The New Class It usually takes top scientists to make world-class discoveries. That s why the Georgia Research Alliance, a think tank for the biotechnology industry, has persuaded 61 scientists to accept positions as Eminent Scholars at major institutions in Georgia. Here s a glance at just four: H Julia Hilliard Julia Hilliard left the University of Texas San Antonio Medical Center in 1987 to run a national laboratory at Georgia State University in Atlanta and nd a vaccine for the Herpes B virus, which is mostly carried by monkeys. She runs a biosafety level 4 lab, one of a handful of such research labs in the U.S. Herpes B is rare in humans and often deadly in those who were infected when transmitted by bite, scratch or spit from monkeys. Her lab operates 24/7 to quickly analyze blood samples from biomedical research facilities around the world when a transmission accident occurs. Rapid diagnosis allows quick application of lifesaving treatments. Allan D. Kirk In 2007, Emory University recruited kidney and pancreas surgeon Allan D. Kirk to join a team of researchers working to replace the toxic lifelong drugs taken by organ and tissue transplant recipients. Kirk left his work directing kidney transplants at the National Institutes of Health to gure out how to better control immune responses that often result in the failure of organ transplants. He now also leads an NIH-funded research project to make kidney transplants more tolerable for children, who can suffer devastating effects from immunosuppressant drugs. H H Ralph Tripp The Georgia Research Alliance lured Ralph Tripp from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to the University of Georgia in Athens with an opportunity to study diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans, including avian in uenza, and to develop a test to diagnose speci c viral infections in less than a minute. Tripp is a viral immunologist who works on disease intervention to make vaccines and antivirals. He s worried that a strain of avian in uenza, similar to the one that killed millions during World War I, is budding somewhere now. John McDonald John McDonald left the University of Georgia after more than 20 years to take a position at rival Georgia Tech. He is searching for a cure for ovarian cancer and says his team is close to coming out with one of the most accurate tests thus far reported for the disease. He compares gene expression patterns in ovarian tumors and those present in normal ovaries. This work is the basis for developing sensitive and cost-effective tests for ovarian cancer a cancer whose diagnosis is elusive, often until it is in its advanced stages. B. H. H 104 May 2009 deltaskymag.com pg 95-114.indd 10 4/7/09 9:18:30 AM