Experts on Smell and Taste Elected to National Academy of Sciences

May 5, 2003

Three NIDCD-supported researchers--two experts on smell and one expert on taste--were named to the National Academy of Sciences on April 29 during its 140th annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The three researchers are among 72 scientists to be inducted as members into the Academy this year, 17 of whom are women. It is the highest number of women ever to be inducted. Election to membership in the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer.

Dr. Cornelia I. Bargmann is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and professor and vice chair of the anatomy department at the University of California, San Francisco. Bargmann is investigating sense of smell in the nematode to determine how the nervous system influences behavior. Dr. Linda M. Bartoshuk is a professor in the departments of surgery and psychology at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut. Bartoshuk studies genetic variation in such areas as taste perception, oral pain, and taste disorders. Dr. Linda B. Buck is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and principal investigator in the department of neurobiology of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington. Her research focuses on the mechanisms by which hundreds of odorant receptors combine with one another to identify thousands of odors.

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