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18 researchgenomes. The National Aeronautic and Space Administration supports the Josephine Bay Paul Center’smembership in the astrobiology community, while the Department of Energy continues to supportour bioinformatics initiative that focuses on annotation and evolution of gene families in the metalreducingmicrobe Shewanella oneidensis.Continuing support from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation underpins growth and stability of thecenter, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is supporting an International Census of Marine Microbes(ICoMM) project, which seeks to organize the international community in its effort to understandthe diversity and role of microbes throughout the world’s oceans. This is a collaborative project thatengages investigators from around the world and is managed jointly by the Josephine Bay Paul Centerand the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research – NIOZ.Educational activities are also integral to the Josephine Bay Paul Center. In addition to hosting graduatestudents and participating in the Brown-MBL Graduate Program, center scientists are involved in theMBL’s Parasitology and Microbial Diversity courses as well as the renowned Workshop on MolecularEvolution. Mitchell Sogin also co-directs, with Claire Fraser of The Institute for Genomic Research, acourse titled “Advances In Genome Technology and Bioinformatics.” Center scientists also reach out toK-12 and undergraduate educators, offering two microbiology-based workshops for teachers annually.“Good Cholesterol” Provides Humanswith Immunity to Certain Parasites:Now We Know WhyFor years biomedical researchers have known that highdensity lipoproteins, commonly called HDLs or “goodcholesterol,” are responsible for protecting humans fromcertain parasites, but couldn’t explain how. Now scientistsfrom the MBL’s Bay Paul Center have discovered thathuman HDLs work their bug-repelling magic by serving asa platform for the assembly and delivery of two naturallyoccurring proteins that combine to create a super-toxicantimicrobial.The research, published in the September 30, 2005, issueof the Journal of Biological Chemistry, focuses specifically onhuman innate immunity to Trypanosoma brucei brucei, theparasite that gives African cattle the deadly disease calledNagana, but which doesn’t harm humans even thoughscientists believe they are exposed to it. The parasite isa close relative of Trypanosoma brucei gambienese andTrypanosoma brucei rhodesiense, the organisms that causedeadly African sleeping sickness in humans.The findings that two proteins work synergistically to killthe Nagana parasite in humans contradict a long-heldhypothesis that a single protein was the key to HDL’sparasite-fighting power. “The research may be helpful toveterinarians hoping to develop treatments to aid Africancattle farmers, who lose three million cattle and around abillion U.S. dollars annually to Nagana,” says April Shiflett,a fifth-year graduate student in the Brown-MBL GraduateProgram in Biological and Environmental Sciences and anauthor on the paper. Scientists also hope the research willprovide key information to investigators seeking treatmentsfor other parasitic infections, such as malaria.To identify the proteins—known as apolipoprotein L-1 (apoL-1) and haptoglobin-related protein (Hpr)—MBL scientiststested different amounts and combinations of the proteinson Trypanosoma brucei brucei specimens. To survive, theparasite needs to digest the lipids in HDLs. Because HDLcarries these proteins and enables them to combine, it isnature’s perfect delivery system for the antimicrobial. Andwhen test organisms digested the super-toxic protein mix,the single-celled organisms literally dissolved.Shiflett and her colleagues in the MBL’s Global InfectiousDiseases Program are focused on understanding themolecular workings of a variety of parasites, including thosethat cause human African sleeping sickness, Nagana, andmalaria. Such research is crucial to finding better treatments,and possibly cures, for diseases that are ravaging the peopleand economies of places like Africa and other developingcountries.Funding for this study was provided by the NationalInstitutes of Health.