UTMB Quarterly Summer 2002

F E AT U R E S
VOL. 4, NO. 1
SUMMER 2002
Of Biodefense, Bioterrorism, and the Coming BSL4 Laboratory

The new Center for Biodefense and nascent biosafety level 4 laboratory give UTMB an even larger role in the fight against bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases.
Death in the Wind

By Jim Kelly In Russia, UTMBs Dr. David Walker uncovered a terrible secret: the true source of the worst anthrax epidemic in history.
17
Quotations from Chairman David H. Walker

The media had questions about anthrax, and UTMBs pathology chairman had answers.
Page 8
18
Following the Viral Trail Around the World

By Abigail Zuger From tropical jungles to maximum-containment labs, C.J. Peters has spent decades hunting the most dangerous microorganisms on Earth.
23
The Quotable Dr. Peters

The director of UTMBs Center for Biodefense responds to reporters.
24
Thinking Small
By Patrick L. Barry Dr. James F. Leary and his colleagues are exploring a new type of therapy that can fix cells from the inside out.
D E PA RT M E N T S
2
Strands
Saving muscles; making rats schizophrenic; short-circuiting myasthenia gravis; and studying Epstein-Barr in the oral epitheliumand in orbit.
Page 18
28 30 38 40 41 42 56
News Briefs News of the Schools Portrait of Giving Faculty Notes Quote/Unquote Class Notes Body & Soul
The art of walking slowly. By James S. Goodwin
Page 24
STRANDS
Body builders
For patients who have suffered severe injuries, wound healing is only the first step in convalescence. In a paradoxical tradeoff in the natural healing process, a severely injured patients muscle mass turns into fuel for boosting the immune system, leaving the patient even weaker. This loss of strength hobbles those who have already experienced an arduous journey toward recovery. It also challenges physicians looking to quickly return patients to daily life. UTMB researchers are tackling this challenge. David N. Herndon, UTMB professor of surgery and chief of staff and director of research at the Shriners Burns Hospital in Galveston, is studying the ability of a drug named propranolol to counteract the wasting of muscle mass after severe trauma. A so-called beta-blocker, propranolol has been shown to lower the risk of cardiac complications as well as reduce overall death rates after major surgery by lowering heart rates and thus slowing energy expenditure. Herndon and his colleagues suspected that decreased energy expenditure would also mean less muscle mass loss. Aided by modern musclemeasuring methods, whose absence had been a major barrier to previous investigative attempts, the team set out to prove their theory. Their initial results were reported last October in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers studied twenty-five children severely burned over at least 40 percent of their bodies. Thirteen received the drug propranolol, while twelve received the traditional therapy. Upon leaving the hospital after stays that averaged eight weeks, the group that received the propranolol lost just 1 percent of their muscle mass, while the control group lost an average of 9 percent. Eleven others treated with propranolol showed similar positive results. Researchers were surprised by one twist: rather than preventing the loss of muscle mass, they discovered propranolol speeds up protein synthesis, thus allowing muscle to be built more quicklyin effect canceling out the bodys conversion of muscle into fuel. Why propranolol works this way is still a mystery and the total number of patients studied remains small. Still, the study team hopes this is the real deal, said UTMB surgical resident David Hart, a co-author of the study. If so, the implications are huge: should propranolol prove to be as successful as it appears, it would enable people to undergo a three-month hospitalization or whatever is required and not be completely weak and debilitated. Herndon continues to investigate propranolols benefits in burn victims. In addition, he is exploring the use of anabolic steroidswell recognized for their musclebuilding featuresas a possible partner for the betablocker in maintaining and even increasing seriously injured patients muscle mass. Ann T. Lemon
rather than preventing the loss of muscle mass, they discovered propranolol speeds up protein synthesis, thus allowing muscle to be built more quickly
U T M B Q U A R T E R LY
SUMMER 2002
STRANDS
PCP + rat = schizophrenia
Hallucinations, inappropriate social behavior, and delusional thoughts and speech are just a few symptoms of schizophrenia, a devastating disease that frequently leaves its victims nonfunctional. Therapy remains rudimentary, and only a few new drugs, such as olanzapine, have been introduced since the early 1960s. Meanwhile, the underlying cause of schizophrenia remains unknown. Only when researchers can pin down the conditions origin (or origins) will they be able to design moreeffective drugs. Kenneth M. Johnson, professor of pharmacology and toxicology and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UTMB, believes that an animal tranquilizer called PCP (for phencyclidine)popular in the late 1960s and 1970s as the recreational drug angel dustmay provide valuable clues. Schizophrenia is associated with a pronounced loss of tissue in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that guides social behavior, attention, planning, and motivation. In healthy individuals, slender, wire-like extensions of brain cells or neurons in the prefrontal cortex form a far-reaching network that allows the cells to communicate with neighbors by releasing chemicals known as neurotransmitters. The neurotransmitters then spread out and selectively adhere to receptors on other cells. In schizophrenics, a lack of glutamate, the neurotransmitter of choice in this region of the brain, is thought to hamper this communication between cells. It is this hypoglutamatergic state that researchers believe causes the symptoms peculiar to schizophrenia, and it is this state which Johnson is investigating with PCP. PCP has a nasty tendency to produce hallucinations, delirium, and memory deficitssymptoms similar to those of schizophrenia. As it turns out, PCP prevents glutamate from delivering messages to neighboring cells, mimicking the hypoglutamatergic state found in schizophrenia. Not surprisingly, many researchers have eyed treating rats and mice with PCP as a model for this disease, but the schizophrenic-like condition lasts only while the drug is present. Johnson, however, has discovered a way to induce a chronic condition more like full-blown schizophrenia. Because evidence now suggests that schizophrenia originates during fetal development, Johnson exposes neonatal rats to PCP. The PCP selectively kills a large number of brain cells in the prefrontal cortex, putting the rats into a permanent hypoglutamatergic or hypofrontal state similar to that observed in schizophrenia. When these rats are older, they also display symptoms typical of schizophrenia, such as loss of working memory. One common behavioral test Johnson uses is startling the rats with loud noises. Normal rats startle less easily if a loud noise is preceded by a lowerdecibel warning tone. But PCP-treated rats are equally unnerved despite the warning tone. With a $45,000 grant from Eli Lilly, Johnson has shown that the companys product olanzapine, one of the few available drugs that is effective against most symptoms of schizophrenia, not only prevents PCP-induced neuronal death but also helps return his PCP-treated rats behavior to normal. These results provide strong vindication for Johnsons model of schizophrenia. As a consequence of this work, Johnson has been awarded a four-year, $750,000 grant from the National Institute for Mental Health. He plans to study his PCP model further, concentrating on the mechanisms by which PCP kills cortical brain cells. In the end, Johnson hopes that his model will shed light on how this PCPinduced cortical deficit affects other brain areas that normally depend on the cortex for proper function. His ultimate goal is to help find new drugs that will treat schizophrenia more effectively. In the meantime, it seems that PCP is finally being put to good use. Kasie Cole
T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F T E X A S M E D I C A L B R A N C H AT G A LV E S T O N
STRANDS
Muscling in on myasthenia gravis
Its name means grave muscle weakness, and thats what myasthenia gravis causesa debilitating loss of strength that can make even the smallest movements difficult. The disease, which afflicts about 36,000 Americans, occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks the molecules that muscle cells use to receive chemical signals from the nerves. These molecules, known as acetylcholine receptors, are quickly destroyed, leaving the muscles unable to respond to orders from the nerves. Now, UTMB scientists have pinpointed the specific part of the human acetylcholine receptor that provokes the most intense response from the immune system in myasthenia gravis. The discovery could lead to a possible cure for the disease and to important insights into other autoimmune disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, lupus, and multiple sclerosis. To identify the critical part of the receptor, Premkumar Christadoss, Huan Yang, Teh-Shan Chang, Elzbieta Goluszko, and Mathilde Poussin refined an experimental technique that uses acetylcholine receptors from a sea creature called the Pacific torpedo ray to induce myasthenia gravis in mice genetically modified to produce human immune system molecules. Instead of employing torpedo ray receptors, they induced the condition with human acetylcholine receptorsthe first time this had been done to create a more accurate model of the molecular interactions involved in human myasthenia gravis. Immune cells from the transgenic mice were then exposed to different tiny segments of the human acetylcholine receptor to determine which segments would incite the most powerful reaction. We looked at the proliferative response, the T-cell expansion for different specific peptides, amino acid sequences, from the human acetylcholine receptor alpha subunit, Christadoss says. One peptide gave a dominant response. That peptide, known as the H-a320-337 sequence, produced similar results when tested against immune cells from groups of mice with different human genes. This promiscuity of the H-a320-337 peptide suggests that it may be involved in provoking harmful immune responses against acetylcholine receptors in patients with a wide variety of genetic backgrounds. It also opens up the possibility that the peptide could be the key to a new treatment for myasthenia gravis. In earlier experiments, UTMB researchers used high-concentration doses of torpedo-ray acetylcholine receptor alpha subunit peptide to overstimulate the specific T-cells directing the autoimmune attack that causes the disease, driving those cells to commit suicide in the process known to scientists as apoptosis. Such experiments have been about 50 percent
THE DISEASE, WHICH AFFLICTS ABOUT 36,000 AMERICANS, OCCURS WHEN THE IMMUNE SYSTEM MISTAKENLY ATTACKS THE MOLECULES THAT MUSCLE CELLS USE TO RECEIVE CHEMICAL SIGNALS FROM THE NERVES.
successful in preventing myasthenia gravis in mice, and the newly identified peptide could be more successful in doing the same job. What we are planning to do next is give a high dose of this peptide to see whether we can prevent the disease in transgenic mice, Christadoss says. If we can do that, prevent or even suppress ongoing disease, then this peptide could be used as a vaccine to cure myasthenia gravis. In addition, Christadoss says that the research has implications for the study of autoimmune diseases as a whole. In many autoimmune disorders, scientists do not yet know the antigen, the entity that provokes the immune response. For myasthenia, however, we know the acetylcholine receptor is the antigen, and that one single antigen is important for the development of the disease, Christadoss says. Therefore, its a good prototype to study the other diseases, a very nice classical model for a lot of autoimmune diseases.Jim Kelly
SUMMER 2002
STRANDS
The (sometimes) kiss of death
The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), typically transmitted through kissing, causes mononucleosisthe kissing disease. Its flu-like symptoms may include fever, sore throat, and swollen lymph glands. These usually clear up in a few days or weeks. Not everyone infected gets mono. But once infected, you stay infected for life. The good news is that in a vast majority of those infected (95 percent of adults worldwide carry EBV), the virus doesnt cause health problems. Later in life, however, a small but significant fraction of those infected with EBV develop lymphomas, or cancer of the lymph glands, and other cancers. Many of these diseasesnotably Burkitts lymphoma, Hodgkins disease, and nasopharyngeal carcinomaare devilishly hard to treat. B-lymphocytes, special immune system cells that fight infection, are prime targets of EBV. The virus both infects them and reproduces within them. Scientists have long debated whether the outermost layer of cells in the mouth, called the oral epithelium, is also a target of EBV infection and replication. Now a team of researchers led by Dennis M. Walling, a UTMB assistant professor of infectious diseases, has shown that, at least in some cases, the oral epithelium does in fact support EBV infection. His groups findings, which were published December 15, 2001, in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, show that, in those infected with HIVthe virus that causes AIDSthe oral epithelium also sustains EBV infection and replication. Wallings discovery that the oral epithelium is an alternative infection sitethe other site being the B-lymphocytesallows scientists to better understand the delicate relationship that exists between EBV and its human hosts. (Infections with oral EBV and HPV, or human papillomavirusthe cause of all warts and of cervical cancerare subjects researchers will plumb more deeply in Galveston February 1316, 2003, at the Second Annual McLaughlin Symposium in Infection and Immunity, which Walling is organizing.) Further insight into the host-virus relationship is important in understanding the how EBVlike HIV, a retroviruscauses diseases. Retroviruses lack DNA, a crucial component of the genetic apparatus needed for cell division. To reproduce, retroviruses must commandeer their host cells DNA. When this happens, the interplay of the viruss genetic component (RNA) with the hosts DNA can sometimes go haywire, activating disease-causing genes in people. To focus on the host-virus relationship, scientists first must know what cell types are infected by EBV or triggered by EBV. Next Walling hopes to learn whether EBV replication is also supported by the oral epithelium in normal subjects, or those not infected with HIV. Answering this question may help medical science prevent or treat the deadly cancers and other diseases attributed to EBV infection. And for the unlucky minority for whom a simple kiss may become the kiss of death, answers cant come too soon. Animesh Chandra
The good news is that in a vast majority of those infected (95 percent of adults worldwide carry EBV), the virus doesnt cause health problems. Later in life, however, a small but significant fraction of those infected with EBV develop lymphomas, or cancer of the lymph glands, and other cancers.
STRANDS
Space viruses
When the International Space Stations fifth permanent crew left Earth in early June, they carried tiny stowaways with themviruses that had been latent in their bodies since childhood. These viruses, including Epstein-Barr, herpes simplex, and varicella zoster (which causes chicken pox in children and shingles in adults), exist in almost everyone, but they have a special significance for astronauts, whose immune systems are weakened by the unique stresses of spaceflight. When unchecked by the bodys usually strong defenses, the viruses can reactivate, possibly posing serious health problems. Researchers from UTMB and NASAs Johnson Space Center have been studying the spaceflight-induced reactivation of these stowaway viruses for the past five years, using data from space shuttle astronauts to focus on EpsteinBarr, which is linked to lymphoma, chronic fatigue syndrome, and infectious mononucleosis. Until now, such studies have been limited by shuttle flights short duration. But with the three-person Expedition 5 crews arrival at the station for a six-month stay, scientists are getting their first chance to see how long-term spaceflight influences virus activity. Everyone on the Expedition 5, 6, 7, and 8 crews has signed up for our research, says UTMB researcher Raymond Stowe, who has been collaborating on the investigation with UTMBs Alan Barrett and NASAs Duane Pierson. We want to know whether astronauts enduring longer space missions will be at greater risk for developing symptoms associated with latent virus reactivation. Stowes earlier work, using data he began collecting in 1997, connected significant decreases in shuttle astronauts cellular immunity and simultaneous increases in Epstein-Barr activity with rises in stress hormones. Stowe credits the increase in hormone levels to the unique stresses induced by shuttle flights, including weightlessness, the high G-forces of liftoff and re-entry, confinement, and the anxiety that goes with having to carry out a complicated mission in a dangerous environment. Longer missions, such as those to Mars, will involve increased exposure to most of these factors, along with higher doses of radiation and significant bone and muscle loss due to prolonged weightlessness. The space station investigation will more closely match these conditions. The health significance comes into play when you ask what happens on interplanetary missions where youre gone for two years, Stowe says. The question is, when you throw in the factors of stress, decreased immune functions, and added radiation, will this cause one of these lymphomas or cancers on these longer missions? In order to answer this question, Stowe collected blood and urine samples from the Expedition 5 crew at various intervals before launch, a process he will repeat after landing. The samples will be analyzed for Epstein-Barr
With the three-person Expedition 5 crews arrival at the station for a six-month stay, scientists are getting their first chance to see how long-term spaceflight influences virus activity.
virus production and virus-specific cellular immunity. Well compare the results from the space station astronauts with those from the shuttle missions, Stowe says. We want to determine if Epstein-Barr reactivation causes any complications, or if the hosts immune system is competent enough to control virus reactivation and proliferation.Jim Kelly To showcase his project, Stowe has set up a web site (http://www.utmb.edu/epstein-barr), which will feature data and streaming video from shuttle flights and space station operations.
SUMMER 2002
Photo courtesy of NASA
OF
BIODEFENSE, BIOTERRORISM, AND THE COMING
BSL4
L A B O R AT O RY
Last October 5, UTMB created its new Center for Biodefense.

