2004 was a year dominated by news of war, disease and dark threats of bioterrorism and nuclear proliferation. But for the scientific community there were signs of progress and hope. Researchers continued to interrogate nature and produce intriguing results, ranging from the genetic sequence of the rat to the surprise discovery of a previously unknown and diminutive species of humankind. And scientists exasperated by the reluctance of policy-makers to take research seriously could draw some comfort, at least, from Russia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. In the following pages, Nature highlights some of the events that excited the world of science over the past 12 months.
And as the calendar pages flip over to a new year, we've also been making some enquiries into what scientists think — and hope — is in store next. Given no constraints, we asked, what would you wish for in 2005? What follows is a sample of the responses our reporters got from researchers and policy-makers across all fields of study, along with summaries of the events that framed these aspirations. From the development of effective therapies against HIV and malaria, to the detection of life elsewhere in the Universe, to the ability to do research without the intrusion of politics or bureaucracy, the community's wish list provides an insightful — and refreshingly optimistic — glimpse into the future.
“Open access to America from abroad.”
Students, scholars and at least one Nobel prizewinner have had trouble getting into the United States this year, thanks to immigration rules that have grown ever tighter since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Zhores Alferov, who won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on semiconductors, stormed out of the US consulate in St Petersburg, Russia, this September without his visa after being grilled about the nature of his work.
The situation has improved somewhat since heavy restrictions were introduced shortly after the attacks. Most background checks are now completed within 30 days — half the time it used to take — and are valid for up to a year, making it easier for foreign scientists working in the United States to travel home for holidays and family events. But it remains unclear whether these reforms will be enough to stop foreigners from spurning US academic institutions. This year's omens were not good: for the first time in more than three decades, the number of international students enrolling in the United States fell.
This is a trend that Baltimore finds deeply disturbing. With Europe and Asia becoming increasingly competitive, he says, the United States no longer has a firm lead in research. One of the reasons for this is that it's now so much harder to come to the United States to study, he argues.
Meanwhile, other nations are making the most of the United States' tough new rules. The number of foreign science students enrolled at universities in Australia has shot up by 32% since 2001. Asian students seem to be flocking to Britain too: the University of Cambridge, for example, has seen a surge in students from China. And China, in turn, is welcoming students from neighbouring countries such as Indonesia in record numbers.
David Baltimore
President, California Institute of Technology
“A malaria vaccine that really works and is cheap enough for African kids to afford.”
A trial vaccine, known as RTS,S/AS02A, was shown this year to shield some children from malaria: the first real success in the field. Much more work needs be done to achieve full protection, and to make the jabs affordable. But more trials are under way.
Gustav Nossal
Immunologist, University of Melbourne, Australia
“I'd wish for two burning plasma experiments in the world, instead of just one.”
For plasma physics, 2004 was characterized by the constant dispute over where to build ITER, an international experimental reactor aimed at producing power from the fusion of hydrogen atoms. The community is united in its desire to see the project go ahead. But the six partners — Russia, China, South Korea, Japan, the United States and the European Union — are currently deadlocked over whether the reactor should be located in France or Japan.
The stalemate has led the Europeans to decide that, if necessary, they will go it alone. That could be okay, laughs Navratil, if it means that both the European and Japanese consortiums each build a machine. “Obviously we'd like to have at least one ITER,” he says; but two would be even better. Observers, however, would be extremely surprised if this wish actually came true.
Gerald Navratil
Plasma physicist, Columbia University, New York
“I wish for a cataclysmic rearrangement of the tectonic plates — or alternatively some creative legislative gerrymandering — so that the San Andreas Fault line ends up just west of Boston, Massachusetts.”
It seems as though nothing short of serious seismic upheaval will be enough to get researchers on the US east coast the money they want to study human embryonic stem cells.
Federal funds for such work remain limited to a few dozen cell lines. But on the day of George W. Bush's re-election, a referendum in California backed an initiative to plough $3 billion of state funds into the field, turning a lot of researchers farther east green with stem-cell envy.
Those outside California aren't completely bereft. In April, Harvard University announced the creation of a stem-cell institute in and around Boston involving 100 researchers and funded with millions of dollars of private money. Three months later, the governor of New Jersey signed legislation to spend $9.5 million on stem-cell research.
