Fusion #4f 10/6/05 1:42 pm Page 2 fusionTHE NEWSLETTER OF THE SIR WILLIAM DUNN SCHOOL OF PATHOLOGY ISSUE 4 . TRINITY 2005 Contents Editorial 1 Editorial News 2 Anyone reading William James’s article on the history of Virology at the Dunn School Virology at the will not fail to notice his ‘aside’ speculation on why the Dunn School has been such a Dunn School 4 successful contributor to medical science and fundamental biology. It has always been an Institute without Divisions, and has consequently fostered strong interdisciplinary Albert Beyers 6 science. You, Me and HIV 7 Our strong publication record and success in attract senior figures in the areas of the raising grant funding attests to the success of molecular basis of cancer, and in cell-signalling. Jim Gowans that philosophy. This is, of course, a structure To achieve the former the Division has agreed to recirculated 8 which carries some risks, as certain important allow the department to fundraise for the Research Notes 9 areas may go through periods when the "active creation of the César Milstein Chair in Molecular Basis of Cancer. César Milstein was an old friend mass" in a given area would seem small. In Overcoming antibiotic recent years the department has had the of the department, and his discovery of resistance 10 satisfaction of seeing that some of its star monoclonal antibodies opened up many fields of scientists have moved to occupy important medical science for which many of his friends Fishing for leadership positions in other British Universities here are enormously grateful. We are delighted Understanding 11 and research Institutions. The challenge for us that Celia Milstein will be the Honorary President Embryonic Stem Cells has been to be able to recruit new scientists to of the fundraising committee and that César’s and the Tithonian long-term close friend Claudio Cuello (McGill bring new disciplines to the Dunn School, so as Dilemma 12 to keep Oxford science as innovative and University) will act as its Chairman. We look productive as ever. In recent years that has forward to working been achieved by the recruitment of David with both Celia and Greaves, Quentin Sattentau and Chris Norbury to Claudio to honour lectureship positions, the appointment of César’s contributions Nicholas Proudfoot to the newly endowed and leave a lasting legacy of them here in Brownlee-Abraham Chair of Molecular Biology, Oxford. and the decision of Keith Gull to take up a Wellcome PRF position in this department. In Herman Waldmann, addition we have been privileged to welcome a FRS, Head of number of young and talented research fellows Department Akoulitchev, Saunders, Blocker, Harder, Ginger, Fodor, Murphy, Powrie, Malloy and Patton who have all established their own special interests in the department so keeping us alive and alert to new themes. Malik Peris returned to the Dunn School to give a Our goals of remaining a strong interdisciplinary departmental symposium in department that interfaces well with the rest of Novemeber 2005. See Oxford science, while ensuring that we fulfil the pages 4–6 for a review of best standards in teaching, do require that we Virology in the Department Fusion #4f 10/6/05 1:42 pm Page 3 2 / FUSION . TRINITY 2005 News Awards to presentations on the history of penicillin, developments in fungal biotechnology, clinical Professor Herman Waldmann, Head of the Sir applications and resistance, and antibiotic William Dunn School of Pathology, has been synthesis, before attending a series of awarded the prestigious José Carreras Award workshops. 2005, bestowed jointly by the European Haematology Association and the José Carreras Foundation. He will be giving the José Carreras Old members Award Lecture at the Opening Ceremony of the Dr Philip Carter (right) with Dr Eric Sidebottom European Haematology Association Annual Congress in Stockholm on 2 June 2005. Gillian Griffiths, Professor of Experimental Pathology, has been elected fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Prizes Congratulations to: Abigail Stevenson, a third year D.Phil student in Chris Norbury’s lab, won the poster prize at Gillian Griffiths the Biochemical Society meeting on RNA Structure and Function in Edinburgh (December It is always a pleasure to see former members of 4-6, 2004), for her work on targets and protein the department when they are visiting Oxford. partners of the Cid1 poly(A) polymerase. Dr Philip Carter, photographed in Oxford last December, is a fomer visiting Fellow, and is now Saddif Ahmed from Nigel Saunders’ lab who Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at won the poster competition at the International North Carolina State University. Pathogenic Neisseria Conference 2004 in Milwaukee last June for his poster entitled "Lps Jason Cyster (DPhil 1989-92) has been mediated meningococcal serum resistance in the awarded 2005 American Association of presence and absence of