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In Judy I trust

K

_Kim_

Guest
Who is Judy Mikovits?

judy.jpg


This week we learned from the NY Times about her whereabouts before she became the Director of Research at the Whittemore Petersen Institute.

In the spring of 2006, they met Dr. Judy A. Mikovits, a virus expert who had spent 22 years working at the National Cancer Institute. She had left the institute in 2001 to get married and move to California, where she went to work for a drug development company that failed. She was tending bar at a yacht club when a patron said her constant talk about viruses reminded him of someone he knew in Nevada. That person was a friend of Annette Whittemores. Dr. Mikovits soon found herself at a conference on chronic fatigue syndrome.

And now the WPI website has posted the Executive Staff biographies

Dr. Mikovits spent more than 20 years at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick MD during which time she received her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, investigating mechanisms by which retroviruses dysregulate the delicate balance of cytokines in the immune response. This work led to the discovery of the role aberrant DNA methylation plays in the pathogenesis of HIV. Later in her career at the NCI, Dr. Mikovits directed the Lab of Antiviral Drug Mechanisms (LADM) a section of the NCI's Screening Technologies Branch in the Developmental Therapeutics Program. The LADM's mission was to identify, characterize and validate molecular targets and to develop high-throughput cell-based, genomic and epigenomic screens for the development of novel therapeutic agents for AIDS and AIDS-associated malignancies (Kaposi's sarcoma). Formally trained as a cell biologist, molecular biologist and virologist, Dr. Mikovits has studied the immune response to retroviruses and herpes viruses including HIV, SIV, HTLVI, HERV, HHV6 and HHV8 with a special emphasis on virus host cell interactions in cells of the hematopoietic system including hematopoietic stem cells (HSC). Dr. Mikovits' commercial experience includes serving as a senior scientist and group leader at Biosource International, where she led the development of proteomic assays for the Luminex platform that is used extensively for cytokine activity assessment in therapy development. She also served as Chief Scientific Officer and VP of Drug Discovery at Epigenx Biosciences, where she led the development and commercialization of cell and array-based methylation assays for drug discovery and diagnostic development. Dr. Mikovits has co-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications that address fundamental issues of viral pathogenesis, hematopoiesis and cytokine biology.
 

garcia

Aristocrat Extraordinaire
Messages
976
Location
UK
Looking at her background its almost like she was destined to make this discovery. Could it have been anyone else? I don't think so.
 

Daisymay

Senior Member
Messages
754
Absolutely Garcia

Looking at her background its almost like she was destined to make this discovery. Could it have been anyone else? I don't think so.

Garcia that is just what I have been thinking, all seems destined, karmic, whatever, thank God for her and the WPI.
 

Eric Johnson from I&I

Senior Member
Messages
337
It coulda been someone else, it woulda been someone else. For certain. But definitely not just any given prof, fellow, or firm. And it may count for a lot one day to have had it 6 months earlier, 3 years earlier, or 10 years earlier, to say the least. Who would name a price for even six more months in this vale of troubles? When its time to die, you find that you cant name one. I didnt deduce this fact, I tasted it.

A lot of credit goes to DeRisi too, a formidable technology maestro. He's the one who made this push into supercharged virus discovery with his beautiful brute force "Virochip" and so discovered XMRV.

Heres a great and funny video where he talks the Virochip talk, nontechnically:
http://www.ted.com/talks/joe_derisi_hunts_the_next_killer_virus.html

.
 
K

_Kim_

Guest
Great video!!

A lot of credit goes to DeRisi too, a formidable technology maestro. He's the one who made this push into supercharged virus discovery with his beautiful brute force "Virochip" and so discovered XMRV.

Heres a great and funny video where he talks the Virochip talk, nontechnically:
http://www.ted.com/talks/joe_derisi_hunts_the_next_killer_virus.html

Eric, thanks for posting that video. It is wonderfully informative and very funny! It's eerie to see that this was filmed in 2006 and he talks about how they sequenced a newly found retrovirus. In the last 3 minutes of the video, Joe shows (then unpublished) data about XMRV. Just brilliant!
 

garcia

Aristocrat Extraordinaire
Messages
976
Location
UK
I agree fantastic talk. Thanks for posting Eric.

p.s. I'm thinking of building one of those in my garage. ;)
 

gracenote

All shall be well . . .
Messages
1,537
Location
Santa Rosa, CA
garages and discoveries

This is great, Eric.

Joe DeRisi says that for the price of a Camry you could "build a DNA array machine in your garage." Just download the instructions. Then you could be "making DNA chips" and "decoding some program patterns rapidly." He says it's a lot of fun!

Wouldn't that be great Garcia? Fabulous things have come from people experimenting in their garages.

The whole video is great. For the info on prostate cancer, RNaseL and the discovery of the new retrovirus, it starts at 13:30. If you forward to that point, though, you'll miss the fun.