Late yesterday police charged Amy Bishop, a biology professor, in the shooting of three colleagues at the University of Alabama’s Huntsville campus. A university spokesman has said that the shooting claimed the lives of Gopi K. Podila, the chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences, as well as faculty members Maria Ragland Davis and Adriel Johnson. Several other faculty members remain in critical condition.

Bishop’s work in neuroscience involves the study of nitric oxide as a signaling compound. Media reports have indicated that she had been denied tenure Friday morning.

While the circumstances relating to the shooting remain unclear at this time, the fact that tenure has emerged as a possible issue relating to the incident brings to mind its changing characteristics within the biological sciences. Findings from a report by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) were highlighted in a 2007 Nature Neuroscience editorial, which noted that “[t]he percentage of PhD biologists holding tenure-track positions has decreased[,] from 46% in 1981 to less than 30%.” A more recent study from the National Research Council found that while women considered for tenure receive it at the same or higher rates than men, they are underrepresented in the initial applicant pool.

Whether or not the shootings in Alabama had anything to do with tenure discussions, I imagine that the horribly tragic events that unfolded on the university campus yesterday will rekindle discussions about the nature of employment in biomedicine.