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Oleh Hornykiewicz, one of the most accomplished neuropharmacologists of the 20th century passed away on May 26, 2020 at the age of 93. In 1939, Oleh’s father, a Ukrainian Catholic priest, fled with his young family from Soviet-occupied Ukraine and settled in Vienna. During his medical studies, Oleh became fascinated by pharmacology and in 1956 was awarded a fellowship to Oxford University (U.K.) where he worked with Dr. Hermann Blaschko, a pioneer in the study of enzymes of catecholamine synthesis and metabolism. At that time, it was still thought that dopamine was merely an intermediate in the synthesis of norepinephrine. Dr. Hornykiewicz demonstrated that even after its breakdown had been blocked, administration of dopamine or its precursor L-DOPA could elevate blood pressure in animal models. Dopamine was bioactive per se. Upon his return to Vienna in 1958, the young scientist began studying dopamine in the brain. Familiar with Parkinson’s Disease and intrigued by Arvid Carlsson’s finding that L-DOPA could counteract the akinesia of the reserpenized rat, Dr. Hornyckiewicz began to suspect that a dopamine deficiency mediated the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. He developed new techniques, applied these to the study of postmortem brains, and demonstrated that Parkinson’s disease was associated with a dopamine deficiency in the basal ganglia. Shortly afterwards, he and Walter Birkmeyer observed how the intravenous administration of L-DOPA could awaken mute and akinetic patients with Parkinson’s disease. For the first time, a discreet chemical was both implicated in a complex brain disorder and could be used as a treatment. This stands as one of the seminal discoveries in neuropharmacology. To this day, L-DOPA remains a mainstay in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Over the following half-century Dr. Hornykiewicz continued his own work, generously mentored others and established brain banks in Vienna as well as in Toronto, Canada where he worked for many years. He received numerous awards, and was nominated for but not awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, in a decision that has remained controversial. He will remain forever, a brilliant star in the history of neuropharmacology.

The opportunities in the fields of probiotics and prebiotics to a great degree stem from what we can learn about how they influence the microbiota and interact with the host. We discuss recent insights, cutting-edge technologies and controversial results from the perspective of early career researchers innovating in these areas. This perspective emerged from the 2019 meeting of the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics - Student and Fellows Association (ISAPP-SFA). Probiotic and prebiotic research is being driven by genetic characterization and modification of strains, state-of-the-artin vitro,in vivo, andin silicotechniques designed to uncover the effects of probiotics and prebiotics on their targets, and metabolomic tools to identify key molecules that mediate benefits on the host. These research tools offer unprecedented insights into the functionality of probiotics and prebiotics in the host ecosystem. Young scientists need to acquire these diverse toolsets, or form inter-connected teams to perform comprehensive experiments and systematic analysis of data. This will be critical to identify microbial structure and co-dependencies at body sites and determine how administered probiotic strains and prebiotic substances influence the host. This and other strategies proposed in this review will pave the way for translating the health benefits observed during research into real-life outcomes. Probiotic strains and prebiotic products can contribute greatly to the amelioration of global issues threatening society. The intent of this article is to provide an early career researcher's perspective on where the biggest opportunities lie to advance science and impact human health.

Janez Peklenik was one of the outstanding scientists and engineers of the twentieth century, who left visible trails in manufacturing engineering research and education. He contributed to the advancement of manufacturing from soft empirical science into pure hard science. As a practitioner he was striving toward perfection and toward implementation of research ideas and results in real life. He was also a great scholar who was aware of the needs of industry on one side and of the problems that young students were confronted with on the other side, while trying to bridge over these two worlds. Janez Peklenik was recognized far over the Slovenian borders. His numerous invited lectures all over the globe confirm this fact. He was also a very active and distinguished member of The International Academy for Production Engineering - CIRP and, in the year 1979/80, its president. Fifty years ago he, as a young scientist with a vision, proposed the idea of organizing The International Seminar on Manufacturing Systems as a platform for exchanging ideas and experiences especially among young researchers and engineers. This idea attracted his CIRP colleagues and friends, Bertil Colding from Sweden, Toshio Sata from Japan and Gunter Spur from Germany, and they founded together the CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems, the CIRP conference series with the longest tradition. The contribution brings forward a brief review of Janez Peklenik life milestones and major achievements.

