WHAT'S NEW @ THE NIDA CENTER

Publication Highlights

Tan et al., Nature biotechnology 25:1383-1389, 2007

Seng-Lai Tan et al. provide a commentary on the realized and potential applications of systems biology in antiviral research. With the increasing adoption of high-throughput technologies, the possibility of getting a more detailed view of virus-host interactions is coming into focus. But as information from 'omics experiments begins populating databases on a grand scale, our ability to stitch together vast amounts of data and thereby investigate, model, and understand biological processes at a systems level will be crucial to the pursuit of new therapeutic targets.

Lazaro et al., American Journal of Pathology 170:478-489, 2007

Catherine Lazaro et al. report on the establishment of a culture system of nontransformed human fetal hepatocytes that supports hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication after transfection with full-length in vitro-transcribed RNA or infection with patient sera of diverse HCV genotypes. The system shows great promise for uncovering the interactions between HCV and nontransformed human hepatocytes and for studies on the infectivity of sera from patients with HCV-induced liver disease.