Contents Trial veteran Resistance in rivers I contain multitudes Chlamydia in heart disease Tomatoes vs. armyworms Look, Ma, no paws Peroxide damage Philip Brunell receives the first injection at NIH of the experimental shingles vaccine from nurse Patricia Hohman. TRIAL VETERAN When Philip Brunell received the first shingles vaccination in a Phase III trial June 17, it was not exactly a shot in the dark. The senior attending physician at the National Institutes of Health clinical center estim

It's going to be a preprint service. It's going to be a reprint repository. It's going to kill off society journals. It's going to save them. It's going to compete with commercial titles. It's going to complement them. There appears to be no consensus on the effect E-biomed, a potential government-backed electronic publishing service proposed by Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health, will have on other journals--both paper and electronic. Nor does there appear to be much a

Winning the Nobel Prize automatically gives laureates a platform. This month the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) provided seven Nobelists with an additional floating one--a 40-foot yacht on the Delaware River. On May 4 the Lady Maureen sailed between Philadelphia, site of ISEF's first and 50th fairs, and Camden, N.J., home of the Coriell Institute, one of the fair's sponsors. It also served as a stage for seven laureates to encourage more scientists to get involved in informal

Call it a food fight: Nutritionists say a diet rich in fruits and vegetables reduces cancer incidence, but some clinicians say cancer can't be thwarted by food alone, that supplements make better chemopreventives. Both sides point to epidemiological data supporting their respective positions. Recently, papers that try to explain the biochemical mechanisms by which foods and some supplements work have only added to the complexity of the debate. Beta carotene has been a rallying point. The antio

The federal government should give more money to medical schools and teaching hospitals, two recent reports recommend. But managers of academic health centers shouldn't expect such a windfall, says one administrator. "I would not risk the viability of my own institution by waiting for federal funds," comments Ralph Snyderman, chancellor for health, executive dean, and president and CEO, Duke University Health Systems Inc., at Duke University Medical Center. Snyderman agrees with two recent rep

John D. Roberts Arthur J. Hundhausen John Clarke R. John Collier Arnold O. Beckman C. Grant Willson The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will present awards today to 17 scientists whose work defined, refined, or advanced a field. The awards will be presented during the NAS's 136th annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Scientists elected to NAS in 1998 also will be inducted at the meeting. The NAS's highest honor, the Public Welfare Medal, goes to Arnold O. Beckman, founder of both Beckma

UPSTREAM, DOWNSTREAM: Biochemical activity upstream of cyclooxygenase is better understood than reactions downstream of the enzyme. Cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and stroke represent disparate destinations. But the pathogenic road leading to each passes through one enzyme: cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2). Because of that biochemical junction, a class of compounds called COX-2 inhibitors, originally designed as anti-inflammatory agents against arthritis, may have broader utility. The relationship betwe

During the advent of gene therapy, fixing single-gene disorders seemed the most obvious application. But early vectors failed to transfect enough targeted cells long enough to have more than a transient effect. Recent animal studies using adeno-associated virus (AAV) may provide renewed hope for treating single-gene disorders. Two groups recently took advantage of AAV's ability to infect nondividing muscle cells--something that most other vectors cannot provide.1 And both used clever techniques

Photo: Coriell Institute for Medical Research COLD STORAGE: Cells from Coriell Institute for Medical Research that have been collected by and distributed to scientists from around the world, have played a key role in advancing the understanding of DNA repair. If early conceptions of DNA repair could be characterized as a dance, the process essential for maintaining genomic stability could be portrayed as an enzyme-to-enzyme pas de deux. However, a more accurate understanding of this DNA repai

The progress in nucleotide excision repair research could be traced in the journey of cells--from donor, to clinician, to repository, to researcher, and into the literature. The journey began with a sample from a patient with xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), taken by skin biopsy by National Institutes of Health scientists from a young United States man in 1972. The disease provides a good model for understanding the mechanisms behind nucleotide excision repair: Patients with XP have mutations in bo

Cancer can be boiled down to a question of stability. "Genomic instability is, in essence, the final common denominator in the ... evolution of cancer," comments Errol C. Friedberg, professor of pathology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Defects to a cell's genome--whether they be mutations or damage caused by ultraviolet (UV) rays--that don't get fixed through DNA repair mechanisms will be passed on to new cells, he notes. "Anybody interested in understanding the

Graphic: Marlene J. Viola Some say it takes a village to raise a child. Michael V. Sefton proposes that it will take a world to build a heart. Sefton, a University of Toronto chemical engineering professor, leads an international effort called the Living Implants from Engineering (L.I.F.E.) Initiative, whose goal is to create a bioengineered heart in 10 years. To meet that mark, participants must grapple with a host of scientific concerns and more mundane matters. Research questions that must b