The composer wished for a cure for his hearing loss. Soon, research could make it a reality for my twin brother − and millions more. Winner of the Young Scientist Essay Competition 2019. The composer wished for a cure for his hearing loss. Soon, research could make it a reality for my twin brother − and millions more. Winner of the Young Scientist Essay Competition 2019.

The materials of young scientist conference (maxillofacial surgery).Материалы научно-практической конференции молодых ученых (по профилю ЧЛХ).

The goal of the Young Scientist Program (YSP) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (WUSM) is to broaden science literacy and recruit talent for the scientific future. In particular, YSP seeks to expose underrepresented minority high school students from St. Louis public schools (SLPS) to a wide variety of careers in the sciences. The centerpiece of YSP, the Summer Focus Program (SFP), is a nine-week, intensive research experience for competitively chosen rising high school seniors (Scholars). Scholars are paired with volunteer graduate student, medical student, or postdoctoral fellow mentors who are active members of the practicing scientific community and serve as guides and exemplars of scientific careers. The SFP seeks to increase the number of underrepresented minority students pursuing STEM undergraduate degrees by making the Scholars more comfortable with science and science literacy. The data presented here provide results of the objective, quick, and simple methods developed by YSP to assess the efficacy of the SFP from 2006 to 2013. We demonstrate that the SFP successfully used formative evaluation to continuously improve the various activities within the SFP over the course of several years and in turn enhance student experiences within the SFP. Additionally we show that the SFP effectively broadened confidence in science literacy among participating high school students and successfully graduated a high percentage of students who went on to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors at the undergraduate level.

The 212th ENMC workshop, Animal models of Congenital Muscular Dystrophies, took place in Naarden, The Netherlands on May 29–31, 2015 and was attended by 13 participants from France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the USA, including clinical and basic science researchers, as well as one PhD student who received support from the ENMC Young Scientist Program.

Late in 2018 a young scientist, speaking at The Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, announced that he had ‘successfully’ manipulated the human genome resulting in the ...

The liver can be thought of as a mysterious organ, because it has an elegant regenerative capability. This phenomenon has been well known since ancient times and is already applied to medical treatments for severe hepatic disorders by transplanting portions of liver received from living donors. However, it was not until quite recently that the mechanism underlying the principle of liver regeneration was investigated more deeply. Recent advances in the technologies for characterizing cell properties and examining the molecular nature of cells are enabling us to understand what occurs in the regenerating liver. After acute liver damage, hepatocytes actively proliferate in response to external stimulation by humoral factors. However, in the chronically injured liver, hepatocytes cannot proliferate well, but biliary cells appearing after chronic liver damage form primitive ductules around portal veins of the liver. These biliary cells may have a multiple origin, including hepatocytes, and contain progenitor cells giving rise to both hepatocytes and biliary cells, or represent cells that can be directly converted into hepatocytes. Although liver regeneration is more complicated than we had thought, unremitting efforts by researchers will certainly connect the numerous findings obtained in basic research with the development of new therapeutic strategies for liver diseases.

As scientists, the decision about where to postdoc is among the most important that we will make in our professional development. Postdoctoral training, after all, is where young scientists are set loose to utilize those skills obtained during their graduate studies and create a trajectory of inquiry that will guide the early stages of their independent careers. So how does a senior graduate student or a newly-minted PhD go about picking the best postdoctoral environment? For that matter, how does one decide whether or not a postdoc is even right for them? Fortunately, the graduate school experience itself goes a long way toward informing this decision. Not only is it an important formative period that develops bench skills and teaches students how to formulate hypotheses and develop effective experimental strategies, but graduate education should also provide the young scientist with a better understanding of their own interests and what additional scientific training they require to meet their career goals. When it was time for me to find a lab in which to do my postdoctoral training, I was a senior graduate student in biochemistry at the University of Kentucky in the lab of Doug Andres. Over a period of 6 years in his laboratory, Dr Andres provided a tremendous …

