Useful Weed: A 17-member Stanford group led by Ron Davis, professor of biochemistry and director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center, has completed a four-year project to sequence a portion of the genome of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Working with researchers from UC-Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania, the Stanford scientists have been studying the small, flowering weed -- a relative of cabbage and mustard that is considered the lab mouse of plants -- in an effort to increase food production and improve nutrition.
Wizard of Os: Researchers at Stanford and the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Hospital are recruiting healthy men over 65 for a study called "Mr. OS," which will help men deal with osteoporosis. An estimated 2 million men in the United States develop this gradual, age-related loss of bone density, says Robert Marcus, '63, MD '66, professor of medicine. The researchers are examining the risk of fractures and seeking a possible relationship between osteoporosis and prostate cancer.
Stealth Viruses: Steven Block, professor of biological sciences and applied physics, wrote in the January issue of American Scientist magazine that biological weapons are "the poor man's atom bomb." He argues that bioweapons like anthrax spores and deadly viruses offer terrorist groups and such rogue states as Iraq and North Korea an affordable way to counter the overwhelming military superiority of the United States and other world powers. Block supports the production and stockpiling of new vaccines and argues in favor of strengthening the 1972 bioweapons treaty.
