Message from the Director
Staying Alive: The ABC's of HIV
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|  old Spring Harbor Laboratory has a joint mission of research and education. The educational program includes a number of unique aspects that focus on public science education. Principal among these is the Dolan DNA Learning Center that has recently expanded its internet education listings by producing with the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation a valuable new program called Your Genes, Your Health, which is now available on the Dolan DNA Learning Center website, http://www.ygyh.org. This site highlights, using the latest Web technologies, genetic diseases from the points of view of scientists, physicians, patients and their families. I highly recommend it to all interested in genetic diseases.
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Highlighted in this issue of the Harbor Transcript is another unique aspect of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's public education mission. John Inglis and the Cold Spring Harbor Press have produced an important children's book called Staying Alive that is designed for use by children in South Africa. Developed in collaboration with Professor Siamon Gordon, a South-African-born physician and scientist at the University of Oxford, along with children's book author Professor Frances Balkwill and illustrator Mic Rolph, Staying Alive is designed to educate children about sexually transmitted HIV and the resulting AIDS disease that is now so prevalent in Africa. Frances Balkwill and Mic Rolph have written and illustrated a number of children's books for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, but Staying Alive represents a new era in our children's education program. Following initial visits to South Africa to develop the text and illustrations with South African children, the Staying Alive team again visited South Africa this past summer to distribute free copies of the book to school-age children in several regions, with the expectation that through education, the spread of HIV may be attenuated, particularly among the new generation.
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We hope to be able to expand this novel education program by producing similar versions of Staying Alive for all regions of South Africa and for other countries in Africa and beyond, particularly adapting the book for African languages and cultures. Although there is a desperate need for an HIV vaccine and new, affordable therapies for those many tens of millions already infected with HIV in Africa, education must play a leading role in preventing further spread of this disease, particularly among children. I am most pleased that the Staying Alive book has been well received in South Africa and that the team is enthusiastic about continuing this program in collaboration with others who are working in Africa on a daily basis to combat the spread of HIV. In many ways, solving this problem could be one of the World's greatest achievements, but it will take a coordinated and sustained effort by all Western countries, including much more effort from the United States, as well as the cooperation of those countries who bear the brunt of the epidemic.
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---Bruce Stillman
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