Physiological Society of Nepal, with support from the South Asian Association of Physiologists (SAAP), organized the 5th Biennial Conference of the South Asian Association of Physiologists in conjunction with the 2nd Annual Conference of Physiological Society of Nepal. The purpose of this conference is to bring the scientists, researchers, and students from the South Asian countries in one platform to share and discuss the recent advances and achievements in the field of physiology. Since physiology is the backbone of medical science which deals with the functions of the human body, the theme of the conference was given as "Redefining health in nature." Giving the emphasis on this theme, the conference was organized on November 10-14, 2016, in Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel, Nepal. A total of 300 participants from 15 countries including the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and Non-SAARC countries participated in the conference. The scientific program of main conference, which ran for 2 days, was divided into 7 symposia - neuroscience, cardiopulmonary physiology, cellular and integrative physiology, health and lifestyle, role of physiology and medical education, endocrine and reproductive physiology, and high altitude and respiratory physiology - to highlight the latest progresses made in the field of physiology around the globe. Neuroscience symposium held on the second day consisted of 7 advance lectures and 3 young scientist presentations and poster session. Post-conference workshop on system neuroscience was held in BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal.

Genes encoding proteins that carry out essential informational tasks in the cell, in particular where multiple interaction partners are involved, are less likely to be transferable to a foreign organism. Here, we investigated the constraints on transfer of a gene encoding a highly conserved informational protein, translation elongation factor Tu (EF-Tu), by systematically replacing the endogenous tufA gene in the Escherichia coli genome with its extant and ancestral homologs. The extant homologs represented tuf variants from both near and distant homologous organisms. The ancestral homologs represented phylogenetically resurrected tuf sequences dating from 0.7 to 3.6 billion years ago (bya). Our results demonstrate that all of the foreign tuf genes are transferable to the E. coli genome, provided that an additional copy of the EF-Tu gene, tufB, remains present in the E. coli genome. However, when the tufB gene was removed, only the variants obtained from the gammaproteobacterial family (extant and ancestral) supported growth which demonstrates the limited functional interchangeability of E. coli tuf with its homologs. Relative bacterial fitness correlated with the evolutionary distance of the extant tuf homologs inserted into the E. coli genome. This reduced fitness was associated with reduced levels of EF-Tu and reduced rates of protein synthesis. Increasing the expression of tuf partially ameliorated these fitness costs. In summary, our analysis suggests that the functional conservation of protein activity, the amount of protein expressed, and its network connectivity act to constrain the successful transfer of this essential gene into foreign bacteria., IMPORTANCE Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a fundamental driving force in bacterial evolution. However, whether essential genes can be acquired by HGT and whether they can be acquired from distant organisms are very poorly understood. By systematically replacing tuf with ancestral homologs and homologs from distantly related organisms, we investigated the constraints on HGT of a highly conserved gene with multiple interaction partners. The ancestral homologs represented phylogenetically resurrected tuf sequences dating from 0.7 to 3.6 bya. Only variants obtained from the gammaproteobacterial family (extant and ancestral) supported growth, demonstrating the limited functional interchangeability of E. coli tuf with its homologs. Our analysis suggests that the functional conservation of protein activity, the amount of protein expressed, and its network connectivity act to constrain the successful transfer of this essential gene into foreign bacteria.

