Science briefing hosted by University
Annual gathering seeks to enhance reporting & improve relationships

By Tony Fitzpatrick

More than 140 science writers, scientists and science journalism educators from America and Canada will be attending the 40th Annual New Horizons in Science Briefing

Oct. 27-30 at The Ritz-Carlton in Clayton, the Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center and other locations on the Hilltop and Medical campuses.

Washington University is the host for the event, an ongoing program of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW), a New York-based, nonprofit educational corporation run by distinguished journalists and scientists to increase public understanding of science.

The annual briefing helps enhance the quality of medical and science reporting and improve the relationship between scientists and the press. The purpose of the briefing is to keep scientists and science communicators educated about science and medical topics that will be newsworthy in the near future.

Among the attendees will be award-winning science reporters from The Dallas Morning News; Newsday; The Washington Post; The New York Times; The Toronto Star; The Christian Science Monitor; Popular Science; Popular Mechanics; Business Week; The San Francisco Chronicle; U.S. News & World Report; Science; The Blade of Toledo, Ohio; the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; the national bureau of The Associated Press; and the Knight Ridder and Reuters news bureaus.

They will mingle with some of the nation's top free-lance writers, authors and public-information specialists from universities and prominent laboratories.

Stories are filed on-the-spot, interviews are conducted between sessions, notes and manuscripts are kept for future articles and reference -- all part of New Horizons' effort to bring journalists and scientists together.

The event has been hosted every fall since 1963 at a different university across the United States.

"The New Horizons Briefing returns to Washington University after a wonderful experience here in 1993," said Ben Patrusky, executive director of CASW and a free-lance writer from New York City, who is in his 28th year of developing and directing the briefing. "CASW always looks for institutions with a strong commitment to science and an abundance of science talent. Washington University certainly exemplifies that kind of university. It's a pleasure to return.

"The briefing is designed to present a tantalizing, broad array of new science initiatives and discoveries in diverse fields ranging from biomedical science to cosmology. Our intent is to provide journalists with the kind of intellectual background that is difficult to get elsewhere, as well as the kind of informative atmosphere -- informal presentations that generate lively dialogues between scientists and journalists -- that is rare to find. In this way, we hope that journalists then will write stories that better-inform the public."

The program is a global event, this year drawing Didier Sornette, Ph.D., who holds joint appointments with the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Centre Nacional de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Nice, France. Sornette will deliver a plenary session.

It also features renowned scientists from Montana State University, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Duke University, AER Inc., of Lexington, Mass., the University of Arkansas and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis.

Washington University is well represented at the New Horizons Briefing, with 18 faculty members from both the Hilltop and Medical campuses participating in plenary sessions and laboratory tours.

The University contribution to the program consists of the following plenary sessions (in order of appearance):

• Oct. 27, John-Stephen A. Taylor, Ph.D., professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, will open the program with a discussion of his RNA-anchored targeted therapy technique; Karen L. Wooley, Ph.D., professor of chemistry, will discuss a collaboration with Taylor and her use of special nanoparticles she has developed to prevent maritime fouling; James H. Buckley, Ph.D., associate professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, will discuss his work with TeV gamma rays, the most intense form of radiation known to science; and Wai-Mo Suen, Ph.D., professor of physics, will talk about gravity wave astronomy.

• Oct. 28, J. Perren Cobb, M.D., associate professor of surgery, will present on the role DNA plays in the human response to injury.

• Oct. 29, David Piwnica-Worms, Ph.D., professor of radiology and of molecular biology and pharmacology, will present on advances in molecular imaging; Jeff W. Lichtman, M.D., Ph.D., professor of anatomy and neurobiology, will discuss the life of a synapse; David C. Van Essen, Ph.D., the Edison Professor of Neurobiology and head of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, will speak on high-tech brain mapping; and Richard A. Loomis, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry, will explain his work on making "movies" of ultra-fast bimolecular chemical reactions.

• Oct. 30, Ronald S. Indeck, Ph.D., the Das Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering, will explain his technique for ultra-fast searching of massive databases.

On the afternoon of Oct. 29, the New Horizons writers and editors will observe a demonstration of methods to detect and deactivate microbial and viral agents given by Pratim Biswas, Ph.D., the Stifel and Quinette Jens Professor in chemical engineering and director of the Environmental Engineering Science Program.

They will see novel construction techniques to safeguard buildings and bridges against earthquakes developed by Shirley J. Dyke, Ph.D., associate professor of civil engineering; Philip V. Bayly, Ph.D., associate professor of mechanical engineering; and Guy Genin, Ph.D., assistant professor of civil engineering.

School of Medicine collaborators Larry Lewis, M.D., and Rosanne Naunheim, M.D., in emergency medicine; Carl Lauryssen, M.B., Ch.B., associate professor of neurological surgery; and John Standeven, Ph.D., an engineer in the Barnes-Jewish Children's Hospital's Human Performance Lab, will present a demonstration on the biomechanics of soccer heading.

On the evening of Oct. 28, after tours and a dinner at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Daniel Q. Haney, The Associated Press' national medical editor, will receive the Victor Cohn award for his medical reporting. Carl M. Bender, Ph.D., professor of physics, will give the after-dinner talk on the greenhouse effect.

The program is sponsored by Washington University with support from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the
.