I wish to see tranquillity, security and freedom of thought granted for scientists and researchers in parts of the world suffering political turmoil. Radwan Barakat, Plant Scientist, Hebron University, Palestinian Authority
The stage is now set for regulatory battles between the conservative federal government and those states using public money to pursue embryonic stem-cell research. A bill to ban ‘therapeutic cloning’ — which would use genetic material from a cloned embryo of the patient to make new cells for a potential transplant, for example — that has languished since 2001 may pass next year, thanks to the newly enlarged Republican majority in the Senate. Even if this bill doesn't pass, limitations on stem-cell research could also be tacked on to unrelated legislation and end up as law if supporters of the research fail to muster the political muscle to stop them.
George Daley
Stem-cell scientist, Harvard University
“A cure for jet lag — or super-fast flight. And fool-proof, fast, invisible airport screening technology. Actually, I'd settle for super-comfortable flight.”
If there's one thing scientists agree on, it's that they spend too much time scrunched up in economy class and not enough in the lab — and travel only seemed to take longer in 2004.
The United States, for one, lengthened queues when it phased in the largest biometric scheme yet deployed at national borders, demanding that foreign visitors give electronic fingerprints for checking against a database of undesirables. Next year, many countries are expected to introduce passports that encode biometric information about their owners on microchips. This will either shorten or lengthen queues, depending on your faith in technology.
But although some scientists were grumbling about the limits of today's transportation, others were working on a project that they think could revolutionize tomorrow's. Proving that space is accessible to your average billionaire as well as to space agencies, aerospace designer Burt Rutan and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen launched the first private rocket to the outskirts of suborbital space and scooped the US$10-million X prize in the process.
Rocket enthusiasts celebrated the achievement as the dawn of a new era of space tourism. But sceptics said that private space travel is unlikely to take off until engineers conquer the much harder feat of getting tourists into orbit. Virgin Galactic expects to begin commercial flights as early as 2007, with seats going for about $200,000 a pop. That probably falls outside the reach of most researchers — but some, at least, hope that the technology will one day find a use in faster-than-Concorde intercontinental travel.
George Daley
Stem-cell scientist, Harvard University
“My wish? ET: call me.”
For Friedman, who heads a large space-advocacy group, there is no question about the major goal of space exploration: it is to find life. To this end the Planetary Society strongly supports SETI — the search for extraterrestrial intelligence that scans the skies for signs of communication.
In contrast, NASA now seems relatively unsure of its goals. Should it finish building the International Space Station? Stick with robots for most voyages, or push for piloted missions?
The Bush administration tried to create some focus this year by declaring that NASA would put astronauts back on the Moon by 2020, and then head for Mars. Initial funding for the president's ‘Vision for Space Exploration’ was passed by Congress in November despite reservations from many lawmakers and scientists. It may provide a focus for the space programme, but it doesn't seem to be a wildly popular one.
Some US scientists worry that if the tide shifts back to an expensive astronaut programme, it will detract from pure research without much obvious benefit. Missions already launched won't feel the squeeze — including Messenger, which is due to arrive at Mercury in 2011, and the Cassini craft, which should release a probe down to one of Saturn's moons, Titan, in January. But plans for spacecraft to study black holes and dark matter have been put on hold, conceivably delaying our discovery of wormholes and pockets of alien life in far reaches of the Universe. Unless, of course, ET calls us first.
Louis Friedman
Executive director, Planetary Society
“I'd wish to find out if there is life on Mars; perhaps martians can be detected by a whiff of their farts.”
If you're looking for extraterrestrial life, then Mars is a great place to start. Tantalizing discoveries this year meant that the possibility of finding microbial life — ancient or contemporary — on the red planet once again came to the fore.
Earth-based telescopes and Mars Express — a European mission sent to orbit the planet — detected the presence of methane in the martian atmosphere. As methane is a short-lived gas, researchers say that this must have been produced within the past 300 years or so. With no known active volcanoes on the planet to generate the gas, this has left researchers “twitching and excited” about the possibility of contemporary microbes as the source, says Buick.
Is there a way to find out if the methane comes from life? Buick suggests that we now look for traces of hydrogen sulphide — another gas commonly produced by biological activity. If sufficient volumes of hydrogen sulphide are coupled with the leaking methane, it would suggest that subsurface life is producing the gases, he says. Mars Express did see hints of hydrogen sulphide, but these measurements have not been confirmed.
For the French government to take on board scientists' proposals for the future of research, so that France once again becomes an attractive destination for young scientists. Alain Trautmann, cell biologist and leader of Save Research, an unprecedented scientific revolt against French government policies and science funding
NASA's martian rover, Opportunity, also found clues to add to the growing body of evidence that Mars once held liquid water: marks in rock that looked as though they had made by ripples; sulphate and other deposits that seemed to have been left when a briny pool evaporated; and tiny spherical rocks that probably formed as minerals precipitated out of water bubbles. Sadly Europe's equivalent lander, Beagle 2 — the only one explicitly designed to look for signs of life — didn't survive the trip to the planet's surface.
