The best approach for averting the deadly spread of smallpox following release of the virus by terrorists may rest with the establishment of a major collaborative research effort to develop new antiviral drugs that would involve the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, universities and government agencies, according to a new report from the National Academies. The report delivers the recommendations of a distinguished panel of researchers who participated in a two-day workshop at the National Academies to promote the application of the latest biological information, technology and experience to the study of smallpox. Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Stephen C. Harrison of Harvard Medical School is the lead author of the report, which was published online July 12, 2004, in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
