Innovation and Development

Major Step in HIV-1 Vaccine Research

A new breakthrough in HIV-1 Vaccine, done by Prof. Paul Zhou’s laboratory at the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, CAS, was recommended on Aug.13, as being of special significance in its field by Luigi Buonaguro and Maria Tagliamonte from the F1000 Faculty. This paper entitled “HIV-1 Virus-Like Particles Produced by Stably Transfected Drosophila S2 Cells: a Desirable Vaccine Component” was published in Journal of Virology, 2012 (DOI: 10.3410/ f. 717952409. 793457863). Prof. Luigi Buonaguro, a senior investigator of the National Cancer Institute, Naples, Italy, has been working on HIV VLP for more than 10 years. He and Dr. Maria Tagliamonte, a F1000 Associate Faculty Member, has commented on this work by the following “The data reported in the manuscript describe a further strategy to produce enveloped HIV virus-like particles (VLPs) expressing the whole HIV glycoprotein on the surface. The continuous VLP production by stably transfected Drosophila S2 cells is a potentially interesting alternative to the stable transfection in insect cells described by Tagliamonte et al. Enveloped VLPs represent an invaluable vaccine approach for delivering conformational HIV antigens, which has not yet reached the stage of human clinical trials. The one described by Yang et al., among others, increases the chances of such a possibility.”

TEM Used for Porphyry Molybdenum Deposit

During the last decade, Gangdese porphyry molybdenum metallogenic belt exploration in Tibet has become one of the hot topics. Recently, Xue Guoqiang, associate research fellow from the institute of geology and geophysics, explored the ore with a new technology of TEM (transient electromagnetic method) and obtained following results: 1) improve the TEM receiving configuration by adopting large-area, high-sensitivity magnetic core to replace the traditional air coil; 2) adopted the modified TEM central-loop device; 3) define large-loop TEM late-time resistivity formula for any point. During data processing, low-resistance abnormal zones have been discovered. It is deduced that the main ore body is buried underground more than 200 m, the scale of ore body vertical extension is more than 600m, total area of electromagnetic abnormal zone is 3.77km2. The interpretation result corresponds with the drill data, and good achievement has been reached. It is concluded that the ore area is located in Gangdese metallogenic belt. Low-temperature mineralization and alteration are of good metallogenetic conditions. The result shows that it is the first special large-scale porphyry molybdenum deposit. This discovery has great significance for regional research and further exploration. Relevant research result is published in journal of 'Journal of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics', which is commented as 'key research article' by the Earth Emphasis central of top earth and environmental science research.