Roger Buick
Geologist, University of Washington, Seattle
“For legal enforcement of the Hippocratic oath ‘first, do no harm’ to ensure that all physicians and researchers are held accountable if they violate ethical standards.”
Every year has its share of people who lie, steal, cheat or fall prey to subtler ethical slip-ups in the lab.
Although 2004 wasn't the worst of recent years, an array of scientists were nevertheless accused of plagiarism, fraud and other misbehaviour. Even the editors of journals confessed to the occasional ethical slip-up in their publishing practices — such as asking authors to add specific references to their papers to boost the journal's impact factor. As a result, one association of medical journals, at least, has drawn up a code of good practice for themselves to keep things in line, which came into force this month.
The pharmaceutical industry came under attack when GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was accused of suppressing results of clinical trials that suggested some antidepressants could increase the risk of suicidal behaviours in children. Rules were changed in the United States to ensure that these drugs were labelled with a warning, and that more data would generally be made available for public scrutiny. Twelve leading international medical journals decided that companies would have to register details of clinical trials in a public database if they want to have their results published. This, they hope, will redress the fact that only trials with positive results tend to be published or aired in public. GSK also promised to put summaries of its clinical-trial data for marketed drugs online for free — and has begun to do so.
The physical sciences suffered some unusual problems as well: staff were fired from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico after some classified computer-storage devices disappeared, forcing the lab to shut down for weeks for a security review.
And one of this year's science highlights — the successful cloning of human embryos in South Korea — was clouded by suspicions that one of the lab's researchers was the source of some of the eggs; usually considered to be ethically unacceptable. Lab chief Woo Suk Hwang at Seoul National Laboratory put his work on hold after the accusations hit. A national bioethics law that comes into effect in January 2005 may help to sort out future issues.
Vera Sharav
President, Alliance for Human Research Protection, New York.
“For the United States to trump Europe and the rest of the world by announcing a successor to the Manhattan and Apollo projects: a bold initiative to decarbonize the energy system within five decades.”
More uninterrupted thinking time. Chris Rapley, director, British Antarctic Survey
If anyone has just cause to raise champagne glasses this New Year, it's the climate community. Researchers made significant progress in understanding the nature of past, present and future climate change (see Highlights, page 945). And after years of haggling, this autumn saw the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, ratify the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, finally establishing it as a legally binding international agreement. The Russian decision signalled much-needed political support for the push to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions — support that seemed very far away this time last year. But, Rahmstorf and others note, the world will need more than Kyoto — preferably an effort with the United States fully involved — to get carbon dioxide emissions in check.
A brightly coloured parrot that sits on my shoulder and every time I look at new data it screeches in my ear: ‘But what does this really mean and is it important?’ Brandon Wainwright, human geneticist, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Australia
One scheme spurred on by the Kyoto Protocol looks set to make an impact in 2005: the idea of trading permits to emit carbon dioxide. About twice as many ‘CO2 equivalents’ swapped hands in 2004 as in 2003. By January 2005, Europe's Emissions Trading Scheme will be in place, making carbon a government-regulated asset. Observers hope that giving emissions reductions a financial value will spur companies to cut down on their atmospheric garbage — even in countries that have not signed Kyoto, such as the United States. But no one yet knows if it will really reduce overall emissions.
Meanwhile, Hollywood's blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow gave the public a vivid snapshot of abrupt climate change, when it portrayed the entire Northern Hemisphere freezing solid in a matter of days. That may be a ridiculous exaggeration of what could happen in real life, but science continues to uncover evidence that dramatic temperature swings have occurred in the distant past, taking place over thousands or even hundreds of years. This year, for instance, researchers found hints of a warm Arctic climate in the Cretaceous period some 70 million years ago. Data from samples taken during this year's Arctic Coring Expedition may soon tell us how the North Pole once turned into a mild Mediterranean basin.
Stefan Rahmstorf
Climate modeller, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany
“A big budget Hollywood movie epic that will make scientists the new idols of today's youth, causing a burst of interest in careers in science. Back off, rock stars, TV actors and athletes!”
If The Day After Tomorrow wasn't good enough for Collins, there's plenty to look forward to — perhaps with mixed feelings. Among the films due out in 2005 is Fantastic Four, in which a group of astronauts gain superpowers after being exposed to cosmic radiation. Also set to hit the screens is the cult classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which a spaceship with an improbability drive can do the seemingly impossible (as long as it knows how improbable it is). And in a new version of War of the Worlds, we will be treated to Tom Cruise's portrayal of life as a scientist. The gulf between celluloid and reality looks unlikely to be bridged any time soon, although even fantasy is sure to spark some interest in science — of a sort.
