University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, October 10, 1989
Nation/World
7
Two California cancer researchers win Nobel Prize
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Two University of California cancer researchers won the Nobel Prize in medicine yesterday and immediately reaped the perquisites of success: box seats at the National League baseball playoffs.
"We're off to the game — just got tickets," a jubilant J. Michael Bishop learned after he and Harold E. Varmus learns that they had won this year's prize.
The 50-member Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute recognized Bishop and Varmus for their discovery that cancer genes in certain viruses are altered forms of normal animal genes.
The research helped scientists understand how cancer begins and widened insight into the complicated signal systems that control the normal growth of cells, the assembly said.
"The basic idea that we helped establish is that cancer has its origins in genes that normally do us some good. But after they become abnormal through mutation, they have a role in cancer," Varmus said.
The two scientists are colleagues at the University of California School of
Medicine in San Francisco. They originally published their prize-winning findings in 1976.
Bishop said winning the award was "surreal," while Varmus said he was startled when the telephone began ringing at 4 a.m.
But his alarm quickly turned to exultation, especially when the $490,000 award — to be split between two weeks — began paying in unexpected ways.
When reporters swarmed to his home early in the morning, Varmus said he only wished he could use the Nobel money to buy tickets to the sold-out game between the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Cubs at Candlestick Park.
A short time later, he received four free tickets from the San Francisco Examiner.
At a news conference at the University of California Medical Center, Bishop and Varmus were optimistic about the practical applications of their work, which helps researchers understand the nature of cancer and possibly some aspects of the AIDS virus.
But they were cautious about forecasting a cancer cure in the foreseeable future.
"This is just another step in what's
a long journey," Bishop said. "It's very difficult to predict when a full view of the cancer cell will be at hand."
Although Varmus stressed that he and Bishop "stand on the shoulders of those who came before us," at least one scientist said he resented carrying their weight.
Dominique Stehelin, a French researcher who carried out experiments overseen by Bishop and Varmus at San Francisco in the 1970s, said it was "very unfair and rotten" that he wasn't included in the prize.
Bishop and Varmus called Stehlin's work "crucial" to their
research, but referred questions about the prize to the Nobel committee.
Varmus, 49, once hoped to become an English professor. He said he switched fields after learning that writer Gertrude Stein had enrolled at Johns Hopkins Medical School after being told that "medicine opens all doors."
Bishop, 53, said he was interested in science in high school, and decided to become a doctor. But he said, "By the time I finished college, I wasn't so sure I wanted to be a doctor."
Students return to class in Beirut
Cease-fire reopens schools closed down for the past 6 months
The Associated Press
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Hundreds of students returned to campus yesterday when the American University of Beirut reopened after being closed for six months, its longest shutdown since the sectarian civil war began 14 years ago.
The cafeteria was packed with students, who hugged each other and renewed friendships. Others jammed together, checking their accumulated mail.
Mawlawi said the campus was hit several times by artillery fire, causing "extensive damage . . . that has now been renamed."
Syrian troops and Lebanese police
checked student ID cards at the three gates of the tree-lined campus overlooking the Mediterranean in Moslem, west Beirut.
It was not known how many of the 5,000 students returned yesterday.
Many students and other residents of Beirut share doubts about the durability of a cease-fire that began Sept. 22. The truce, arranged by the Arab League, stopped an artillery attack on Beirut's border. Christian army units of Gen. Michel Aoun and a Moslem alliance led to Syrian soldiers.
More than 900 people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded in the artillery battles, among the most savage of the civil war.
Ghada Khatan, 27, has endured many interruptions in her education because of the war, in which more than 180,000 Lebanese have been killed, "I hope I'll graduate this time," said the agricultural student. "Let's hope this cease-fire's genuine."
American University of Beirut has produced at least three Lebanese presidents, 10 prime ministers, more than 100 Cabinet ministers and ambassadors, and several guerrilla leaders.
The 400-bed university hospital, Lebanon's largest, stayed open through the fighting. Its doctors and interns treated about 80 percent of the casualties in west Beirut.
EAST GERMANS PROTEST: Up to 50,000 East Germans demanding democratic reforms marched through Leipzig last night, and masses of police officers, some wearing gas masks, were deployed, witnesses said.
The protesters shouted "We need freedom!" "Democracy!" and "No violence!"
Some witnesses said there were more than 10,000 marchers, and others said as many as 50,000 protesters participated. The witnesses said protesters marched after attending a traditional Monday evening prayer service at St. Nicholas church.
Throngs of people joined them along the way.
World Briefs
A larger number of police officers did not stop the march but
cordoned off the downtown area, the witnesses said.
West Germany's ZDF television reported that armped personnel carriers also were seen in the area.
It was unknown how many police were deployed. No violence was reported.
PAPER REORGANIZING: The Pentagon eventually editors of the armed services newspaper Stars & Stripes with civilians, a Defense Department spokesman said yesterday.
The development follows a recommendation made last year in a study by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The study stated that evidence was found indicating censorship and improper management at the government-run daily.
"When the current military editors retire, it is our intention to put the words on a defense department spokesman William Williams said in an interview.
Williams, who said he couldn't give a specific time for the change, said the Pentagon also was looking into the possible financial and editorial consolidation of the newspaper's two editions.
A Pentagon source said the switch was expected to occur within several years.
CLIP INVENTOR HONORED: A 22 $½-foot-tall paper clip was unveiled outside a business college yesterday, honoring the Norwegian who invented the office aid 90 years ago.
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