Letters

In his comment (April 4, 1988, page 8) to my opinion (November 30, 1987, page 11), Howard Temin either missed or misinterpreted the point had tried to make. I was concerned with the fact that the ubiquitous spread of CD-HeLa cells might expand the habitat of HIV not the host range. In addition to the increased use of such modified HeLa cells for large scale production of HIV or for virus research, accidental spread of such cells could contaminate other cells cultures without the researchers knowing it. Two reports in the last few months have increased my concern. In a paper in Nature (April 21, 1988, page 731) on transduction of endogenous envelope genes by feline leukemia virus, Overbaugh et al state: “In vitro propagation of retrovirus may result in the generation of variants with very different properties.” Temin does not allay my suspicion that a mutation that increases virulence may occur. In the other paper, in Science (January 1, 1988, page 68), S.H. Weiss and collaborators describe a case of proven laboratory infection with HIV1 without any apparent accident or injury to the worker. The infected person worked under biosafety level 3 containment but was not wearing a mask, therefore an aerosol infection is not excluded. Temin’s question: “What is the chance that HlV may become infections by route other than already known?” can be answered. According to Weiss, the risk was .48 per 100 person years in this particular study Weiss concludes: “Special attention should be given to mechanisms of indirect transmission such as those that contribute to occupationally acquired hepatitis.” Insertion of HIV into HeLa cells and the possible uncontrolled spread of these cells to other cell cultures might thus create a possibility of such indirect transmission without the need for mutation or expansion of host range to other cells. ALEXANDER KOHN Tel Aviv University Medical School Ramat Aviv, Israel Spin-Offs Are Separate The article by Louis Weisberg in the April 4 issue of The Scientist (page 1) entitled “Technology Transfer is Harder Than It Looks,” is a useful contribution to the rapidly growing literature on technology transfer. He correctly points out that more seems to be said than done in the field. One comment in the article, however, is not entirely correct. Weisberg stated that”...Most of the spin-offs at Los Alamos, as well as at Sandia and Lawrence Livermore laboratories, were cases in which engineers set up a business and sold their work back to the national lab.” At LLNL, we have documented a few dozen companies that have been formed by former staff scientists and engineers using laboratory. developed technologies. These companies have created more than 1,000 jobs, and have sales well in excess of $100 million annually, little or none of which are sales back to the laboratory. GORDON T. LONGERBEAM Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory P.O.Box 808 Livermore, Calif 94550 Your “So They Say” column for March 21 (page 22) featured a picture of astronaut prospectors swarming around an asteroid. Had your illustrator been given the quotation in context, he would have dismissed the common preconceptions about the importance of humans in space and would have drawn automated prospectors instead. The Space World editorial quoted James van Allen, Roald Sagdeyev, and Von R. Eshleman, who strongly believe that space dollars are better spent on robots than on humans. MITCH GOULD 1379 Marion Ave., N.E. Atlanta; Ga. 30307

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