February 1997

This letter is in response to the article "AIDS Investigators Cautiously Applauding Recent Advances" (S. Benowitz, The Scientist, Sept. 30, 1996, page 1). We have shown that HIV-specific transfer factor (TF) produces a far more rapid decrease in viral load as measured by the "old" polymerase chain reaction-HIV-RNA than do the currently recommended protease inhibitors or reverse transcriptase inhibitors such as AZT. Viral loads dropped from 80,000/mm³ or higher to 0 in three to four months,

The article "Scientific Journal Articles Say Polished Prose Clarifies Research" [K.S. Brown, The Scientist, Jan. 20, 1997, page 16] raised several points of interest. One point particularly caught my attention, because it repeatedly affects my reading of articles: the issue of abbreviations in journals. The article states: "[Peggy] Robinson at CBE [the Council of Biology Editors Inc.] agrees that abbreviations have gotten out of hand-and into titles, captions, and so forth. 'Scientists have got

Sidebar: Information on Minority Access to Research Careers In the United States, there are more than 100 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In the late 1860s, these institutions were designated by the federal government to educate African Americans as a result of a segregated educational system in the South. Science administrators at the majority of these schools view their mission differently from their counterparts at majority U.S. institutions. Rather than focus their eff

INFORMATION On Minority Access to Research Careers Date: February 17, 1997 Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology William A. Sibley and Bobby Wilson, Program Directors Room 815 National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, Va. 22230 (703) 306-1633 - Fax: (703) 306-0423 E-mail: wsibley@nsf.gov; bwilson@nsf.gov The Leadership Alliance James H. Wyche, Executive Director Associate Provost, Brown University Box 1963, Room 15, Sayles Hall Providence, R.I.

Edited by: Karen Young Kreeger "Bloody Hot" Field: Because the signaling protein Stat5 has been found to be active in numerous pathways, many researchers are engaged in studying its various roles, says James Ihle. M. Azam, H. Erdjument-Bromage, B.L. Kreider, M. Xia, F. Quelle, R. Basu, C. Saris, P. Tempst, J.N. Ihle, C. Schindler, "Interleukin-3 signals through multiple isoforms of Stat5," EMBO Journal, 14:1402-11, 1995. (Cited in nearly 70 publications as of December 1996) Comments by James N

Edited by: Karen Young Kreeger Exposing Adenoviruses: Inder Verma and colleagues used nude mice to study immune system and humoral responses during gene therapy. Y. Dai, E.M. Schwartz, D. Gu, W.-W. Zhang, N. Sarvetnick, I.M. Verma, "Cellular and humoral immune responses to adenoviral vectors containing factor IX gene: Tolerization of factor IX and vector antigens for long-term expression," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 92:1401-5, 1995. (Cited in nearly 60 publications as of

More Information - Diversity Training Date: February 17, 1997 Center of the American Experiment http://www.amexp.org Diversity Works http://www.inform.umd.edu:8080/DiversityWeb Diversity Training Group http://www.diversitydtg.com/ Dupont Corp. Bernard Scales Human Resources 1007 Market St., Wilmington, Del. 19898 (302) 774-5441 · Fax: (302) 773-1914 http://www.dupont.com/ Genentech Inc. Theresa Isaacs 460 Point San Bruno, South San Francisco, Calif. 94080 (415) 225-1000

Sidebar : For More Information on Diversity Training Groups February is Black History Month. To commemorate the occasion, employees at South San Francisco, Calif.-based Genentech Inc. have been taking part in activities that introduce them to African American culture. Members of African Americans in Biotechnology, one of the biotech firm's internal employee associations, have put together displays about the contribution of black scientists and sponsored lectures by prominent black investigators