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In 1992 the US Congress created the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM), placing it within the NIH, one of the foremost bio-medical research establishments world-wide. The OAM is currently funded to the tune of $40 million per year. Although alternative and unconventional medicine attracts considerable attention (and finances) from the public in Western societies, many within the established medical and research communities are outwardly cynical and dismissive of alternative medical practices. We have asked Wayne B. Jonas. Director of the OAM, to discuss what the OAM hopes to achieve and how it is going about it.
The finding that dengue viruses use heparan sulfate to enter cells may alter our understanding of their pathogenesis and aid in vaccine development (pages 866–871).
Two recent studies demonstrate how sequence motifs in bacterial DNA can activate the immune system, causing both beneficial as well as deleterious consequences (pages 849–854).
Biochemical and molecular analyses of the Interaction of AZT monophosphate with thymldylate klnase provide novel Insights Into the limited clinical efficacy of AZT (pages 922–924).
The large T antigen of SV40 virus may promote the development of mesotheliomas by interacting with and inactivating tumor suppressor proteins (pages 908–916).
