A new drug combination appears to improve the cure rate for hepatitis C. This chronic disease affects 4 million Americans. "This combination therapy appears to be twice as effective in clearing the virus from the blood," said Dr. Reem Ghalib, director of the Hepatitis Program at Baylor College of Medicine and the Methodist Hospital in Houston. "The overall chance of a sustained response with this treatment is about 61 percent." The virus can produce a wide variety of symptoms, from very mild to life-threatening, causing 10,000 deaths a year in the United States alone. It is spread mostly through contact with the blood of an infected person. Patients who develop severe liver disease have limited treatment options, with a liver transplant the only measure for many of them. The new treatment strategy combines two drugs, pegylated interferon alfa 2-b and ribavirin.

PROTEIN COMPLEX PLAYS DUAL PART

A protein complex known to play a key role in cell division appears to also have an important part in a critical stage of embryonic development. Biologists at the University of California, San Diego, have traced the complex to the process that defines the embryo's inner and outer layers and which is initiated by the entry of sperm into an egg. The finding, published in Developmental Cell, provides a more complete molecular picture of how the one-celled embryo divides into an organism's skin, nervous system and other outer layers and muscle, gut, reproductive organs and other inner layers. "What we discovered are some of the essential parts of the machinery that a cell uses to set up differences in the embryo so that different types of tissue eventually develop," said Chad Rappleye, first author of the report. The protein complex the team studied is called Anaphase-Promoting Complex. It appears to have two completely different roles in the cell: preparing the cell for division and helping divide the one-celled embryo into its two basic parts, the inside and outside of the organism. The study provides biologists with a better understanding of the biochemistry and genetics of the earliest stages of development and opens up a new avenue for searching for other proteins in the cell with dual roles, scientists said.

COMPUTERS AS SURGEONS

Computers with a human-like ability to see could one day act as virtual surgeons, a study suggests. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science say such computers could render safer and faster brain surgery, endoscopies and other medical procedures. "In practice, the human visual system is still by far the best around," said Stefano Soatto, assistant professor of computer science and head of the UCLA Vision Lab. "But this may not be so for long." His team is looking at how people use vision to interact with others and with their surroundings and designing systems that will permit computers to do likewise. The work could have an impact on image-guided surgery, in which doctors use sophisticated imaging technology to help them perform surgical procedures. One example is the use of technology that merges multiple images to create a 3-D map of a patient's brain. These images are often a day old, and if the procedure itself alters conditions, the images become useless. A computer that understands and acts within its environment could not only recreate and constantly update a 3-D model of the brain but also use what it "sees" to perform tasks otherwise done by surgeons, Soatto said.

CONSUMERS DIVIDED OVER GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD

A poll shows Americans are divided over whether genetically altered food hurts or helps the environment. The poll, conducted by Zogby International, was released by he Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology at a panel discussion of the risks and benefits of the products of agricultural biotechnology. "Despite a long and often fractious debate about the environmental risks and benefits of biotechnology between critics and supporters, a majority of the American public agrees with neither position," said Michael Rodemeyer, executive director of the initiative. "Initially, people tend to feel slightly more strongly about the risks of the technology, but react more positively when additional information is presented to them. Simply put, it looks like the jury is still out." In the survey, 40 percent of the respondents said the risks outweigh the benefits, 33 percent said the benefits are greater than any potential harm, 19 percent thought the two were even and 9 percent were unsure. After being read informational statements, the respondents were then evenly divided, with 38 percent saying the risks outweigh the benefits and 38 percent saying the opposite. Another 21 percent said the risks and benefits were about the same and 3 percent said they "don't know.''

(EDITORS: For more information about NEW, call 713-798-4712; about PROTEIN, call 858-822-1396; about COMPUTERS, call 310-206-0540; about CONSUMERS, call 202-347-9132.)