Notebook

The World Health Organization (WHO), based in Geneva, will back large-scale clinical trials of two experimental HIV vaccines that failed earlier this year to win similar approval in the United States. In June, Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), chose not to support the complex and costly trials because "the science wasn't there to justify it." Each vaccine relies on stimulating an immune response to the surface protein gp120 on the virus thought to cause AIDS. Apparently, the international health organization looked at the same data Fauci did, from smaller trials in humans, and saw sufficient immune system improvement demonstrated to warrant further studies. "The World Health Organization, in contrast to the NIAID, has decided to go ahead and test these vaccines in efficacy trials and put their blessing on that," says Don Francis, the clinical scientist managing the trials for Genentech. According to WHO, the trials probably will not get under way until 1996 and data from them will not be available until seven years after that. Raven Press, a medical and scientific publishing house based in New York, is about to release its Medical Dictionary in Six Languages, a compilation of more than 7,500 commonly used words and phrases from medical and clinical trials literature translated from English into French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Japanese. Included are terms relating to clinical trials, statistics, and drug development, as well as obscure medical phrases. For more information, contact Raven Press at (212) 930-9500. Fax: (212) 869-3495. Over the years, the national laboratories have wrought nearly miraculous research and innovations in numerous areas. But a team of investigators from Upton, N.Y.-based Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) along with scientists from Polytechnic University in Brooklyn may be tackling their toughest assignment yet--trying to unsnarl rush-hour traffic on Long Island's highways. Using a computer software package called Advanced Traffic Occupancy Prediction, the researchers feel they can produce up-to-the-minute forecasts of traffic volume and advise motorists accordingly. The computer modeling system takes into account such elements as historical traffic-flow patterns and data about the current state of the highway. The investigators are combining their efforts with the New York Department of Transportation's INFORM system, an advanced traffic-management system that collects and evaluates roadway data. INFORM already has computerized signs in place on Long Island highways to inform motorists about current conditions. With the two systems combined, BNL scientists believe they will be able to warn motorists of what to expect--and, possibly, avoid--at certain destinations. Researchers who study environmental pollutants have a new and unusual measuring tool--or standard reference material (SRM)--available to them, thanks to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST has recently announced that scientists can order 15-gram samples of Whale Blubber SRM 1945, which can be used by investigators analyzing the tissue of marine mammals and fish for the presence of organic pollutants. The whale SRM comes with a certificate verifying the concentration of the 42 pollutants it contains; the blubber can thus be used as a control. (In general, fatty tissue--of which whale blubber is a prime example --accumulates toxins, especially chlorine-containing pesticides like PCBs.) NIST scientists say researchers prefer naturally derived standards over synthetic ones because the natural standards more closely match the composition of samples they are usually trying to analyze. The source of the blubber is a pilot whale that was stranded on a Massachusetts beach in 1991. To order the whale SRM, contact the NIST Standard Reference Materials Program, 204 Engineering Mechanics Building, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-0001; (301) 975-6776. Fax: (301) 948-3730. The 1995 SURF, or Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships, program in physics at the National Institute of Standards and Technology is seeking applicants. Undergraduates and graduating college seniors in science and engineering who are interested in a career in physics are eligible. For 10 to 12 weeks each summer, about 20 students conduct research alongside mentor-scientists at the NIST Physics Laboratory in Gaithersburg, Md. Each fellowship includes a $3,600 stipend, housing, and transportation. Applications are due on February 1. For more information, contact David King, B266 Physics Building, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-0001; (301) 975-2369. Fax: (301) 975-3038. E-mail:king@enh.nist.gov. Hate the idea of tossing those well-worn, comfortable old jeans into the trash, even though they are falling apart? So do environmentalists and the textile industry. To that end, researchers from North Carolina State University's College of Textiles and Burlington Industries Denim Division in Greensboro, N.C., are collaborating on a process to salvage some of the estimated 70 million pounds of denim scrap dumped each year into U.S. landfills. The NCSU's College of Textiles' Applied Research Program team developed a method for spinning together short fiber ends to form a yarn suitable for weaving into denim fabric that will perform efficiently on looms. The result was Burlington's "Reused Denim," which contains 50 percent reclaimed denim and 50 percent virgin cotton yarn. The material has already been sold to a number of jeans manufacturers. The Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest Laboratories in Richland, Wash., has finally begun work on a $230 million Environmental and Molecular Sciences Laboratory. Construction of the 200,000-square-foot lab was suspended last spring after the discovery of a Native American burial ground on the original site. The facility, which is expected to be completed in 1997 and house nearly 270 permanent researchers, is now being built on a new location one mile away from the burial ground. Research there will focus on developing technologies to clean up environmental hazards at government and industrial sites and is expected to lead to advances in such disciplines as energy, material, biomedical, and agricultural sciences. The National Science Foundation recently announced that it will establish or renew six interdisciplinary research centers to advance knowledge of state-of-the-art engineering systems, processes, and devices. The new Engineering Research Centers will join 18 already-established centers. These research institutions will be involved in, among other areas of study, biotechnology and bioengineering as well as materials and energy science. The centers are supported by and collaborate on research with academia, government, and industry, including, thus far, some 720 small- to medium-sized firms. Of the six, three are new and three are reestablishments of centers started in 1985. The new facilities are located at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, the University of Florida in Gainesville, and the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The reestablished centers are on the campuses of the University of Maryland in College Park, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

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October 1994

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