Background: I recall that this was at the crux of the patent fight
between Cetus and DuPont. DuPont lawyers claimed that the PCR
technique was published in the scientific literature sometime before
Cetus patented the method. DuPont lost the case. Even though it seems
obvious now, and probably would have been developed within 2-3 years
anyway, Mullis did it first. So, I'm inclined to give Kary full credit
for a clever idea.
[...]
I wrote:
T>*grin* What people say of Peter's [Duesberg's] thoughts about oncogenes...
Steven replies:
>Maybe Peter has been hanging out too much with Rubin.
There was a saying in the chem department of my old college (not
Berkeley) that "whatever the chemists had left in their flasks after
distillations, they sent over to the biologists to smoke."
>We considered for a position here, a former student of Rubin's who also
>did a post-doc with Peter. I was on the search committee and was
>filling Howard Temin in on the candidate and explained that he got his
>PhD at Berkelely in Rubin's lab and Howard just said Rubin's crazy.
>Then I explained that the candidate also did post-doc work at Berkeley
>with Duesberg, and Howard said that he was crazier.
Funny anecdote, Steven. But remember that out of Rubin's lab came
Steve Martin and Harold Varmus (in addition to Duesberg). Still,
the lab "pedigree" of the candidate you mentioned might seem a tad
incestuous, scientifically. "UC Berzerkely" is not necessarily an
unfair characterization of this place...
And my condolences about Temin's passing way. From what I've read,
he was an outstanding scientist and I wish I could have met him.
T>I think no one has deliberately been injected with HIV, but there are
T>cases where inadvertent needle-sticks produced unwilling subjects.
T>Transfusions, transplantations and epidemiological data have also
T>gone a long way to establish the infectious nature of the disease.
T>But all this was history long before 1993. [John Moore's review of
T>Duesberg's book in Nature (28 Mar 96 - 380:293-294) absolutely rips
T>on Peter, FWIW.]
>Yes, but this doesn't really satisfy Koch's requirement because you
>cannot be assured that HIV was the only pathogen untill the virus is
>rigorously purified and then injected.
Yes. But nobody is stepping in line to roll up their sleeves for that
shot! I worry that no purification technique would be sufficiently
"clean" for Peter Duesberg. One could always claim that "something
else" might have been co-isolated. If there was a case of AIDS from
a needlestick from an isolated HIV culture, that would go a long way
(and I think one might have occurred), since the many needlesticks
from non-HIV containing cell cultures would be a useful negative
control.
[Aside for non-biologists: 100% purification of large biological
molecules and organisms is virtually impossible to achieve. There's
always some degree of contamination with other things. It's because
of this that Stan Prusiner and Thomas Cech had to work so hard to
establish that prions contained only proteins and that RNA could
self-splice without proteins, respectively.]
On a related note...
While I think it's pretty clear that HIV has a role in AIDS, the
question of whether co-factors, in addition to HIV are required for
the onset of AIDS is very much alive. In that respect, I think I am
in some agreement with Robert Root-Berstein's Multi-Agent-Induced-
Disease (MAID), notions where HIV and other agents synergisticaly
produce the various symptoms of AIDS. Viruses are tricky buggers...
Regards, Tim Ikeda (timi@mendel.berkeley.edu)