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When all fails, try a new attack. That's exactly what researchers do when they use genome sequence data to develop vaccine candidates against the most difficult pathogenic adversaries. Recent efforts are revealing previously unknown microbial genes that may encode proteins important in triggering immunity. "Whole-genome data provides insight into all the features of [organisms] including access to virtually every single antigen that may provoke an immune response," explains Michael Gottlieb, pa

Courtesy Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Just how important are vitamins and minerals in influencing resistance to infectious diseases? Some of the best current answers to that question will be offered in a supplement to the Journal of Infectious Diseases appearing later this year. The special publication, stemming from a 1999 workshop organized by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, attests that the field is rife with research activity nowadays. Micronutrients such

Sometime in the 1980s, the emerging infectious disease (EID) movement began. The "emerging" label had been used earlier, but a series of high-profile disease outbreaks in the 1980s, combined with perceived funding gaps, began to galvanize the field. A book by Richard Krause of the National Institutes of Health1 formed part of the initial thrust. Published in the same year as the recognition of AIDS, it commented on the alarming phenomenon of antibiotic-resistant microbes. Further threats surfac

Ken Alibek People who make biological weapons live with the risk that they will die by them. Ken Alibek found that out in a visceral way one Sunday evening in 1983 when a phone call to his home informed him that the tularemia plant he directed had a problem. When he arrived at the plant, Alibek went to inspect a room suspected of being contaminated by a leak from Zone 3, the interior area reserved for culture of tularemia bacteria. Entering alone and turning on the lights, he found himself stand

A Declaration Supporting Ag Biotech With the recent announcement that major grain companies in the United States will indeed purchase genetically modified (GM) crops despite the proliferation of silly humans dressed as Monarch butterflies in the United Kingdom and here, it seems as if the public debate over GM foods may finally consider scientific reasoning. To bolster consumer confidence that GM tomatoes are not likely to make them grow second heads, 1,800-plus scientists, including many noted

Virus-Disease Links Are Hard to Forge Researchers confront skepticism, conflicting results, limited funding By Douglas Steinberg If genomics is glitzy nowadays, virus research is, well, gritty. Its latest heyday, when HIV was shown to cause AIDS, only masked its true nature. Associating viruses with diseases has always been particularly difficult and labor intensive. Cause-and-effect relationships are maddeningly elusive.1 Consider the following two questions: Does infection by mouse mammary

Graphic: Cathleen Heard SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Wellcome; Pfizer and Warner-Lambert; Pharmacia & Upjohn and Monsanto; PE Biosystems and Third Wave; Astra and Zeneca. In the last year, many top-tier biotech and pharmaceutical giants have reached definitive agreements to merge. The unions are touted as hostile or friendly, strategic or tactical, market driven, Machiavellian, culturally astute, even desperate. Competition has forced drug companies to up the ante for blockbuster development

First came the talk about a trend: Fewer physicians are entering biomedical research. Now come the data: results from a study published in February by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB).1 "Opportunities for applying research results to patients have never been greater. At the same time, the number of physician-scientists who can carry out that kind of translational research is declining significantly," comments Kenneth Shine, president of the Institute o

President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair's brief statement of March 14 supporting free access to human genome information unleashed a slew of clichés, including "too little too late" and "water under the bridge." But initial misinterpretation of the statement led to a temporary slide in biotech stocks. By the end of the day, Celera Genomics Corp. of Rockville, Md., had dropped 19 percent, while Incyte Pharmaceuticals of Palo Alto, Calif., plummeted 27 percent. Even thoug

Henry Lee How many scientists can claim the simultaneous titles of state police commissioner, chief state fire marshal, chief building inspector, director of the state forensic laboratory, and university professor? Probably a safe answer is only one, Connecticut's Henry Lee. The development of the field of forensic sciences, the application of science in solving legal issues, parallels Lee's career. As a young man, Lee was a police captain in the Taipei Police Department in Taiwan. There,

Paul Berg Regulating biotechnological discoveries hasn't gotten any easier since scientists and policymakers faced their first major challenge 25 years ago. In 1973, recombinant DNA technology burst onto the scene.1 The response was remarkably swift. A group of scientists led by Paul Berg, now director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Research at the Stanford University School of Medicine, called for an international moratorium on recombinant DNA research, fearing that the technol

Cancer Registry Collaboration The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently officially announced a collaboration to develop a cancer surveillance and cancer control research system. It's the latest of several collaborative efforts--the two agencies often overlap on projects involving areas such as surveillance, tobacco control, and dietary intervention. CDC director Jeffrey Koplan and NCI director Richard Klausner signed a memorandum of underst