NATURE MEDICINE • VOLUME 5 • NUMBER 5 • MAY 1999 471

NEWS

The primary goal of the RFP is to solicitproposals for clinical trials and mecha-nistic studies in kidney and islet trans-plantation. “The panel suggested startingtrials on kidney patients because they arethe least ill, compared with heart andliver transplant patients, and dialysis canbe used as a backup for kidney failure,”explains Turka.

Although the expert panel recom-mended that non-human primate studiesin kidney and islet transplantationshould be a priority of the RFP, animalstudies were not included in the final

US lead in immunologyresearch threatenedBased on a subjective assessment by itsmembers, the Committee on Science,Engineering and Public Policy (COSEPUP)panel on “International Benchmarking ofUS Immunology Research” has concludedthat the US is the world leader in immunol-ogy research. Despite this, the panel voicedconcern in a report released last month thatthe US may not be able to hold onto itspole position. Changes in Europe, such asincreased availability of research fundingand career possibilities and equivalentdeclines in these areas in the US, plus fac-tors such as the rising cost of mouse facil-ities in the US, could jeopardize the coun-try’s dominance in this field.

Created to assess what will be thefuture position of the US, the panel cal-culated that the US puts out 60 percentof the world’s annual immunology pub-lications and was satisfied that it leads ineach of the four subfields examined: cel-lular, molecular and clinical immunologyand immunogenetics. It is likely to retainthis lead, writes the panel, for the nextdecade. But the panel is worried that theUS is only “among the world leaders” inother areas of immunology, such asresearch into transplantation andimmunosupressive drugs, tumorimmunology, lymphocyte developmentand inherited immunodeficiency.

There is further concern that US lead-ership does not stem from breakthroughdiscoveries evidenced by Nobel Prizeawards, as half of the immunology Laure-ates are non-US citizens. Furthermore,based on “anecdotal evidence,” the paneljudged that there is a decrease in trainedclinical immunologists to serve as principleinvestigators for large-scale clinical trials,brought about by lack of funding and train-ing activities. There are, according to thereport, substantially fewer US doctors spe-cializing in immunology.

Moreover, the panel believes that Euro-pean countries are able to support large-scale clinical trials because of their “cen-tralized government control of medicalschools and research institutions;” and thatimproved opportunities will, in the future,keep foreign students at home and preventthem from traveling to the US where theyhave been contributing to the US’ leadposition in the field. A copy of the reportis available at http://www.nap.edu/read-ingroom/index.html

KAREN BIRMINGHAM, LONDON

Genome sequencers square off down underThe two rivals in the race to se-quence the human genome eachused the Human Genome Meeting‘99 (HGM’99) in Brisbane, Australia

(March 27–30), to demonstrate theirconfidence that they will be first

past the post.‘Shotgun’ sequencing pioneer

Craig Venter, made a point ofshowing that he is unruffled bythe announcement of an accel-erated timetable for the publiclyfunded Human Genome Project,and boasted to delegates that hiscompany, Celera, would soonbring online the world’s secondlargest computer, and crank up300 new sequencing machinescapable of processing 140 mil-lion base pairs of DNA every 24hours. Commenting on theNational Human GenomeResearch Institute (NHGRI)-ledinternational bid to map thegenome, Venter told NatureMedicine: “I’m confident they’reredundant.”

Sharing the platform atHGM’99, leading NIH-funded re-searcher Richard Gibbs fromBaylor Human GenomeSequencing Centre, Houston—whose team will receive $13.4million from NHGRI as part of

the $81.6 million devoted to theaccelerated schedule—concededthat Celera had “prodded” conser-vative academics to step up thepace, bringing the target for arough draft of the human genomeforward to April next year, withthe blueprint complete by 2003.However, Gibbs reiterated con-cerns about the ultimate quality

proposal. “Instead, we are trying to setup a non-human primate network thatwill parallel the human trials,” says SteveRose, chief of Genetics andTransplantation Branch, NIAID and co-author of the RFP. This work will be sup-ported under a separate RFP,“Non-human primate transplant toler-ance cooperative study group,” whichwill provide $2 million for one year of re-search into tolerance induction regimensin non-human primate models of kidneyand islet transplantation.

KRISTINE NOVAK, NEW YORK

and completeness of Celera’s data, warn-ing that attempts at wide patentingwould be regarded as a mass intellectualproperty seizure—a “land-grab.”Meanwhile, Venter assured delegatesthat although Celera could conceivablypatent 100–300 genes of medical inter-est, it would not attempt to ‘lock up’ thehuman genome.

Venter disclosed that he is working ona genomics research paper to be submit-ted shortly to a “leading scientific jour-nal,” in tandem with an ethical review.The latter will encapsulate the conclu-sions of a multi-disciplinary group set upby US government adviser, ArthurCaplan, University of Pennsylvania, towrestle with philosophical issues sur-rounding the prospect of synthesizing anew life-form. The integration of ethicswith research, by publication of dual pa-pers is “the model we should be strivingfor,” says Caplan, adding that it wouldstop ethicists being simply reactive, andavoid the “frightened media” scenariothat followed the Dolly announcement.

In other genome research news…Both Celera and NHGRI might soon beoutclassed by a new initiative unveiledlast month that is being managed by TheWellcome Trust, which aims to develop ahigh-quality single nucleotide polymor-phism (SNP) map and place it in the pub-lic domain with unrestricted access as itis constructed. The Trust, along with tenmajor pharmaceutical companies, isfunding the two-year, $45 million initia-tive, called The SNP Consortium, whichalso includes several academic researchcenters in the US and the UK. It will beled by independent chairman and CEOArthur Holden.

RADA ROUSE, BRISBANE

© 1999 Nature America Inc. • http://medicine.nature.com©

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