COMMENTARY

Change your choice? Extending axons Artery-vein segregation

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LETTERS
edited by Jennifer Sills

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LETTERS I BOOKS I POLICY FORUM I EDUCATION FORUM I PERSPECTIVES

Life-Long Learning for Physicians

IN THEIR EDITORIAL (SCIENCE FOR FUTURE PHYSICIANS, 5 JUNE, p. 1241), S. Long and R. Alpern emphasized that graduate medical education must keep pace with advancing technology. Practicing physicians and surgeons responsible for current patient care also need continual education in stateof-the-art biomedical and biotechnology research. A recent review of the recertification results for the American Board of Surgery demonstrated that examinees who were about 30 years out of training were less successful in their examinations than those closer to their time of training (1). The up-to-date scientific knowledge

KAMRAN AHMED* AND HUTAN ASHRAFIAN

Department of Biosurgery and Surgical Technology, Imperial College London, London W2 1NY, UK. *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: k.ahmed@imperial.ac.uk

Reference
1. J. Buyske, Arch. Surg. 144, 101 (2009).

Make Room for Computing

ALTHOUGH P. PEVZNER AND R. SHAMIR, AS WELL as the Bio2010 project, are right about the importance of computational, mathematical, and modeling skills for the next generation of biologists (Computing has changed biologybiology education must catch up, Education Forum, 31 July, p. 541), they ignore the realities of the modern biology curriculum and student learning. Specifically, it is unlikely that a single course can achieve the goal they desire. Computational and modeling mastery is not a trivial topic to append to a curriculum. Moreover, there is no surplus of student credit hours to absorb the courses needed. To introduce new topics in a pedagogically realistic manner, departments will have to restructure currently required courses. This will involve redesigning base biology courses to emphasize the relevance and application of modeling and computational skills, particularly given the observation that many biology students are actively mathphobic. Developing true expertise will require student credit hours.

Where will they come from? One possibility is to redirect credit hours associated with medical school admission (but largely irrelevant to most biologists). Whatever the source, it is clear that programs need to reconsider where our limited resources are currently being spent. We cannot afford to waste the students time on irrelevant or ineffectual courses.
MICHAEL W. KLYMKOWSKY
Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and CU Teach STEM Education Certification Program, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA. E-mail: michael. klymkowsky@colorado.edu

News Story on Italys MIT Disappoints

WE WERE SURPRISED BY THE TONE AND CONtent of the News of the Week story by L. Margottini about the new Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) (Italys MIT grows, and so does controversy, 19 June, p. 1502). The remark that international competition was ignored in recruiting IIT scientists is patently false. IIT, at its inception in 2005, set
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up international competitions for both senior and junior investigators. These positions were advertised widely in scientific journals, including Science and Nature. As a result of this international search, four of the six appointed IIT research directors come from abroad, and among junior appointments, onethird are Italians returning from abroad, onethird are Italians already residing in Italy, and one-third are foreigners. Also untrue is Margottinis reported concern that IITs scientific roster includes big names who do not do the bulk of their work at IIT. Recently appointed senior scientists might continue working at a previous institution for some time while their laboratory space at IIT is refurbished and equipment is ordered. However, after this setup period they do their work onsite. Margottinis story is largely based on a report written by Mario Rasetti and Elio Raviola, who visited the institute on 6 June 2007, barely 11 months after the first directors were selected, and before any labs were operational. The IIT laboratories started in a 25,000-m2 facility that was first made avail-

CREDIT: ISTOCKPHOTOS.COM

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of such a group can be fundamentally improved by mandatory scientific training sessions throughout their professional careers. The ever-expanding knowledge in medicine and the everchanging technology in treatments requires practitioners to constantly educate themselves in their specific fields. Current methods to address this include Continuing Medical Education (CME) exercises with Maintenance of Certification (MoC). Along with the modification of the Medical College Admissions Test, substantial resources should be diverted to scientific education and skills training for specialists. This will ultimately result in improved patient care.

