Media Buzz over Gold and Autoimmune Disease

Well some discoveries are flashier than others. And to get the media's interest make sure your finding can be summarized with some catchy slogan and/or pun.

From a post on my old blog:

So my blog's been suffering from neglect. (I'm writing up a paper.) Hopefully it'll get in some journal, then I'll be a happy scientist! Speaking of happy scientist, check this photo out (to the right).

And why is he happy?

He not only just published a paper, but is on front page of Harvard's website. Check out the Harvard article, and the original article in Nature Chemical Biology. What a golden moment!

{Update}

I've been asked to save the actual webpage cover for future reference ... I've done one better and pasted it on the blog:

Notice that Brian's paper is a bigger news story than Larry Summers' departure. Ah success!

{Update 2/28/06}

Basic summary: Brian found that Gold, platinum, and some other heavy metals can strip off antigens from MHC II and thus be used to treat autoimmune disorders.

Dr DeDecker told me that when he discusses his results with many western doctors they are not that interested, while doctors from the developing world are enthralled. Not only is this treatment cheap, but it turns out that many local remedies for arthritis and other autoimmune diseases involve heavy metal administration.

Ref: Stephen L De Wall et al., Noble metals strip peptides from class II MHC proteins. Nature Chemical Biology, Published online: 26 February 2006

Now it turns out that Brian was interviewed by The Economist (Gold, Platinum ... the pun is too obvious to even state). Here's the link to the article "Gold Fingered" (and note the silver bullet metaphore).