That was just a day after the nation learned that a Florida newspaper editor had been diagnosed with anthrax, news quickly followed by the revelation that the deadly agent had also been mailed to offices and individuals in Washington, D.C., and New York. Designed to promote diverse research strengths at UTMB, the new center builds on the efforts of many scientists who were working to combat bioterrorism long before last October. These included more than twenty-five researchers in UTMBs World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for Tropical Diseases and Sealy Center for Structural Biology who, over the previous four years, received about $11 million in federal grants to develop countermeasures against viruses likely to be used by bioterrorists (see Battling Global Bioterrorism, UTMB Quarterly, fall 1999, http://www.utmb.edu/utmbquarterly). The center also embraces the new Sealy Center for Vaccine Development and, of course, the coming maximum containment facility at UTMBthe first full-sized biosafety level 4 (BSL4) laboratory on a university campus in the Americas. This spring, construction began on that facility, which has been designed to allow researchers to work safely with some of the most dangerous organisms on the planet. Five years in the planning, it is scheduled to be completed in 2003. The director of the BSL4 laboratory is Dr. C.J. Peters, also director of the UTMB Center for Biodefense. Peters remarkable career is the subject of a feature story beginning on page eighteen. Meanwhile, Dr. David H. Walker, chair of the pathology department and director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Tropical Diseases, is the hero of our adjacent cover story, Death in the Wind. This remarkable tale of political intrigue and scientific discovery tells how Walker and his academic colleagues, both Russian and American, helped blow the lid off the cover-up of historys deadliest anthrax epidemica man-made disaster in the former Soviet Union. For reasons that will be obvious after you read both stories, last fall during the anthrax poisoning episodes and their aftermath, reporters for major national, international, and local media outlets clamored to interview Drs. Peters and Walker and several of their knowledgeable UTMB colleagues, including Dr. Robert Shope, associate director of the Center for Biodefense and leader of the team responsible for most of the countermeasures to bioterrorism research. Some of those interviews are excerpted on the following pages as well.
B Y J I M K E L LY
Sector 13 in the Yekaterinburg cemetery, the final resting place for the victims of the biggest anthrax epidemic in history.
8 8
U U TB MB QA UR ATR R LY SM UME M S UT M QU ET RELY RE R 2 02 00 20 2
or the worst cases, it was already too late by the time they got to the hospital. The anthrax spores they had unknowingly inhaled had done their job too wellblooming into active bacteria in the lymph nodes of the chest, multiplying with terrifying speed, and pouring out to poison the rest of the body. By the time the symptoms had advanced to the point where hospitalization was required, even the most powerful antibiotics were useless. One day, a victim might think he had come down with the flu, or at worst a touch of bronchitis. A few days later, he was dyinghis lungs compressed by fluid, his gastrointestinal organs hemorrhaging, his brain squeezed by its own swelling membranes.
Something like this happened to the five fatalities from last falls anthrax attacks. But the cases described above are actually drawn from accounts of a different, far more deadly anthrax epidemic. It took place between April 4 and May 18, 1979, in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk, and it killed at least sixty-six people. The official story was that it was a form of the disease known as intestinal anthrax, contracted by eating tainted meat bought on the black market. The official story was a lie. In fact, the victims of the Sverdlovsk outbreak had died of the same form of the disease that killed the victims of last falls
bioterrorism incidents, and they had contracted it by breathing in spores accidentally released from a secret biological weapons facility operated by their own government. It would be thirteen years before anyone outside the USSR learned the full truth about the deaths at Sverdlovsk. Before that could happen, the world would have to change. The Cold War would have to end, and the Soviet Union itself would have to cease to exist. And a pathologist from UTMB would have to join forces with the Russian doctors who had faced the epidemic that struck Sverdlovsk, to help get their story out to the rest of the world.
TE HE UIN V SI TY OT F ET EA XS AM S E M EID CL AB LR BA RN AC NH CH AT GL A V TN ON TH UN V IE RESR IT Y OF X D C IA AT GA VLE SE TS O
9 9
I dont remember when I first heard about Sverdlovsk, Dr. David Walker says.
On the table in front of him, a journal article about the outbreak lies open to a particularly gruesome autopsy photo of an anthrax victims brain, displaying the crimson so-called cardinals cap effect of hemorrhagic meningitis. Id heard these exaggerated speculations several times, he says, but it really wasnt something that I was interested in. Before 1992, anthrax had never been a focus for Walker, who chairs both UTMBs department of pathology and World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Tropical Diseases. Then as now, he specialized in studying the organisms known as rickettsiae, responsible for such tick-borne illnesses as typhus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The rumors hed heard about Sverdlovskwild stories about thousands of deaths resulting from an explosion at a Soviet bioweapons labwere just that: rumors passed along by Russian exiles to Western governments, which during the Cold War had their own motives for publicizing anything that made the Soviets look bad. Walker had no reason to doubt the official Soviet explanation; in fact, he had no reason even to think about it. Then, in early 1992, he was contacted by a Harvard geneticist named Matthew Meselson. A longtime crusader against biological weapons, Meselson had been interested in Sverdlovsk since the outbreak was first reported, and in 1980 he had assisted a preliminary study of the incident by the U.S. government. Unlike many other American biological warfare experts, however, Meselson had found nothing implausible about the Soviet claim that intestinal anthrax had caused the Sverdlovsk epidemic. Now, he told Walker, the dissolution of the Soviet Union had suddenly given him a chance to travel to Sverdlovsk and find out what had really happened. He needed a pathologist for the team he was taking to Russia. Would Walker be interested? Meselson believed it was intestinal anthrax, and from the discussions we had, it sounded as if thats what he was expecting to find, Walker says. You read articles about intestinal anthrax, but the cases basically are in places where they dont do autopsies, very poor areas. The pathology doesnt get done. If he went with Meselson, Walker thought, he would get a chance to do the first real pathological studies of intestinal anthrax. It was an opportunity he couldnt pass up. And so on June 2, 1992, he boarded a plane for Moscow with the other four members of the team. In addition to Meselson and his wife, Boston University sociologist Jeanne Guillemin, the group also included Martin Hugh-Jones, a Welsh-born veterinary epidemiologist and anthrax expert from Louisiana State University, and Alexis Shelokov, a vaccinologist and epidemiologist from the Government Services Division of the Salk Institute. Of the five, only Shelokovwho had been born in the Russian community of Harbin, in Manchuria spoke Russian. But on the groups arrival in the Russian capital, they linked up with Dr. Olga Yampolskaya, an English-speaking Russian infectious-disease expert who would become a de facto member of the team. Yampolskaya brought a unique perspective to the task at hand. In 1979, she was the protg of this guy, Nikiforov, who was at the time the Russian expert on anthrax, Walker says. The two of them went to Sverdlovsk and helped take care of the patients.
Anthrax killed 18 workers from this ceramics factory, located just downwind of Compound 19.
10
SUMMER 2002
Vladimir Nikiforov had been one of the Soviet authorities most involved in developing and promoting the theory that contaminated meat had caused an intestinal anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk. In 1988, at Meselsons invitation, Nikiforov and General Pyotr Burgasovwho had been deputy minister of health during the epidemic, and who also maintained that the deaths in Sverdlovsk were caused by intestinal anthraxhad come to America to make their case. They had convinced many of those who heard them speak, and had particularly impressed Meselson; the Harvard professor saw them as a logical starting point for his investigation. Nikiforov, unfortunately, had died of a heart attack in 1990, but had left substantial materials on the outbreakphotographic slides, case reports, and a manuscript written with Burgasovin the hands of his son, who was also a physician. The team members were scheduled to spend only one day in Moscow before departing for Sverdlovsk, and so they had decided to get together with Burgasov and the younger Nikiforov at the same time. There was a problem, though: the two doctors hated each other and were squabbling over documents the older Nikiforov had left his son. Yampolskaya was afraid that if they met, violence might even result. The solution was to split up the investigators, with Walker and Yampolskaya meeting Nikiforov in one office, while the rest of the team met Burgasov in a conference room on the other side of the same building. Nikiforovs son had a surprise for Walker. Through Yampolskaya, he told the pathologist that he believed his father had actually been forced against his will to support the intestinal anthrax explanation. Then he began projecting the slides from his fathers collectionimages of internal organs seriously damaged by anthrax toxins. I said, Oh my God, its inhalational anthrax after all, Walker remembers. I saw the lesions, there were these huge hemorrhages in the mediastinum [the tissue between the lungs, the first target for inhalational anthrax]. The two groups went to lunch, Walker says, and they just kept talking about the intestinal anthrax. I said, Wait a minute, Ive got to tell you guys something. Its not intestinal. Its inhalational.
A satellite photo of Yekaterinburg, showing the area exposed to wind-blown anthrax spores from Compound 19.
But Walker could not get through to the rest of the group. They had just spent several hours with Burgasov, and Burgasov had won them over. He was a big, burly bear of a guymagnetic, charming, overpowering, Walker says. Great personality, hail-fellow-well-met and a bear hug and all that, and when they came out of their meeting, well, it was gastrointestinal anthrax. For Walker, the situation seemed absurd. He had come to Russia to learn about intestinal anthrax, and now he was certain that was not going to happen. Burgasov was either wrong or lying, and either way he was steering the group down a blind alley. I didnt even want to go to Sverdlovsk, Walker says. I said, Hey, why are we bothering to go? Ive seen the pathology, its inhalational. What are we going to find out there? Were going to chase around trying to find somebody whos got this material, and the materials going to be gone. As it turned out, Walker was both right and wrong. He was right about the Sverdlovsk anthrax being inhalational, and about Burgasov lying. But he was dead wrong about there being nothing left to find in Sverdlovsk.
11
The city lies on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains, about a thousand miles east of Moscow. When it was founded in the eighteenth century it was
known as Yekaterinburg, but in 1924 the Soviets changed the name to Sverdlovsk, after the Bolshevik hero Yakov Sverdlov. By 1992, Sverdlovsk had become Yekaterinburg once again, as a result of the changes that had brought about the fall of the USSR. In truth, though, not much else about it was different. Bare shelves still filled the stores, and restaurants rarely served more than one item from their menus. The city itself was a drab, worn-out place, dominated by rundown factories and blocks of bleak gray apartment buildings. The climate didnt help much; June 4, the day the team arrived, was gray and cold, with a temperature topping out just above freezing. The reception the investigators got on their arrival was not quite as chilly as the weather, but it was not exactly warm either. The anthrax epidemic was a sensitive subject in Yekaterinburg, an old wound recently reopened by stories in the newly freed Russian media. Those stories claimed that the outbreak had been caused not by contaminated meat but by anthrax spores accidentally released from a secret military installation known as Compound 19. The Soviet government had allegedly engaged in a massive coverup, concocting the intestinal anthrax theory, confiscating autopsy reports and medical records, altering death certificates, and refusing to disclose the number of deaths in Compound 19 and a neighboring garrison. The true death toll, it was said, might even be in the hundreds. Despite Walkers inhalation-anthrax conclusion, Meselson gave little credence to these reports, which, to be fair, sounded both overly sensationalistic and suspiciously close to the version of events put out by American intelligence. But on the teams first full day of work in Yekaterinburg, the investigators heard testimony that made the press accounts seem far more credibletestimony from a witness ideally placed to know the truth about the epidemic. Dr. Nikolay Babich had been the director of the provincial Sanitary Epidemiological Service at the time of the outbreak; thirteen years later he was, in Hugh-Jones words, a wizened monkey of a man, a year away from death by emphysema. Sick as he was, though, he smiled as he told his storya story that directly contradicted the official version of events. The entire epidemic, Babich said, had been inhalational. Its victims had died on sidewalks, in streetcars, and in building lobbies, sometimes before ambulances could arrive to take them to the hospital. And then, according to Babich, authorities from Moscowled by Deputy Health Minister Burgasovhad ordered the KGB to confiscate all documents related to the epidemic, everything from maps showing the locations of cases, which clearly showed a relationship with Compound 19, to individual victims chest X-rays. The intestinal-anthrax theory had been orchestrated by Burgasov. He just flat out said, I dont care what you guys have been told, it was airborne, and it was those military bastards who did it, and they never took responsibility, Hugh-Jones says. The veterinary epidemi-
Russian pathologists Faina Abramova and Lev Grinberg, who did the anthrax autopsies, with infectious-disease specialist Olga Yampolskaya, who helped care for anthrax patients.
12
SUMMER 2002
ologist had already joined Walker in questioning the official story, and Babichs statement confirmed his growing suspicions. Eavesdropping on the untranslated Russian interplay between Babich and Dr. Victor Romanenko, the current deputy director of Babichs old department, Shelokov felt certain that, as he put it, a game was being played. Romanenko, Shelokov says, was turning to Babich, telling him in effect, For Gods sake cut it out. What the hell are you doing? Dont talk like that. Fundamentally, this [Babich] was an honest man who also felt like he had nothing to lose, and he was telling the truth. But no matter how true it seemed to Shelokov, Walker, and Hugh-Jones, Meselson was quick to point out, by itself Babichs account didnt prove anything. To settle the matter, they needed hard evidence, and if Babich was to be believed, it would be difficult to come by. That afternoon, though, they hit pay dirt. At Yekaterinburgs Tuberculosis and Pulmonary Center, they were introduced to Dr. Faina Abramova and Dr. Lev Grinberg, the pathologists who had first investigated the 1979 epidemic. Abramova, now a seventy-year-old grandmother, had been Grinbergs mentor at the time of the outbreak. It was she who had first diagnosed anthrax after noticing that the brain membranes of the first victim she autopsied had hemorrhaged so extensively that their entire surface appeared bright red; she remembered this cardinals cap effect from a specimen of anthrax-caused hemorrhagic meningitis she had seen in her medical-school museum decades before. What she and Grinberg had to say gave Walker hope that it might be possible to get definitive proof of the nature of the epidemic.
I dont care
what you guys
have been told, it it was those
was airborne, and military bastards who did it, and responsibility. they never took
They showed us some pictures, and it was clear from what they showed us that they had material, and it was inhalational anthrax, Walker says. That was their interpretation. I figured it out, but I didnt discover anything. I merely corroborated their finding. It turned out that Abramova and Grinberg had a treasure trove of microscope slides, tissue samples in paraffin blocks, and whole organs preserved in formaldehyde, the fruit of forty-two different autopsies. Somehow, while zealously policing up the documentary evidence of the outbreak, the authorities had missed the most important testimony of all: that of the victims bodies. The KGB didnt get the primary materials, Walker says. They took all the recordsif it was an official form or an autopsy report it was confiscatedbut they didnt take the microscope slides or the organs, or Abramova and Grinbergs personal handwritten notes. For thirteen years the two had protected their treasure, always hoping for the chance to publish what they had discovered. Now a group of foreigners had appeared, apparently offering them that chance. The question was whether they could trust Meselsons team to treat them as collaborators and not just an exploitable source of information. The job of getting that trustand with it, their full cooperationfell to Walker, the team member who would be working with them for most of the next four days. When they first met they were very touchy and very suspicious of David, Shelokov remembers. But somehow he got them to trust him completely and then all of a sudden they became friendly toward him and friendly toward the rest of us, and thats when the slides came out.
13
That rapport became critical in the following days, as Walker plowed through material from each of the forty-two autopsies, revisiting the outbreak with three of its principal witnessesAbramova, Grinberg, and Yampolskayaguiding him. After his first day of examining Abramova and Grinbergs collection, Walker was even more convinced that he had seen incontrovertible evidence of inhalational anthrax. That night, he discovered that Hugh-Jones and Shelokov had come up with some evidence of their own. Working from reports published in the open literature and obtained from Burgasov, they had plotted all of the livestock deaths associated with the outbreak in the villages surrounding Sverdlovsk. The result was startling: a straight line extending about fifty kilometers to the southeast from the southern part of the city. The pattern of animal deaths fit with that expected if a wind from the northwest had picked up anthrax spores released in southern Sverdlovskthe location of Compound 19. The next day, Walker accompanied Meselson, Hugh-Jones, and Shelokov to a local cemetery where a special section had been set aside for victims of the outbreak, to record information from grave markers and see for himself the final resting place of the people whose bodies had provided his samples. The anthrax victims had been buried at some distance from the other graves in the cemetery, but over time their area designated as Sector 13had become surrounded and infiltrated by other graves. Only the dates of death
The brain of an anthrax victim, showing the cardinals cap hemorrhage in its surface membranes.
on the headstonesalmost all from April and early May 1979, with about two dozen concentrated between April 8 and April 12gave any indication that something was different about these burials. That concentration of dates was the epidemics footprint. The knowledge of what it meant gave an eerie overtone to the scene, one accentuated by the Eastern European custom of decorating grave markers with photos of the dead. From headstone after headstone they stared out, serious-looking men and women in formal clothes or military uniformsalmost as though they were expecting visitors.
Years later, looking back at that moment in the Yekaterinburg cemetery and the
days and nights that surrounded it, Walker remembers that the number one feeling I had was of what an incredible mystery this was. From the pathological evidence, he was certain about what had killed the people in Sector 13, but he felt there were other elements of the storyhuman elementsthat needed clearing up. Id taken along a mystery novel to read in the evening, and I got through about three pages of it. My mind was just so preoccupiedthis mystery going on around me was a lot more intriguing than the one in the book, trying to think through what this person had said, and what were they trying to hint at or cover up, and what was the explanation for that event. Something larger was definitely going on, but they couldnt figure out exactly what. As Hugh-Jones saw it, someone seemed to be nudging them in a particular direction, making sure that they met people who would give them information that ran counter to the official story. Their itinerary had presumably been approved in advance by the KGB; maybe, he thought, local officials were using the team as a way of getting
14
SUMMER 2002
back at the military for what they saw as Compound 19s responsibility for the outbreak, and the KGB was helping as a way of undermining its traditional rivals in the military. At the same time, someone else had also gone to great lengths to block the path of the investigation, as Shelokov and Hugh-Jones learned when they went looking for documents related to the people buried in Sector 13. We were going from office to office, and it was absolutely incredible, Shelokov recalls. Wed go in, and theyd just look at us like we fell off the moon and say, What is this? You want a death certificate for so-and-so? Why do you think hes dead? Well, we have a picture of his grave, with his name and so on. Can we see his death certificate? It turned out that all the death certificates had been destroyed or altered. Oh, theyd say, he died from pneumonia or the flu. Theyd say, What outbreak? There was never any outbreak. Things like that. Orwell could have described them very well. At about the same time Shelokov and Hugh-Jones were being frustrated in their search for public records, Walker was closing in on the last of Abramova and Grinbergs forty-two cases. He had yet to see anything that changed his diagnosis of inhalational anthrax. He was also beginning to get a little nervous. Suddenly, the other members of the team told him, people had stopped cooperating with them. Promising leads dried up as sources stopped returning telephone calls or canceled appointments without warning. In one case, they arrived for a meeting with a public health official and found what Shelokov describes as giant gorillas in dark suits waiting in his outer office. When the official appeared, he was pale and trembling, and told them that he couldnt talk with them. Meselson managed to coax him into going ahead with the meeting, but it was no good; the man would only repeat the official story, and insisted on leaving his office door open so the gorillas could hear what he was saying. No one was sure what was going on, but it might have had something to do with the unexpected arrival of then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who had come to town to visit his sick mother. Yeltsin had been the citys Communist Party chiefthe equivalent of the mayorin 1979.
After Yeltsin came home, all these people who were willing to talk with us quit talking, Walker says. We tried to make up our minds, did that have something to do with Yeltsin coming back? We definitely got a feeling something had changed. And at about that point, it seemed to me that I knew something that I was pretty sure some people didnt want me to know. Walkers concern was not mere paranoia. The country was still unstableit had been less than a year since Yeltsin had faced down the military coup that led to the collapse of the USSRand Yekaterinburg was a long way from the American embassy in Moscow. Almost anything could have happened, including an accident, is how Shelokov describes the situation. And so, on the morning after he finished his autopsy review, with sections from Abramova and Grinbergs paraffin-block-preserved samples safely tucked away in his bags, Walker left the team and flew back to the Russian capital, the first leg of his return to the West.
Grinberg and Abramova had managed to preserve microscope slides, tissue samples, and whole organs from forty-two different autopsies.
15
Thousands of
Not long after Walker left Russia, he and the other team members learned of an event that cast an odd light on their experiences there. Only a few days before they first arrived in Moscow, a Russian reporter interviewing Yeltsin had asked him about the Sverdlovsk outbreak. The official conclusion stated that it was carried by some dog, though later the KGB admitted that our military development was the cause, Yeltsin said. Yeltsins explanation was confusingafter all, the official story had centered on infected livestock, not a dog. Still, the Russian presidents statement marked the beginning of an unprecedented series of revelations about Soviet biological weapons programs. In the decade after Walkers team went to Russia, defectors, outside investigators, and even former officials within the Soviet germ-warfare establishment went public with allegations that the USSR had violated the biological warfare convention on a massive scale. Thousands of Soviet scientists and technicians had manufactured enormous quantities of anthrax, plague, and smallpox, while working to perfect weaponized versions of other deadly agents like the Ebola and Marburg viruses. Sverdlovsk, it seemed, was only the tip of a very large iceberg. But the information Walker and the other members of the team were able to bring back provided some of the strongest evidence that something was definitely floating out there in the fog. In a series of
Soviet scientists and technicians had manufactured
enormous quantities of anthrax, plague, and smallpox, while
working to perfect
weaponized versions of other deadly agents like the Ebola and Marburg viruses.
articles co-authored with Abramova, Grinberg, and Yampolskaya, Walker and the other investigators firmly established inhalational anthrax as the cause of the Sverdlovsk epidemic (Meselson was eventually convinced after the group returned home), examined the epidemiology of both human and animal outbreaks, studied the strains of bacteria involved, and looked at the outbreaks implications for clinical care, military operations, and the survival of the Biological Warfare Convention. Walkers most recent Sverdlovsk paper, co-authored with Abramova, Grinberg, Yampolskaya, and UTMB pathologist Jerome Smith, described a quantitative microscopic study of additional samples of anthraxinfected tissue brought to UTMB by Grinberg, who spent a year in Galveston as a visiting scientist. Printed in Modern Pathology in May 2001, it ended with this chilling sentence on the value of the knowledge gained from the autopsy materials: This information would be particularly important to attending pathologists if and when the first cases of deliberate bioterrorist dispersal of an-
thrax come to pass. Within six months of publishing those words, Walkeralong with everyone else in the country got a look at the first cases of deliberate bioterrorist dispersal of anthrax. It looked a lot like what hed seen in Sverdlovsk.
16
SUMMER 2002
Quotations from Chairman David H. Walker

