Aaron Klug's career has taken many turns, spanning physics, biology, chemistry, and administration. 

An effective HIV vaccine has yet to be created, and maybe one never will. Scientists working on protective vaccines have mountains of problems with the virus' slippery nature, but perhaps most unnerving is that a vaccine-primed immune system might be more susceptible to infection. Boosting the HIV-specific helper cells may be giving the virus more factories in which to reproduce.T helper (Th) cells have a "dual role as target cells for infection, as well as being important mediators of the host

Six years ago, when John Tinsley's postdoctoral advisor at Texas A&Mtold him to find a protocol to introduce proteins into coronary endothelial cells, he couldn't find one in the literature. Tinsley tested a variety of commercial DNA transfection reagents, found one that worked for proteins, and has been using it since then.Tinsley's experience would be a lot different today. No longer must researchers rely on tedious and toxic procedures, or on proprietary reagents designed specifically for

Courtesy of of Pierce BiotechnologyCytokines and their kin, alternatively called interleukins, growth factors, interferons, necrosis factors, and others, are soluble messengers responsible for communication between nearby cells, especially those of hematopoietic origin. They serve multiple, often overlapping functions, from prompting the maturation of antibody-producing B cells to instigating blood vessel growth.Not surprisingly then, cytokines function both as indicators of inflammation or dise

THE EYES HAVE IT-SO DOES THE BRAIN:Courtesy Samer HattarAt top left, an X-gal stained retina from a mouse heterozygous for a LacZ knockin at the melanopsin locus reveals axons coursing toward the optic disc. At top right, a melanopsin antibody labels cell bodies, dendrites and initial axon segments of roughly 1% of ganglion cells in the rat retina. At bottom left, a coronal section from the brain of a heterozygous animal shows bilateral innervation of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). At bottom

Deshaies 02 – Open twisted Alpha/Beta structure #1, #2, #3 – 53 × 108 in. – 3–11" × 14"–28 × 36 cm – Acrylic on canvas – http://www.JacquesDeshaies.comClinical proteomics is undergoing a major shift, perhaps even a revolution. What was principally a search for drug targets in the year 2000 is now more a quest for markers of disease. The hunt for a single protein has turned into a pursuit to identify patterns of polypeptides. Buzzwords such

ABI 8500 Affinity Chip AnalyzerCourtesy of Applied BiosystemsFor labs equipped to measure surface plasmon resonance (SPR), determining how biomolecules interact with each other is simple. Load a glass slide into the benchtop instrument, give it some tubes, click the mouse a few times, and voila! – out come affinity measurements, on-rates, off-rates, and dissociation constants, all in real time."We can absolutely determine affinity, concentration, and all other things," says Stefan Lofas, v

What is your favorite paper?Figure 1I don't have any, because they are just transient things. ... There are a lot of steps, I think, in terms of [creating] long-term value.But if you had to choose?For me, IL-2 and HTLV-1, because they opened the field of human retrovirology. We published IL-2 in 1976 in Science, 1 and we published the first discovery of the human retrovirus in 1980 in PNAS.2Do you regret the high-profile controversy regarding the discovery of HIV with Luc Montagnier's group at t

Figure 1Hope was once high that, over time, antiretroviral therapy would rid patients of HIV-infected cells. Such hopes hinged on the presumption that these drugs could reach any and all HIV reservoirs.That's clearly not the case, as the title of a recent conference in the French West Indies attests: the 1st International Workshop on HIV Persistence during Therapy. "HIV persistently replicates, even in infected patients whose levels of plasma viremia have fallen below detectable levels while on

Researchers unsurprised that source of compounds was culture neutrophils, not CD8+ cells

Courtesy of Gabriel Nuñez  AND NOW PRESENTING: In this model, microorganisms phagocytosed by the antigen presenting cell (left) release ligands recognized by NOD/CARD proteins and peptides that associate with MHC class II molecules. Recognition of intracellular ligands by NOD/CARD proteins and extracellular ligands by Toll-Like Receptors (TLRs) mediates NF-kB activity. These intracellular events induce cytokine secretion and antigen presentation, as well as the expression of co-stim

Courtesy of New Brunswick Scientific  WAY BIGGER THAN A T-225: The CelliGen Plus bioreactor with packed-bed basket option. The packed-bed system is fully scaleable, from 500 mL to 150 L. Scientists routinely press eukaryotic cells into service as organic factories, cranking out everything from antibodies to viruses. How much biomass these researchers need to conduct their research, however, varies. Individual researchers can generally get what they need to coat the wells of an ELISA plat