n e w s of t h e w e e k ment because it fails to describe how to practice the invention. "We have complete confidence in our cox-2 patent estate and will vigorously defend against this challenge," says Richard U. De Schutter, senior executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Pharmacia. Searle scientists, the company notes, have been leaders in cox-2 technology since the 1980s, building on the work of Philip Needleman, Searle's, and now Pharmacia's, chief scientific officer. According to Pharmacia, Needleman is widely acknowledged to be the first to have hypothesized the existence of two cox enzymes. Whereas cox-2 is involved in inflammation, cox-1 protects the lining of the stomach from acids. Common nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as aspirin, block the activity of both cox enzymes, thereby often resulting in gastrointestinal problems. Drugs such as Celebrex and Vioxx are more selective, blocking only the cox-2 enzyme.
Another $1.5 billion drug has also fallen prey to patent litigation. Bristol-Myers Squibb has voluntarily relinquished its few remaining patent claims that cover the use of Taxol, or paclitaxel, to treat ovarian cancer. It did so to gain an immediate appeal—claims covering the use of Taxol for treating breast cancer, lung cancer, and Kaposi's sarcoma had previously been invalidated (C&EN, March 6, page 13). Bristol-Myers Squibb initiated the lawsuit against generic competitors in 1997. Bristol-Myers Squibb believes that, if it is successful on appeal and in a possible trial following the appeal, its patent rights would apply to all tumor types. Taxol is the company's second largest product, accounting for more than 7% of its total sales and more than 10% of its pharmaceutical sales. The company emphasizes that no generic producer has received government approval to market a generic version of Taxol. Ann Thayer
Yale's Doudna Wins NSFs Waterman Award Jennifer A. Doudna, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University and a principal investigator with Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is the 2000 winner of the National Science Foundation's prestigious Alan T. Waterman Award. The award, named after NSFs first director, annually honors a young—35 or younger when nominated—U.S. scientist who is at the forefront of science or engineering. The award consists of a medal and a $500,000 grant over three years for scientific research or advanced study in any field of science or engineering. Doudna Doudna's field is structural biology, and NSF cites her for helping to unravel the mechanism of how RNA acts as an enzyme to catalyze specific biochemical reactions and how polyanionic RNA folds to form a threedimensional structure. In October 1998, Doudna, Yale postdoctoral fellow Adrian R. Ferré-D'Amaré, and research assistant Kaihong Zhou were one of two groups to report the Xray crystal structure of a naturally occurring catalytic RNA—in their case, the self-cleaving ribosome found in the hepa10
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titis delta virus [Nature, 3 9 5 , 567 (1998)]. It is the largest of just three tertiary-structured RNAs whose crystal structures are known. Doudna's longterm research objectives are to understand the chemical basis for RNA catalysis and RNA-protein interactions and to establish principles for folding that will enable rational design of RNA molecules. Her work has already had an impact. "There can be no question that her pioneering accomplishments have changed the way the scientific community thinks about RNA molecules," says Joan A Steitz, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale. "Such exceptional achievements are precisely what the Waterman Award was created to recognize." Doudna earned a B.A. degree in chemistry from Pomona College, Claremont, Calif., in 1985 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Harvard University in 1989. She will be presented with the Waterman Medal at a National Science Board ceremony on May 3 in Washington, D.C. She is the 25th recipient of the award and the third woman to be so honored. Also being honored at the ceremony
are this year's recipients of the Vannevar Bush Award: Herbert F. York, professor and director emeritus of the Institute on Global Conflict & Cooperation, University of California, San Diego, and Norman E. Borlaug, distinguished professor at Texas A&M University. Two NSB Public Service Awards will also be presented. The individual awards go to science popularizers Philip and Phylis Morrison of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The group award goes to Science Service of Washington, D.C. Janice Long
Titanium Carbide Nanocrystals Fingered In Stellar Spectra The most thrilling research project may be the one that takes you into a totally unexpected realm. Just ask Michael A. Duncan, a physical chemistry professor at the University of Georgia, Athens. What for him started as a fundamental spectroscopic investigation of titanium carbide clusters in the gas phase seems to have resulted in the solution of an astronomical mystery and may have important implications for the understanding of the last stages of evolution of low-mass stars known as red giants. The mystery concerns a prominent peak at a wavelength of 20.1 \xm that has been observed for more than a decade in the infrared spectra of these dying, carbon-rich stars. No one could convincingly identify the chemical species responsible for this spectral feature until Duncan and his colleagues succeeded in recording the first IR spectra of titanium carbide nanocrystals in the gas phase (C&EN, Dec. 13,1999, page 35). An astrophysicist—Alexander (Xander) G. G. M. Tielens of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands— happened to see that titanium carbide spectrum and immediately realized that it was an "excellent match" for the mystery feature in the stellar spectra. A collaboration ensued, the result of which is a paper in last week's Science [288,313 (2000)]. The paper concludes that red giants "end their life with (almost) a bang" by heaving titanium carbide clusters into space, where they are strewn across the galaxy in the form of Stardust. Titanium carbide—the first cluster spectroscopically detected in space—
