Newsbriefs ----------------------------- Yau elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences ----------------------------- 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." ------------------------------ Non-surgical test may help detect, fight prostate cancer ------------------------------ 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." ---------------------------------- International conference to focus on Shoemaker-Levy 9, Jupiter ---------------------------------- 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. -------------------------------- Sophomore Drew Levy wins first Homewood House essay contest -------------------------------- 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. --------------------------------- Rain, cold dampen Spring Fair crowds, but Luau still a success --------------------------------- 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."