628
Food blockade for malaria parasite
"Starving" the malaria parasite of haemoglobin could be a way of treating malaria, since the parasite has only a limited capacity for de-novo synthesis or exogenous uptake of aminoacids and depends on the catabolisation of haemoglobin to provide the aminoacids required for its development. In the parasite ingested haemoglobin is degraded in a proteolytic organelle called the digestive vacuole. Goldberg and colleagues had found that an early step in the breakdown of haemoglobin in these vacuoles depended on the action of an endogenous aspartic protease.1 The group have now identified the initial site of action of the enzyme-between residues 33 Phe and 34 Leu at the hinge region of the haemoglobin molecule.2 Cleavage here causes the molecule to unravel, which exposes other sites to proteolysis by aspartic and other proteases. Goldberg and colleagues are now designing competitive inhibitors for the enzyme. Goldberg DE, Slater AFG, Cerami A, Henderson OB. Hemoglobin degradation in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum; an ordered process in a unique organelle. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1990; 87: 2931-35. 2. Goldberg DE, Slater AFG, Beauvis R, Chait B, Cerami A, Henderson GB. Hemoglobin degradation in the human malaria pathogen Plasmodiumfalciparum: a catabolic pathway initiated by a specific aspartic protease. J Exp Med 1991; 173: 1.
attention to an elegant glass jar, one of many standing in rows on the shelves of the pharmacy laboratory. It bore the inscription in abbreviated gothic, sacch.alb. The lab-man assured Mrs Mac that this was simply the latin for white sugar. Joyfully she seized the jar and emptied its contents into her sugar basin. What the lab-man might have added was that among medical students practical pharmacy did not rank as an exact science and excited only marginal interest. Students who had taken from this jar an excess of sacch.alb often returned the surplus to any nearby bottle of white powder, and vice versa. Thus the sugar had become heavily contaminated with many other white powders, including such delicacies as arsenious oxide and perchloride of mercury. The outcome of Mrs Mac’s hasty improvisation was soon apparent: both examiners were seized with acute abdominal pain, nausea, and general distress. Mrs Mac was hastily summoned. When she produced the jar labelled sacch.alb., the diagnosis of poisoning was confirmed. The chief told me that he had provoked vomiting digitally and his condition then gradually improved. "And the external examiner?", I inquired anxiously. "My brother regius?", he replied, smiling indulgently. "Oh, he bolted to the hospital and had his stomach washed out-a timid little man!" *
*
*
961-69.
"Come and have a look at this", said the senior partner, standing the window. I looked over his shoulder and saw the object of his concern. The junior partner was standing at the edge of a large puddle and gazing thoughtfully into space. He then stepped into the puddle, stood for a moment, and then stepped back on to dry land. He subsequently repeated the process several times. Admittedly, it had been a busy time in the practice, and we were all feeling a bit ragged around the edges; but there is always something particularly unnerving about being confronted with what appears to be incontrovertible evidence of psychiatric abnormality in a colleague. Eventually, curiosity got the better of me. Pushing open the window, I called to him, "What are you doing?" Curiosity gave way to relief and hilarity as the story came out. "Trying to walk on water", came the cheery reply. Apparently an elderly lady who had not visited the practice for years had come in that morning to make an appointment with a colleague who had shuffled off this mortal coil some years ago. "I’m terribly sorry", said the receptionist gravely. "You may not have heard, but Dr X died three years ago." A puzzled look came over the patient’s face, followed by a stiffening of the lips, and a glint of resolution in the eyes. "But I must see him!", she snapped. at
Global
policy on AIDS
A new organisation, the Global AIDS Policy Coalition, has been formed to collect information and provide independent analysis of data on AIDS and to strengthen policy making internationally. The coalition, founded by Dr Jonathan Mann and based at the International AIDS Center of Harvard University, aims to clarify uncertainties in current AIDS/HIV policy; draw attention to new challenges in AIDS/HIV prevention and care; and promote attention to basic health and social issues. The coalition’s first project will be to publish an annual report, AIDS in the World, which will bring together concise and up-to-date information on AIDS/HIV matters and epidemiological reviews. The first volume will appear early in 1992. The coalition’s address is: 8
Story Street, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
02138, USA (tel 617 495-0478, fax 617 495-2863).
