380 NATURE MEDICINE • VOLUME 9 • NUMBER 4 • APRIL 2003

NEWS

Every Wednesday and Friday, you canfind Dennis Burton walking around hislab in soccer shorts and cleats. For years,the immunologist has religiously playedsoccer twice a week. Off the field, Burtonhas a reputation as a laid-back researcherand the best collaborator anyone couldask for. But on it, says AnthonyWilliamson, who has worked with himfor nearly 15 years, Burton is fiercelycompetitive. “He plays dirty—and I havethe bruises to prove it,” Williamsonsays, joking.

That Williamson can openly tease hismentor is a testament to Burton’s fa-mous good humor. Members of his labat The Scripps Research Institute haveover the years staged elaborate practicaljokes with and on Burton. His cheerful,tolerant attitude has ensured that his labis populated with people who have ei-ther always worked with him, or haveleft and returned after postdoctoral ap-pointments elsewhere.

In the last five years, his researchteam—and the funding it has access to—has nearly tripled. He is now widely con-sidered a front-runner in the HIVvaccine field and the world’s leading ex-pert on antibodies. Last year, theInternational AIDS Vaccine Initiativenamed Burton director of itsNeutralizing Antibody Consortium,which includes such research heavy-weights as John Moore, Joseph Sodroskiand Gary Nabel.

Friends, colleagues and rivals all de-scribe Burton as a scrupulously thor-ough, fair and honest researcher.Through the consortium, Burton hasalso fostered a spirit of cooperation andcollaboration, they say. “I really thinkhe’s doing great work and people shouldstand up and pay attention,” saysRonald Desrosiers, an HIV vaccine re-searcher at Harvard Medical School. “Idon’t give compliments easily, but I’vebeen saying a lot of good things aboutDennis lately.”

A strong, analytical scientist likeBurton is particularly valuable in theHIV field, which is full of “gee-whizstuff,” says Richard Lerner, president ofScripps, and Burton’s mentor. “A dra-

matic public health problem [like AIDS]brings out all the flakes,” Lerner says.“[Burton] takes a very calm scientific ap-proach to the problem.”

In the recent controversy over resultsfrom VaxGen’s HIV vaccine trial (seepage 376), for example, Burton hasopenly criticized the company’s deci-sion to proceed with what he says was along shot. “If you believe in science, youdon’t believe in just trying anything,”he says. “There was no science underly-ing the use of this as a vaccine candi-date.”

Burton says he hopes to contribute insome significant way to finding an effec-tive AIDS vaccine. He and others havecharacterized a few antibodies that canbroadly neutralize HIV. His lab is nowengaged in working back from those an-tibodies to an immunogen that canelicit them—an approach he calls retro-vaccinology.

Burton began his career at theUniversity of Sheffield in the UK. In July1989, he arrived at Scripps, in La Jolla,California, for a sabbatical in Lerner’slab. He remembers the months that fol-lowed as the happiest times in his scien-tific career. “It was very nice—beautifulweather, the beaches, we had small chil-dren—I mean it was just so simple, itwas completely uncomplicated,” hesays.

At the time, Burton and several othersin the Lerner lab were trying to make re-combinant human antibodies. “Therewas a great spirit in the lab of the peopleworking together toward this commonaim,” Burton says. “It was just enor-mously rewarding but also, it was very

clean somehow.”Those months of work led to Burton’s

“single biggest ‘Eureka’ moment” and acelebrated paper in Science. Nearly 15years later, Burton still describes the mo-ment of discovery with startling detailand sentimentality. One morning thatOctober, he says, he came in and saw aseries of spots on radioactive plates.“What that meant is we’d made recom-binant antibodies outside of animalsand here they were,” Burton says. Thatafternoon, the lab celebrated withchampagne and Burton wrote the dateon the bottle. He still keeps the bottle inhis kitchen cupboard. “I think [I kept itbecause] it would always tell me the dateon which we’d accomplished this pro-ject,” he says. “It was a special time.”

Even now, Burton says, he values aspirit of teamwork above all else. “In the[HIV] vaccine field, I really don’t feel wehave rivals,” he says. “There is a duty ofresearchers to help one another get to [acommon] goal—I think most people feelthat.” Although most of his colleaguespolitely disagree with that assessment,nearly all say Burton is competitive onlyin that he motivates himself and his ri-vals to do their best.

Burton may have another opportunityto sublimate his competitive spirit. Hissecond son is a champion golfer and astudent at the David Leadbetter athleticacademy, which has trained the likes ofAndre Agassi and the Williams sisters.From his office, which overlooks theocean and the world-famous TorreyPines golf course, Burton often watchesTiger Woods roam the fairways duringtournaments. Does he hope, as hisfriends tease him, that his son mightsomeday be the next Woods? “Well,that would be nice,” Burton says with asheepish grin, before the rational scien-tist in him reasserts itself. “But you can’trely on things like that.”

What you can rely on, saysWilliamson, is Burton’s unwaveringspirit. And if reserving all his aggressionfor the soccer field helps maintain hisgood humor in the lab, Williamsonadds, “he had better just keep playing.”

Apoorva Mandavilli, La Jolla

In HIV vaccine research—where the stakes are high both scientifically and financially—it is rare to find a scientist asuniversally liked as Dennis Burton. Tempering deep ambition with a deeper sense of integrity, Burton walks the fine line

between competition and collaboration.

Dennis Burton

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