Are Mass Vaccinations Warranted?
Its a possibility, but I dont think that itll happen. There were really slightly more than twenty cases, including cutaneous casesand I dont believe that that in itself would justify that type of response. (Dr. David H. Walker, professor and chair of UTMBs pathology department, on whether anthrax vaccinations will one day be commonplace.)Interview aired January 29, 2002, on the Charlie Jones Show, KRLD-AM, a CBS affiliate in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Russia and the outbreak there. They investigated some years afterwards. Matthews: What are the symptoms? Dr. Walker: Up front its very nonspecific symptoms. Theyre not anything that really would tell you that a person is going to develop later on an illness thats severe. Matthews: Lets talk about the spores. They travel through air. Is that correct? Dr. Walker: Yes. Matthews: Once theyre released from say an envelope, they travel once or can they be reaerosolized? Dr. Walker: Secondary aerosolization is very difficult, unlikely.Interview aired on national MSNBC cable television 7-8 p.m. on October 31, 2001 (estimated audience 135,261).
Natural Cause Called Unlikely in Two Anthrax Cases

Dr. David Walker, an anthrax expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, said he had a hard time making this into a natural exposurethats very suspicious, two people whose only contact was in a building. (Regarding the discovery of a second person in Florida who had inhaled anthrax bacteria.)October 9, 2001, the New York Times (circulation 1,159,954).
Laboratories on the Front Lines

the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta looks after public health and investigates outbreaks, such as the recent anthrax attacks. The U.S. Armys medical research facility in Fort Detrick, Md., works on protecting soldiers. That leaves one critical area untouched, says Dr. Walker: Whos doing the basic science? In part, Texas.Alexandra Witze, writing December 3, 2001, in the Dallas Morning News (circulation 511,159).
Natural Explanation for Anthrax Cases Unlikely

Could there be a natural explanation? Yeah, there could be. But its very unlikely. (Dr. David Walker of UTMB on how the man in Florida who died from anthrax could have been exposed to the bacterium.)Leigh Hopper, October 10, 2001, in the Houston Chronicle (circulation 553,462).
FBI Subpoenas Labs, Schools in Anthrax Probe

Walker noted that many postdoctoral students at his institution and others are foreign-born. He expressed some concern that the scrutiny of university-trained microbiologists not hinder the flow of scientific talent to this country. The great strength of America has been taking the brains of the rest of the world and fostering their development, Walker said.Earl Lane, writing October 31, 2001, in Newsday (circulation 571, 283).
N.Y. Workers Anthrax Deepens Mystery

We shouldnt assume theyre going to continue to do this in the same way. To focus on the mailmay not follow the way theyre thinking. (Dr. David Walker, regarding the diagnosis of two anthrax victims who, unlike the first anthrax victims, handled mail only incidentally at their jobs.)Michael Powell and Ceci Connolly, October 31, 2001, for the Washington Post (circulation 783,000).
Anthrax
Dr. David Walker, chairman of the department of pathology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, was part of a U.S. team that visited Russia in 1992, just before Boris Yeltsin finally acknowledged the escape of anthrax from a bioweapons plant. Confronted with the evidence of an unprecedented seventy-seven infections and sixty-four deaths, Walker and the others began thinking hard about the biology of anthrax and how doctors might deal with an outbreak.Michael D. Lemonick, writing October 22, 2001, in Time (circulation 4, 124, 451).
Hardball with Chris Matthews

