The selenium-coxsackievirus connection: Chronicle of a collaboration

This review provides a historical account of a collaboration established be tween a nutritionist and a virologist to investigate the interrelationship of host nutritional status and viral virulence. The parties to this collabo ration consider themselves specialists in the fields of antioxidant nutriti on and viral immunology, respectively. The advantages of such talent poolin g are discussed (rapid startup, well-focused experimentation, ability to vi sualize the "big picture"), as are some of the disadvantages (limited commo n scientific vocabulary, proper apportioning of credit, lack of institution al infrastructure to house such efforts). The common perception that some o f the most exciting science occurs when the advancing edges of two disparat e disciplines intersect is borne out by this project because host nutriture was shown for the first time to influence the genetic make-up of an invadi ng viral pathogen. Encouragement of joint cooperative ventures should have a high priority as demanded by increasingly difficult scientific problems a nd as desired by scientists themselves who wish to see their research progr ess more quickly.