Carlos Chagas, the discoverer of Chagas' disease was nominated to the Nobel Prize in 1921, but none did win the prize in that year. As a leader of a young scientist team, he discovered all aspects of the new disease from 1909 to 1920. It is still obscure why he did not win the Nobel Prize in 1921. Chagas was discarded by Gunnar Hedren on April 16, 1921. Hedren should have made a written report about the details of his evaluation to the Nobel Committee. However, such a document has not been found in the Nobel Committee Archives. No evidence of detractions made by Brazilian scientists on Chagas was found. Since Chagas nomination was consistent with the Nobel Committee requirements, as seen in the presentation letter by until now unknown Cypriano de Freitas, it become clear that Chagas did not win the Nobel Prize exclusively because the Nobel Committee did not perceive the importance of his discovery. Thus, it would be fair a posthumous Nobel Prize of 1921 to Carlos Chagas. A diploma of the Nobel Prize, as precedent with Dogmack in 1947, would recognize the merit of the scientist who made the most complete medical discovery of all times.

Sergey Vasilevich Goldin (1936–2007), a world-renowned geophysicist, an exceptionally bright and creative scientist and an outstanding educator, was demanding of himself even more so than of others. He often thought about his role, place and involvement in science. He wrote: “It is easy to call someone another, glorified and eminent ‘scientist’. In Russian this word has a piety shade, badly applicable to itself . . . . I would rather use: creative person.” One of Goldin’s most favourite movies was an old Soviet movie ‘Monolog’, which tells a story of a not very young scientist, leader of an academic institute who tries to summarize his life in science: “In science there are those who break through walls, and those who then spend 100 years cleaning up the splinters. And so, I am from these, from the cleaners”. This phrase can undoubtedly be applied to Goldin. During his long professional life, Goldin worked practically in all directions of the seismic method. It is interesting to look at the evolution of his scientific view at different problems that seem today as relevant and important as fifty years ago.

Vaccination against influenza is the most effective approach for reducing influenza morbidity and mortality. However, influenza vaccines are unique among all licensed vaccines as they are updated and administered annually to antigenically match the vaccine strains and currently circulating influenza strains. Vaccine efficacy of each selected influenza virus vaccine varies depending on the antigenic match between circulating strains and vaccine strains, as well as the age and health status of the vaccine recipient. Low vaccine effectiveness of seasonal influenza vaccines in recent years provides an impetus to improve current seasonal influenza vaccines, and for development of next-generation influenza vaccines that can provide broader, long-lasting protection against both matching and antigenically diverse influenza strains. This review discusses a perspective on some of the issues and formidable challenges facing the development and regulation of the next-generation influenza vaccines.

National Basic Research Program of China [2009CB421207]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [40930846, 40676063]; MEL Young Scientist Visiting Fellowship ; Xiamen University and Ph. D. Foundation of Wenzhou Medical College [MELRS0935, 89209008]

Received August 2, 2008; accepted January 28, 2009. The opportunities in basic science for graduating PhD students and for aspiring physician-scientists have never been so extraordinary. The sequencing of the human genome and the development of the human haplotype map have enabled scientists to begin to unravel the basis of complex multigenic disorders. Rapid developments in stem cell biology are affecting many areas of cardiovascular biology and may enable repair of injured myocardium. High-throughput chemical genetic screening, proteomics, and metabolomics are changing the approaches with which investigators characterize novel signal transduction pathways and develop new therapeutic paradigms. Rapidly evolving molecular imaging technologies are noninvasively illuminating the fundamental processes contributing to cardiovascular diseases. New insights into the mechanisms involved in cardiac myocyte hypertrophy and dysfunction have important therapeutic implications for an expanding population of patients with congestive heart failure. For the young scientist looking to the future, there are major benefits in pursuing a basic science career including the excitement of discovery, the opportunity for life-long learning, and the potential to broadly affect cardiovascular science and medicine. On the other hand, the young investigator considering a basic science career is confronted by many challenges. The budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has remained essentially unchanged for 5 years (when the impact of inflation is considered). The success rate of R01 grant applications has consistently declined since 2000, and the average age when an investigator receives a first R01 grant (or equivalent) increased to 42.6 in 2007 (NIH Extramural Data Book at www.report.nih.gov/index.aspx). At the same time, the increased costs of undergraduate and medical school educations have burdened potential young investigators with ever-increasing financial commitments. Many academic leaders have suggested that an entire generation of young scientists is “at risk” (www.BrokenPipeline. org). Long hours at the laboratory bench are compensated …