Host Chris Matthews was focusing on the recent anthrax case in New York of a Mrs. Nguyen, who had died suddenly. Matthews: This woman apparently showed symptoms. Shes dead as of this morning. What does that tell you? Is this the normal life expectancy? Dr. Walker: Thats exactly the course that occurred in
17
18
SUMMER 2002
BY ABIGAIL ZUGER
was high noon on a midsummer day, temperature ninety-four and rising, the sky a hot white bowl, the gulf breeze a hot wet breath. In a tiny fan-cooled taqueria down the street from his laboratory, Dr. C.J. Peters, known to many as one of the scientists who battled a deadly Ebola virus outbreak in the 1994 best seller The Hot Zone, sprinkled a little extra Tabasco sauce over his steaming fajitas. Oh, I dont mind the heat that much, he said. I guess I sweat just about the same as anyone else.
19
ctually, between hot climates and anxious moments, Peters, sixty-one, has probably sweated just a bit more than average in the course of a distinguished career pursuing deadly new viral diseases around the world. He has seen a colleague sicken and die during an outbreak, and worried that others would also succumb; he has eaten guinea pig in Ecuador and termites in Africa; he has even been immortalized in highly fictionalized form in the 1995 movie thriller Outbreak (either by Dustin Hoffman or Rene Russo; he said he was not sure which one). Now, after a career primarily in government service, first in the Armys Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, then at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, the Texas native has come home to this hot zone as a civilian again, as professor of pathology, microbiology, and immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. His preferred footwear of socks and sandals is no longer a violation of uniform; his Texas vowels blend smoothly with the native drawl; and he says that at least for now, he is happy to be away from the frontlines, no longer at the beck and call of microbes tugging his attention to distant parts of the world. As chief of the special pathogens branch at the CDC for eight years, Peters was responsible for mustering equipment and personnel when the agency was called for help in outbreaks and for running the laboratory investigation that made sense of the data afterward. He made critically important contributions to CDCs efforts to respond to many of the challenges posed by emerging infections, said Dr. James M. Hughes, director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the agency. When he called me at home at night or over the weekend, it meant that we were about to embark on another interesting and challenging response to a major public health emergency. Now Peters is hoping to look at even bigger puzzlesthe innumerable unanswered biological questions of how and why viruses suddenly attack humans with diseases that have never been seen before. The big lure of the Galveston job, he said, was the planned biosafety level 4 laboratory here, which he will direct. It is one of a handful in North America (five at last count) that enable space-suited scientists to probe viruses, like Ebola, that are so contagious and difficult to
treat that they must be studied under the most protected laboratory conditions. Peterss arrival in this faded city, where the medical school and its affiliates are by far the biggest game in town, has an appealing historical resonance. In the nineteenth century, Galveston itself, then a thriving commercial center, was regularly overwhelmed by outbreaks of yellow feverone of the viral diseases that brings a certain sparkle to Peterss eyes. In a symmetric turn of events, Galveston is now filling up with world-class scientists who specialize in the hundreds of obscure viruses that suddenly leap out from insects and animals to people. Some of these viruses ride in the innards of mosquitoes, ticks, and other insects, which can then transmit them with a bite. Others are carried by rodentsfield mice, house mice and even, occasionally, pet hamsters. Still others, like the Ebola virus and its relatives, seem to appear out of nowhere, blasting through a village (or a herd of livestock or a shipment of laboratory animals) and killing half or more of their victims before disappearing again. Most infect humans only in developing countries yellow fever, for example, has not been contracted in the United States since the early twentieth century. But because the diseases have such an intimate connection to the weather, agriculture, and economy of a region, the experts are never all that surprised when a virus shows up in a new species of victim or a new place. Evolution is still progressing, Peters said. The viruses are evolving, and the hosts are evolving, too. I dont think anyone appreciates how complicated the biology is. He is still unpacking boxes, dealing with forms for enrolling in a health plan, and trying to coax the Japanese maple he and his wife, Susan, brought from Atlanta out of a bad slump. But his conversation is a whirl of wide-ranging questions and research plans that flash from one obscure virus to another at a dizzying clip. In 1993 Peters led the CDC team that figured out why young healthy people in the nations Southwest were suddenly dying from a devastating pneumonia. The disease was caused by a new member of the species hantavirus, carried by deer mice. The virus causes too few human casesonly about twenty a year in the United Statesto enable scientists to study it properly. Peters plans to study its habits and disease-causing abilities in animal models instead.
20
SUMMER 2002
e wants to do more work on the Rift Valley fever virus, which he has been investigating for years. This virus explodes periodically in a band across Africa, especially during wet seasons. Mosquitoes infect livestock and people; people butchering sick animals can be infected, too. Of one hundred people who come down with Rift Valley fever, ninety-eight will have a mild flu for a few days, but two will develop a desperate, progressive illness, with bleeding into the eyes, the stomach, and the intestines, and they will have a high likelihood of dying. There is one clue to the outcome of infection: the cells of monkeys who survive the disease manufacture a protective molecule called interferon far more promptly than those who die. But no one knows why survivors are lucky enough to have cells that do this. I want to get back into that areathe genetics of host resistance, Peters said. He is also planning to collaborate with a Galveston colleague on the creation of an animal vaccine against Rift Valley fever. And then there is West Nile virus, which Peters knew well long before it arrived in the Western Hemisphere in 1999 (possibly in the belly of an infected Middle Eastern mosquito that hopped a flight to New York). The West Nile virus is a cousin of the yellow fever virus, but it is spread by a different kind of mosquito and affects the brain rather than the liver and the intestines. There is no treatment for either. With colleagues in Galvestons structural biology department, Peters is planning to look for molecules that can fit neatly into slots in these viruses and stop them from attacking human cells. After completing medical school at Johns Hopkins and a residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Peters joined the National Health Service as an alternative to military service. He arrived at his first posting in Panama in unforgettable style, said Dr. Karl M. Johnson, a renowned virologist who was Peterss supervisor then. He was at the wheel of a silver Pontiac convertible he had driven straight down through Mexico. He was also so late that he was almost AWOL, and he had a brewing case of hepatitis from the food along the way. He was marvelously wild, Johnson said. But from the start it was clear that, when he wanted to, he had a fine mind. His science is very solid, and the breadth of his interests is unique. After working in Panama with an assortment of obscure and dangerous viruses, Peters was hooked on the field.
Which one of the hundreds of frightening viruses of his acquaintance really makes him sweat? It is not the Ebola virus, prime nightmare material for the readers of Richard Prestons The Hot Zone, with its graphic descriptions of the bloody death throes of its monkey and human victims. Instead, it is the Nipah virus that haunts Peters. This recently discovered distant relative of the measles virus exploded through pig farms in Malaysia and Singapore three years ago, killing hundreds of farmers and their animals with a brain infection. There is neither a vaccine nor a treatment to protect against Nipah infection when (not if, Peters said) it returns. Many of his research plans await the construction of the medical schools $18.6 million ultrasafe biosafety level 4 laboratory, which is expected to be completed in 2003.
21
overnment regulations require this kind of laboratory for research on deadly airborne germs for which no vaccines are available to protect workers. The labs are encased in protective machinery: pumps suck air out through filters that trap viral particles, and ovens sterilize all discarded waste. Researchers suit up in anterooms with one-piece polyvinyl suits, helmets, and two sets of gloves; in the laboratory they breathe air piped directly into their suits through a hose, and most lab benches are encased in transparent hoods for additional air filtration. The administrators of the Galveston medical campus have had their own set of nightmares over the new laboratoryspecifically, about the wisdom of building it on a skinny barrier island with the potential for experiencing violent weather, in the cautious words of Dr. Adrian A. Perachio, the medical schools vice president for research. A giant hurricane demolished Galveston in 1900, prompting the city to erect a giant sea wall and shore up the island against it for protection against future blasts. Hurricanes regularly revisit the city (the last to make landfall on Galveston Island occurred in 1983), prompting evacuations and damaging property. The new laboratory will be nestled in a niche in a medical school building that has been standing since 1926. Im not worried, Peters said. Its thirty feet above the surge, and the walls can stand 140-mile-perhour winds. An evacuation protocol will begin the moment a hurricane warning is declared, he said. The laboratory will be shut down in ninety minutes. All infectious agents will be burned, and infected laboratory animals will be sacrificed to prevent any virus from escaping. Peters is unfazed at the prospect of his lab periodically vaporizing itself at the behest of the weather. Its one of the prices you pay, he said, for establishing a home base in this somewhat unlikely new center for ominous infectious diseases. Virus experts have been heading to Galveston for a decade now, lured by unusually generous financial support from the medical school, the prospect of collaborating with renowned colleagues, and the proximity to Central and South America, where much of their field work is done. The infectious disease environment here is unique, said Dr. Stanley M. Lemon, the dean of medicine. Grants from the National Institute of Allergy and
The new biosafety level 4 laboratory will enable UTMB researchers to safely tackle some of the most dangerous pathogens in existence.
Infectious Diseases to Galveston researchers in 2001 have soared from $4.3 million in 1995 to more than $10 million this year. It is easily the best place of its kind in the country, if not the world, Johnson, the virologist, said. Workdays for these scientists lack the continuous high drama implied by books like The Hot Zone. In fact, Peters wrote his own far more tempered memoir, Virus Hunter, published in 1997 to set the record straight. (Sales have been respectable, but the book has been far from a best seller.) People have to know more about these viruses, Peters said. They should be aware, he said, that while the Hollywood take on killer viruses is fiction, the basic premise is true. New patterns of weather, tourism, commerce, and politics will continue to lead disease-causing microbes directly to vulnerable hosts, exploding into outbreaks of new infections. In South America, for instance, yellow fever is in the jungles, he said, and the species of mosquito that transmits the virus in cities, once eradicated from South America with DDT after World War II, has returned since widespread spraying stopped. When will trade, tourism or subtle climatic shifts bring yellow fever back to Galveston, not safely encased in a lab vial but in a mosquito out roaming the city? Were all waiting, Peters said. Abigal Zuger is a New York-based physician specializing in infectious diseases. This article previously appeared in The New York Times and is Copyright 2001 by The New York Times Company.
22
SUMMER 2002
The Quotable Dr. Peters

Secret Agents: The Menace of Emerging Infections
Could this virus [Rift Valley fever virus] or some similarly undesirable relative come to the United States? I cant tell you when, but it will, says legendary virus hunter C.J. Peters, now at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Citing the propensity of animal pathogens to seek new niches, he says, If we can have BSE [bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease] and foot and mouth disease in Britain, and we can have Nipah in Malaysia, and we can have Rift Valley fever in Egypt and in Arabia, whats different about the U.S.? An intervening ocean, as well as strong animal quarantine laws, have kept this country safe so far. But I dont think we can count on blind luck always.Madeline Drexler, Secret Agents: The Menace of Emerging Infections, published by Joseph Henry Press, 2002 all of them have some side effectsso you have to look at the risk and benefit. There are different figures for the minor reactions of one in a thousand, one in ten thousand, but certainly, a minimum figure of one in a million will be severely damaged by the vaccine. And we dont want four hundred people in this country to be hurt by smallpox vaccine. (Peters on the smallpox vaccine and the possibility of recommencing vaccinations of the general public.)Interviewed live by Katie Couric on Friday, October 26, 2001, on NBC News Today, NBC.
As Investigation Churns, More Attacks Are Expected

The inevitable suggestion is going to be, If we lock up all the anthrax, we wont have a problemBut if we lock up all the problems, we wont have any solutions. (Peters on concerns over laboratory safety.)David Johnston and David Kocieniewski, writing October 25, 2001, in the New York Times (circulation 1,159,954).
Missing Army Microbes Called NonInfectiousScientist Says Samples Had No Role in Anthrax Attacks
Theres no 100 percent guarantee, short of putting the scientists under guard 24 hours a day.(Peters on the possibility of terrorists or criminals stealing anthrax and other potentially lethal agents from laboratories.)Joby Warrick, January 22, 2002, writing for the Washington Post (circulation 783,000).
BioterrorismRx for Anthrax: Knowledge, Calm and Common Drugs

There are veterinary labs in every state that have samples of the anthrax bacterium for research. Someone could just steal some. Smallpox, which is another serious threat, is kept under lock and key in Russia and in the United Statesas far as we know. But secret stashes are thought to exist elsewhere in the former Soviet Union and perhaps in other countries as well. The danger would be if they put those supplies to use or sold them to terrorists. (Peters on how terrorists might obtain anthrax or other deadly agents.)James McGoon, writing October 18, 2001, in People Magazine (circulation 3,703,922).
Killers TrailWhy Anthrax Probe Is Increasingly Hunting Domestic Lone Wolf

The so-called Ames strain is known to be possessed by only a small number of laboratories, but graduate students swap strains around quite readily, and the professor may not even know, Dr. Peters says. Indeed, the FBI now says that it has found 22,000 individuals or labs with access to anthrax, though it doesnt say how many had access to the Ames strain. Dr. Peters says the harder task is figuring out how to make anthrax float in the air so that it can be inhaled.Mark Schoofs, Gary Fields, and Jerry Markon, writing November 12, 2001, in the Wall Street Journal (circulation 1,780,605).
Experts: Surge in Incidents Suggests Bioterrorism

Common things happen commonly. Uncommon things dont. Therefore, when you hear hoofbeats, you commonly think horses, not zebras. Right now, Im thinking zebras. (Peters on whether the increasing incidents of anthrax cases were isolated cases or part of a larger plot.)Alfonso Chardy, writing October 16, 2001, in the Miami Herald (circulation 357,005).
Making Anthrax a Weapon is Hard

You can take out 200,000 people in a heartbeat maybe millionsIm not worried about anthrax in a letter. Im worried about weapons of mass destruction. (Peters on weaponized anthrax, a form of the bacterium that is designed to be widely dispersed and extremely lethal.)Steve Sternberg, October 31, 2001, in USA Today (circulation 2,241,677).
Anthrax: Who is Behind the Attacks?

Hoarding antibiotics is a bad idea because you wont know you have anthrax when the time comesOur big guns have to be on hand and ready to use when we need them. We dont need people who are already allergic to them because they misused them or resistant bacteria that have already seen these antibiotics. (Peters on the publics rush to hoard antibiotics.) Interview aired nationally on October 15, 2001, on CNN Talkback Live.
Evaluating the Need for Smallpox Vaccinations

The smallpox vaccine is much better and much further developed and we understand it better than the anthrax vaccine. We used it in millions and millions of people. But any vaccine is going to have side effects
23
24 24
UU TT M BB Q UU AA RR TT EE RR LY UU M M EE RR 22 00 00 22 M Q L Y SS M M
Nanoparticles could fix cells

from the inside out, benefiting
space travelers and the
Earth-bound, too
B Y P AT R I C K L . B A R R Y
TT HH EE UU NN IV EE RR SS IT YY O F F TT EE XX AA SS M EE DD IC AA L L BB RR AA NN CC HH AA TT GG AA LL VV EE SS TT O NN IV IT O M IC O
25 25
Only this isnt Hollywood. This is real science. Researchers funded by a grant from NASA recently began a project to make this futuristic scenario a reality. If successful, the vessels developed by these scientistscalled nanoparticles or nanocapsulescould help make another science fiction story come true: human exploration of Mars and other long-term habitation of space. While space applications will be the researchers primary focus, nanoparticles also hold great potential for many fields of medicine, particularly cancer treatment. The tantalizing promise of delivering tumor-killing poisons directly to cancerous cells, thus averting the ravaging side-effects of chemotherapy, has generated a lot of interest in nanoparticles among the medical community. The purpose of these nanoparticles is to introduce a new type of therapyto actually go inside individual cellsand repair them, or, if theres a lot of damage, to get rid of those cells, explains Professor James F. Leary, assistant vice president for advanced technology and director of the molecular cytometry unit at UTMB. Leary is leading the research along with UTMB professors Stephen Lloyd, director of the Sealy Center for Environmental Health and Medicine, and Massoud Motamedi, director of the Biomedical Engineering Center; Nicholas Kotov of Oklahoma State University; and Yuri Lvov of Louisiana Tech University. Their project will focus on a problem related to cancerthe high radiation doses experienced by astronauts in space, especially on journeys to the Moon or to Mars, which require leaving the protective umbrella of the giant magnetic field surrounding the Earth.
Even the advanced materials used for radiation shielding on spacecraft cant fully insulate astronauts from the high-energy radiation of space. These photons and particles pierce the astronauts bodies like infinitesimal bullets, blasting apart molecules in their path. When DNA is damaged by this radiation, cells can behave erratically, sometimes leading to cancers. This is an important problem, Leary says. If humans are going to live in space, we have to figure out how to better protect them from radiation. Because shielding alone probably wont solve the problem, scientists must find some way to make the astronauts themselves more resistant to radiation damage. Nanoparticles offer an elegant solution. These drugdelivery capsules are tinyonly a few hundred nanometers, which is smaller than a bacterium and smaller even than the wavelengths of visible light. (A nanometer is one-millionth of a millimeter.) A simple injection with a hypodermic needle can release thousands or millions of these capsules into a persons bloodstream. Once there, nanoparticles will take advantage of the bodys natural cellular signaling system to find radiation-damaged cells. The trillions of cells in a human body identify themselves and communicate with each other via complex molecules embedded in their outer membranes. These molecules act as chemical flags for communicating to other cells or as chemical gates that control entrance to the cell for molecules in the bloodstream (such as hormones). When cells become damaged by radiation, they produce markers in a particular class of proteins called CD-95
26
SUMMER 2002
Professor James F. Leary: The purpose of these nanoparticles is to introduce a new type of therapyto actually go inside individual cellsand repair them, or, if theres a lot of damage, to get rid of those cells.
and place these on their outer surfaces. Its how the cell speaks to other cells and says, Hey, Im injured, Leary says. By implanting molecules in the outer surface of the nanoparticles that bind to these CD-95 markers, scientists can program the nanoparticles to seek out these radiation-damaged cells. If the radiation damage is very bad, nanoparticles can enter the damaged cells and release enzymes that initiate the cells auto-destruct sequence, known as apoptosis. Otherwise, they can release DNA-repair enzymes to try to fix the cell and return it to normal functioning. Human beings and other organisms have natural enzymes that attend to DNA and also repair mistakes, but some do a better job than others. There are organisms that can [absorb high] radiation doses and do just fine, Leary says. By studying such species, scientists have already fashioned DNA-repairing enzymes that could be delivered by nanoparticles. Learys team is also studying ways to attach fluorescent molecules to the nanoparticles. These could be designed to light up at certain stages of the process, even employing different colors for different stages. These fluorescent tags would provide a way to monitor the nanoparticles within the body. To assess the degree of radiation damage, an astronaut would put on something like a pair of glasses, but those glasses peer inward onto the retina, Leary explains. And you use the flowing of [fluorescent]
nanoparticles on cells through the retina as sort of an in vivo assessment instrument. (In vivo means within the organism.) Related technology already existsits used to measure blood flow changes in the retina due to various diseases. NASA is interested in such noninvasive ways to monitor health because astronauts might need to act as their own doctors on extended missions. Eventually, astronauts might wear these glasses to sample whats going on in their bloodstream. And then if they need treatment, they have a hypodermic needle with the appropriate nanoparticles for the job, he says. Nanoparticles are a radically new approach to biosensing and medicine delivery, and as such the technology will require many more years to become mature and dependable. But its not a pie-in-the-sky fantasy. All the elements of this idea have already been demonstrated separatelythe DNA-repair enzymes, the nanoparticles, the fluorescent tags. The trick is getting them all to work together reliably. This is a very difficult problem, and were not going to be able to do it all in three years, which is the duration of the grant. Were trying to do some pretty innovative science hereits a bit of a jump, says Leary. But thats why its a lot of fun to work on. Patrick L. Berry is a freelance writer. This story originally appeared in slightly different form in the Science@NASA web site and is reprinted with permission.
27
NEWS Briefs
Here for the health of women
The School of Medicine announced creation of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Womens Health. Professor Abbey Berenson has been named director of the new center, with Professors Cheryl Watson and Susan Rosenthal acting as associate directors of basic research and clinical research, respectively. The mission of the center is to promote multidisciplinary research related to the health of women. The center plans a weekly seminar series starting in September featuring UTMB faculty whose research holds implications for womens health.
Earning while learning

