Faculty Bibliography

The Nobel committee citation said that from 1976 to 1978, after the publication of Dr. [Susumu Tonegawa]'s first paper on the experiments that won him his award, he ''completely dominated this area of research.'' Dr. Erling Norrby, a virologist at the Karolinska Institute who is a member of the Nobel committee, said Dr. Tonegawa's discovery ''was completely unexpected'' and solved a mystery that had baffled scientists ''for 100 years.'' Although he did not originate thetheory that genetic change was involved, Dr. Tonegawa proved it in what the Nobel committee said was ''a convincing and elegant manner.'' By using the newer tools of molecular biology to study cancerous cells, Dr. Tonegawa showed that different pieces of the genes forming the antibodies could be shuffled, recombined and even lost to give rise to the DNA that is found in mature B lymphocytes and thus to an enormously diverse array of antibodies

Dr. Susumu Tonegawa, a 48-year-old Japanese scientist working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for his discoveries of how the body can marshal its immunological defenses against millions of different disease agents that it has never encountered. Tonegawa is the first Japanese scientist to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and only the second winner in that category since 1961 who did not have to share the prize, which amounts to $340,000 this year. Tonegawa was cited by the Nobel committee at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm for discovering how the body can constantly change its genes to fashion a seemingly unlimited number of antibodies, each specifically targeted at an invading microbe or foreign substance

Tests on stored specimens have yielded the causes of epidemics years after they occurred. They have clarified diagnoses, determined the symptoms and damage a virus could cause and allowed scientists to complete in a few months nutrition, endocrine, cancer and other studies that otherwise would have taken many years. Sometimes stored samples have helped fight diseases unknown to those who collected them. Such is the case with AIDS. Since the recent discovery of the AIDS virus, scientists have thawed thousands of stored blood samples for evidence of the newly detected microbe. So far tests on stored blood have shown that the AIDS virus infected humans in Africa in the 1950s, and the search is still on for AIDS virus infections elsewhere and in earlier years

Because such a small number of the participants in the San Francisco study have been infected with HIV for many years without developing AIDS, said Dr. Scott D. Holmberg, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control, ''if one or two develop AIDS next week, it would change the predictions'' in the models derived from it and ''substantially increase the percentage of people who get AIDS.'' Dr. Jonathan Mann, director of the AIDS program of the World Health Organization, said that although the data about progression to AIDS ''are not reassuring,'' it was ''unjustifiable'' in the absence of proof to equate a positive blood test for HIV with a death warrant. ''We all know the epidemic is serious enough,'' Dr. Mann said. ''Any effort to force an answer where we don't have the ability to answer is a flawed exercise. We must be clear about what we don't know, and cannot know, and why we cannot know it, and not be afraid to say we don't know.'' And in the case of AIDS, he said, we can ''still leave room for hope.''

Such distinctions can be detected by a laboratory test known as the Western blot that can detect the specific proteins of the antibodies formed when a virus or other foreign substance enters humans. For example, the AIDS vaccine to be tested this fall, manufactured by Microgenesys Inc. of West Haven, Conn., is made from a protein called gp 160, a fragment in the outer coat of the AIDS virus. Gp stands for glycoprotein (sugar-protein); the 160 is a shortened version of the molecular weight of 160,000. Ms. [Elaine Baldwin] said the ethics committee did not address the question of who should be the first subjects in the AIDS vaccine experiments. Despite the rich tradition of scientists' trying new vaccines on themselves first and although Dr. Daniel Zagury, a French immunologist, gave himself an experimental AIDS vaccine that he also tested on people in Zaire, the N.I.H. scientists conducting the AIDS vaccine experiments have decided against this. The insect cells produce the gp 160 protein, which is then separated from insect proteins by a technique known as chromatography. The gp 160 vaccine has been tested in monkeys, chimpanzees and other animals, and they developed antibodies. But the animal results have uncertain meaning for humans, because no one knows what component of the AIDS virus is the most potent stimulator of protective antibodies in humans or what portion of the human immune system is most important in defending against invasion of the AIDS virus

''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