Faculty Bibliography

The effort got results, and with extraordinary speed. SARS first came to the world's attention in mid-March, and only a week later, scientists isolated the virus that appeared to be causing it. A few weeks after that, two teams decoded the viral genome, providing information that could help to develop diagnostic tests, vaccines and anti-viral drugs and to find out where the virus came from. Last week, scientists pinpointed a possible source of SARS civets, badgers and raccoon dogs being sold for meat in China's Guangdong Province and were able to compare the gene sequence of the animal virus with the one found in people. That doesn't mean SARS comes from a cat, said Dr. Wun-Ju Shieh, a member of the pathology team. Indeed, last week, researchers in Hong Kong said they had found a virus nearly identical to the SARS virus in other animals, civets, badgers and raccoon dogs in Guangdong. At the University of California at San Francisco, Dr. Joseph DeRisi, an assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics, could not wait to get his hands on virus samples from the CDC. We literally begged the CDC, DeRisi said. We were salivating. By mid-April, two laboratories had mapped the genome of the SARS virus. First to finish was the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver, followed by the CDC. The findings confirmed what initial studies had suggested: The virus was different from any known coronavirus, different enough, in fact, to become the first member of a new grouping of coronaviruses. - Before SARS, few researchers studied coronaviruses. Known for making chickens cough and giving pigs diarrhea, coronaviruses were not seen as a path to scientific glory. In people they were thought to cause only mild diseases like colds and gut trouble, and many researchers found them unexciting, difficult to grow in the laboratory and generally not worth the bother. Before SARS came along, one scientist said, coronaviruses were a sleepy little corner of virology

Last week, scientists in Hong Kong and the Center for Disease Control in Shenzen, just across the Hong Kong border in Guangdong in mainland China, reported finding the SARS virus in three species of animals -- the Himalayan, or masked, palm civets; raccoon dogs; and badgers -- bought in a food market in Shenzen. That discovery suggested, but did not prove, that the SARS virus infects animals in the wild, making it virtually impossible to eradicate the disease. Dr. Klaus Stohr, the scientific director of the W.H.O.'s investigation of SARS in Geneva, said that a team of virologists headed by Dr. Malik Peiris of Hong Kong University tested blood taken from 10 workers in the market and found antibodies to the SARS virus in 5, or 50 percent. Antibodies are specific proteins that the immune system forms when it mounts an attack against a microbe. But antibody tests obtained in such screening samples cannot determine when an individual was infected in the past. The workers with positive tests were said to be healthy and did not recall having a SARS-like illness recently, Dr. Stohr said. The need to develop an effective human SARS vaccine became more urgent with the discovery that the SARS virus exists outside humans. The discovery also left open the possibility that infected animals might be a continued source of infection in humans

Last week, scientists in Hong Kong and at the Center for Disease Control in Shenzen, just across the Hong Kong border in Guangdong province in mainland China, reported finding the SARS virus in three species of animals -- Himalayan, or masked, palm civets; raccoon dogs; and badgers -- bought in a food market in Shenzen. That discovery suggested, but did not prove, that the SARS virus infects animals in the wild, making it virtually impossible to eradicate the disease. Dr. Klaus Stoehr, the scientific director of WHO's investigation of SARS in Geneva, said that a team of virologists headed by Dr. Malik Peiris of Hong Kong University tested blood taken from 10 workers in the market and found antibodies to the SARS virus in five. Antibodies are specific proteins that the immune system forms when it mounts an attack against a microbe. Although the findings are not definitive, 'they strengthen the suggestion that animals play a role in transmitting SARS, Stoehr said. The findings, he said, 'suggest that the spectrum of disease is wider than what we saw' when SARS was first detected in March as a severe form of atypical pneumonia in patients in Hanoi, Vietnam and Hong Kong

Last week, scientists in Hong Kong and at the Center for Disease Control in Shenzen, just across the Hong Kong border in Guangdong province in mainland China, reported finding the SARS virus in three species of animals -- Himalayan, or masked, palm civets; raccoon dogs; and badgers -- bought in a food market in Shenzen. That discovery suggested, but did not prove, that the SARS virus infects animals in the wild, making it virtually impossible to eradicate the disease. Dr. Klaus Stoehr, the scientific director of WHO's investigation of SARS in Geneva, said a team of virologists headed by Dr. Malik Peiris of Hong Kong University tested blood taken from 10 workers in the market and found antibodies to the SARS virus in five. Antibodies are specific proteins that the immune system forms when it mounts an attack against a microbe

Dr. Klaus Stoehr, the scientific director of WHO's investigation of SARS in Geneva, said that a team of virologists headed by Dr. Malik Peiris of Hong Kong University tested blood taken from 10 workers in the market and found antibodies to the SARS virus in five. Antibodies are specific proteins that the immune system forms when it mounts an attack against a microbe. Although the findings are not definitive, 'they strengthen the suggestion that animals play a role in transmitting SARS, Stoehr said. The results, he said, 'suggest that the spectrum of disease is wider than what we saw' when SARS was first detected in March as a severe form of atypical pneumonia in patients in Hanoi, Vietnam and Hong Kong. The need to develop an effective human SARS vaccine became more urgent with the discovery that the SARS virus exists outside humans. This left open the possibility that infected animals might be a continued source of infection in humans

