Two Brown scientists named AAAS Fellows

David Cane, professor of chemistry, and Johanna (Annie) Schmitt, professor of biology, were among the 348 scientists named this year.

by Cynthia Ferguson

The American Association for the Advancement of Science recently announced the election of two Brown scientists as AAAS Fellows, a highly regarded distinction in the field of science.

The announcement was made in the Oct. 31 issue of Science, the organization's prestigious journal. David Cane, professor of chemistry, and Johanna (Annie) Schmitt, professor of biology, were among the 348 scientists named this year.

"These individuals have been elevated to this rank because of their efforts to advance science or applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished," noted the AAAS in its press release.

Cane calls the honor particularly meaningful because AAAS Fellows are both nominated and elected by their peers. "It means someone's reading your papers," he laughs.

Cane's work - often conducted with collaborators here and at other institutions - centers on the way nature makes certain antibiotics, vitamins and flavor/aroma compounds. Through his research, Cane seeks to understand the complex biochemical pathways that produce these naturally occurring substances by determining exactly what these structures are and how microorganisms and plants put them together.

The work has important implications. Understanding the intricate programming behind the formation of these structures will allow scientists to manipulate them, ultimately producing variations or derivatives of the naturally occurring substances. By altering the pathways that produce these compounds, scientists may well be able to develop novel drugs that are more effective or cause fewer undesirable side effects. Cane and a colleague at Stanford University, Chaitan Khosla, have devoted considerable time to the study of erythromycin, a widely used antibiotic.

Although Cane thinks of himself primarily as an "organic chemist," he concedes that his work often falls between the fields of chemistry and biology. "The boundaries have been blurred," he says. "That's the nature of a lot of science these days."

Cane has in fact found himself toiling in literary fields as well. This past year a book he edited - a collection of World War II letters written by his father, Lawrence Cane - was published by Fordham University Press. "Fighting Fascism in Europe" won high praise from critics, including New York Times' Andrew Carroll who called the letters "as close to perfection as they come."

Schmitt was recognized by the AAAS for her work exploring the adaptive evolution of plant responses to changing environments. By manipulating light and density of growth, Schmitt and her team have been able to show the adaptive value of "shade avoidance responses" in crowded plants. They found, for example, that jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) plants can use the quality of light reflected from neighbors as a cue of future competition.

Natural selection favors plants that respond to this cue by developing a morphology that will enhance fitness in the environment they experience - growing tall and skinny in dense stands to compete for light, but elongating less and investing more in leaves at low density.

Schmitt's team also looks at mechanisms of adaptation to seasonal environments in weeds that grow in diverse climates. By studying natural variation in the genetic model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, scientists like Schmitt can now identify the specific genes that contribute to these evolutionary mechanisms.

Taking Arabidopsis plants out of the lab into natural environments, Schmitt's group has found that natural selection favors different genetic variants in different geographic sites and seasonal environments. This work provides clues as to how plants might evolve in response to future climate change.

Schmitt says gardening is a pastime she enjoys, but admits to having a problem as a result of her work: "It just kills me to pull the weeds."

Schmitt and Cane join the following Brown faculty members who also are AAAS Fellows (list provided by AAAS):

Robert T. Beyer
Christine A. Biron
Donald S. Blough
John Coleman
Leon Cooper
Albert Dahlberg
Leon Goldstein
Richard Gould
James Head
Donald Jackson
Arthur Landy
Robert Lanou Jr.
Elizabeth Leduc
Philip Lieberman
Lewis Lipsitt
Donald Marsh
Douglass Morse
Frank Rothman
Kathryn Spoehr

The AAAS, founded in 1848, is the world's largest general federation of scientists. Its journal, Science, is a peer-reviewed weekly with nearly 140,000 individual and institutional subscribers.