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TIBS - August 1979

N 174 cation, and medical and

science research councils to boot, continue to operate national, parochial peer review systems. In Europe, for example, no country, excepting possibly the U.S.S.R., has a scientific community on the scale of that in the U.S.A.; collectively, however, the European peer group is comparable. Why aren’t peer review panels drawn from the international as well as, or rather than, the national scientific establishment? The advantages of even an element of international review would be especially valuable in the smaller countries but even the larger could benefit from the increased detachment and increased chances of finding more precisely appropriate reviewers. Journals routinely exploit the international peer group for refereeing - why don’t national funding agencies do likewise? It is the responsibility of all involved in science to ensure that the public funds made available for research are spent to best advantage for the sake of science itself, as well as for reasons of public accountability. In most countries how can it even be pretended that that is the goal if it is left to purely national peer groups to assess the scientific merit of competing claims on limited resources? None of the supposed obstacles - possible language differences, maintenance of confidentiality and so on are really insuperable given a desire to overcome them. Obviously the extent to which the international peer group was called upon would have to be matched to the importance of the decisions to be made, and since the peer review assesses comparative scientific merit there need be no question of usurping the ultimate right of any national body to decide how to distribute purely national funds. But surely it is valuable to obtain the most expert advice available, and learn how national activities rate on a world-wide scale, before reaching decisions on funding. If the pressure for such a simple innovation came from the research scientists themselves (the chief proponents and beneficiaries of peer review) it might well prove irresistible. If the peer review institution really merits its reputation, the change could hardly do any harm but it might very significantly contribute to the advancement of science at only an insignificant additional cost to the public purse. Is it not ironic that while many private research institutes nowadays take advantage of the international peer group, the assessment of the scientific merit by peer review of publicly funded basic research, the great majority of basic research, remains all too often parochial in an otherwise most cosmopolitan endeavour? JOHN TOOZE

Trendsin BiochemicalSciences PUBLISHED BY THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF BIOCHEMISTRY AND ELSEVIER NORTH/HOLLAND August 1979

Volume 4, No. 8

Contents International peer review by John Tooze The use of liposome-encapsulated drugs in leishmaniasis by Curl R.

N 173

Alving and Edgar A. Steck

N 175

Richard Kuhn, Julius Wagner-Jaurregg

and Grazia Deledda, and I by

W. E. van Heyningen

Emerging Techniques:

N 177

Two-dimensional

NMR spectroscopy

by Kurt

Wiithrich, Kuniaki Nagayama and Richard R. Ernst

N 178

Discussion Forum: Is there a significant metabolically dependent membrane potential in mitochondria? Henry Tedeschi - the case against Hagai Rottenberg - sufficient evidence already exists Letter from Washington: Why is scientific honour-giving so sloppy? by

N 182

Nicholas Wade

N 186

Unfinished Business: An unidentified activator of phosphorylase by T. G. Sotiroudis, N. G. Oikonomakos and A. E. Evangelopoulos

N 187 N 188

Textbook Errors: The structure of acetyl lipoic acid by James H. Hugeman Letters to the Editor

N 188

Reviews Yoik lipoproteins by Leonard

J. Banaszak

165,

Oxidation of cytosolic NADH formed during aerobic metabolism in mammalian cells by A. G. Dawson Guanosine tetraphosphate: coordinator of metabolic response to nitrogen starvation in enterobacteria by William A. Bridger and William

171

Paranchych

Viroids by T. 0. Diener Thermoluminescence from the oxygen-evolving

176 179

system in photosynthesis

by Yorinao Inoue and Kazuo Shibata

182 184 187

RNA-dependent RNA polymerases of plants by H. Fraenkel-Conrat The shapely cell’s cycle by Clive Lloyd Biosynthesis of lung surfactant during fetal and early postnatal development by Seamus A. Rooney 50 Years Ago: Discovery of a defect in glycogen degradation by Frans

189 192

Huijing

Book Reviews

N 192

Noticeboard

N 194

Fdib-in-Chkfz J.Tooze,

EMBO,

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Tre& fn Blockmkal Sdmcen is ublished monthly (one volume per year) by Elsevier/North-Holland Galenstraat, Amsterdam, and the Pntematioaal Union of Biochemistry. Penawl

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@ 1979 EkevierlNorth-Holland Biomedicd Press. All r&ha reserved. No port of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievd system, or transmitted in lrny form orb any meam, ekctronic, mecbanicd, photocopying, recording, or othenvke, without the prior written pemdssion of the copyright owner ondythe Inumadond Union of Biochemistry. Submission to this four& of a paper entaik the author’s irrevocabk and exclusive outborization of the publisher to colkct any sunw or considerations for copying or reproduction oyabk by third par& (as mentioned in artkk I?, pamgraph 2 of the Dutch Copyright Act of 1912 and in the Royd Decree o June 20 I974 S. 351) pursuant 4 .). p. to artick 166 of the Dutch Copyri&t Act of 1912) and/or to act in or out of Court in cow~~tion rherewith. ren& m Buxhemtcd Saencw u opofiticd. The views and opinions expressed by its writers and corrwpondents do not necessarily reflect those of the editorid board or the publirher.