Profession Notes

Partnership to Test Vaccine Candidates Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center Mary R. Galinski A new partnership forming between Emory University's Vaccine Research Center in Atlanta and the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) in Rockville, Md., will enable the testing of several vaccine candidates developed by institutions worldwide. MVI, which is part of the Program for Appropriate Technology in Seattle that conducts health programs globally, will sponsor the effort. Mary R. Galinski, of the division of infectious diseases at Emory's Department of Medicine and an affiliate scientist at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center where the Vaccine Research Center is located, will lead the open-ended, multiyear effort. According to Galinski, the main focus will be on the two most predominant of the four human malaria species, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax, "Together these two species cause most of the annual estimated 300-500 million cases of malaria. Moreover, these two species diverged many years ago and a vaccine against one is very unlikely to be effective against the other," she reports. Institutions with vaccine test candidates could include academic groups, biotechnology companies, government laboratories, large pharmaceutical companies, and international organizations. Galinski says that current vaccine candidates under investigation include proteins that are at the surface or apical pole ('front end') of the merozoite form of the parasite. "This is the form that attaches to and invades red blood cells, leading to the clinical manifestations of the disease," she explains. Researchers hope that a vaccine against these proteins will help prevent the initial entry of the parasite into the red blood cells. Galinski points out that although each trial is designed for a specific vaccine candidate, it may be possible to generalize some of the results to the entire vaccinology field. "We plan on publishing all of our results to make sure everyone who is working in the area of vaccine development gets the benefit of our experience," she adds. --Kate Devine Electronic Archive vs. Hard Copy With scholarly journals moving toward publication in electronic form (K. Devine, "You Needed that When?" The Scientist, 14[17]:33, Sept. 4, 2000; K. Devine, "Ecology Journals Go Online," The Scientist, 15[2]:31, Jan. 22, 2001), the value of hard copy maintenance arises. To address this issue, Cornell University Library has undertaken a one-year planning effort to explore the feasibility of creating permanent digital archives for journals. A $150,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will fund Project Harvest to set up a pilot archive of agricultural journals. According to Peter B. Hirtle, project director, Project Harvest, and co-director, Cornell Institute for Digital Collections, Cornell has been experimenting with the use of digital technologies for preservation for over a decade. "We are defining agriculture broadly and would hope to include many life science journals in our planning." This planning will consist of collecting information from publishers, other libraries, and computer experts on topics that include certification, accessibility and availability, format, ensuring readability as technology advances, preserving original text, the prospect of multiple copies, and determining long-term maintenance payment by publishers and/or users. Hirtle says the effort will lead to an implementation plan at the end of the year, "assuming that we can develop a business model that makes sense, and successfully address the legal and technical issues." With the ultimate goal of the project being archival of as many journals as possible, Hirtle stresses, "If we are going to make sure that the information in these journals is available for future generations, we have to start moving now to capture and preserve as many of these journals as society can afford to keep." --Kate Devine

Profession Notes

Partnership to Test Vaccine Candidates

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