Sibs

Sibs is an American sitcom broadcast by ABC from September 17, 1991 until May 6, 1992. The series chronicled the relationship of three sisters, and the support the youngest two especially needed from their eldest married sister. Sibs was created by Heide Perlman and executived produced by Perlman, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon, all of whom had been showrunners of Fox's The Tracey Ullman Show. The series was backed by Brooks' Gracie Films company and Columbia Pictures Television.

Synopsis

Sibs starred veteran actress Marsha Mason as Nora Ruscio, a successful accountant and Alex Rocco as her long-suffering husband, Howie. The source of most of Howie's frustration was his wife's younger sisters (the siblings, or "sibs", of the title), Audie (Margaret Colin) and Lily (Jami Gertz). Audie was a real estate agent and hence almost unemployed in the era's weak market; she was also recovering from a recent bout of alcoholism. Lily had just been dumped by her boyfriend, who had fled to Germany without her, and had a host of other problems. Both sisters brought all of their problems to Nora, continuing a pattern that had apparently begun when they were all children. In the beginning of the pilot, Nora was distraught after just having learned that the head of her accounting firm had died. Nora's late boss had left the firm to his boorish, whiny nephew Warren Morris (Dan Castellaneta), who was another ongoing character. Shortly after inheriting his uncle's firm, Warren had fired Nora, only to learn that she was the one most of the client base had trusted, and that most of them left with her. He was now unemployed and constantly begging Nora for a job.

Salk Institute for Biological Studies

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is an independent, non-profit, scientific research institute located in La Jolla, California. It was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine; among the founding consultants were Jacob Bronowski and Francis Crick. Building did not start until spring of 1962. The institute consistently ranks among the top institutions in the US in terms of research output and quality in the life sciences. In 2004, the Times Higher Education Supplement ranked Salk as the world's top biomedicine research institute, and in 2009 it was ranked number one globally by ScienceWatch in the neuroscience and behavior areas.

The institute employs 850 researchers in 60 research groups and focuses its research in three areas: molecular biology and genetics; neurosciences; and plant biology. Research topics include cancer, diabetes, birth defects, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, AIDS, and the neurobiology of American Sign Language. The March of Dimes provided the initial funding and continues to support the institute. Current research is funded by a variety of organizations, such as the NIH, the HHMI and private organizations such as Paris-based Ipsen and the Waitt Family Foundation. In addition, the internally administered Innovation Grants Program encourages cutting-edge high-risk research. The institute appointed genome biologist Eric Lander and stem cell biologist Irving Weissman as non-resident fellows in November 2009.