Francis Collins
Director, National Human Genome Research Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
“Very high on my wish list of discoveries for 2005 would be the development of a molecule that would elicit broadly reactive neutralizing antibodies against HIV.”
A bonfire of much of the idiotic new health and safety regulations that say I am supposed to put on a space suit before I can enter the animal house to study my chickens. Steven Rose, neuroscientist, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.
Those attending July's XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, heard one refrain repeated over and over: we have the tools to treat the epidemic — but they're not reaching the majority of the 39 million people living with HIV. The epidemic is deeply entrenched in sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than 60% of people with HIV; and it threatens to take off in Russia and China, as well as India, which has the second highest number of HIV infections. But the antiretroviral medications that could treat patients are still too costly for most to afford. Faced with this daunting prospect, leaders are calling for preventative treatments that can stop the spread of AIDS once and for all.
But progress on an AIDS vaccine is slow. Although there are at least a dozen vaccines in clinical trials, researchers do not have high hopes that any will completely prevent people from contracting HIV. Many experts are convinced that what is needed to meet this goal is a vaccine that will stimulate antibodies that recognize and neutralize all forms of HIV. Structural biologists are now hard at work trying to identify these ‘broadly neutralizing’ antibodies.
Anthony Fauci
Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland
“We are facing increasing risk of new emerging infections. I wish for constant vigilance, and for the resources to combat this threat with good science, surveillance and public policy based on science not politics.”
A time controller. This would allow — at least subjectively — the flow of time to be increased, decreased or stopped. I believe some drugs have this effect! Arthur C. Clarke Science-fiction author
Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, may now seem like a distant threat, with no new cases so far this winter. But there are other viruses to worry about. This year, bird flu led to the death by disease or slaughter of tens of millions birds in countries across southeast Asia, and it killed at least 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam.
Evidence has emerged that the viral strain of greatest concern, H5N1, is present in pigs in China — an animal that could provide the perfect place for bird and human viruses to meet and mix, producing a lethal, highly transmissible version. Alarmingly, H5N1 seems to have passed from person to person in one case, when a Thai girl probably passed the disease to her mother. If the virus adapts to pass more easily between people, a deadly pandemic similar to those in the twentieth century is likely.
“The next pandemic is inevitable. In fact it's overdue,” says David Ho, an infectious-disease expert at Rockefeller University in New York. And surveillance and healthcare systems in the developing countries may not be able to cope, he says.
Paul Tam
Acting pro-vice-chancellor, University of Hong Kong
“Five minutes with Charles Darwin. Or, failing that, a modern genomics laboratory for the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos.”
To find an organism in ocean sampling that would help to eliminate the world's dependency on carbon-based fuels. Craig Venter, head, J. Craig Venter Science Foundation, Rockville, Maryland
The Galapagos Islands are a living laboratory for studying evolution, and naturalists have been drawn there for more than a century. The islands once helped spark revolutionary theories about evolution, but experts say that the archipelago's Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz now desperately needs better equipment to keep pace with twenty-first-century genetics — and to unravel some remaining mysteries of evolution.
Biologists tend to assume that evolutionary changes arise from rare genetic mutations becoming fixed in a species population thanks to environmental pressures. But, says Willard, changes on the Galapagos Islands seem to be happening too quickly for this to be the only mechanism at work. More dramatic, large-scale genomic changes may be occurring as a result of coupling between different subspecies, he says. But until a ‘Galapagos revisited’ project does thorough genomic studies, we won't know what's really going on at the DNA level, he says.
Such genetic studies have already proved useful for some of the lonelier species on the islands. An analysis of tortoises helped to find the best potential subspecies match for Lonesome George — a giant tortoise thought to be the last of his line on the island of Pinta. George has not yet been introduced to any of these chosen females, but scientists are hoping that he won't ignore them in the same way that he has rejected the other potential mates now in his enclosure.
Hunt Willard
Geneticist, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
“A spell check for English (Euro-speak) to add to my computer languages of English (UK) and English (US). And a dictionary to go with it, so I can work out what the Euro-words actually mean.”
Coffee-breaks at European science conferences this year were alive with complaints about the increasingly difficult application process for European ‘Framework’ grants. Scientists say that the forms, riddled with neologisms such as ‘sideground’, are becoming increasingly impossible to read, let alone to fill out.
