Of the half million students from foreign countries studying in the United States, the largest proportion originate from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. China is among the top six countries of origin of foreign-born scientists and engineers employed in the U.S. Like many similar institutions, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the world-renowned center for cancer and genetics research in Long Island, New York, has benefited greatly from this influx of talented Chinese students and postdoctoral fellows. Now Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press has published a book and a talking website intended to build confidence among Chinese speakers in the specialized English language terms required for work in biomedical research laboratories.

"An Illustrated Chinese-English Guide for Biomedical Scientists" was written by scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Maryland, Weidong Wu, Yuh-Chin Huang, Xinchao Wang, and James Samet. Frustrated by frequent interruptions to laboratory discussions caused by confusion over the meaning of common scientific terms, they conceived the idea of a portable, practical, look-up guide much like the field guides to birdlife invented by Roger Tory Peterson. Their book has two main components: illustrations of laboratory equipment used for tasks like measuring, culturing, and separating; and a list of technical terms commonly used in laboratory life. Each tool and term is named in both simple and complex Chinese. The book also contains useful travel information for visitors to the U.S. And on an associated website (http://chinese-english.cshl.org), each of the English terms used in the book can be listened to, as an aid to learning pronounciation.

Dr John Inglis, Executive Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, comments: "We were delighted when Dr Samet and his colleagues approached us with the idea for the book, which we are confident will be a very valua
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Contact: Ingrid Benirschke
benirsch@cshl.edu
619-275-6021
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
19-Aug-2004

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