UTMB received the Gulf Coast Workforce Development Area 2001 Employer Award of Excellence for its innovative Work School Program. The Work School Program has enabled nearly six hundred employees to return to school and earn degrees in nursing. In turn, these employees agree to work as nurses at UTMB. The program provides much-needed nurses at UTMB. Other institutions across the state are looking at the Work School Program as a model for their organizations.
Killing with kindness

The health of intact, elderly residents in nursing homes is being undermined by the kindness of their caretakers, according to Dr. Charles E. Blair, associate professor in UTMBs School of Nursing. To address this problem, the National Institute for Nursing Research has awarded Blair a $1 million-plus grant to conduct a behavior intervention study in twelve nursing homes in the Galveston-Houston area over four years. The study, Decreasing Dependent Self-Care Behavior in Intact Elders, will compare four levels of education designed to help nursing home aides facilitate their clients continued self-care. Aides do not come in to nursing homes with the intention of making the residents dependent, Blair explains. But because they are not educated to understand the theoretical basis of this dependency and why the residents need to be encouraged to do for themselves, they think that they are helping by doing.
Shots across Texas and beyond

Last December, UTMB inaugurated the Sealy Center for Vaccine Development, a new interdisciplinary center aiming to create, perfect and promote vaccines. The center will focus on emerging tropical diseases and deadly and disabling viruses that could be used as bioterrorist weapons, as well as vaccines for age-old scourges such as influenza, malaria, and hepatitis. The new center has fifty-five faculty members including clinical investigators, laboratory-based researchers, epidemiologists, economists, and health educators.
Winning combination
Four UTMB residents combined medical knowledge, knowledge of trivia, and teamwork to triumph in the Doctors Dilemma competitionalso known as Medical Jeopardyat a national American College of PhysiciansAmerican Society of Internal Medicine (ACP ASIM) meeting in Philadelphia in April. Thirteen teams of medical residents representing regions from across the United States competed in the game that models itself after the television show Jeopardy. UTMB residents Ann Buchanan, Rajiv Gupta, Jennifer Cox James, and Sreedhar Mandayam represented the Southern Texas Regional Chapter of the ACPASIM at the national competition. In spring 2001, the four-member team won a regional competition and a state competition last fall.
Thanks a million twice

UTMB received two significant contributions from George and Cynthia Mitchell, the first to create an Alzheimers disease research program and the second to establish an endowed distinguished chair in geriatric medicine. The Mitchells committed $1 million to fund research for Alzheimers
28
SUMMER 2002
NEWS Briefs
disease (AD) and other age-related neurodegenerative conditions. Called the George and Cynthia Mitchell Research Program in Alzheimers Disease, the programs focus will be to study emerging research and treatment related to AD with a goal of preventing the disease at the molecular level. The Mitchells also established a $1 million distinguished chair to support the universitys aging program. This endowment, which the university will name the George and Cynthia Mitchell Distinguished Chair in Geriatric Medicine, will support ongoing research and education at the UTMB Sealy Center on Aging. Dr. James S. Goodwin has been appointed to the distinguished chair. efficiency and conservation, doing more with recycling, solid waste and materials flow, and transportation programs. The report, sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and published in May of 2002, compiles findings from 891 colleges and universities, and provides green grades for over 20 categories. participant through clinical data and ethical concerns faced by medical staff and a family caring for an elderly woman. Sigma Theta Tau International, the Honor Society of Nursing, selected the CD-ROM for its annual Computer-Based Professional Education Award, which honors outstanding instructional use of a computer for nursing students or professional nursing continuing education.
Hot flash
In its July 22, 2002, issue, U.S. News & World Report ranked UTMB among the countrys fifty best hospitals both for hormonal disorders and kidney disease. It was one of two Texas hospitals in the former category and one of five in the latter.
Healthy surroundings
Thanks to a recent grant of $1.25 million from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, the Environmental Toxicology Training Program will expand its research and increase its enrollment. The program is offered through UTMBs Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. It allows predoctoral and postdoctoral students the opportunity to work alongside faculty from many disciplines, including pathology, pharmacology, biochemistry, preventive medicine, and community health. Since its inception, nine postdoctoral and thirtyone predoctoral students have graduated from the program.
Green report card

UTMB has achieved national recognition for its efforts to develop an environmentally sustainable campus. According to the first national survey of college and university environmental practices, The State of the Campus Environment: A National Report Card on Environmental Performance and Sustainability in Higher Education, UTMB is a leading school in these categories: doing more with energy
Facing the end