Blood donor screening for
hepatitis C
Routine testing in the UK of blood donations for antibody to hepatitis C virus started on Sept 1. For the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service the tests will cost jl.2 million a year, and additional funding has been allocated to cover this sum. In Northern Ireland the costs will also be covered by central funds. In England and Wales, regional blood transfusion services will recover costs through provider/purchaser arrangements. Secondgeneration ELISAs are being used for screening.
International Diary 1991 A conference on Acute Aspects of Pressure Area Care is to take in London on Sept 19-20: The Secretary, Tissue Viability Society, Odstock Hospital, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP2 8BJ, UK (0722-336262 ext
place
2392). A take
In
England
Now
In the pharmacology department we all called her Mrs Mac. She was a solitary and rather taciturn old woman, and her normal habitat was the animal house-a maze of dimly lit cellars. For upwards of twenty years her life had been dominated by exclusive concern for the regius professor and his researchers. The staff referred to him as "the chief ’, but Mrs Mac always called him "our chief’. But there were red-letter days in her calendar. In June, when the vivas were held in the pharmacy lab, Mrs Mac graced the proceedings in her Sunday best and brought her silver teapot and her precious china to do justice to the examiners’ tea. It was on one of these occasions that Mrs Mac discovered she had forgotten to bring sugar. Although she had an imperfect sympathy for the lab-man, in the emergency she sought his help. He directed her
symposium on Growth Factors and Endometrial Function is to place in London on Thursday, Oct 3: Symposium Secretary, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital, Goldhawk Road, London W6 OXG, UK (081-740 3904). A meeting entitled Regulatory Peptides in the Lung-Basic Mechanisms and Relevance to Disease is to be held in London on Oct 7-8: Dr Duncan Rogers, Department of Thoracic Medicine, National Heart and Lung Institute, Royal Brompton Hospital, Dovehouse Street, London SW3 6LY, UK (071-352 8121 ext 3051). A conference on Alcohol and Young People will be held in Edinburgh Tuesday, Oct 8: Dr Martin Plant, Alcohol Research Group, Morningside Park, Edinburgh EH 10 5HF, UK. on
A conference entitled On Course for the Future. Children’s Health Care-Towards a Family Centred Service is to take place in London on Monday, Oct 28: National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital, Conference Secretary, Argyle House, 29-31 Euston Road, London NWl 2SD, UK (071-833 2041).
Food blockade for malaria parasite
"Starving" the malaria parasite of haemoglobin could be a way of treating malaria, since the parasite has only a limited capacity for de-novo synthesis or exogenous uptake of aminoacids and depends on the catabolisation of haemoglobin to provide the aminoacids required for its development. In the parasite ingested haemoglobin is degraded in a proteolytic organelle called the digestive vacuole. Goldberg and colleagues had found that an early step in the breakdown of haemoglobin in these vacuoles depended on the action of an endogenous aspartic protease.1 The group have now identified the initial site of action of the enzyme-between residues 33 Phe and 34 Leu at the hinge region of the haemoglobin molecule.2 Cleavage here causes the molecule to unravel, which exposes other sites to proteolysis by aspartic and other proteases. Goldberg and colleagues are now designing competitive inhibitors for the enzyme. Goldberg DE, Slater AFG, Cerami A, Henderson OB. Hemoglobin degradation in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum; an ordered process in a unique organelle. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1990; 87: 2931-35. 2. Goldberg DE, Slater AFG, Beauvis R, Chait B, Cerami A, Henderson GB. Hemoglobin degradation in the human malaria pathogen Plasmodiumfalciparum: a catabolic pathway initiated by a specific aspartic protease. J Exp Med 1991; 173: 1.
attention to an elegant glass jar, one of many standing in rows on the shelves of the pharmacy laboratory. It bore the inscription in abbreviated gothic, sacch.alb. The lab-man assured Mrs Mac that this was simply the latin for white sugar. Joyfully she seized the jar and emptied its contents into her sugar basin. What the lab-man might have added was that among medical students practical pharmacy did not rank as an exact science and excited only marginal interest. Students who had taken from this jar an excess of sacch.alb often returned the surplus to any nearby bottle of white powder, and vice versa. Thus the sugar had become heavily contaminated with many other white powders, including such delicacies as arsenious oxide and perchloride of mercury. The outcome of Mrs Mac’s hasty improvisation was soon apparent: both examiners were seized with acute abdominal pain, nausea, and general distress. Mrs Mac was hastily summoned. When she produced the jar labelled sacch.alb., the diagnosis of poisoning was confirmed. The chief told me that he had provoked vomiting digitally and his condition then gradually improved. "And the external examiner?", I inquired anxiously. "My brother regius?", he replied, smiling indulgently. "Oh, he bolted to the hospital and had his stomach washed out-a timid little man!" *
*
*
961-69.
