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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

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Total Clips: 3

	Date	Outlet
Combo Vaccines Developed Against Bird Flu	06/12/2007	HealthDay
Education Briefs	06/12/2007	Birmingham News
Leading the way	06/12/2007	Opelika-Auburn News


Combo Vaccines Developed Against Bird Flu 06/12/2007 HealthDay Edelson, Ed		Return to Top
Joseph Giambrone, a professor of poultry science at AU, is a source in this story. Inoculating poultry should limit threat of human pandemic, studies suggest MONDAY, May 22 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists are reporting an effective and inexpensive way to vaccinate poultry against avian flu and, hopefully, prevent its spread to humans. Researchers in Germany and New York City have independently attached the gene for avian flu virus onto an existing, widely used vaccine against a virus that causes another bird infection called Newcastle disease. "This is a very cheap vaccine that can be added to water or even sprayed," said Peter Palese, chairman of the department of microbiology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, and lead author of one report. "We have grafted onto that a flu virus, using genetic engineering. Thereby one can now use the same vaccine for Newcastle disease that also has protection against [avian] influenza." The same technique was reported by a group of researchers at the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health in Riems, Germany. The reports appear in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We have tried our vaccine in chickens, and it works very well," Palese said, adding that Mount Sinai is negotiating with drug companies about mass production of the vaccine. The Newcastle disease virus that now is in use costs less than a penny a bird, and the genetically engineered version to protect against avian flu should not cost much more, Palese said. "This is a major breakthrough in terms of protecting chickens," he said. The newly reported achievement is part of a major international effort to avoid a pandemic of bird flu in humans. Several hundred human cases -- including an estimated 115 deaths -- have been reported, and all the victims had been in close contact with infected birds. The fear is that the bird flu virus might mutate so it could spread easily from person to person. Dutch researchers demonstrated last year a vaccine's ability to prevent the spread of infection in birds. They reported in November that two different vaccines were each able to block transmission of the virus. But their vaccines were designed for the H7N7 strain, not the H5N1 strain that is thought to pose the risk to humans. The two new genetically engineered vaccines protect against the H5N1 strain. Joseph Giambrone, a professor of poultry science at Auburn University, called the new vaccines "a solution, but not the whole solution." "It's a good one, because you also get protection against Newcastle disease," he said. "But you probably would have to vaccinate the birds more than once, because you only get partial protection the first time." The reason for the partial response is that the immune systems of young birds carry antibodies from their mothers that reduce the response to the vaccine, Giambrone said. One encouraging development in the campaign to thwart an avian flu pandemic in humans is that studies of birds in the wild show they aren't spreading the virus, as has been feared, Giambrone said. International health officials reported this month that migratory birds that flew south to Africa and then back to Europe did not spread the virus during their annual journey. More information Get the latest on bird flu from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. SOURCES: Peter Palese, Ph.D., chairman, department of microbiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City; Joseph Giambrone, Ph.D., professor, poultry science, Auburn University, Auburn, Ala.; May 22-26, 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Copyright © 2006 ScoutNews LLC. All rights reserved.
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Education Briefs 06/12/2007 Birmingham News		Return to Top
**This roundup of Education Briefs mentions AU's Jule Collins Smith Museum as being a venue for the exhibition, "Alabama: Nature, Industry, Art." (See FURTHERMORE section.) HONORS Delores Carlito, senior assistant librarian at the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Mervyn H. Sterne Library, has won the College, University and Special Libraries Division of the Alabama Library Association Outstanding Professional Publication Award for her book, "Cuban-American Fiction in English: An Annotated Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources." Six Wallace State Community College employees were named Education Achievement Award winners at a ceremony and expo sponsored by the Wallace State Professional Development Committee: Sue Cox, Barbara Ebert, Jim Thompson, Courtney Walker, Katie Free and Bruce Tenison. Andrew George of Eva, a sophomore electronic technology student, and Derek Winfrey of Geraldine, a sophomore welding student, of Wallace State Community College have earned spots in the Skills USA National Leadership and Skills Conference next month in Kansas City, Mo. FURTHERMORE The Tuskegee University School of Veterinary Medicine Class of 2007 donated to the College of Veterinary Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health a 2007 Ponderosa Trailer to replace the aged trailer the Veterinary Teaching Hospital had been using and a Shor-line Oxygen Intensive Care Unit, which will contain an oxygen chamber for animals whose respiratory systems are compromised. The work of Scott Meyer, professor of art at the University of Montevallo, will be exhibited in several venues this summer. Three large crucible pieces will be included in "Alabama, Industry and Art" at Auburn University's Jule Collins Smith Museum of Art; his bottle abstractions will appear in "Alabama Originals: Contemporary Craft" at the State Council for the Arts Gallery in Montgomery; and his bottle forms will be featured in a group show celebrating the year of the artist at the Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope. Troy University has established a scholarship program with its Malaysian educational partner. Five full-tuition scholarships will be awarded to Troy students who want to study at Putra International College in Melaka near Kuala Lumpur. The awards are made available through a donation by Dr. Tang Chai Yoong, president of Putra International Collect and an international entrepreneur. The University of Alabama Alpha Chapter of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity helped raise more than $42,000 to help people with Lou Gehrig's disease and their families through the Walk to D'Feet ALS, a benefit for the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association. Wallace State cosmetology students Keisha Rice of Cullman and Sara Nelson of Birmingham, and instructors Tracy Smith and Shannon Garrett attended a hairstyling academy hosted by stylist Sam Brocato in New York City.
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Leading the way 06/12/2007 Opelika-Auburn News Amy Weaver		Return to Top
When it comes to biodiversity - the variation of life in ecosystems - the big question is why. Why does the coralbean that grows in the Davis Arboretum at Auburn University only stand waist-high when the same plant can grow as tall as a tree in Florida? For scientists to even begin to answer such questions, Dr. Les Goertzen, an assistant professor of biological sciences at AU, said there needs to be a comprehensive database of the diverse flora in the region. Then there will be the potential to do any number of things in the name of research, education and conservation, he said. AU College of Sciences and Mathematics initiated a high-tech project in April, with Florida State University, Troy University, the University of South Alabama, the University of Southern Mississippi, and a two-year $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, to study the flora of the South and create that needed database. The Deep South Plant Specimen Imaging Project will provide a complete, user-friendly picture of plant distribution and variation across the East Gulf Coastal Plain - across Alabama from the Florida Panhandle to the Mississippi River and about 175 miles inland. The region is home to approximately 3,000 native plant species, 125 of which are endemic - found in one area and nowhere else - to the Deep South. Goertzen, principal investigator for the project, said Alabama has some of the "richest flora in the Southeast" and the region is one of the nation’s hotspots for biodiversity and species endangerment, and yet both are poorly documented. The collection of 70,000 plant specimens at the John D. Freeman Herbarium, part of AU’s Natural History Museum and Learning Center in COSAM, will play a lead role in the plant imaging project. Under Goertzen’s direction, the AU team has begun the move toward digital transformation by entering label information for the herbarium’s specimens into a database. Goertzen said they expect to digitally document 100,000 specimens initially, but that could change if the NSF approves another grant and more institutions join the venture. The project will then link the images to biodiversity sites, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility portal, to ensure broad access. It will also deposit them into MorphBank, a Web repository of flora and fauna images paired with searchable digital annotations by expert biologists. This way Goertzen said researchers as well as educators interested in learning more about the region’s flora can do so with Web access. "All we have to do is put it out there and people will study it," he said. aweaver@oanow.com \| 737-2534
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