One of the most difficult decisions to make while caring for a very ill family member is when to let go and accept the end of life. Teaching health care providers to ethically and professionally handle the difficulties that arise when making these decisions is the subject of UTMBs award-winning CD-ROM, Ethics and End-of-Life Care. This interactive teaching aid is the latest development from the School of Nursing Multimedia Lab. The CD-ROM combines video, graphics, text, and sound to guide the
29
G R A D U AT E S C H O O L O F B I O M E D I C A L S C I E N C E S
Researching Options
How undergraduates learn to stop worrying about their future careers and love research
BY HEIDI LUTZ
Texas A&M University student Katie Treadwell hasnt had a chance to work in a medical research laboratory at her College Station campus. Uncertain whether to pursue a Ph.D., a medical degree, or both, Treadwell thought experience in a lab might help her decide. So during the summer of 2000, while living at home in Texas City, Treadwell applied for a summer job in the UTMB orthopaedics lab. She got it and so enjoyed it she returned between her sophomore and junior years during the summer of 2001 as part of the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. There she studied how lasers interact with cardiac tissue, determining the optimal wavelength of lasers to fix heart abnormalities in humans. In addition to the research, Treadwell learned how labs really operate. She saw the time that must be spent and learned about funding opportunities for researchers. For over a decade, the Summer Undergraduate Research Program has helped dozens of undecided undergraduate students plan their future and decide whether they want a career in research. Expanding the field of research Through the program, typically thirty-five to forty undergraduate students majoring in biological sciences spend a summer working in a research laboratory, contributing to and often completing a project and working alongside faculty researchers who are experts in biomedicine. Recently, the coordinators of the program received a federal grant to recruit an additional seven to eight undergraduates majoring in physics, math, and other computational sciences. Now, future engineers, chemists, and physicists are learning how to apply their analytical knowledge to the world of biomedical research. Vince Hilser, an assistant professor of human biological chemistry and genetics, and one of the faculty members leading the program, said UTMBs structural biology program has a special need for computational and other non-biological science majors who might consider a medical career and want research experience. But until
now, biomedical labs attracted biology majors, not physicists, chemists, and engineers, Hilser said. In practice, however, students with backgrounds in analytical sciences have many of the skills needed for todays complex biomedical studies, because so much research involves computers and detailed knowledge about chemical structure and function. For example, genetic modeling is done largely on a computational level, and research into the benefits and effects of laser treatments requires an extensive background in physics and math. Bringing research to students Tim Denning, now pursuing a doctorate in immunology, completed the Summer Undergraduate Research Program and then entered the graduate school at UTMB in 1997. He is a self-proclaimed poster-child for the summer program. I wasnt exactly sure what I wanted to domedical or graduate school, Denning said. I thought this would be a good chance to get full-time, indepth experience doing biomedical research. He stresses that the program is good for all students, whether they are looking at a career as a researcher or a physician. While Denning was an undergraduate, few of his instructors promoted biomedicine as a career. I really believe if I didnt do the SURP program Id have gone to medical school, Denning said. I would have never tried something else. Like Denning, Tracy Snell came to the summer program uncertain of what she wanted to do after her undergraduate career. Then a student at Prairie View A&M, Snell thought she wanted to do research, but wasnt sure which area she wanted to pursue. Her mentor suggested that she try her hand at research before making a final decision. Snell spent two summers at UTMB and later was accepted as a graduate student, also in immunology. In addition to experiencing the sometimes-harsh realities associated with researchthe long hours, repetitive experiments, and occasional frustrationSnell also learned
30
SUMMER 2002
Associate professor Richard B. Pyles of the Sealy Center for Vaccine Development works with Summer Undergraduate Research Program student Kristin Killoran, a senior biology major at the University of Houston.
what background she needed to pursue a successful career in biomedicine. After her first summer in Galveston, she returned to Prairie View knowing she needed to learn more chemistry and cell biology. She did. And now, like Denning, Snell is a strong advocate for the summer program. Making the most of summer The hands-on training and chance to contribute substantially to an ongoing project is enough to make the summer program worthwhile, participants say. Until coming to UTMB, few of the students have had the opportunity to conduct research and be responsible for their own projects. But the program offers much more to students than practical experience. For many of the undergraduates, the summer program is their first exposure to true faculty mentoring. The availability and willingness of UTMBs faculty helps undergraduate students develop the love of research that attracted Denning and Snell to the graduate program here. They really give you a sense theyre out there for your success, Snell said. Denning agreed, saying the environment at UTMB fosters faculty-to-student as well as faculty-to-faculty in-
teraction. Everybody wants people to have a good experience here, he said. This was among the reasons he chose UTMB over UT Southwestern in Dallas, which also admitted him and which is known for its excellent graduate program. Sharing ideas Beyond the laboratory education, students in the program learn from each other. At the end of the day, when they return to the same apartment complex, the students exchange ideas. It is this casual camaraderie that helps make the program a success. By sharing ideas, each student learns a different way of thinking about or approaching a project. They learn about the range of research being conducted at UTMB and elsewhere. And they learn about what the future may hold for them if they want to try a career in research. I get to branch out from just this one lab and talk with other students, said Katie Treadwell, the Texas A&M junior. I get exposed to a whole wealth of information. Its helping me to decide on a career paththats immeasurably important. Heidi Lutz is editor of UTMBs employee newsletter, Impact.
31
S C H O O L O F A L L I E D H E A LT H S C I E N C E S
Worldwide Health Information System Simulation Linkage provides faculty and students with global case studies
BY JOHN C. TYLER
As UTMB occupational therapy student Melissa tures and religious beliefs can bring to the care of paDickens, twenty-one, watches her computer screen, tients. Dr. Awatef Al Shammarivia video e-mail from a Kuwaiti Thanks to a three-year grant from the federal Buhospitaldescribes the troubles shes having with a patient. reau of Health Professions, Rodger Marion, assistant dean The patient, Sunita Sen, has ignored recommenda- for research and educational technology in the School of tions for treatment, says Shammari. Despite her worsen- Allied Health Sciences (SAHS), his colleague, Bruce R. ing rheumatoid arthritis, Sen hesitates to follow her Niebuhr, associate professor in SAHS, and a worldwide doctors advice. A Hindu, Sen has decided against West- team of collaborators are creating a training system that ern medicine and opted instead for ayurvedic medicine, students anywhere in the world can use and that their a traditional Indian practice that involves fasting, medi- instructors can easily customize. The web site for the Worldwide Health Information tation, and herbal remedies. Looking over Sens medical record, Dickens wonders whether the herbs are contrib- System Simulation Linkage (WHISSL, pronounced uting to her borderline hypertension. Dickens e-mails whistle) is designed to let faculty incorporate sophisticated the doctor recommending that Sen visit a rheumatolo- case-based learning into their courses. Each case has a gist and consult with a rehabilitation specialist. Con- telemedicine consultation scenario that sets out a probvinced the ayurvedic methods in general are a good lem. It then lists web-based resources that students can complement to her care plan, Dickens advises Dr. use to research the cultural, community, and health care Shammari that Sen should see the specialist and aspects of the case. It also provides a complete online electronic patient continue with the record. The WHISSL ayurvedic regimen, project includes six but perhaps change advisors on cultural the herbs used. content, as well as Why is a Kuwaiti five advisors on physician seeking medical content. medical advice from a We have people UTMB student? In from many different truth, neither the locations and spedoctor nor the patient cialties involved in exists. Both were this, Marion said. invented, as were nuIt is truly an intermerous other patients national collaboraand health care protion. viders from around the To pursue this globe, to give stuproject, Marion has dents a simulated ex- Assistant dean for research and educational technology Rodger Marion, traveled to several perience of the com- left, and associate professor Bruce R. Niebuhr fine-tune the Worldwide countries to videoplexity different cul- Health Information System Simulation Linkage.
32
SUMMER 2002
tape simulated patient interviews, faux scenes of providers asking for consultations, and representativelooking international community profiles for students to explore via the web. His team has taped video segments in Kuwait, Puerto Rico, Argentina, and along the Rio Grande River in Texas. Marion spent a full week working with faculty at the University of Puerto Rico to devise a persona and medical history for a fictional, elderly patient living in the rural highlands west of San Juan. Marion and his crew interviewed the patientactually an actorand documented his immediate environment as well. Students will use the interview and community-profile video to learn how to create a care plan for patients living in such circumstances. During four trips to the University of Kuwait, Marion worked with Kuwaiti educators to create other fictional cases that help bring the experience and worldview of people from the Middle East and from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh to students of health care. Video interviews of these simulated patients, including the one of Sunita Sen, are designed to make the experience more tangible. Because several WHISSL patients live along the United States/Mexico border, another community profile has been videotaped and photographed in communities along the Rio Grande River from Brownsville to Rio Grande City. The community profiles, which are both video and photographs accessible from web pages, aim to give the students a sense of where the patient is living. Often, where the patient lives is not where he or she was reared, so the students must learn not only about the patients home culture but about the adopted culture as well. For example, one of the fictional patients is from Bangladesh and lives in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Some such patients are from Asia. Hoa Thi Nguyen is an elderly grandmother and Vietnamese refugee. She now lives amid racial and ethnic strife in an
WHISSL IS DESIGNED TO GIVE STUDENTS AN INITIAL EXPOSURE TO PATIENTS FROM OTHER CULTURES AND COUNTRIES, AND TO TEACH THEM TO USE THE WEB-BASED TOOLS TO RESEARCH ANY COUNTRY AND CULTURE.
American community. There is a great need for students to be familiar with the cultural and religious expectations of patients, Marion said. WHISSL is designed to give students an initial exposure to patients from other cultures and countries, and to teach them to use the web-based tools to research any country and culture. In July 1999, UTMB received the grant allowing Marion and Niebuhr to bring the previously developed Health Information System Simulation (HISS) program to the World Wide Web. This fall, the sixty-five universities across the country licensed to use the original HISS software will receive an upgrade to the expanded, web-based version. Even though the original HISS cases proved to be an extremely valuable tool, Marion and Niebuhr felt something was missing. Our cases in the HISS program focused simply on figuring out the patients medical problem, then coming up with ways to solve it, Niebuhr said. The new WHISSL web site helps us focus on developing a new set of patients who bring rich cultural traditions to the health care encounter, and it lets us train students to be sensitive to providing integrated and appropriate care. Occupational therapy students have recently started using the system at UTMB as part of their classroom instruction. The system also gives us a list of links to web sites we can use to learn about the environment the patients live in, said Melissa Dickens, the occupational therapy student who consulted on Sens case. I think were learning that in the medical profession you cant look at the patient only through your own belief system, she said. This gives us great insight into backgrounds of people we may be working with every day. John C. Tyler, formerly a communications specialist at UTMB, is now senior communications specialist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
33
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Bonne Action
Professor Tung V. Dinh has done wellfor his family, colleagues, students, and patientsby doing good
B Y K AT E M U R P H Y
slight man, Tung V. Dinh is easy to miss among the piles of books and papers that crowd his windowless office in UTMBs division of gynecologic oncology. Easy to miss, that is, if he is not looking directly at you. His black eyes glisten with an intensity that makes polished onyx seem dull. Tungs arresting eyes saw unspeakable horror during the last war in his native Vietnam. Yet there is nothing harsh about his gazenor his outlook. Despite a personal reversal of fortune almost thirty years ago that would have embittered many people, Tung shows no anger. What good would it do? he said. Doing goodor bonne action as he was taught in the French Vietnamese equivalent of the Boy Scoutshas been the touchstone of the medical career he started in Vietnam and resurrected at UTMB. Board certified in both obstetrics and gynecology and pathology, widely published, respected by his peers, and adored by his students and patients, Tung has done a lot of good since he, his wife, and four children arrived, penniless, in Galveston in 1975. Long before that, Tung (its Vietnamese custom to use the first name in formal address) trained at Saigon Medical University as an obstetrician/gynecologist and became director of the only modern hospital in Da Nang, the second largest city in Vietnam. During the war, the hospital treated some two hundred injured civilians per day. Tung and Id be in the operating room with our shirts off because of the heat, working on one patient after another, said Edgar Archer Dillard, who led an American surgical team to assist the struggling South Vietnamese in 1963 and who retired eleven years ago as chief of UTMBs division of gynecologic oncology. He was just so smart and eager to learn, Dillard said. Tung also impressed him with his courage. One day the Viet Cong came to the hospital, and they were throwing patients out the window. Here comes Tunglittle barechested Tung, so thin you could put your hands together around his waistyelling at them to leave his hospital, said Dillard. You know, they actually did. They left. Equally amazing to Dillard who, after a fourteenhour day at the hospital, went home and fell exhausted into bed, was that Tung went home to treat women in a gynecology clinic he had set up on the ground floor of his house. We had this huge house, with a sort of compound, that was always crowded at night with patients
waiting to see my father, remembers Tungs son, Tri Dinh, who was in grade school at the time. Tungs wife, Gia Duy To Tonia Dinh, also worked in the clinic. The two met in Saigon while he was completing his residency and she was earning her nursing degree. Tung was well known in Vietnam and internationally. Through his diplomacy, he was able to convince foreign governments and medical societies like the Swiss Red Cross, Maltheser of Germany, and the U.S. Public Health Service to contribute funds to the Da Nang hospital. Even in the midst of war, Tung was able to raise money to build a surgical ward, two general medical units, a pediatrics unit, and helipadall the components of his dream for a post-war international hospital. Da Nang was a very crowded city and very poor, said Tung. It was my dream to give people there access to good medical care. He also employed the poor in the hospital, paying them in precious rice to wash linen and provide janitorial services. Dillard recounts how one of the indigent workers stole money out of his wallet, which he had left unattended. When the thief was caught, Dillard demanded Tung fire him. Tung refused. The man had five hungry children at home. Tung taught me a lot about compassion, said Dillard. With the Viet Cong rapidly advancing on Da Nang in March of 1975, Tung sent his family to Saigon, but he stayed behind. I couldnt leave, said Tung. I was attached to my hospital. It was my dream. I had to stay with my patients. The North Vietnamese forces invaded, and Tung went into hiding for two weeks. I would listen to the radio and there would be reports that he had been killed or had converted to the communist side, Tonia Dinh said. Through the help of a devoted former patient, Tung managed to gain access to a rickety barge. He and three other fugitives slipped offshore at midnight. Bombs were landing all around us, he said, blowing nearby rafts out of the water. All you could do was lie down and pray. Rescued by an American military patrol and reunited with his family in Saigon, Tung was able to secure passage to the United States thanks to sponsorship by Dillard, who by then had assumed his position at UTMB. Heres a man who was one of the most highly respected physicians in Vietnam who had to leave everything behind and start over, said Garland D. Anderson,
34
SUMMER 2002
The Dinh family at home in Da Nang, Vietnam, 1972: Left to right, Tue Dinh, age eleven; Dr. Tung Dinh; Tri Dinh, age six; Tuan Dinh, age fourteen; Tonia Dinh; and Bella Dinh, age one.
professor and chair of UTMBs department of obstetrics and gynecology. Dillard said, Tung arrived wearing this Salvation Army coat with sleeves that hung over his hands and his kids looked so raggedy. Tung clutched two, small plastic bags containing all their belongings. Tonia Dinh worked as a waitress at a waffle house, and their eldest son, Tuan, got a job washing dishes at Gaidos seafood restaurant. Tung meanwhile studied for and passed the battery of tests required to practice medicine in the United States by the Exam Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates. He scored better than everybody, of course, said Dillard. But Tung wasnt satisfied with certification to practice. He wanted board certification in obstetrics and gynecology. So in 1976, at age forty-five, Tung was accepted as a resident at UTMB by William McGanity, chair of Ob/Gyn at the time. Tung still feels gratitude to him for accepting an old resident, some twenty years older than the others. Back then a head nurse asked Tung if he knew how to measure the height of a uterus. I told her I thought I could do it, said Tung. Edward V. Hannigan, who was a new assistant professor in the division of gynecologic oncology at the time, said Tung always nodded appreciatively at everything he said. But I was always aware he knew much more than I did, said Hannigan, who now heads the division. Saying he wanted to have something extra to offer since he was a foreigner, Tung completed a second residency in pathology. Its rare to find someone board certified in both areas, Dillard said. But a longtime Vietnamese friend, Thieu Truong, who now lives in El Cajon, California, said Tung always had an insatiable hunger for knowledge. Following their fathers example, Tungs three sons also became physicians, and his daughter earned a Ph.D. in public health. My father always stressed education and took such joy in learning that none of us would have dreamed of not taking education to the nth level, said Tri, who received his medical training at UTMB and is now a fellow in gynecologic oncology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Tungs current research interest is the development of blood vessels in tumors of the female genital tract, a
process known as angiogenesis. He has published scores of journal articles over the years and authored eight textbooks. In addition to his research and scholarly work, he has also mentored countless medical students. Tung would always take on the students who werent doing well, said Hannigan. I call it sending them to Camp Tung. Most have gone on to successful medical careers. How do you tell someone like Dr. Tung, who has gone through all that he has, that you cant do something? asked resident Sara Crowder. Sonia Carolina Robazetti a Venezuelan doctor, a research assistant in Tungs department, and single mother of two small childrensaid he has helped her study for her licensing exams for foreign medical graduates. He always makes sure I have the books I need and is always checking up on me, she added. I love him. Its not just me. Hes touched so many lives. One local recognition of his efforts is that he was named a William Osler scholar at UTMB last October, making him one of a select group of just six UTMB faculty members recognized for providing compassionate care, teaching medical students to do the same, and serving as role models for their peers. The scholars use the income from the programs $5 million endowment to fund group and individual projects related to medical education. Tung is using his share to bring Vietnamese physicians to study at UTMB, hoping that they not only will be able to better treat their patients but also teach fellow Da Nang physicians. My father has always looked for solutions and ways to help, said Tri Dinh. Just as Tung worked overtime to care for poor women at the clinic in his house in Vietnam, he, along with Hannigan, has traveled monthly to the Rio Grande Valley for the last fifteen years to treat uninsured Hispanic women. Tung learned Spanish, I didnt, said Hannigan. When the people down there point this out, I have to tell them that Tung is just a lot smarter than I am. Though he speaks four languages, Tung is a man of few words. Many in his department do not know his history. He does not boast about his fame in Vietnam nor his current achievements. Unlike a lot of people in his position, he never acts intimidating or like hes a know-it-all, said Crowder. Instead, he quietly observes his surroundings with his deep, black eyes and decides on a course of bonne action. Kate Murphy is a Houston-based freelance writer.
35
SCHOOL OF NURSING
An Ambitious Agenda
Nursing schools new dean loves research and has a talent for administration
B Y A N N E M A R I E K I L D AY
he lights along the causeway were reflected on the glimmering water as Pamela Watson caught her first glimpse of Galveston Island. UTMBs new dean of nursing, a New York native and life-long Northeasterner, was immediately enchanted. But it is the challenge of leading an increasingly diverse nursing school that really has captured dean Watsons professional imagination. Her ambitions for the School of Nursing include expanding minority enrollment, making UTMB a center for first-class nursing research, and increasing educational opportunities for nurses via the Internet. In addition, Watson wants to boost the nursing schools involvement in UTMBs Center for Biodefense and its efforts in womens health. She also aims to promote the Center for Health Promotion and Healing Prac-
tices, which offers programs in health promotion and education and provides practical services for patients regarding diet and exercise, including individual and family support groups. Watson brings a national reputation as a researcher and scholar to the School of Nursing. As she was being considered for the position at UTMB, Watson was principal investigator for a National Institutes of Health study into the prevention of type 2 diabetes. The $3.4 million study ended early because of successful results showing that patients could prevent and manage type 2 diabetes by exercising and controlling their diet. We found that we either prevented or delayed diabetes through a program of lifestyle change, Watson said. Taking medication is not as significant as reducing calories and walking a half hour a day. It was really important because it shows you really can control your destiny.
When push comes to shove, it is physicians who are calling the shots, Watson said. Yet, we always hear the patients say My surgeon did a great job, but the nurses pulled me through.
School of Nursing dean Pamela Watson. 36
SUMMER 2002
Before coming to UTMB, Watson chaired the Department of Nursing at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Peggy Griffiths, senior faculty member there, touts Watsons energy, responsiveness, and vision and says Watson made special efforts to reach out to students. Her relationship with nursing students grew into one of mutual warmth and respect, Griffiths said. Their professional growth and their ability to move into the practice environment were her main concerns. Watson, who earned her B.S., M.S., and Sc.D. degrees from Boston University, has always been torn between research and administration. When they hire a dean these days, they arent looking so much for an administrator as they are research background, Watson said. Thats really my love. I have always been pushed into administrative roles, because I guess Im a good leader. But I am somewhat conflicted because Id also like to be just a researcher. Its a much more civilized way of life. Serving as dean of nursing at UTMB will be very challenging because all institutions of higher education in Texas have to tighten their belts, Watson said. As a leader I have to do whats best in terms of advancing the school, and at the same time doing the best I can to cut costs, Watson said. Griffiths said that Watson, who is very cool under pressure, faced a similar challenge in Philadelphia. Watsons research and writing interests include health promotion, disease prevention, and rehabilitation. She is currently an editorial board member of Cancer Nursing, and has previously served as an editorial board member and associate editor of Rehabilitation Nursing, and associate editor of the Journal of Enterostomal Therapy. Since the mid-1970s, Watson has served as principal investigator for research studies funded by the National Cancer Institute, the U.S. Department of Educations Rehabilitation Services Administration, and the National Institutes of Health. Watson said she wants to see UTMBs School of Nursing more involved in clinical research. She said that schools like the University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, and University of Pennsylvania consistently draw research funds from the National Institutes of Health. Noting UTMBs Center for Biodefense, Watson said nurses need more education in the latest advances in biodefensive medicine. Because it has been such a long time since some vaccines, like that for smallpox, have been used, Watson said nursing schools need to re-educate nurses about some patients adverse reactions to vaccinations and immunizations.
Watson supports the School of Nursings continuing efforts to attract underrepresented communities to nursing, to increase diversity in the profession and to make learning more accessible. The Having Opportunities, Producing Excellence (HOPE) Program, funded under a $219,000 grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, will allow the nursing school to provide recruitment and retention programs for students from underrepresented communities. Beginning next fall, the program will include compensatory education for students whose grades fall below the schools admission requirements. Associate Deans Ruth Marcot and Poldi Tschirch applied for the funds, which were set aside by the Legislature from the states settlement of a lawsuit against the tobacco industry. One already-existing program related to that goal is the schools web-based Nursing Distance Education Program, which enables nurses to earn bachelors and masters degrees on the Internet. Watson said the program is designed to help nurses who cant attend college such as military nurses on assignmentto earn advanced degrees. UTMB began offering the Doctoral Program in Nursing in 1997 and awarded its first four degrees in May 2002. Watson believes that the Web-based Nursing Distance Education Program may enhance the ability of nurses with advanced degrees to earn doctorates. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that jobs for nurses would increase by 23 percent by the year 2008. But one-third of the nursing workforce will be nearing age fifty by that year. And nationally, in 2001 nursing schools enrollment dropped by 2.1 percent, the sixth straight year for declining admissions. With the serious nursing shortage facing hospitals, Watson believes that schools of nursing need to address workplace environment issues that may cause many nurses to leave the profession. These include the sometimes-strained relationship between physicians and nurses. When push comes to shove, it is physicians who are calling the shots, Watson said. Yet, we always hear the patients say My surgeon did a great job, but the nurses pulled me through. Watson herself seems to have figured out how to be taken seriously by physicians. She not only chaired the Department of Nursing at Thomas Jefferson University, she was a full professor on the Medical Schools faculty and served with physicians on the curriculum committee. That attests to the fact that physicians respect her, Griffiths said. Anne Marie Kilday is a Houston-based freelance writer.
37
P O RT R A I T O F
GIVING
How a $50,000 bequest led to creation of The Sealy & Smith Foundation, a Galveston philanthropy thats given nearly $500 million to UTMB.
BY CHRISTIAN MESSA
When Galveston entrepreneur and philanthropist John Sealy died in 1884, his will stipulated that $50,000 go to a charitable purpose to be determined by his brother, George, and his widow, Rebecca. Galveston had no hospital at the time, so they allocated the bequest to build one. The original John Sealy Hospital opened in 1890. The Sealys initially gave the hospital to the City of Galveston, although the agreement authorized the city to transfer ownership to the University of Texas Medical Department (later renamed the University of Texas Medical Branch) once that institution was established in Galveston. Three years before Sealys death, Texans had voted to locate the newly founded University of Texas in Austin and to put the states first medical school in Galveston. But it was the Sealy familys agreement to convey the hospital to the UT Medical Department that prompted the Texas Legislature to implement the voters decision. One year after John Sealy Hospital opened, the first students began attending classes. For the next thirty-two years, John Sealy II and his sister Jennie generously supported both the medical school and the hospital. Initially, John covered its deficit monthly and provided $40,000 to remodel and improve it, later contributing $60,000 for repairs after the devastating 1900 Storm. Jennie and John also funded construction of the Womens Hospital, completed in 1916 at a cost of $115,000. That same year John spent another $270,000 to remodel and refurbish the main hospital. Then in 1922, to perpetuate their and their fathers altruistic legacies, John Sealy II and Jennie Sealy Smith formed The Sealy & Smith Foundation for the John Sealy Hospital. The foundation is dedicated solely to supporting patient care and related activities at UTMB. Over its eighty years, it has contributed nearly $500 million in
grants to help UTMB provide health care, biomedical research, and education for the people of Galveston and Texas. George Sealy III, grandson of George Sealy and vice president of the foundation, said John Sealy II and Jennie Sealy Smith modeled it after the Rockefeller Foundation. But Im sure they never dreamed it would become this large, said Sealy, the first member of his family to be elected to the board since 1932. With a book value of about $475 millionup from just $45 million in the late 1970sthe foundation has invested its assets in everything from oil and gas to real estate. The foundations grants have transformed UTMB over the decades. To provide more hospital beds for the states burgeoning population after World War II, foundation directors provided about $9.5 million of the more than $11 million required to build the second-generation John Sealy Hospital. Twenty-five years later, the hospital received a major addition with the completion of the twelve-story John Sealy Hospital tower. Tower construction and renovations to the older John Sealy Hospital, which totaled $42.5 million, were paid for by The Sealy & Smith Foundation. Dedicated in 1991 and largely funded by the foundation, the eleven-story Medical Research Building features more than 270,000 square feet of research space, offices, and conference rooms. The $58.6 million building was redesignated the Truman Graves Blocker Jr. Medical Research Building in 2000 in honor of UTMBs first president. It houses various research centers, including the Sealy Centers for Molecular Science and Cancer Cell Biologytwo of the six UTMB research centers designed to help advance interdisciplinary education and research by providing shared resources for faculty. Those centers were funded by a research endowment that grew from a fifty-fifty partnership initiated fifteen years ago
38
SUMMER 2002
between the foundation and the university. Today the John Sealy Memorial Endowment Fund for Biomedical Research has grown to more than $100 million. In another significant gift, approximately $3.8 million from the foundation paid for construction of the twenty-bed Acute Care for Elders (ACE) Unit, which opened in late 2000 and features a more relaxed, homelike environment to accommodate acutely ill older people and their families. Thanks to the foundation directors vision, UTMB will enhance its leadership in infectious disease research. UTMB broke ground earlier this year for an $18.6 million biosafety level 4 (BSL4) laboratory. The state-of-theart facility, which includes the first full-sized BSL4 laboratory on a university campus in the Americas and the fifth in North America, will allow scientists to safely study many potentially lethal emerging viruses and bacteria. Financed with the help of a lead gift of $7.5 million from The Sealy & Smith Foundation and with further funding from the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere, the 12,000-square-foot addition to the Keiller Building, including support facilities, is slated for completion in 2003. Other buildings that exist thanks to the Sealy & Smith Foundation include the R. Waverley Smith Pavilion, the John W. McCullough Outpatient Clinic and the six-story Jennie Sealy Hospital, as well as the Clinical Sciences, Administration and University Hospital Clinics buildings. A foundation grant also paid for UTMBs Emergency Room and Trauma Center, one of the most technologically advanced such centers in the world. The foundation additionally was a major contributor toward building the Ronald McDonald House, a two-story, Victorian-style temporary residence for the families of children who are undergoing treatment at UTMB and Shriners Burns Hospital. The foundation also has significantly aided many other areas at UTMB. For example, the foundation has created fourteen faculty endowments and subsidized purchases of some of the most advanced medical equipment and technologies, notably almost $28 million for renovations and new equipment in the Department of Radiologymost recently including a new magnetic resonance imaging unit, a neuro-diagnostic suite, and new ultrasound machines. Another grant from the foundation also made it possible for UTMB to purchase two computer-aided robotic surgical systems that allow surgeons to make smaller incisions during operations, leading to faster healing and quicker patient recovery. To help advance medical education, The Sealy & Smith Foundation has pledged $1.25 million to an initiative that will fortify the educational infrastructure at
Charles A. Worthen, chairman of The Sealy & Smith Foundation: Funding activities that provide the best possible health care for the people in this area.
UTMB. The Program for Innovation in Education will finance campus facility renovations intended to foster interactive learning not only in the medical sciences but also in compassionate care. We never would have become the innovative academic health science center we are today without The Sealy & Smith Foundation, said UTMB President John D. Stobo. Foundation President Charles A. Worthen said the success of the organization is linked to the strengths of each director on the seven-member board. We have a good cross section of people who bring expertise from different areas to the board its just a really close-knit group all pulling the same wagon, so to speak, Worthen said. John W. Kelsos professional background is in the construction business, while John E. Eckel is an attorney. Michael C. Doherty was a banker, and both J. Fellman Seinsheimer III and Joe C. Blackshear can explain the nuances of insurance and business. George Sealy III is a geologist who worked many years with Exxon. Worthen himself was a bank president and bank board chairman. Our mission will continue to be to do the best job we can to fund activities that provide the best possible health care for the people in this area, Worthen said. Christian Messa is a writer in the UTMB Development Office.
39
F A C U LT Y Notes
Michael A. Ainsworth (Internal Medicine) was appointed associate dean for regional medical education and director of clinical assessment and professional development. Tetsuo Ashizawa joined UTMB as chair of the Department of Neurology. He was previously professor of neurology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and serves as deputy executive of the Neurology Care Line at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Houston. Robert E. Beach (Internal Medicine) was appointed assistant dean for educational affairs and director of the Office of Educational Development. Kleanthe Anthe Caruso (director of nursing services, Correctional Managed Care, Texas Department of Criminal Justice Hospital) was elected for a two-year term as chair of the Academy of Correctional Health Professionals. Jeff Davis (director, Preventive, Occupational & Environmental Medicine) was elected for a threeyear term to the Executive Committee of the American Board of Medical Specialties. B. Mark Evers (Surgery) was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and was awarded the National Institutes of Health Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award for his outstanding record of scientific achievements as a principal investigator on National Institute on Aging research projects. Mary V. Fenton and Alice Spencer Hill (both School of Nursing) were inducted into the American Academy of Nursing for their extraordinary commitment and contributions. David G. Gorenstein (Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics) and Don W. Powell (professor and former chair, Internal Medicine) have been appointed associate deans for research. Gorenstein is well known for his work on the solution structures of DNA and DNA-protein adducts. Powell is recognized internationally for his research in the field of gastroenterology. Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed Martha Hargraves (director of health policy and health services research, Obstetrics and Gynecology) to a task force on eliminating Texas health care access disparities and reorganizing Texas Department of Health programs to improve health care access. John P. Heggers (director, Clinical Microbiology at Shriners Burns Hospital and professor, Surgery, Microbiology and Immunology) was elected to the Board of Trustees of the American Burn Association. David N. Herndon (Surgery) was elected to the board of directors of the American Board of Surgery. Alvin LeBlanc (associate dean emeritus for graduate medical education) was presented the John C. Gienapp Award by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for dedication to graduate medical education and outstanding contributions to the enhancement of residency education and accreditation activities. Marilyn Marx has been appointed senior associate dean for faculty practice and chief physician executive of the faculty practice. William E. Mitch joined UTMB as chair of the Department of Internal Medicine and holder of the Edward Randall and Edward Randall Jr. Distinguished Chair in Internal Medicine. Mitch was professor of medicine and director of the Renal Division at Emory University School of Medicine and is recognized internationally for his research in chronic renal failure and nutrition in renal disease. James C. Thompson (professor and former chair, Surgery) was awarded the 2001 Dr. Rodman E. Sheen and Thomas G. Sheen Award. The award honors doctors recommended by the American College of Surgeons who in their lifetimes have contributed materially to furthering medicine and medical research. John D. Stobo (president of UTMB) was honored by the Society for Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (SELAM) for his commitment to advancing the careers of women in academic medicine. Leonard E. Swischuk (Radiology) was named chairman of the Department of Radiology. William D. Willis, Jr. (Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Distinguished Chair, director of the Marine Biomedical Institute and chairman, Department of Anatomy and Neurosciences) became the firstever recipient of the $50,000 Purdue Pharma Prize for Pain Research.
40
SUMMER 2002
Doctors and Domestic Violence
UTMB President John D. Stobo discussed Confronting Chronic Neglect: The Education and Training of Health Professionals on Family Violence, a report issued by the Institute of Medicine in September of 2001, on National Public Radio. Stobo co-chaired the committee that produced the report, which evaluates existing programs and finds most medical schools curricula on domestic violence to be incompletesometimes as minimal as a single lecture or film. There has also been a dearth of investigation into whether or not the current training available is effective. Its a staccato type of approach, said Stobo, with very little evaluation as to whether its having a beneficial impact.Reporter Rachel Jones, September 10, 2001, All Things Considered, National Public Radio.
Encephalitis Vaccine May Fight West Nile Virus
Quote
UNQUOTE
Popular Hormone Contraceptive May Lead to Bone Problems Down the Road, Says New Study
A vaccine approved for Japanese encephalitis may help protect people from the most severe complications of West Nile virus infections. Researchers from UTMB reported the possibility at an Atlanta meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. The virus that produces Japanese encephalitis is a flavivirus, a member of the same family as the West Nile virus. Tests in hamsters showed that the vaccine did not prevent infection by the West Nile virus but that it did prevent death and the severe encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) normally associated with infections. The researchers believe it will have the same effect in humans. Thomas H. Maugh, writing November 19, 2001, in the Los Angeles Times (circulation 972,957).
Film Seeks to Reveal Human Element to Anatomy Class Medical Students
Research conducted at UTMB on the injectable contraceptive, Depo-Provera, confirms that the shots main ingredient, depo medroxyprogesterone acetate, or DMPA, can cause significant bone loss when used long term. And, the younger you are when you begin using this contraceptive, the greater your risk of bone-related problems later in life. This is not the first study to observe that use of DMPA may result in bone density loss, but our study confirms the results of others, says study author Dr. Abbey Berenson, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UTMB. What makes this study stand out, adds Berenson, is the design, which was able to detect even subtle differences between the groups of patients who were studied.Colette Bouchez, writing October 4, 2001, for HealthScoutNews, www.healthscoutnews.com.
FDA Panel Recommends Approval for Psoriasis Drug
Thomas Cole, professor of the UTMB Institute for the Medical Humanities, acted as creator and executive producer of Still Life: The Humanity of Anatomy, a new film aimed at helping students cope with first-year anatomy class. The objective of Still Life, says Cole, is to help students learn that they can move between states of mind. Theyre going to have to do this with patients all their lives. You have a personal relationship with the person who gave that body. At other times you have to be in the state of mind that requires that you not think about that at all, that you just think about the body as an object, so you can learn the structure. Still Life was selected for the 2002 DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival and has been requested by anatomy programs around the country.Louis B. Parks, writing February 28, 2002, in the Houston Chronicle (circulation 553,462).
A federal advisory panel recommended approval of Biogens psoriasis drug, potentially clearing the way for the marketing of the first new type of treatment in years for this skin condition and lifting beleaguered biotechnology stocks. They said there was a pressing need for new drugs because, for many patients, other treatments either have intolerable side effects or are ineffective. Obviously, all of us have patients who are out of options, said Dr. Sharon S. Raimer, a panel member who is a dermatologist at [UTMB], before voting in favor of the drug. FDA approval must be won before the drug can be sold, but the agency usually follows the advice of its advisory panels within a few months.Andrew Pollack, writing May 24, 2002, for the New York Times (circulation 1,194,491).
Anthrax Antibody Created
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin who study anthrax have developed a potential life-saving countermeasure: a genetically engineered antibody that binds to one of the anthrax toxins, preventing it from invading the bodys immune cells. Its a smart strategy, said Johnny Peterson, a microbiologist at UT Medical Branch at Galveston who is conducting similar research. As biologists, if we want to do something to interrupt the (disease-causing) mechanism, we find a target.Leigh Hopper, writing June 4, 2002, in the Houston Chronicle (circulation 553,462).
41
C L A S S Notes
Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
1950s
Robert Binhammer, Ph.D. (55), is a professor at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, where he directs the ten-week gross anatomy and embryology course, and co-directs the six-week neuroscience course each spring. He recently published a paper about a new ligament found in the vertebral canal. In June, Robert and his wife, Anne, celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary by sponsoring a Bach concert at their church with a string orchestra and reception afterward. Earl Carter, M.D., Ph.D. (55 Physiology), and his wife, Barbara, are enjoying retirement and dividing their time between their condo on the golf course in Sun City West, Arizona, and their condo on the golf course in Rochester, Minnesota. Earl joined the faculty of Ohio State University Medical School in 1955 with appointments in the Department of Physiology and the Department of Preventive Medicine. Five years later, the Carters moved to Rochester. At Mayo, Earl was primarily involved in clinical medicine but also set up a residency program in Preventive Medicine and continued a program in clinical aviation medicine. He served as medical director for Northwest Airlines as well. The couple enjoys entertaining their four children and eight grandchildren, playing golf, keeping active at the gym, and attending church. Sid Cassin, Ph.D. (57 Physiology), accepted his first job as an instructor in physiology at the University of Florida College of Medicine immediately following his graduation in 1957. He and his wife, Barbara, have enjoyed living there ever since. In 1962, the Cassins traveled to Oxford University for a sabbatical with Dr. Geoffrey Dawes and in 1979, Sid was visiting professor at University College London. His teaching interests at the University of Florida are in the area of body fluids and renal function, which began when he was a student at UTMB with Drs. Hall and Swann. Sids research interests have been in the area of fetal and perinatal physiology with a special interest in the regulation of fetal pulmonary circulation and lung liquid production. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the American Lung Association and American Heart Association. He also served on study sections and editorial boards. Sid and Barbara have four daughters and are the proud grandparents of five boys and two girls ranging in age from 320. Since retirement in 1998, the Cassins have enjoyed time with their children and grandchildren, and traveling around the world. Barbaras interest in genealogy has taken them to Russia, Poland ,and the Czeck Republic and Slovakia in search of ancestors. Their most recent trip took them to Oxford, England, to take a course in Yiddish at Christ College. William P. Callahan III, Ph.D. (58), retired from the University of South Alabama Medical School in Mobile following a most distinguished career. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1958, William accepted an appointment at the Hahneman Medical School in Philadelphia. In 1961, he joined the faculty of the University of Florida, and in 1967, accepted an invitation by the Rockefeller Foundation to join its staff in Bangkok to set up the first medical school there using American standards, including the only Ph.D. program in medical science. The Callahans and their two children had the experience of living abroad and traveling around the world during his five-year post. He returned to the states in 1972 and accepted a faculty appointment with the University of South Alabama College of Medicine. When he retired in 1992, his wife, Nadine, also stepped down as organist at the Episcopal Church. They now live on Dog River, Alabama, and enjoy bird watching. John Cross, Ph.D. (58 Preventive Medicine and Community Health), is professor of tropical public health, Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, Uniformed Services University of the Health Services in Bethesda, Maryland. He teaches parasitology to medical and graduate students. He also heads a program to brief State Department physicians on parasitic diseases they might encounter in their assigned countries. In addition, John offers a comprehensive, two-week course in diagnostic parasitology. Money from this class helps support graduate student activities. He says work is still fun and that he intends to continue his collaborations with colleagues around the world. He currently is working with a colleague in Thailand and another in Nepal studying a parasite that was found to be a cause of diarrhea in the United States. John and Evelyn Cross celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in February 2002. They have one daughter, Kelley, who is married and working with Bank of America. They have one grandson.
1960s
Gilbert Castro, Ph.D. (66 Microbiology and Immunology), has been named interim executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He also is professor of integrative biology and pharmacology and professor of biological sciences. In 1970, Gil was named a GSBS Distinguished Alumnus. In May 2002, he received the Lamar University Alumni Associations Distinguished Alumnus Award, the associations most prestigious honor, recognizing his contributions to science and education. During the past thirty-three years, he has sponsored eighteen graduate degree candidates, numerous postdoctoral fellows, and visiting scientists. He has authored, coauthored, or reviewed more than 130 journal articles and book chapters.
42
SUMMER 2002
C L A S S Notes
1970s
J. Arly Nelson, Ph.D. (70 Pharmacology and Toxicology), has been named special assistant to the Vice President for Educational Programs at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He also is a professor at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Arly is assisting with the application for M.D. Andersons accreditation for its new degree-granting programs, including the Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees awarded jointly with the Health Science Center through the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. M.D. Anderson faculty have played a major role in the training of students within the graduate school since the school was founded (1963); however, the first jointly conferred Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees were awarded at the schools commencement ceremonies held May 11, 2002. In addition to his new responsibilities, Arly and his wife, Sharon, are busy building their retirement home near New Braunfels, Texas. Martin Wasserman, Ph.D. (72 Pharmacology and Toxicology), has been named vice president for discovery research and chief scientific officer of AtheroGenics (8995 Westside Parkway, Alpharetta, GA 30004). AtheroGenics is an emerging pharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of therapies for chronic inflammatory diseases such as atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and asthma. David Chi, Ph.D. (74 MA Human Genetics and 77 Cell Biology), went to New York University in 1977 to continue his postdoctoral training. In August 1980, he joined the faculty of James H. Quillen College of Medicine, East Tennessee State University. David is a professor of medicine/immunology, director of the Immunology Research Laboratory, and chief of the Division of Biomedical Research in the Department of Internal Medicine. The Immunology Research Laboratory has replaced the clinical immunology laboratory, which he organized and directed for almost twenty years. His major research interests are in the areas of immune responses to pathogens, and inflammation and atherogenesis. David is married to Sue Chi, a certified public accountant working for the State of Tennessee as a tax auditor. They have two children. Their daughter, Michelle, is a junior and son, Michael, a sophomore in high school. Both play violin and are members of the Johnson City Symphony Orchestra. Proud parents David and Sue enjoy gourmet cooking, music, and the performing arts. Diane Simpson, M.D., Ph.D. (78 Microbiology and Immunology; 83 SOM), has left the Texas Department of Health (TDH) after ten years of service to work for the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions National Immunization Program. While at TDH, Diane served as the appointed state epidemiologist and spent the last nine years as the associate commissioner for disease control and prevention, working with a variety of infectious disease and other programs including immunizations, TB and HIV/STD control, and infectious disease and environmental disease epidemiology. In August 1999, she moved to Atlanta to take the position of director of the Data Management Division within the National Immunization Program (NIP). This position allowed her to work directly with the National Immunization Survey and with the efforts to promote immunization registries within the states. In April 2001, she was asked to temporarily take over the responsibilities of the deputy director of NIP and she is still acting in that position. Evelyn Tiffany-Castiglioni, Ph.D. (79 Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics) is associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Veterinary Medicine and head of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and Public Health at Texas A&M University. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of TexasEl Paso in 1975, and her Doctor of Philosophy degree in human biological chemistry and genetics and cell biology. She conducted postdoctoral research in developmental neuroimmunology at the University of CaliforniaLos Angeles from 19801982. Evelyn has received numerous awards and honors, including the Texas A&M University Former Students Association Distinguished Faculty Award for Research (1998); the Carrington Award for Research, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine (1993); and Whos Who in America (2000, 2001). The GSBS honored her with the 2002 Distinguished Alumnus Award in recognition of her outstanding achievement and contributions to her field and her profession.
Evelyn Tiffany-Castiglioni, Ph.D.
43
C L A S S Notes
1980s
J. Mark Petrash, Ph.D. (82 Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics), is associate professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences, and of genetics, at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the principal investigator for two grants from the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health. One five-year grant provides Mark, who also is director of research in the ophthalmology department, with $1.8 million to continue his research on the aldose reductase enzyme and its role in diabetic complications of the eye. Last year, Mark and fellow researcher Florante A. Quiocho, Ph.D., Howard Hughes investigator and professor of biochemistry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, were the first to crystallize the aldose reductase molecule in the presence of an inhibiting drug. The second grant is a five-year extension of a Core Grant for Vision Research that helps fund the work of thirty-two investigators at the School of Medicine. The National Eye Institute will provide $1.8 million to the department during those five years. The grant is one of twenty core grants in the United States. Washington University investigators working under the core grant umbrella published more than 170 papers in peer-reviewed journals during the last five years. Elizabeth Eaton, Ph.D. (86 Preventive Medicine and Community Health), has been named the new executive director of the Houston Academy of MedicineTexas Medical Center Library. Elizabeth received her bachelors degree in chemistry, math, and astronomy from Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. She worked at Massachusetts General Hospital and traveled to St. Bartholomews Medical College in London, where she was a research assistant in the gastrointestinal lab. Afterward, she returned to the states to join the staff at the University of CaliforniaLos Angeles as a research assistant.
1990s
Carlos Torres-Ramos, Ph.D. (95 Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics), and Sylvette Ayala-Torres, Ph.D. (98 Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics), have returned to Puerto Rico to join the faculty of the Universidad Central del Caribe School of Medicine, where they both have been named assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology. They are busy with their research and teaching, and enjoy all aspects of working in the academic environment. In addition to the rewards of their professional life, Sylvette and Carlos enjoy spending time with their families and an occasional escape to the countryside for a hike in the woods. They send greetings to their friends and look forward to hearing from them. Roy Dyer, Ph.D. (96 Microbiology and Immunology), is senior research fellow in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the Mayo Clinic. He and his wife, Amy, and their two children, Karley and Cole, enjoy living in Rochester, Minnesota. Roy is studying the pathogenesis of Huntingtons disease (chorea, or HD). HD is an inherited, progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects a specific region of the brain (striatum) that is involved with the control of movement. The disease affects one in ten thousand people and exhibits a dominant inheritance pattern (a 50 percent risk of a child inheriting the disease from one affected parent). Roy is studying the proteolytic processing and aggregation of the HD protein in human post mortem brain and mouse models of the disease. He published a paper in the November issue of Nature Genetics. Kristi Schrode, J.D., Ph.D. (98 Medical Humanities), has moved from Washington, D.C., to Mountain View, California, to accept a position with
Johnson & Johnson as in-house legal counsel. Her responsibilities include support for ALZA Corporation, a Johnson & Johnson operating company that develops innovative drug delivery technologies.
School of Allied Health Sciences