Feces from a very high proportion of civets have tested positive for a virus that appears to be genetically similar to the coronavirus that has been linked to severe acute respiratory syndrome in people. A low proportion of animals from other species have also tested positive, Yuen said. The virus could have been transmitted from one species of animals to the others in the markets, WHO said. Civets are grown on farms in Guangdong province and are sometimes trapped in the wild for Chinese kitchens. The animals are becoming increasingly rare across their range, from Pakistan to Indonesia, because of deforestation, and their sale is banned in Hong Kong, where they are a protected species. Yuen added that it remains possible the virus occurs in other species as well, and the virus might even be capable of infecting household cats, which could make disease control more difficult

Dr. [Klaus Stohr] said in an interview that the agency ''believes that it is still possible to contain SARS if the person-to-person transmission of the virus is stopped'' in affected areas. Dispersal of droplets of the SARS virus in coughs and sneezes is thought to be the primary means of spreading SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. The human SARS virus contains more than 29,000 nucleotides -- units of the genetic map -- 29 fewer than those found in the SARS viruses isolated from the animals. Though the number may seem trivial, even smaller differences in molecular maps can have major effects on viruses. One example is the influenza virus. The possibility exists that the SARS virus mutated if it jumped species, from animals to humans, Dr. Stohr said. But, he also said, ''what this means for SARS is unclear.'' The scientists also conducted laboratory experiments aimed at supporting the link between the animal and human SARS viruses. They did so by adding serum from the implicated animals that contained protective antibodies to test tubes containing the human SARS virus. The antibody-rich serum inhibited the growth of the human virus

If [Chesley Richards Jr.] does have severe acute respiratory syndrome, it could deal Taiwan another blow in handling its outbreak. He attended a meeting Monday morning in the control room at Taiwan's Center for Disease Control with the senior Taiwan health officials leading their country's battle against the epidemic

Where some people see a cute and cuddly ball of fur, scientists like Dr. [Michael T. Osterholm] see a vector: a ball of disease-causing viruses, bacteria, parasites and who knows what other germs. Dr. Osterholm, who is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and a professor of public health at the University of Minnesota, said that until recently, his main objection to prairie dogs was that they and their fleas sometimes carried bubonic plague. He had not even thought about monkeypox, the disease brought to the Americas for the first time last month, presumably by a three-pound African rat, which infected its fellow inmates in a pet shop, prairie dogs, which may then have spread the disease to as many as 82 people in five states. The viruses that cause smallpox, monkeypox and cowpox, because they infect people, are among the best-known members of the pox virus family. But the family has several dozen other members that infect a broad range of animals, causing diseases not found in people, like camelpox, skunkpox, raccoonpox, rabbitpox, mousepox and bird poxes specific to canaries or juncos. Suipoxvirus infects pigs, taterapox infects naked-soled African gerbils, and still another pox virus, thought to have an unknown main host, causes a sickness called Uasin Gishu disease in horses in Africa. Chickenpox, despite its name, is not caused by a pox virus; the microbe that causes it belongs to the herpes family. The most familiar member of the pox virus family is in some ways the most mysterious. Many people assume that vaccinia, the virus used to make smallpox vaccine, is the same virus that causes cowpox and that was first used by Dr. Edward Jenner in 1796 to vaccinate people against smallpox. In fact, vaccinia is not the cowpox virus. It is a distinct species, and scientists do not know where it came from. But in the early days of vaccination, there was no way to store a vaccine, so people were usually vaccinated with secretions taken from other people or animals. Scientists have speculated that such arm-to-arm passage may have created a hybrid of smallpox and cowpox, or perhaps even brought in a type of horsepox that no longer exists in nature

SARS first came to the world's attention in mid-March, and only a week later, scientists isolated the virus that appeared to be causing it. A few weeks after that, two teams decoded the viral genome, providing information that could help to develop diagnostic tests, vaccines and antiviral drugs and to find out where the virus came from. Last week, scientists pinpointed a possible source of SARS -- civets, badgers and raccoon dogs being sold for meat in China's Guangdong Province -- and were able to compare the gene sequence of the animal virus with the one found in people. Finding the origin of SARS, whether it is the civets and other animals or some other host, may also help researchers figure out how the virus evolved and how it found its way into people, Dr. [Kathryn V. Holmes] said. That question extends far beyond SARS, to the larger problem of emerging infectious diseases, a category that includes scores of infections like West Nile encephalitis, hantavirus, Lyme disease and AIDS. In San Francisco, Drs. [David Wang] and [Joseph DeRisi], top left, used a tool they developed called a microarray, far left, to compare SARS samples to gene fragments from 1,000 viruses. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, SARS and other highly dangerous diseases are studied in the special pathogens branch, led by Dr. [Thomas G. Ksiazek], above. Dr. [Wun-Ju Shieh], left, is a member of the pathology team at the C.D.C. that searched for a link to animals. (Photographs by Peter DaSilva for The New York Times, top left and far left; Robin Nelson, left and above); (Image courtesy of Dr. John Nicholls, The University of Hong Kong)(pg. A13)