There actually is a glossary for the Framework programme (see http://fp6.cordis.lu/fp6/glossary.cfm), but sadly neither it nor the Oxford English Dictionary includes the word ‘sideground’. If you dig through the European Commission's Intellectual Property Rights Helpdesk website, you'll find that the word means “information and rights acquired in parallel with a project”.
Scientists say that the increasingly complex application forms seem to want them to prove that they will help cure Europe's economic and social ills, while doing a bit of science on the side. Writing the research project is the easy part, they say; trying to work out how to handle the political add-ons is a full-time job.
The details of the Seventh Framework Programme, to begin in 2006, will be hammered out during 2005. But it's a good bet that any wish for simplicity in the new application forms won't be granted. Researchers instead set their hopes on the creation of the planned European Research Council, which should be distanced from politics in Brussels.
Anon
“A definitive cure in gene therapy for some sort of routine disorder that's applicable to a large number of other diseases.”
This year, the gene-therapy field began regrouping after a difficult period — and received a shot in the arm from a young technology called RNA interference.
In France, authorities allowed Alain Fischer of the Necker Hospital in Paris to restart a gene-therapy trial that had been on hold for almost two years. The trial uses gene therapy to cure children who have the fatal condition X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID), which leaves sufferers unable to fight off infections. But it and other SCID gene-therapy trials around the world have been on hold since last January because Fischer's treatment caused cancer in two out of eleven children.
Now, regulatory authorities in France and elsewhere have decided that the SCID trials can resume, because the alternative — bone-marrow transplants — isn't always successful. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has likewise decided to allow at least one trial to go ahead.
But will gene therapy prove successful? Enter RNA interference, a technique that takes advantage of natural human defence mechanisms and that many researchers think could deliver the first full cure in molecular medicine. Biotechnology companies seem to agree; this year, two of them — Sirna Therapeutics in Boulder, Colorado, and Acuity Pharmaceuticals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — filed applications with the FDA to begin clinical trials using RNA interference to treat macular degeneration, a progressive eye disease.
They are likely to be joined next year by Alnylam Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Researchers at this firm have already demonstrated that RNA interference can be used to cut cholesterol in mice. A cholesterol-lowering treatment would be blockbuster for RNA interference, but that is still years away.
In the immediate future, look for more clinical trials in 2005 — including some using RNA interference to combat hepatitis C or HIV.
Mark Kay
Gene-therapy researcher, Stanford University
“I'd like to be able to get on with my experiments, which help people with dyslexia and Parkinson's disease, without being harassed by extremists.”
When Stein this summer decided to join the handful of UK researchers who speak publicly about the benefits of animal research, he knew he would soon be the target of animal-rights activists. “I got a continuous stream of abusive e-mails,” he sighs. One read: “What is the difference between a Nazi and a vivisector? Answer: nothing.”
Stein and his colleague Tipu Aziz decided to speak up after activists scored two notable victories. In January, protests helped to force the University of Cambridge to abandon plans for a primate research centre. Six months later, the building contractor working on a new animal house at Oxford pulled out.
Both Stein and Aziz knew that taking a stand could be dangerous. In the past, at least, activists have gone beyond threats: supporters of animal research have been attacked with baseball bats and had letter bombs posted to their homes.
A firm commitment by the European Commission to earmark enough money for the European Research Council, no matter whether the research budget will be doubled or not. Erwin Neher, biophysicist, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany
But the close of 2004 finds the pair cautiously optimistic. Activists have now been portrayed as terrorists by some sections of the media, and their often militant approach has been exposed by undercover journalists. And in November, Oxford won a court injunction barring protestors from the immediate vicinity of the proposed site for its animal house. Stein and Aziz say that the threats they receive have now almost petered out.
They are also confident that the public is behind them — thanks in part to a strange experience Stein had at a Royal Institution event on nutrition and neuroscience this September. Stein and his brother Rick, a famous chef in Britain, co-hosted the event. They found themselves harassed by activists dressed in animal suits shouting that John was a “monkey torturer”. But when police arrived, says John, they ended up having to protect the protestors from members of the public, rather than the Stein brothers from the protestors. Enraged, the public had turned on the picketers.
The recipe for a good 2005, say Stein and Aziz, would include more support from their university and fellow researchers in their efforts to explain why animal research is needed. Equally importantly, it would also involve the resumption of building work on Oxford's animal facility, which has been on hold since July. The university insists a new contractor will be found. But as Nature went to press, no builder had been named.
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All I want for 2005 is.... Nature 432, 943–946 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/432942a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/432942a