Joseph V. Smith was born on the 30th of July 1928, in Derbyshire, England. He married Brenda Wallis at Crich, Derbyshire, on the 31st of August, 1951, moved to the USA, and their family grew with two daughters, Virginia and Susan. He retired in September 2005 as the Louis Block Professor Emeritus in Geophysical Sciences and the College at the University of Chicago. On Friday the 6th of April, 2007, at age 78, he died of pneumonia at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Parkinson’s disease had begun to take its cruel toll about five years earlier. He and his wife Brenda moved to Brookline in 2005 to be near their daughter, Virginia, and family, where he suffered a broken hip and several heart attacks before the final event. In the meantime, he continued to write an autobiographical book Living Safely which dealt with local and global problems facing our species. As Brenda said: “He was very strong and very stoic. He handled any difficulties in life the way he handled his illness.” In early April, a reporter from the Boston Globe asked me, by phone, for information about Professor Smith. From my troubled, garbled conversation the reporter recovered the following quotation: “Joe was one of the great mineralogists of his time, both in an intellectual sense and a practical sense. He did first-rate science that was always at the forefront. And he pursued practical applications in a very powerful way. He was also always looking for the next, best way of studying minerals.” His many honours support these statements. These include election as Fellow of the Royal Society of London and member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and award of the Murchison Medal (Geological Society of London), the MSA Award (young scientist award …

Quincy Almeida is the Director of the Sun Life Financial Movement Disorders Research and Rehabilitation Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University (ON, Canada), one the world’s leading authorities on movement science and rehabilitation in Parkinson’s disease (PD). His research has been featured in the Toronto Star, the Globe & Mail, on CBC and CTV national news as well as features in Maclean’s magazine. He has been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and by a multimillion dollar grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and his innovative research on PD has won several awards, including the Franklin Henry Young Scientist Award for motor control in Canada, and the Parkinson’s Society of Canada Young Investigator’s Award. More recently, he received the Polanyi Prize for Physiology and Medicine, the Queen Elizabeth’s II Diamond Jubilee medal in January 2013, and in June 2013 Almeida gave a keynote when he was honored with a North American Award, the Early Career Distinguished Scholar Award from the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity organization at a conference in New Orleans (LA, USA). Almeida has spoken about his novel approach to understanding PD across the world, including in France, Italy, Brazil, Ireland, Norway, Australia and The Netherlands.

How lucky can one be? A perspective from a young scientist at the right place at the right time

Dream! This is the most important prerequisite for young scientists to make a success.Young scientists should ask themselves at any time“What do I want to do?”and clarify their scientific goals. Action is the second prerequisite to make a success. Without actions, no successes can be expected. Only continuous actions lead young scientists to their dreams or successes.Therefore, young scientists should be not only scientifically but also financially and mentally supported.Otherwise, they are not able to hold their dream or burning passion for basic sciences in their mind anymore, eventually being away from scientific fields.

The Young Scientist Program and the 13th FAOBMB Congress was organized by Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Section, Science Society of Thailand under the Patronage of His Majesty the King in Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Center (BITEC), Bangna, Bangkok from 23-29 November 2012. The conference was organized by Professor Piamsook Pongsawadi and other committee members. doi : 10.5214/ans.0972.7531.200110