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able in January 2006. As such, Rasetti and Raviolas report was documenting a work in progress and was designed to monitor the early stages of the Institutes development. Their report reflects problems typical of the birth of new institutions. Nonetheless, the report was regarded, on balance, as positive, and IIT was indeed given continued support. The News story does not mention the substantial progress achieved by IIT in the past 2 years. After the review by Rasetti and Raviola, an independent international advisory board made an onsite evaluation of IIT in December 2008 and a general assessment in May 2009; both gave IIT a ringing endorsement. The May 2009 report concludes that [i]n general, both the accomplishments of the past three years and the future plans seem excellent (R. Horvitz, Nobel Laureate), and that [t]he IIT initiative has been remarkably successfulthe quality of the new members is very high and would be competitive in all highly developed countries (P. Greengard, Nobel Laureate) (1). Like all major scientific endeavors, IIT has had some growing pains, but we believe it has a very bright future. The best evidence is something that Margottini overlooks in her article: Scores of excellent young Italian and foreign researchers have returned to Italy or come to Italy for the first time to work at IIT.
ROBERTO CINGOLANI1* AND EMILIO BIZZI2
1Italian

Institute of Technology, 16163 Genova, Italy. Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
2McGovern

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: roberto.cingolani@unile.it

requests. Finally, the more recent independent assessments cited in the letter are from IITs ongoing advisory committee that, according to IIT, collaborates with the President, the Scientific Director and the Executive Committee on setting budgets and research agendas. The article does not assert that the IIT is a failure, but concludes rather that the young institute remains controversial within Italy. LAURA MARGOTTINI

Reference
1. E. Bizzi et al., Evaluation report of Technical and Scientific Committee of the IIT-Foundation (9 May 2009).

Conflicting Data About Dyslexias Cause

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J. D. E. GABRIELI (DYSLEXIA: A NEW SYNERGY between education and cognitive neuroscience, Review, 17 July, p. 280) mentions that dyslexia could be the result of a deficit in the magnocellular part of the visual system. He cites only a few corroborating studies and provides no counterexamples. In doing so, he risks leaving the reader with the impression that the support for a magnocellular deficit in dyslexia is solid. However, the data are conflicting and do not point unequivocally to a magnocellular

Response
THE NEWS STORY NOTED BOTH IITS SUCcesses, including positive committee reviews, and criticisms from several sources, on ongoing issues such as conflict of interests, lack of industrial partners, and management structure. While Cingolani and Bizzi may consider Raviola and Rasettis report positive, Rasettis comments suggest otherwise, and Cingolani acknowledges that IIT was never given the full report; Italys Treasury Department has not made it public despite

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deficit (1). For example, an extensive review of data from tests of contrast sensitivity (which is arguably the most direct and bestestablished psychophysical test of magnocellular activity) found that many studies have detected no evidence for such impairments (2). Indeed, the review found that there are more studies with results inconsistent with a magnocellular deficiency than studies whose data are consistent with such deficits. Studies of visually evoked potentials provide another example; one study (3) found support for magnocellular deficits, whereas two studies (4, 5) were unable to replicate these findings. Gabrieli seeks to link magnocellular deficits to impaired processing of rapidly changing visual stimuli. One review (6) has shown that many tests are poorly suited to assess temporal processing and that the better tests have yielded results that conflict or provide little support for an impairment.
JOHN R. SKOYLES* AND BERNT C. SKOTTUN
Centre for Mathematics and Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology (CoMPLEX), University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK. *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: j.skoyles@ucl.ac.uk

References
1. G. T. Lueder et al., Pediatrics 124, 837 (2009). 2. B. C. Skottun, Vision Res. 40, 111 (2000). 3. M. S. Livingstone, G. D. Rosen, F. W. Drislane, A. M. Galaburda, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 88, 7943 (1991). 4. J. D. Victor, M. M. Conte, L. Burton, R. D. Nass, Visual Neurosci. 10, 939 (1993). 5. S. Johannes, C. L. Kussmaul, T. F. Munthe, G. R. Mangun, Neuropsychologia 34, 1123 (1996). 6. B. C. Skottun, J. R. Skoyles, J. Clin. Exp. Neuropsychol. 30, 666 (2008).

Letters (~300 words) discuss material published in Science in the previous 3 months or issues of general interest. They can be submitted through the Web (www.submit2science.org) or by regular mail (1200 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20005, USA). Letters are not acknowledged upon receipt, nor are authors generally consulted before publication. Whether published in full or in part, letters are subject to editing for clarity and space.

Heretical DNA Sequences?

