EDITORIAL Science before the CD-ROM

Every scienti®c discipline has its core of funda-mental observations that de®ne principles applic-able to multiple experimental situations. Theseprovide concepts and universal laws that form thefoundation for the work that follows. We all learnthese basics before we embark upon our ownresearch topic and always cite the seminal papersin explanation of our investigational strategy,ensuring that the correct etiquette is followed togive credit to those who performed innovativework. This process of building and re®nementforms the basis of scholarship and allows eachgeneration to pass the baton of scienti®c investiga-tion on to subsequent generations enriched byembellishments made on a central theme. Or dowe?

A vast amount of scienti®c data is now availableat the click of a mouse. It should therefore be easyto ®nd and cite seminal articles from the pub-lished literature, so that our generation should bebetter scholars than those who worked before theinformation revolution. Furthermore, by havingaccess to seminal articles, present day investiga-tors should be able to prevent the repetition ofexperiments which have already been describedand should be able to cross-fertilise one investiga-tional area with techniques developed in another.Or do they?

In practice, many abstracts for meetings orarticles submitted for publication fail to recognisethat similar work has been performed by others.In the most egregious examples, this includes thesame virus and the same cell lines and/or thesame PCR primers and/or the same experimentalanimal or human situation; in others, it concernsone virus where another has been investigated inparallel circumstances. If I, acting as a generalreviewer for virology, can recognise multipleexamples, outside my personal research interest,whose articles fail to recognise seminal work,what does this say about the authors whosechosen specialist research area is the subject ofthe abstract or paper? Two possible explanations

are apparent: either some colleagues are unawareof what has been published previously or they areaware but hope that journal editors and reviewerswill not recognise this and so accept their work asnovel.

Irrespective of whether the cause is ignorance orplagiarism, it is clear that some colleagues areoblivious to our scienti®c heritage. If they dobother to perform a literature survey, they merelyconsult the latest CD-ROM (currently, years1996±2000 in our University) and very fewbother to go back as far as the earliest diskprovided by Medline (1966). Rarely does anyonestill visit a reference laboratory to seek out originaldusty tomes which, despite their ages, maycontain insights into contemporary scienti®cinvestigation.

For example, the series of Classic Papers repro-duced in Reviews in Medical Virology illustratespast investigative examples which continue toilluminate topical problems. The current ClassicPaper contains important information about thedynamics of viral clearance from the circulation[1]. The experimental ®ndings continue to chal-lenge our understanding of host innate defencesystems and are directly relevant to moderntreatment with antiviral drugs [2±4]. Nevertheless,many colleagues with a research interest in AIDSappear to believe that the ®eld of viral dynamicswas created during studies of HIV, whereas, asthis Classic Paper shows, the essential conceptswere de®ned a third of a century ago [1].Arguably, progress in the control of HIV-inducedpathology would have been even more rapid ifinvestigators had appreciated at an early stage theneed to combat rapid viral replication with potentantiviral chemotherapy. Armed with the para-digm provided in the current Classic Paper, theywould have used direct measures of viral replica-tion in vivo to determine that monotherapy (withany currently licensed drug) lacked potency andso proceeded to study combinations of drugspromptly. Since it is the use of anti-retroviral

Reviews in Medical Virology Rev. Med. Virol. 2000; 10: 205±206.

Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

combination therapy that has had a dramaticeffect on the control of HIV-induced immuno-de®ciency [5], the application of such scholarshipmay have produced tangible practical bene®tswhich could justify the academic study of virologyin addition to its purely intellectual fascination.

To return to the etiquette and ethics that governpublication of research results, the Committee onPublication Ethics (COPE) has recently statedthese explicitly. Their guidelines are available onwww.publicationethics.org.uk, and this journalexpects and requires all authors to conform tothem. Meanwhile, we hope readers will continueto enjoy the series of Classic Papers, both fortheir inherent interest and possible contemporarypractical applications. The knowledge impartedshould surely help defend against the risk that,``Those who cannot remember the past are condemnedto repeat it'' [6].

P. D. Grif®ths

REFERENCES1. McLean A. Experimental infection of monkeys with

Langat Virus II: turnover of circulating virus. RevMed Virol 2000; 10: 207±215.

2. Ho DD, Neumann AU, Perelson AS, Chen W,Leonard JM, Markowitz M. Rapid turnover ofplasma virions and CD4 lymphocytes in HIV-1infection. Nature 1995; 373: 123±126.

3. Wei X, Ghosh SK, Taylor ME, et al. Viral dynamics inhuman immunode®ciency virus type 1 infection.Nature 1995; 373: 117±122.

4. Zhang L, Dailey PJ, He T, et al. Rapid clearanceof simian immunode®ciency virus particles fromplasma of rhesus macaques. J Virol 1999; 73(1):855±860.

5. Palella FJ, Delaney KM, Moorman AC, et al. Declin-ing morbidity and mortality among patients withadvanced human immunode®ciency virus infection.N Engl J Med 1998; 338(13): 853±860.

6. Santayana G (1863±1952). ``Those who cannot rememberthe past are condemned to repeat it''. The Life of Reason.

206 Editorial

Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Rev. Med. Virol. 2000; 10: 205±206.