The Second International Conference and Young Scientist School ''Magnetic resonance imaging in biomedical research'' was held on the campus of the National Research Tomsk State University (Tomsk, Russia) on September 7-9, 2015. The conference was focused on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) applications for biomedical research. The main goal was to bring together basic scientists, clinical researchers and developers of new MRI techniques to bridge the gap between clinical/research needs and advanced technological solutions. The conference fostered research and development in basic and clinical MR science and its application to health care. It also had an educational purpose to promote understanding of cutting-edge MR developments. The conference provided an opportunity for researchers and clinicians to present their recent theoretical developments, practical applications, and to discuss unsolved problems. The program of the conference was divided into three main topics. First day of the conference was devoted to educational lectures on the fundamentals of MRI physics and image acquisition/reconstruction techniques, including recent developments in quantitative MRI. The second day was focused on developments and applications of new contrast agents. Multinuclear and spectroscopic acquisitions as well as functional MRI were presented during the third day of the conference. We would like to highlight the main developments presented at the conference and introduce the prominent speakers. The keynote speaker of the conference Dr. Vasily Yarnykh (University of Washington, Seattle, USA) presented a recently developed MRI method, macromolecular proton fraction (MPF) mapping, as a unique tool for modifying image contrast and a unique tool for quantification of the myelin content in neural tissues. Professor Yury Pirogov (Lomonosov Moscow State University) described development of new fluorocarbon compounds and applications for biomedicine. Drs. Julia Velikina and Alexey Samsonov (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) demonstrated new image reconstruction methods for accelerated quantitative parameter mapping and magnetic resonance angiography. Finally, we would like to thank the scientific committee, the local organizing committee and the National Research Tomsk State University for giving an opportunity to share scientific ideas and new developments at the conference and the Russian Science Foundation (project № 14-45-00040) for financial support.

A Gram-negative, rod-shaped, aerobic, motile bacterium, strain Y1243-1T, was isolated from an ice core drilled from Yuzhufeng Glacier, Tibetan Plateau, China. Cells had polar flagella. The novel strain shared 94.7–97.6 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity with the type strains of species of the genus Massilia . The novel isolate is thus classified in the genus Massilia . The major fatty acids of strain Y1243-1T were summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or iso-C15 : 0 2-OH) (43.98 %), C16 : 0 (27.86 %), C10 : 0 3-OH (7.10 %), C18 : 0 (6.95 %) and C18 : 1ω7c (5.01 %). The predominant isoprenoid quinone was Q-8. The DNA G+C content of strain Y1243-1T was 65.7 mol% (T m). The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and diphosphatidylglycerol. A number of phenotypic characteristics distinguished the novel isolate from the type strains of recognized Massilia species. Furthermore, in DNA–DNA hybridization tests, strain Y1243-1T shared 45 % relatedness with its closest phylogenetic relative, Massilia consociata CCUG 58010T. From the genotypic and phenotypic data, it is evident that strain Y1243-1T represents a novel species of the genus Massilia , for which the name Massilia yuzhufengensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is Y1243-1T ( = KACC 16569T = CGMCC 1.12041T).

In 1997, A S Borovik-Romanov, the Academician of RAS, and A V Aganov, the head of the Physics Department of Kazan State University, suggested that the 'School of Magnetic Resonance', well known in the Soviet Union, should recommence and be regularly held in Kazan. This school was created in 1968 by G V Scrotskii, the prominent scientist in the field of magnetic resonance and the editor of many famous books on magnetic resonance (authored by A Abragam, B. Bleaney, C. Slichter, and many others) translated and edited in the Soviet Union. In 1991 the last, the 12th School, was held under the supervision of G V Scrotskii. Since 1997, more than 600 young scientists, 'schoolboys', have taken part in the School meetings, made their oral reports and participated in heated discussions. Every year a competition among the young scientist takes place and the Program Committee members name the best reports, the authors of which are invited to prepare full-scale scientific papers. The XVI International Youth Scientific School 'Actual problems of the magnetic resonance and its application' in its themes is slightly different from previous ones. A new section has been opened this year: Coherent Optics and Optical Spectroscopy. Many young people have submitted interesting reports on optical research, many of the reports are devoted to the implementation of nanotechnology in optical studies. The XVI International Youth Scientific School has been supported by the Program of development of Kazan Federal University. It is a pleasure to thank the sponsors (BRUKER Ltd, Moscow, the Russian Academy of Science, the Dynasty foundation of Dmitrii Zimin, Russia, Russian Foundation for Basic Research) and all the participants and contributors for making the International School meeting possible and interesting. A V Dooglav, M Kh Salakhov and M S Tagirov The Editors

