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Science and Medicine News
Women MDs Earn Parity The salaries of young
female physicians have reached parity with those of their male counterparts
as long as they work as many hours and are in the same specialties and
practice settings, according to a study by School of Medicine economist Laurence
Baker, assistant professor of health research and policy. But among physicians 45
and older, men still earn more, Baker found after analyzing the 1990 earnings of
about 4,500 physicians from across the nation. “To some extent this is good
news,” he said. “When I looked at 1986 earnings, male physicians under 45 made 7
percent more than females with the same characteristics. That gap has closed. But
the bad news is this applies only to young physicians.” The study was published
April 11, in the New England Journal of Medicine.
New Clinical Center Approved Physicians who
treat patients will team up with scientists who investigate basic biomedical
questions in a new campus research center devoted to devising innovative
strategies against cancer, immune disorders and genetic diseases. The Center for
Clinical Sciences Research (CCSR) received approval from the Board of Trustees
and is scheduled to open in three years. It will house a diverse group of
clinical investigators and basic scientists who will collaborate on new medical
therapies. For example, researchers who study bone marrow and stem cells might
team up with scientists involved in genetic engineering to devise new cancer
interventions. Or researchers in molecular immunology may bring their insights to
new treatment, or even prevention, of diseases as diverse as juvenile-onset
diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, multiple sclerosis, or AIDS.
Genetic Code Deciphered An international
consortium of scientists, including Stanford’s Ronald Davis and David Botstein,
has spelled out the entire genetic code of baker’s yeast. The scientific feat
marks the first time researchers have fully deciphered DNA in an organism so
closely related to human cells. Yeast and human cells share many of the same
genes and have structural similarities as well, such as the nucleus that holds
the chromosomes. Stanford researchers sequenced one of yeast’s 16
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