Faculty Bibliography

''Every time someone develops a new test, you can go back, use it and sometimes trace'' the spread of a virus in stored specimens, said Dr. Alfred Evans of Yale Medical School, who has relied heavily on frozen specimens in his research on infectious mononucleosis and other infections caused by the Epstein-Barr virus. Stored specimens can also help researchers find people who were infected with a given microbe but never became ill; studying them can help determine what protects infected people. Dr. [Baruch Blumberg] said he had ''never thrown away any specimens'' collected over 30 years of research. Now Dr. Blumberg's team is testing for evidence of the AIDS virus among the specimens he collected in Australia and the Pacific in the 1950's. From samples from some aborigines, he discovered a substance he called the Australia antigen. That substance was then linked to hepatitis, leading others to discover the hepatitis B virus, and eventually contributing to the development of the hepatitis B vaccine. Evidence of the earliest known AIDS virus infection, in blood samples taken in 1959 from a man in Kinshasa, Zaire, was identified in 1986 by researchers from four university medical centers from specimens that Dr. Arno Motulsky of the University of Washington began collecting in the 1950's for his studies on the influence of genetics on infections. The researchers tested 1,213 blood samples and found evidence of AIDS virus infection in one - the 1959 case. Because records are not available, Dr. Motulsky's team could not determine the man's fate, he said

At a news conference, Mr. [Koch]'s chief neurologist, Dr. J. P. Mohr, director of the stroke center at the Neurological Institute of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, called the stroke ''trivial, neurologically equivalent to breaking a toe'' and one with little danger of creating further damage. Positive Prognosis The stroke was caused by blockage of one of a dozen ''feeding'' arteries ''in the deep part of the right side'' of Mr. Koch's brain. Dr. John Caronna, a neurologist at New York Hospital who is an expert in strokes, and is not connected with Mr. Koch's case, said he agreed with Dr. Mohr that strokes often produce an unstable condition for the first 48 to 72 hours after they occur and that Mr. Koch ''has had his stroke.'' Another Stroke Possible

Last week, Dr. Michael Zasloff, a scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., reported the discovery, through experiments on frogs, of a new family of natural antibiotics called magainins. They appear to kill a broader spectrum of microbes than any known drugs, and the search is on to determine whether they will be effective antibiotics in humans and whether they can stimulate the body's immune system to fight infections more effectively. * Antibiotics are helping many people with chronic diseases live longer. Cystic fibrosis, for example, is a common genetic disease that usually killed in the early years of life, often through pneumonia. Now many people with cystic fibrosis are living into their 30's and some into their 40's. A major reason is the frequent use of antibiotics to help these people ward off microbes that cause pneumonia. But continued success depends on keeping ahead of the microbes that develop resistance. ''The class of antibiotic was dead, but people didn't give up and they used a few maneuvers to make small changes in the chemical structure that led to effective new drugs,'' Dr. Harold C. Neu, an expert on antibiotics and infectious disease at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, said in an interview

Normal healing almost always occurred and only rarely did the frogs' surgical wounds become infected. Dr. [Michael Zasloff] said he had taken the phenomenom for granted until ''one day when it struck me that the frogs healed without any inflammation, without any pus, or signs of infection.'' Dr. Zasloff's team synthesized large amounts of the magainins for study in the laboratory. From further experiments the researchers learned that the magainins ''pick their targets selectively.'' Studies showed that the magainins kill bacteria called E. coli, staphylococci, streptococci and enterobacteria as well as some species of yeast and protozoa. Dr. Zasloff said in an interview, ''There's only a very slim chance they won't be found in humans.'' But he said his team has had ''several wild goose chases.''