The only constant in life is change and living in South Africa I certainly have witnessed major change during my life, particularly as our country was transformed from being governed by the Apartheid regime to a democratically elected government. In order to share my ideas of how cosmetic science can contribute to the improvement of society, I would like to address three issues. The first part of my essay will discuss some of the recent changes in the society we live in and how these changes have affected our need for cosmetics. Secondly I will discuss the developments in cosmetic science that will be necessary to cope with these changes and finally, the kind of developments in cosmetic science will be necessary in order for them to improve our society. Of course, not all people in our world share the same norms and values and I will therefore consider a global acceptance of and adherence to the declaration of human rights as the ultimate improvement. On such a level, it should be realized from the beginning that the influence cosmetic science can have on society is very limited compared to that of, for instance, political leaders of our world. Cosmetic science, however, does make a contribution, although it is only a small step in the process of improving the world we live in, but according to Confucius the longest journey begins with the first step. Therefore, let the journey begin… This essay won the 2006 Maison G. de Navarre Young Scientist Prize that is awarded for either the first or second paper in cosmetic science or a specially written essay on a topic selected by the 2005–2006 IFSCC President for an author of 35 years or younger. This Prize was awarded to Megan Jones during the Openings Ceremony of the 24th IFSCC Congress »Integration of Cosmetic Sciences«, Osaka, Japan on 16 October 2006. The purpose of the Maison G. de Navarre Young Scientist Prize is to stimulate young cosmetic scientists to write scientific papers/essays. The prize covers all expenses to attend the first IFSCC Congress or Conference that is held after the prize was awarded.

IFSCC Magazine, 11 (2008) (4) 333–335. This essay won the 2008 Maison G. de Navarre Young Scientist Prize. Fifty years, a half century, five decades have been fifty interesting years in the cosmetic industry as well as in the IFSCC. On September 8, 1959, the International Federation Societies of Cosmetic Chemists (IFSCC) was established. At that time only eight countries joined the Federation, but today the IFSCC is the world's largest association of researchers in the field of cosmetics. Forty-five Societies representing 53 countries have met the high standard of scientific and educational qualifications of the IFSCC. The number of individual members in the Federation exceeds 13 000 and is still growing. The IFSCC's first president was Maison G. de Navarre from the USA. Like the incredible growth and expansion of the IFSCC, development of the cosmetic industry has made it the fastest growing industry in the world!

Richard Nixon was not my favourite President of the United States of America, but he declared his famous War on Cancer while I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. I was then working in the Department of Medicine in the laboratory of Irving London, who was Head of that department. This was a remarkable privilege for a young scientist: to be a first‐hand witness of the emerging interface between medicine and molecular biology. By 1970, haematology had long been a molecular business and was a specialty in which—for a variety of simple practical reasons—the distance between basic and applied research was very short. But other specialties, of which perhaps virology would be a …

