Quorum sensing influences Vibrio harveyi growth rates in a manner not fully accounted for by the marker effect of bioluminescence.

Background: The light-emitting Vibrios provide excellent material for studying the interaction of cellular communication with growth rate because bioluminescence is a convenient marker for quorum sensing. However, the use of bioluminescence as a marker is complicated because bioluminescence itself may affect growth rate, e.g.

A path to discovery: the career of Maclyn McCarty.

Maclyn McCarty (1911-2005) was best known for his part in the pioneering discovery that genes are made of DNA.

Instructive selection and immunological theory.

The turning point of modern immunological theory was the advent of the clonal selection theory (Burnet, Talmage - 1957). A useful heuristic in the classification of theoretical models was the contrast of 'instructive' with 'selective' models of the acquisition of information by biological systems. The neo-Darwinian synthesis of the 1940s had consolidated biologists' model of evolution based on prior random variation and natural selection, viz.

Plasmid (1952-1997).

The term "plasmid" was introduced 45 years ago (J. Lederberg, 1952, Physiol. Rev.

Infectious disease as an evolutionary paradigm.

The basic principles of genetics and evolution apply equally to human hosts and to emerging infections, in which foodborne outbreaks play an important and growing role. However, we are dealing with a very complicated coevolutionary process in which infectious agent outcomes range from mutual annihilation to mutual integration and resynthesis of a new species. In our race against microbial evolution, new molecular biology tools will help us study the past; education and a global public health perspective will help us deal better with the future.