Newsbriefs

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Yau elected to American   
Academy of Arts and Sciences
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     King-Wai Yau, professor of neuroscience at the School of
Medicine, is the third university faculty member to be elected
this year to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the
only member of the medical faculty.
     "King is one of the top biophysicists in the country
characterizing molecular mechanisms of vision and smell," said
Solomon Snyder, Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience,
Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences, and Psychiatry. "I suspect
that this is only the first of a number of national and
international honors that will be coming his way."


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Non-surgical test may help 
detect, fight prostate cancer  
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     Researchers at Hopkins and Matritech Inc., in Cambridge,
Mass., have developed an antibody that may offer new non-surgical
means of detecting and fighting prostate cancer.
     "A serum test using an antibody such as this might help men
avoid the unnecessary and costly prostate biopsies that are
caused by false positive results of PSA tests," said Alan Partin,
a research fellow in the Department of Urology.
     The PSA (prostate specific antigen) is a protein made by the
prostate gland. A rise in PSA levels may reflect either benign
prostate hyperplasia or cancer.
     In laboratory studies, the antibody reacted with a protein
called PC-1 in the nuclei of cancerous cells from 16 of 17
surgically removed prostate cancer specimens, said Dr. Partin,
who presented the findings of his team's work at last month's
American Urology Association meeting in Las Vegas.
     "The new antibody also could be used to specifically target
cancer cells with anti-cancer drugs," Dr. Partin said. 
"This antibody also holds great promise for helping doctors 
with cases of prostate cancer that are difficult to diagnose.
     "Sometimes there is not enough tissue on the microscope
slide, or the tissue has been damaged during handling, or doesn't
look like typical prostate cancer cells," he said. "A test based
on this antibody should make it easier to use such tissue to make
accurate diagnoses."


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International conference to focus 
on Shoemaker-Levy 9, Jupiter 
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     About 300 astronomers will meet this week during an
international workshop on the Hopkins Homewood campus to compare
notes on their observations of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's
spectacular collision with Jupiter last July.
     Astronomers gathering at the International Astronomical
Union colloquium will begin creating a coherent picture from the
vast amount of data collected by various instruments around the
world and in space. The colloquium, co-sponsored by the Space
Telescope Science Institute and Hopkins, will be held May 9 to
12. Attendance is by invitation only.


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Sophomore Drew Levy wins first             
Homewood House essay contest
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     Sophomore Drew Thomas Levy, a history major from Oxnard,
Calif., has won the $1,000 Merrick Homewood Award for his
original 1,500-word essay on the Homewood House Museum. 
     In his essay, Levy traced the relationship between the
historic building, built between about 1800 and 1806 by Charles
Carroll of Carrollton, and the university, which purchased it in
1902 along with the land that would become Hopkins' new campus.
In the presentation of his material, Levy included pages from the
undergraduate yearbook Hullabaloo, showing views of the house and
the campus from 1908 to 1932.
     The contest, open to Homewood freshmen and sophomores, was
conducted to encourage more students to get to know about the
historic mansion.


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Rain, cold dampen Spring Fair 
crowds, but Luau still a success
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     Despite a heavy, cold rain that shut down Homewood's annual
Spring Fair last Sunday, its organizers are calling Luau '95 a
success.
     "We couldn't have asked for better weather on Friday and
Saturday," said Jim Murphy ('95), co-chair of the student-run
event. "We had about 60,000 people visit the fair on Saturday."
     Before the rain canceled the event on Sunday, some 300
people finished the morning's 5K Race, which netted several
thousand dollars for Hopkins' Oncology Center.
     Students have not yet tallied a final count of the fair's
profits. But once the rain began to pour, vendors and visitors
made quick exits. The only hardy ones, said Murphy, were a few
food vendors who sold hot lunches to shivering fair workers and
to the occasional student passing through en route to the
library.
     "We're in good shape despite being closed on Sunday," said
Murphy. "It was just kind of a depressing way for it to end after
having gone so well."