Science group selects 2 from IU for fellowships

Of the elite groups of intelligentsia that exist in the United States, the selective American Association for the Advancement of Science is top tier for scientists to claim fellowship. This year, IU scientists Curt Lively, an evolutionary biologist, and David Williams, an organic chemist, made the cut. Their fellowship nominations bring IU's number of living AAAS fellows up to 42 -- a number higher than any other institution in Indiana. Of these 42, six are biologists and 12 are chemists.\nAAAS fellowships are awarded based on individual efforts to advance science or its applications, particularly those deemed scientifically or socially distinguished. Founded in 1848, the AAAS currently serves over 262 affiliated societies and academies of science and nearly 10 million individuals. Though membership is open to all, prestigious fellowships are nominations bestowed on members by their peers.\nOf this year's 308 new fellows, whose names will be published in the November issue of Science, Lively and Williams are in good company, brain-wise. They join a group of scientists that includes many Nobel Prize winners -- including six recently awarded this October -- National Science Board members that serve on a national committee, and more. Lively's fellowship was awarded for his work in parasite-host co-evolution and the selective advantage of cross-fertilization. This work has defined most of Lively's 14-year career at IU, and has taken him as far as New Zealand to gather data based on native snails potamopyrgus antipodarum.\n"The advantage to producing variable progeny through cross-fertilization is still largely unknown, and that intrigues me," Lively said. "I think a great deal of progress has been made, but happily, there is much to do. Plus I also get to do field work in New Zealand's southern Alps. That's hard to beat."\nLively's experiments with the snails suggest that asexual (or clonal) reproduction is favored when parasites are rare, while sexual reproduction is favored when parasites are virulent. His work so far lines up with the popular evolutionary theory "The Red Queen hypothesis," which says that in co-evolved interactions, an evolutionary change by one species could lead to the extinction of another -- either a predator or a parasite -- and that the probability of such changes might be independent of species age. To stay alive, the theory says, species have to "run" (evolve) in order to just stay in one place. The theory was named from a famous scene in Lewis Carrol's "Alice in Wonderland" where Alice runs as hard as she can to simply stay in place next to the Red Queen.\nWilliams' work revolves around structurally unique, and often recently discovered, biologically active natural products like terpenes, alkaloids and antibiotics. His lab's ultimate purpose is to prepare complex substances for the development of new pharmaceuticals, and many of his lab's work has led to better understandings of the drug interactions of complex antibiotics -- as well as a few antibiotics themselves.\nHe pulls a bottle of yellow liquid from a box with a sunset and a galloping horse on the front. It's ivermectin, sold commercially as Eqvalan, and it's widely used as a shot for horses. It's also a substance Williams studied around the time he joined IU's faculty in 1981.\n"It's neat that we worked on that so long ago. We can say, 'Hey, we made that,'" Williams said. "The things I'm working on now are so far out there that they may not become drugs for another 20 years."\nWilliams' interest in organic chemistry sprung from an early talent in the field as an undergraduate that led him to pursue chemical research and teaching in a university setting. Now samples of compounds created by his research group's work are shipped everywhere, from Eli Lilly and Company to the National Institutes of Health. Virtually every company in the United States has requested samples of Williams' work at some point, he said.\n"(This work) is a tremendous challenge, and it takes a lot of energy to do it," Williams said. "It's a mental grind. But one of the positive things is that you're reminded that you've made an important contribution."\nWilliams finds his career's satisfaction in his students, lab members and the tangible fruits of his labors, but he admits the addition of an AAAS fellowship to his list of honors is a nice touch.\n-- Contact health and science editor Kelly Phillips at kephilli@indiana.edu.