Highlights and summaries of the 11th International Workshops on Opportunistic Protists

The 11th in the series of International Workshops on Opportunistic Protists (IWOP-11) was held in August 2010 on the Big Island of Hawaii. These meetings are devoted to agents of infections that cause serious problems in AIDS patients and other individuals with defective immune systems. International Workshops on Opportunistic Protists serves as a forum for exchange of current research information on Pneumocystis, Cryptosporidium and the Microsporidia, Toxoplasma, free-living amoebae, kinetoplastid flagellates and other pathogens that are particularly pathogenic in immunodeficient hosts. Studies on interactions between host and pathogen, especially host responses, were highlighted in this year's symposium. The lack of in vitro cultivation methods for luxuriant growth of Pneumocystis, Cryptosporidium and the Enterocytozoon bieneusi remains a major hindrance to understanding the basic biology of these organisms and precludes genetic manipulations. However, slow but steady progress is being achieved by hard work including data mining of some completed or partially completed genome sequencing of several IWOP organisms. Of great concern is evidence for dramatic decline in research funding for these pathogens and the lack of appreciation by the larger scientific community concerning the state of art and challenges faced by researchers working on these organisms that can provide critical insight into emerging and reemerging pathogens.     

The Culture of Science in the Late 20th Century

Modest_Witness@Second_Millmnium:.FemaleMan©_ Meets OncoMouse™_Feminism and Technoscience. Donna Haraway. With paintings by Lynn M. Randolph. New York: Routledge, 1997. 361 pp.     

Measurement of Methionine-Enkephalin [Arg6,Phe7] in Rat Brain by Specific Radioimmunoassay Directed at Methionine Sulphoxide Enkephalin[Arg6,Phe7]

Abstract: A specific and sensitive radioimmunoassay procedure for Metenkephalin[Arg⁶,Phe⁷] which allows its measurement in regions of the rat brain is described. The antiserum was raised against the methionine sulphoxide derivative of the peptide, and all samples and standards were oxidized with hydrogen peroxide prior to use in the assay with chloramine T-oxidized ¹²⁵I-labelled Met(O)-enkephalin[Arg⁶,Phe⁷]. The only significant cross-reactivity was 30% with the reduced heptapeptide Met-enkephalin[Arg⁶,Phe⁷]. The assay showed less than 0.15% cross-reactivity with fragments of the heptapeptide and with leucine-enkephalin-containing peptides. Acid acetone extraction of rat striatum followed by Sephadex G-50 chromatography and reverse-phase high pressure liquid chromatography showed that essentially all immunoreactivity co-chromatographed with Met-enkephalin[Arg⁶,Phe⁷]. This confirmed the specificity of the assay and showed that the striatum does not contain a high concentration of larger molecular weight forms with the heptapeptide at the COOH terminus. Distribution of the heptapeptide followed that of methionine enkephalin, with highest concentrations in the globus pallidus, intermediate levels in caudate-putamen and hypothalamus, and low levels in cortex and cerebellum.