Lorenzo Crocco was born in Naples, Italy, in 1971. He received the Laurea degree summa cum laude in electronic engineering and a Ph.D. in applied electromagnetics from the University of Naples “Federico II”, in 1995 and 2000, respectively. Since 2001, he has been a Research Scientist with the Institute for the Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment, National Research Council (IREA-CNR) in Naples. His scientific interests concern inverse electromagnetic scattering problems, with particular attention to the development of effective solutions and methods for non-invasive diagnostics and ground-penetrating radar applications. More recently, he has also been engaged in the study of advanced microwave imaging for early-stage breast cancer screening. Dr Crocco is the author of more than thirty papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has been the General Co-chair of the IV International Workshop on Advanced Ground Penetrating Radar (IWAGPR2007). Dr Crocco was the recipient of the G. Barzilai Award for Young Scientists from the Italian Electromagnetic Society (SIEM) in 2004 and the Young Scientist Award at the XXVIII URSI General Assembly (2005). Dr Crocco is a Fellow of The Electromagnetics Academy (TEA). Raffaele Persico was born in Naples, Italy, on May 15, 1969. He received his degree in Electronic Engineering summa cum laude from the University of Naples Federico II, in 1996 and his Ph.D. degree from Second University of Naples, in 1999. He has been Research Scientist in the Consortium for Advanced Research in Remote Sensing Systems (CO.RI.S.T.A.) and at the Institute for the Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment of the National Council of Researches (IREA-CNR). Since January 2007, he has been Research Scientist in the Institute for Archaeological and Monumental Heritage (IBAM-CNR). His main, current research interests include GPR systems, linear and nonlinear inverse scattering problems and related topics, especially with regard to GPR data processing and in relation to archaeology and monitoring of monuments. He was Co-chair of the IV International Workshop on Advanced Ground Penetrating Radar (IWAGPR), held in June 2007 in Naples. Francesco Soldovieri received the Laurea degree in electronic engineering from the University of Salerno in 1992. Afterwards, he received his Ph.D. in electronic engineering in 1996 from University of Naples “Federico II”. In 1993, he joined the Electromagnetic Research Group of the University of Naples and in 1998/1999 he held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the same institution. Since 2001 he has been a Researcher at the Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment of the Italian National Research Council (IREA-CNR). Since 2006 he is a Senior Researcher at IREA. He was General Chair of the IV International Workshop on Advanced Ground Penetrating Radar (IWAGPR) in 2007. Since 2002, he has been involved in the Technical Committees of the GPR Conference and IWAGPR Workshop. He was awarded the 1999 Honourable Mention for the H.A. Wheeler Applications Prize Paper Award of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society. He is listed in Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, 2006–2007 and 2007–2008. His main scientific interests include electromagnetic diagnostics, inverse scattering, GPR applications, antenna diagnostics and characterization and security applications.

from time to time, we like to highlight articles authored by winners of the awards offered by the American Physiological Society. The Endocrinology and Metabolism section of APS conferred the 2007 Young Scientist Award to Kei Sakamoto, PhD. Kei is a prolific young scientist who has contributed to

TOXICOLOGYKOLKATA-- After several family members died of arsenicosis, Kartik Biswas began spreading the word about arsenic in his village in Nadia district. ([Read more][1].) [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/315/5819/1661

1894 Richard Greeff, a young scientist at the University of Berlin, translated the book "The retina of vertebrates" of Santiago Ramon y Cajal into German. Greeff himself had already applied the Golgi-Cajal-Chromic-Silver dye to the retina and was enthusiastic about the results of Cajal. He interrupted his own investigations in favour of translating the book into German. Cajal demonstrates that the retina contains individual neurons contradicting the theory at that time, that the nervous system is a synzythium. This new theory had a great impact on German science although it took years to be accepted unanimously.

My career as a radioisotope hunter began when I was working as a young scientist in the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, during the trailblazing years in the late 1930s. I started this research in 1936 while a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry at Berkeley. The cyclotrons of Ernest O. Lawrence opened the doors to discovery, and as a chemist I was in the enviable position of being able to apply the powerful methods of my discipline to the identification of transmutation products. As a result of the broad interests of Ernest and his brother John, the scope of investigations in the Radiation Laboratory extended beyond basic research to include the practical interdisciplinary applications of these new tools of investigation. Special emphasis was placed on applications to medicine. Partly because of this and partly as a result of accidental good fortune, I became involved in

On that fateful day of Aug. 6, 1945, when the atomic age burst forth with such cataclysmic results in Hiroshima, I had mixed feelings of excitement and disappointment. Excitement, as a young scientist, at the news that the energy of the atom had actually been unleashed (we had heard rumors about such research but doubted its practical outcome so soon). Disappointment, because I felt that "we've been scooped!" By "we" I meant the large group of us who had been working for the past three years on another war-related research effort—synthetic rubber. I had then just completed my doctoral dissertation at McGill University in Montreal on a study of molecular-weight control in butadienestyrene emulsion copolymerization (the wartime GR-S system) and was well aware of the unique and largescale effort made by the U.S. to establish a synthetic rubber industry. This effort was, of course, classified as "confidential" during the war, and we had eagerly awaited ...