chemists had pursued for de cades. He also investigated cleavage of ni-
this effort with me on transitional metal research. I was fortunate enough to attract a lot of talented students to help me, and I am very grateful to these students for the work they have done in the trenches." White's public service career encom passes five decades and, in receiving the Vannevar Bush Award, he spoke not of his accomplishments but of the challeng es derived from Bush's legacy and of how science and technology met those challenges. "History will judge that the scientific community has risen and met every challenge put before it," he said. According to Zare, the NSB public ser vice awards were initiated to honor those who seek to "demystify science" for the general public. The National Public Broad casting Nova series was honored for its 25 years of science programming and its " ma jor contributions to the public's under standing of science and technology," Zare said. Of Goodall, Zare said she has "dem onstrated that human nature has deep evo lutionary roots" and reminds us "that women and men stand together, both making discoveries on the cutting edge of science." David Hanson
Gene error fixed with antisense RNA
Kelly
trous oxide and nitric oxide. According to the award citation, "These astonishing re actions cut to the heart of selectivity in chemical reactions" and may lead to tech nological advances. Cummins was introduced by a fellow inorganic chemist, F. Albert Cotton of Tex as A&M University and a retiring member of NSB. Cotton praised the young re searcher, noting that Cummins' work shows "tremendous imagination'' and say ing he has been "absolutely bowled over by the quality" of the work. "Kit has earned a reputation as an enthusiastic teacher and mentor," Cotton added. Cummins said success such as his is not accomplished alone. In addition to thanking those who have supported his research financially, Cummins said: Τ want to thank the people who joined in
A new form of gene therapy that repairs errors caused by genetic mutations, rath er than eliminating or replacing the mu tated genes, is being developed by a team of scientists led by Ryszard Kole, professor of pharmacology at the Univer sity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill [Proc. Natl. Acad. Set., 95, 4929 (1998)]. The approach uses small "antisense" RNA molecules that block defective pro cessing of the messenger RNA that pro duces the β-globin subunit of hemoglobin. The researchers demonstrated their ap proach by blocking mutations that cause β-thalassemia, a genetic disease in which improperly spliced mRNA directs bone marrow cells to produce defective hemo globin that cant earn7 adequate amounts of oxygen. People with the most severe form of the disease require repeated treat ment to survive beyond childhood. Antisense RNA is a complementary se quence designed to bind to a specific se quence of DNA, thereby inactivating it. In earlier work, Kole and his colleagues showed that when antisense RNA blocks a mutation that would cause defective splicing of β-globin mRNA, cells switch MAY 11, 1998 C&EN 5