WHEN GENOMIC CLUES TO DNA TREASURE sometimes lead nowhere (D. Monroe, News

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Letters to the Editor

Focus, 10 July, p. 142), the apparent impasse should indeed stimulate more subtle interpretation. Exceptions to the conservation equals function rule for sequence evolution are heretical only when mutations are expected to occur at random and to be rejected by selection in functional sequences while accumulating unchecked elsewhere. However, that simplistic view is untenable (1). Intragenomic, site-specific mutation rates vary across orders of magnitude. Sequences critical for adaptation may well have higher-than-average mutation rates, leading to rapid divergence even among closely related species. For example, Riley and Krieger (2, 3) recently described a set of simple sequence repeats (SSRs) that have been retained over deep evolutionary time even though neither the repeating motif nor the number of repeats is conserved. SSRs are mutationprone stretches, once dismissed as meaningless stutters, that turn up within many functional domains. Earlier this year, Science reported experimental confirmation (4) of a decades-old prediction (5) that SSRs high mutation rates could promote efficient evolutionary adaptation. The SSRs

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discovered by Riley and Krieger are flanked by highly conserved upstream sequences within the untranslated regions of 22 genes, all but one of which have neurodevelopmental roles. These SSRs display recurring patterns of motif replacement across a wide range of vertebrates. Some function is evidently being preserved in the repetitive (and hypermutable) nature of these sites, one which can persist through, or perhaps even exploit, the accumulation of sequencetransforming mutations. Genome treasure-hunters should expect the unexpected; additional gems surely remain buried within nonconserved sequences.
DAVID G. KING AND YECHEZKEL KASHI*
Departments of Anatomy and Zoology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA. Department of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, The TechnionIsrael Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel. *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kashi@tx.technion.ac.il

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

Reviews: Strategic reading, ontologies, and the future of scientific publishing by A. H. Renear and C. L. Palmer (14 August, p. 828). There was an error in the key of Fig. 1. The label for the blue line should read Total MEDLINE abstracts 102 instead of Total MEDLINE abstracts. The figure has been corrected in the HTML version of the article online. Letters: Open access: Increased citations not guaranteed by P. M. Davis (17 July, p. 266). The page number in reference 3 was incorrect. The correct reference is: P. M. Davis et al., BMJ 337, a568 (2008).

TECHNICAL COMMENT ABSTRACTS

COMMENT ON The Arabidopsis Circadian Clock Incorporates a cADPR-Based Feedback Loop

Xiaodong Xu, Richard Graeff, Qiguang Xie, Karen L. Gamble, Tetsuya Mori, Carl Hirschie Johnson
Dodd et al. (Reports, 14 December 2007, p. 1789) reported that the Arabidopsis circadian clock incorporates the signaling molecule cyclic adenosine diphosphate ribose (cADPR). In contrast, we found that there is no rhythm of cADPR levels nor are there any significant effects on the rhythm by cADPR overexpression, thus raising questions about the conclusions of Dodd et al. Full text at www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5950/230-b

RESPONSE TO COMMENT ON The Arabidopsis Circadian Clock Incorporates a cADPR-Based Feedback Loop
Antony N. Dodd, Michael J. Gardner, Carlos T. Hotta, Katharine E. Hubbard, Neil Dalchau, Fiona C. Robertson, John Love, Dale Sanders, Alex A. R. Webb
Xu et al. were unable to measure circadian oscillations of cyclic adenosine diphosphate ribose (cADPR). Their experiments showing very low concentrations of cADPR lack appropriate controls, which suggests that technical limitations might explain their negative result. Xu et al. also report that chemically induced ADP ribosyl cyclase did not alter clock function, which exactly replicates our findings. Full text at www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5950/230-c

References
1. D. King, Y. Kashi, Nat. Rev. Genet. 8, 10.1038/nrg2158-c1 (2007). 2. D. E. Riley, J. N. Krieger, Gene 429, 74 (2009). 3. D. E. Riley, J. N. Krieger, Gene 429, 80 (2009). 4. M. Vinces et al., Science 324, 1213 (2009). 5. E. N. Trifonov, Bull. Math. Biol. 51, 417 (1989).

From Genes to Proteins:

The Impact of Gene Sequence on Translation and Expression

WEBINAR
Wednesday October 28, 2009
Join our panel of experts in a live discussion about our current understanding of how and why gene coding sequences inuence protein expression. Submit your questions live! Register at www.sciencemag.org/webinar

Participating Experts:
Joshua Plotkin, Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Mark Welch, Ph.D. DNA2.0 Menlo Park, CA Third speaker to be announced

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