"Come and have a look at this", said the senior partner, standing the window. I looked over his shoulder and saw the object of his concern. The junior partner was standing at the edge of a large puddle and gazing thoughtfully into space. He then stepped into the puddle, stood for a moment, and then stepped back on to dry land. He subsequently repeated the process several times. Admittedly, it had been a busy time in the practice, and we were all feeling a bit ragged around the edges; but there is always something particularly unnerving about being confronted with what appears to be incontrovertible evidence of psychiatric abnormality in a colleague. Eventually, curiosity got the better of me. Pushing open the window, I called to him, "What are you doing?" Curiosity gave way to relief and hilarity as the story came out. "Trying to walk on water", came the cheery reply. Apparently an elderly lady who had not visited the practice for years had come in that morning to make an appointment with a colleague who had shuffled off this mortal coil some years ago. "I’m terribly sorry", said the receptionist gravely. "You may not have heard, but Dr X died three years ago." A puzzled look came over the patient’s face, followed by a stiffening of the lips, and a glint of resolution in the eyes. "But I must see him!", she snapped. at
Global
policy on AIDS
A new organisation, the Global AIDS Policy Coalition, has been formed to collect information and provide independent analysis of data on AIDS and to strengthen policy making internationally. The coalition, founded by Dr Jonathan Mann and based at the International AIDS Center of Harvard University, aims to clarify uncertainties in current AIDS/HIV policy; draw attention to new challenges in AIDS/HIV prevention and care; and promote attention to basic health and social issues. The coalition’s first project will be to publish an annual report, AIDS in the World, which will bring together concise and up-to-date information on AIDS/HIV matters and epidemiological reviews. The first volume will appear early in 1992. The coalition’s address is: 8
Story Street, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
02138, USA (tel 617 495-0478, fax 617 495-2863).
Blood donor screening for
hepatitis C
Routine testing in the UK of blood donations for antibody to hepatitis C virus started on Sept 1. For the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service the tests will cost jl.2 million a year, and additional funding has been allocated to cover this sum. In Northern Ireland the costs will also be covered by central funds. In England and Wales, regional blood transfusion services will recover costs through provider/purchaser arrangements. Secondgeneration ELISAs are being used for screening.
International Diary 1991 A conference on Acute Aspects of Pressure Area Care is to take in London on Sept 19-20: The Secretary, Tissue Viability Society, Odstock Hospital, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP2 8BJ, UK (0722-336262 ext
place
2392). A take
In
England
Now
In the pharmacology department we all called her Mrs Mac. She was a solitary and rather taciturn old woman, and her normal habitat was the animal house-a maze of dimly lit cellars. For upwards of twenty years her life had been dominated by exclusive concern for the regius professor and his researchers. The staff referred to him as "the chief ’, but Mrs Mac always called him "our chief’. But there were red-letter days in her calendar. In June, when the vivas were held in the pharmacy lab, Mrs Mac graced the proceedings in her Sunday best and brought her silver teapot and her precious china to do justice to the examiners’ tea. It was on one of these occasions that Mrs Mac discovered she had forgotten to bring sugar. Although she had an imperfect sympathy for the lab-man, in the emergency she sought his help. He directed her
symposium on Growth Factors and Endometrial Function is to place in London on Thursday, Oct 3: Symposium Secretary, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital, Goldhawk Road, London W6 OXG, UK (081-740 3904). A meeting entitled Regulatory Peptides in the Lung-Basic Mechanisms and Relevance to Disease is to be held in London on Oct 7-8: Dr Duncan Rogers, Department of Thoracic Medicine, National Heart and Lung Institute, Royal Brompton Hospital, Dovehouse Street, London SW3 6LY, UK (071-352 8121 ext 3051). A conference on Alcohol and Young People will be held in Edinburgh Tuesday, Oct 8: Dr Martin Plant, Alcohol Research Group, Morningside Park, Edinburgh EH 10 5HF, UK. on
A conference entitled On Course for the Future. Children’s Health Care-Towards a Family Centred Service is to take place in London on Monday, Oct 28: National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital, Conference Secretary, Argyle House, 29-31 Euston Road, London NWl 2SD, UK (071-833 2041).
