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Vincent Racaniello, virologist extraordinaire and a BioCrowd co-founder is slated to appear on ABC World News this evening to discuss Rebecca Sloot’s new book entitled The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The book details the life of little-known Henrietta Lack whose cancerous cervical cells (subsequently called HeLa cells by the scientists who managed to cultivate and immortalize them in the laboratory), revolutionized the field of virology and changed the way viral vaccines are manufactured.

Rebecca Skloot, the author, is an award-winning science writer, and a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine; she's worked as a correspondent for the NPR show RadioLab, and PBS Nova ScienceNOW. Her writing appears in The New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, Discover and others. The “Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack” is her first book.

So, why is Vincent being featured on tonight’s newscast about the HeLa book? For those of you who don’t know, Vincent has spent almost 30 years unraveling the molecular mechanisms by which the polio virus causes disease. And, as many of you may know, HeLa cells are the cell line of choice to cultivate polio virus in the laboratory. In addition to cloning the polio virus receptor in HeLa cells, members of Vincent’s laboratory have elucidated the genes and their proteins responsible for the neurotrophic effects of the virus that can lead to paralysis from polio infections. Further, for those of you who may not know, Vincent, while a postdoctoral fellow in David Baltimore's laboratory, was the first to demonstrate that transfection of HeLa cells with cDNA made from polio virus genomic RNA (using the newly discovered HIV reverse transcriptase enzyme that resulted in Baltimore winning the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) yielded infectious polio virions.

While Vincent’s findings greatly aided research to elucidate the underlying pathogenic mechanisms of the polio virus, it transformed and revolutionized the entire field of RNA virology. Prior to Vincent’s discovery, it was impossible to study the molecular biology of RNA viruses using recombinant methods because unlike DNA, there are no known RNA restriction enzymes. The ability to transcribe viral RNA into cDNA molecules that yield infection RNA viral particles permitted researchers to dissect RNA virus genomes (using recombinant DNA technology) to determine contribution of individual genes to viral pathogenesis.

Vincent, one of only a handful of virus pioneers, is now applying his considerable pioneering talents to social media because he believes that Web 2.0 tools like blogs, podcasts, videos and social networking sites can be successfully used for science education and improving the public understanding of the life sciences.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Viewing (ABC World News Tonight)!!!!!!

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Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker, announced on Thursday that it is unveiling a new program that will let people who have lost their jobs and health insurance to keep taking Pfizer medications — for free, and for up to a year. The company will provide more than 70 of its prescription drugs ranging from Viagra to Lipitor at no costs to unemployed and uninsured Americans who lost their jobs since Jan. 1 and have been taking Pfizer drugs for me than three months. It is not clear how much Pfizer will spend on the program and whether or not costs will be capped.

The announcement comes amid massive job losses caused by the recession and a campaign in Washington to rein in health care costs and extend coverage. The move could earn Pfizer some goodwill in that debate after long being a target of critics of drug industry prices and sales practices. The program also likely will help keep those patients loyal to Pfizer brands. Don't be surprised if other pharmaceutical companies announce similar program over the next few weeks.

Pfizer and the rest of the drug industry wants is trying to have a voice in the debate over how to overhaul the U.S. health care system, partly by joining in a pledge this week to help hold down inflation of health costs. In the mean time, drug companies have been raising prices on their drugs, partly to offset declines in revenue as the global recession reduces the number of prescriptions people can afford to fill.

Pfizer ought to be commended on the program and its concern for the health and well being of unemployed and uninsured Americans. However, it is important to point out that this is little more than a high profile, marketing campaign designed to improve the image of drug makers. More important, it is the first public acknowledgement that drug makers are willing to engage legislators in discussions about how to reform healthcare to reduce costs and cut expenditures. 

What really is at stake here is whether or not the US government will begin regulating drug prices as part of a comprehensive healthcare reform package. As many of you may know, the US government, unlike most other governments in the world, cannot negotiate or set prescription drugs prices. Not surprisingly, the US prescription drug market is the largest and most profitable in the world. It will be interesting to see how the US healthcare reform discussion unfolds—clearly a lot is at stake for the American prescription drug industry.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!

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Vincent Racaniello, my partner at BioCrowd, and I were chatting the other day about how cool it would be to develop a web-based map that was able to track infectious diseases outbreaks in real time. After a spirited chat, we both thought that we were on to something REALLY big. And, as is frequently the case, somebody else also had the very same idea.

For those infectious disease aficionados out there, you must check out the Health Map: A Global Disease Alert Map. The map was developed by Clark Freifeld and John Brownstein and is based on an algorithm that is beyond my comprehension. It is not as robust as the map that Vincent and I envisioned, but it is pretty cool and it works very nicely.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Disease Hunting!!!!!!!

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Each year the World Bank compiles a report that assesses the world’s friendliest business climates for small companies. The top three companies on this year’s list, Singapore, New Zealand and the US have been there four years in a row. The real shocker this year was that several previously lagging nations moved up on the list, mostly because of business-friendly reforms. This year’s most improved nation is Azerbaijan, which moved up 64 spots to a overall ranking of 33^rd because it reduced the time required to start a new business from 122 to 16 days, reforming its civil code and creating an online tax filing system.

Singapore has habitually been number one on the list because of its low import and export costs, strong government-imposed legal protections for investors and lopsided, employer-friendly labor regulations. The US placed high on the list because its labor laws are among the least rigid in the world and because business can be started quickly with a minimum amount of “red tape”.

For those of you who may be interested the top ten list looks like this:

1. Singapore
2. New Zealand
3. United States
4. Hong Kong
5. Denmark
6. The United Kingdom
7. Ireland
8. Canada
9. Australia
10. Norway

To see the rest of the list and find out more about starting a small business in your own click here

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (why not start one?)

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Kevin’s selections this month contains a wide variety of sites ranging from an Australian museum guide, to wildlife parks in Tasmania and online information-sharing and management capabilities.  If leeches are your thing check out this site and if you are a dragonfly aficionado this site will do the trick. An interesting site called the Fallacy Files provides insight into fallacies or so-called mistakes in reasoning.

As a sometimes medical writer, the site that piqued my interest was www.connotea.org— an online reference and information sharing-service.  The site provides you with easy and ready access to references, data and other information stored in your account on the site.  Kevin really likes this site and says “Connotea scores big time with this valuable tool for scientists.”  Check it out….

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Web Surfing

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