June 2001

On June 5, 1981, a one-and-a-half page paper in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) noted cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in five gay men in Los Angeles. The men also suffered from cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections and candidal infections of the mucosa,1 and they used recreational inhalant drugs. The editorial note pointed out: "Pneumocystis pneumonia in the United States is almost exclusively limited to severely immunosuppressed patients." "I was sitting in my office in Buildi

For years, mind-body research has been conducted at the perimeters of the scientific mainstream, but that marginalization appears to have ended, as the National Institutes of Health funnels money and personnel into interdisciplinary investigations of the relationship between mental states and physical health. Oddly, the way mind-body medicine has achieved this acceptance is by establishing the very molecular and cellular evidence of the role that the mind plays in bodily health that it once esch

Research in pharmacogenomics points to a seismic shift in drug therapy, from a "one-size-fits-all" approach to a new era of personalized medicine, in which doctors will increasingly be able to prescribe the right drug at the right dose for the right person. Often used interchangeably with pharmacogenetics, pharmacogenomics is the study of how inherited genetic differences in humans influence individual responses to drugs. Courtesy of Genaissance PharmaceuticlsGerald F. Vovis Although a new worl

The American Museum of Natural History in New York, in creating what it claims is the first comprehensive museum exhibit on genomics, faced unique challenges. "The Genomic Revolution," which began May 26 and runs through January 1, 2002, explores the promise and the potential ethical perils of genomics advances. The exhibit, geared to ages 9 and up, according to exhibit curator Rob DeSalle, couldn't rely on an awe-inspiring specimen like the museum's famous blue whale to capture young imaginatio

As I read Reginald Halaby's opinion article on undergraduate research,1 I had a sense of deja vu. All the experiments he described have been done. We do and have been doing what he promotes at Barry University, my home institution, for well over 15 years. At many institutions with high minority populations, the type of exposure to undergraduate science research he describes is routinely available for talented science students from underrepresented groups. Many of these institutions have been qu

T.V. Rajan's opinion article on scholarly presentations1 was an excellent summation of problems that occur during scientific conferences and journal clubs. I chuckled to myself as I read each of his points, realizing he was right on the money on all of them. Even though scientific conferences and journal clubs are a necessary venue in which to gain and exchange data, they can be improved. Another point that can be added to Dr. Rajan's list: the nicest slides don't necessarily represent the best

For this article, Leslie Pray interviewed William C. Hahn, postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., and an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Data from the Web of Science (ISI, Philadelphia) show that Hot Papers are cited 50 to 100 times more often than the average paper of the same type and age. W.C. Hahn, C.M. Counter, A.S. Lundberg, R.L. Beijersbergen, M.W. Brooks, R.A. Weinberg, "Creation of human tumour cells with de

For this article, Leslie Pray interviewed Chu-Xia Deng, senior investigator, Genetics of Development and Disease Branch of the National Institutes of Health. Data from the Web of Science (ISI, Philadelphia) show that Hot Papers are cited 50 to 100 times more often than the average paper of the same type and age. X.L. Xu, Z. Weaver, S.P. Linke, C.L. Li, J. Gotay, X.W. Wang, C.C. Harris, T. Ried, C.X. Deng, "Centrosome amplification and a defective G(2)-M cell cycle checkpoint induce genetic inst

PCR Enhancement Products Courtesy of RedasoftRedasoft's Visual Cloning 2000 includes primer design tools. Courtesy of Sigma-AldrichDirect loading of PCR products onto an agarose gel using Sigma-Aldrich's REDTaq. The art of PCR isn't hard to master. An abundance of products, ranging from relatively low-cost reagents to sophisticated optimization software, exists to meet most, if not all, PCR challenges. This profile looks at commonly used additives, PCR optimization kits and protocols, softwar

Updated! Suppliers of Tools for X-ray Crystallography Courtesy of Amersham Pharmacia BiotechDetail of the electron density map of deacetoxycephalosporin C synthase from Streptomyces clavuligerus. Two important approaches can be used to determine the three-dimensional structure of macromolecules. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy yields information on the structure of proteins in solution, but it has a size limitation of approximately 150 amino acid residues (about 16,500 daltons),