1970s
Linda E. Vaclavik (OT 73) is serving as the director of rehabilitation services for Victoria Warm Springs Rehabilitation Hospital in Victoria, Texas. She has been the director since its opening in November 1998. George A Hartzel (PT 74) is now a lifetime member of the SAHS Alumni Association. George is self-employed in Beaumont, Texas, but he is taking some time out to be a grandfather to a 3-year-old. Dorcas S. Ciskowski (77 PT) and her husband, Rick, have two children. Their 20-year-old daughter received a full volleyball scholarship to East Tennessee State University. Their son, 14, is a high school sophomore. Dorcas has been in private practice since 1981, specializing in medically fragile pediatrics. She and her family live in Phoenix, Arizona. Sherry J. Morrey (PA 78) continues to work for the U.S. Army. She is the clinical coordinator for the Interservice PA program. She oversees the Phase II training of eleven Army, eight Air Force, one Navy, and one Federal Bureau of Prisons sites.
1980s
Janet R. Bezner (PT 81), a 1995 Distinguished Alumna, is now working for Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. Kathleen KC (Rader) Lovin (PA 83) became the first female physician assistant to serve onboard the U.S. Navy ship the USS Cimarron, AO-177, and was the first physician assistant to serve as the senior medical officer. Kathleen was awarded the Navy
44
SUMMER 2002
C L A S S Notes
Association of Physician Assistants first PA of the Year award. In 1991, Kathleen married Mark Lovin of West Virginia. She currently works in a group family practice office in Charleston, West Virginia. She writes that she is the president-elect of the West Virginia Association of Physician Assistants and that she was appointed this year to serve a threeyear term as a trustee for the American Academy of Physician Assistants Physician Assistant Foundation. I hope to visit family and friends in the Houston area sometime soon, she writes. I look forward to having an opportunity to meet with UTMB area PAs and PA students then. Fellow PA alumni can contact me at my email address lovin@newwave.net or Kathleen Lovin, PA-C, MS, 1105 Bridge Road, Charleston, WV 25314. Susan L. Martin (OT 83) lives in Rogers, Arkansas, with her husband, Gaylon, and daughters, Holly, 15, and Sara, 12. Susan is employed by the Northwest Medical Center in Springdale, Arkansas. Soraya C. Rodriguez Lebsack (PT 87) married Terry Lebsack in September 2000. Kimberly Zepeda Forrester (OT 89) and her husband, Gene (SOM 90), are living in The Woodlands, Texas, with their 2-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Anne, and 8-month-old son, Andrew Jonathan. old daughter, Gracie Bell. Michelle L. Garcia Ontiveros (OT 96) graduated from the University of Phoenix with a Master of Arts degree in organizational management in February 2000. In December 2000 she married a speech therapist. Amy Osburn-Torres (PT 96) is living and working in the Galveston area. Amy received her pediatric specialty certification in 2001, and is now a pediatric certified specialist. Christopher Paul Watson (HCA 96) is employed with Price Waterhouse Coopers, LLP, in Dallas. Christopher can be reached via email at DRCWATSON@hotmail.com. Edward A. Downs (HCA 97) is the administrator of Bayshore Surgery Center in Pasadena, Texas. He built the facility from the ground up, and the HCA section opened in June 2001. Heather A. Hargrove (RC 97) still works at The North Texas Hospital for Children at Medical City, Dallas, as a registered respiratory therapist. In December, she will graduate from Texas Womans University with a masters degree in occupational therapy. Ivan Luna (MPT 98) hopes everyone is in good health and spirits. Ivan recently relocated to Morrison, Colorado. He works with the Injury Clinics of Colorado in Denver. His new address is 4452 South Yank Street, Morrison, CO 80465. His home phone number is (303) 934-5091; his work phone number is (303) 433-2116. His office address is Ivan Luna, Injury Clinics of Colorado, 2460 West 26th Avenue, Suite 15C, Denver, CO 80211. Ronald Randall (PA 99) recently became father to Sarah Elizabeth Randall, born April 30, 2001, and weighing 7 lbs., 12 oz. Ronald works for a primary care facility in Texas City. Julie L. Tvrdy (OT 99) has moved to Katy, Texas, and is employed with West Houston Medical Center.
2000s
Heather Harrison (OT 00) is currently living in Sugar Land, Texas, and is employed by West Houston Medical Center. Dana A. Hogue LeBlanc (OT 00) is employed by Quinlan Independent School District in Quinlan, Texas. Nancy B. Eversole Dunbar (MPT 01) delivered a baby girl on June 22, 2001.
New news from old friends

