Reporter Volume 26, No.9 November 3, 1994

By STEVE COX
Reporter Staff
In Linda Hall's world, work and science fiction are close neighbors.
	A professor in the Biochemical Pharmacology Department since
1989, Hall's specialty is genetic engineering, a scientific discipline
that dissects, examines and clones genes, the most basic units of
chromosomal makeup. That means at times there can be a great
similarity between the topics of her research and the latest sci-fi
thriller.
	Hers is a dedication to goals that are very long-term.
Although it may be hard to see today, Hall's research into how calcium
channels (which transmit electronic impulses through muscle fiber)
function in fruit flies could yield cures to heart disease or
Alzheimer's 10 years from now. The genetic research she does can take
years to bear fruit.
	In fact, advances in the field can come from quite unexpected
places. Did you know, for instance, that if you heat a fly to a
certain temperature, it will simply keel over, virtually paralyzed?
Not only does Hall's research team know this, they have identified the
gene in the fly's chromosomal scheme that causes it. Their research on
temperature-induced paralysis was submitted for publication just this
week.
	Hall recently received a long-term financial commitment of
close to $1 million from the National Institutes of Health. The NIH's
Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award, which virtually
assures funding for 10 years, is a prestigious and coveted prize in a
time when research funding generally is harder and harder to secure.
	"During relatively good times, only 30 percent of research
grants were ever funded," explained Hall. "Now, only 10 to 15 percent
of approved grants receive funding. That means a lot more time is
being spent writing grant applications and a lot of quality research
is not being funded."
	During Hall's professional lifetime, she has witnessed what
she calls an "absolute revolution in molecular biology." For instance,
nucleic acid research, a fundamental tool of contemporary molecular
biology research, used to scare graduate students away, Hall recalled.
"It took so long to do gene sequencing in the early '70s that you
might never earn your degree," she explained. "Today, we can do in a
day what entire labs used to dedicate years to."
	Although genetic engineering conjures images of radical
alterations to humans as we now know them, Hall points out that a
genetic researcher moves very cautiously. "The strongest species we
know of right now is Homo sapiens. The last thing we want to do is
tinker with it," she says.
	Often, the reason for a particular genetic characteristic is
not clear, even to researchers. "Take sickle cell anemia (a hereditary
blood disease that is most common among African Americans), for
instance," Hall said. "It is controlled by a gene that, in one
situation is considered a defect, causing this disease, but in another
situation is a survival tool, providing Africans with a resistance to
malaria."
	Of course, Hall does get out of the lab occasionally. An avid
runner, she is a member of the Nickel City Road Runners Club and has a
musical passion for the Appalachian Mountain dulcimer, a flat,
stringed, zither-like instrument that is plucked. She discovered it
when she lived in New York City, and formed a dulcimer players club in
Buffalo when she arrived.
	When Hall vacations, she gets about as far from a laboratory
as one can. A frequent participant in Sierra Club "adventure travel"
excursions, she has gone kayaking in Baja, Mexico and hiking in the
Sinai Desert, something that, she explained, "people tell me is what
the Israeli Army does for torture." This year, her travels took her
near the top of a 13,000-foot mountain range in the Himalayas near
Tibet.
	Before coming to UB in 1989, Hall spent 10 years at the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and, before that, six
years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.
Her summers were spent at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory,
of "Jaws" fame, on Cape Cod. Her first postdoctoral position was as a
fellow in the University of British Columbia at Vancouver Zoology
Department under the guidance of David Suzuki, who is now a well-known
scientist and celebrity on Canadian television.