capsule" Immunologists Biosciences Investigator Award for outstanding, early-career research contributions Subhankar Mukhopadhyay, from Siamon to the field of immunology. Dr Cyster is now at Gordon’s lab, who won second prize in the UCSF, San Francisco, California. Promega Young Immunologist of the Year 2004 award at the British Society for Immunology Professor Geoffrey Smith, now at Imperial meeting in Harrogate in December 2004. College London, is the recipient of the 2005 Feldburg Foundation Prize in recognition of his Congratulations also to Richard Daniel, BBSRC research with poxviruses. Research Fellow in Jeff Errington’s group, who has been appointed University Research Lecturer. Discoveries Sixth form study day – Amin Moghaddam and Quentin Sattentau have a patent (P28613GB) joint with Imperial penicillin College that has just gone public. It concerns a The first study day organized by the Museum of method for modifying an antigen to alter the the History of Science was on the topic of Th1/Th2 bias of the immune response, by adding Penicillin: the Wonder Drug and appropriately reactive carbonyl groups to the antigen or took place at the MSTC lecture theatre behind eliminating carbonyls by reduction. It has the Dunn School. Local school students listened applications for a diverse range of things Fusion #4f 10/6/05 1:42 pm Page 4 FUSION . TRINITY 2005 / 3 including vaccine efficacy and reducing vaccine one of the best displays in the UK and have the side effects, and has implications for allergies benefit of a protected, south facing aspect. such as peanut allergy. For more information, Even so the luxurious foliage normally succumbs contact Dr Goslik Schepers at Isis Innovation, to the frosts of December or January and re- Oxford University’s technology transfer centre. grows in the Spring. This year, however the foliage has survived and has produced its Grants dramatic brick-red flowering spikes – a small Twenty-five years after James Porterfield worked sign of global warming in South Parks Road? on Dengue fever in the Dunn School, Professor Siamon Gordon, Dr Joanna This choice of plant is perhaps rather fitting for Miller and Dr Ben de Wet have been its site given its South African origins and local awarded over $700,000 from the Pediatric use. Sir William Dunn was a Scot who made his Dengue Fever Initiative to study how the fortune in South Africa and it was his bequest dengue fever group of viruses infect human which funded the building of the Sir William cells. Dengue is endemic in more than 100 Dunn School of Pathology in South Parks Road. countries and here are more than 50 million The School has many current research links with cases of dengue infection each year. The group both South Africa and other sub-saharan African hope that their investigation into how infection countries. Also, in South Africa Melianthus major by the virus occurs, they will contribute to effort or Kruidjie-roer-my-nie, which means herb- to prevent infection. touch-me-not, is common in the south-western Cape and, although toxic when taken internally, Obituaries it is used medicinally by the local people to make poultices that are applied directly to Leslie Alan Falk (known as Leslie Alan Epstein wounds. during his years in Oxford) died in Vermont in Keith Gull November 2004. He was a DPhil student at the Dunn School from 1937 – 40, where he worked closely with Ernst Chain and others in the penicillin team. Upon his return to the US, he was active in community medicine and the civil rights movement. Philippe Shubik, who did his D. Phil under Isaac Berenblum and developed the two stage theory of carcinogenesis here in mid 1940s, died in December 2004. He had been Director of the Eppley Institute of Cancer Research in Nebraska, and latterly founder and President of The Toxicology Forum, based in Oxford. On a botanical note… The arching symmetry of the staircases leading to the front door of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology frame two planting beds each of which display a magnificent growth of Melianthus major. This is a South African plant that is only half hardy/tender in the UK and often grown as a greenhouse specimen. The plants outside the Dunn School must represent Fusion #4f 10/6/05 1:42 pm Page 5 4 / FUSION . TRINITY 2005 Virology at the Dunn School In November 2004, Dunn School alumnus Malik Peiris came to give a well-attended departmental seminar. Malik, who did his D. Phil under James Porterfield in 1977, is now the Head of Clinical Virology at the University of Hong Kong, and his accomplishment in uncovering the SARS coronavirus and ongoing work on influenza have given him a dizzying schedule for the last couple of years. He recalls his time in the Dunn School as being ‘really crazy’, and he has retained the connection, through collaborations with Siamon Gordon on bird flu interaction with macrophages, and George Brownlee on the influenza virus.