The Agenda

Courtesy of Prometheus Books

NEW ANTIMICROBIALS ﾻ Two of this month's features look at ways to combat infectious disease: artemisinin to fight malaria on page 26 and developing a cytomegalovirus vaccine on page 40. For more on how the battle is evolving, pick up DNA: How the Biotech Revolution is Changing the Way We Fight Disease, by Frank H. Stevenson (pictured above) published this month by Prometheus Books.

AN RNA BIRTHDAY ﾻ In this month's feature on the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the RNA double helix on page 34, Alexander Rich writes about Sol Spiegelman's success in developing DNA-RNA hybrids: "This put all of the elements in place for the rapid employment of hybridization techniques to explore biological systems." Spiegelman, who was born on December 14, 1914, died in 1983.

WASP GENETICSﾻ Saxons, Vikings, and Celts, by Oxford University Professor Bryan Sykes and published by W. W. Norton, hits the shelves this month. Sykes, who has a lab at Oxford's Institute of Molecular Medicine, used a genetic database from 10,000 people to reconstruct the genetic history of Britain and Ireland. The publisher describes it as an "historical travelogue and genetic tour of the fabled isles."

ESCAPE TO PARADISEﾻ As the chill of winter begins to settle, spend a week in the Dominican Republic at the Chromatin Structure and Function meeting. Registration includes all-you-can-drink alcoholic beverages, scuba lessons, horse riding, and talks on epigenetics, histone variants, and RNA connections. For more, see http://tinyurl.com/yfhf9n.