Many prestigious scientific and medical journals that advertise the quality of their peer review fail to point out that much, if not most, of what they publish is not subjected to peer review at all. Some journals point to peer review -- and its intended result that the public receive only accurate information -- as an argument for keeping authors from disclosing their data before publication. Critics accuse these journals of misusing this argument to preserve for themselves a form of 'scoop journalism' to promote circulation, advertising and profits

The practices of peer review vary, but commonly editors select two experts to criticize the submitted manuscript. The experts chosen are called ''reviewers'' or ''referees.'' Usually they are told who wrote the paper, but the authors do not learn the reviewers' names. Reviewers are asked to comment on the quality of the research, to recommend acceptance or rejection of the manuscript and to grade its priority. Fraud Is Nearly Immune ''A journal has no way of coping with this'' and ''is incapable of picking up the kinds of details that were at fault in this paper,'' Dr. [Jerold F. Lucey] said from his office at the University of Vermont. ''We don't have investigative teams that could be sent out to go over records. We have to rely on the people who support the grants and local peer review at the scene.'' Dr. Peter Laskarzewski, a statistician and one of the co-authors of the repudiated study, wrote Dr. George Galasso, an official of the institutes who at the time was investigating the university's report, that he had seen ''data errors much worse and more pervasive than those in question'' on the part of researchers at the University of Cincinnati and had become ''so frustrated by a general institutional lack of concern for data integrity, from collection to analysis.''

''All that has happened is that the skeptics feel that their skepticism is a bit more confirmed,'' Dr. [Laurence Finberg] said, noting that Dr. [Charles J. Glueck] ''could be right'' even though his study has been censured. ''We are back to Square One'' on the question of whether restricting fats in the diets for children ''might have ill effects on the growth of some children,'' Dr. Finberg added. The University of Cincinnati committee said it was ''disturbed'' by ''Dr. Glueck's apparent lack of recognition of the seriousness of his actions,'' particularly because he is ''an individual of considerable stature who provides leadership for a large group of investigators, including some still in training, and who occupies an influential role in an important area of national health concern.'' The University of Cincinnati committee, formed on July 16, 1986, at the request of the N.I.H., found that Dr. Glueck had ''inappropriately selected'' data in his paper and that ''raw data barely existed'' in support of main conclusions. The committee also said that ''Dr. Glueck's explanation that the data were constructed from memory was inadequate.'' Dismay Over Co-Authors

Although the number of people known to be longtime carriers of the AIDS virus is small, Dr. [Cladd E. Stevens] said, ''clearly there are AIDS virus-infected individuals who are progressing towards AIDS, and there are individuals who are not.'' Dr. John Phair, an AIDS epidemiologist at Northwestern University in Chicago, said his team knew of many people infected with the AIDS virus for about three years ''who seem to be going along pretty well.'' Many others, he said, have developed AIDS within 20 months of becoming infected, ''so clearly there is something different about those people.'' * Difference in immunity. Several research groups are trying to determine if there is ''something unusual'' in the immune systems of long-term AIDS virus carriers that ''allowed them to respond to the AIDS virus differently,'' according to Dr. Richard A. Kaslow, a leading AIDS epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health. For example, he said, researchers are exploring whether some unidentified factor in the blood ''neutralized'' the AIDS virus among infected people who have remained healthy and among people repeatedly exposed to the virus who did not become infected

Today Mr. [Reagan] also received a routine examination of the prostate, which ''was found to be entirely normal,'' Col. John Hutton, the White House physician, said in a statement. Mr. Reagan had prostate surgery last January. ''The President continues to be in excellent health,'' Dr. Hutton said Reagans Leave for Retreat Shortly after his checkup, Mr. Reagan left for a weekend at the Camp David Presidential retreat in Maryland. As he walked to his helicopter for the trip, Mr. Reagan smiled broadly and made an ''A-O.K.'' sign with his thumb and forefinger. His wife, Nancy, also gave a sign that all was well. ''As far as a CAT scan is concerned, I don't know why they would not do that because there is no risk beyond a tiny dose of radiation. Considering the regularity and the type of testing he has had until now, one would have expected that an aggressive follow-up plan would continue through this examination and perhaps one more.''

Some antibiotics are effective against some Gram-positive and some Gram-negative bacteria while others, such as penicillin, are effective primarily against Gram-positive but not against Gram-negative microbes. Infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria have become an increasingly important problem in medical practice, in part because they have developed resistance to antibiotics. With the emergence of such resistant organisms, scientists have striven to discover new antibiotics that are effective against the resistant organisms. The new drugs were specifically designed to combat Gram-negative bacteria. Thus because they ''cannot previously have been encountered by the target organism,'' the factors in bacteria that determine resistance ''are unlikely to be present in the population,'' Dr. [Chris Higgins] said