Thats what the Class Notes section is all about. Drop us a line. Send us a photo. Please let us know what youve been up to. Wed love to hear from you.
1990s
Lisa Hill Whitley (PT 91) and her husband, Noel, are proud to announce the birth of their first child, Lauren Ann, born August 28, 2001. Jennifer Brown Hoopman (OT 95) is working with the Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas. She and her husband welcomed the birth of a daughter, Rachel Elisabeth, on March 26, 2001. Erik Hamnes (MPT 96) recently was promoted to vice-president of rehabilitation. He is responsible for adult rehabilitation, pediatric rehabilitation, agrability, health and wellness, and information and referral for Easter Seals Tennessee. Erik and his wife, Katy, have a 1-year-
Send your news, school and year of graduation, telephone number, and current place of residence to: UTMB Quarterly Class notes, c/o your school as indicated under UTMB Alumni Contacts on the front cover of the magazine. If sending email, please make Quarterly Class Note your subject line.
45
C L A S S Notes
School of Medicine
1930s
Robert K. Blair, Sr., 37, Houston, is still going strong. He made a threeweek riverboat trip through the highlands and glens of Scotland in August 2001. During a two-day stop in Edinburgh, he revisited the medical school there with memories of UTMBs great anatomist Dr. William Keiller. Robert sends best regards to his fellow alumni. William Seybold, 38, Dallas, is grateful that he is still alive and smiling. He sends best wishes to his surviving classmates as well as to those who were freshmen and sophomores at UTMB in 1938, 1939, and 1940.
Dr. Robert K. Blair and Captain Hammil, on The Lord of the Glens riverboat sailing through the Highlands of Scotland. August 2001.
Dr. Robert K. Blair with two stepsons George and David Shannon. At the flagpole on the grassy bluff at the Shannon family house on Trinity Bay, Texas.
1940s
Marvin Schlecte, 40, Wimberley, Texas, has been fully retired since June 2000. He now walks with a cane, but can still drive his car. Walter Parks, 42 (December), enjoyed his class annual meeting in November 2001 at the Mill Creek Inn in Salado, Texas. Carey King, 43, Dallas, was named a Texas Chapter laureate during the November 2001 annual meeting of the Texas Academy of Internal Medicine. William (W.C.) Mills, 43, is retired and living in Austin. He is sad to report that his wife, Lila, died in September 2000. Joseph Neel, 43, Dallas, retired from general surgery in 1985. Prior to retirement, he jogged 100 miles a month. Now, he can be found at the Cooper Aerobics Center six afternoons a week running 14 miles each time. Additionally, he runs an hour, four times a week at dawn around his residence. J. Alan Stewart, 43, writes: I noted an error in the date of the Texas City disaster in the article quoting Dr. Damiani (UTMBs Greatest Generation, Winter 2001). The date in your article was April 16, 1949the correct date is April 16, 1947. How do I know? On that date, I was a medical officer in the U.S. Navy, stationed at the U.S. Naval
MEMORIALS TRIBUTES
Honor a Friend or Loved One Commemorate a Special Occasion Support Health Science Education
The Memorials and Tributes program at UTMB provides our alumni and friends a special and caring way to honor a relative, friend, or loved one while supporting health science education. When you send a memorial or a tribute gift to UTMB, an acknowledgment of your gift is sent to the appropriate family member or individual, notifying him or her of your thoughtfulness. For more information on the program or to request special Memorials and Tributes envelopes, please contact the Office of University Advancement at (409) 772-3951 or kawarsha@utmb.edu.
&
46
SUMMER 2002
C L A S S Notes
Hospital in Houston. The entire medical staff responded. After leaving the Navy, Alan was in general practice in Lake Jackson until retiring there in 1987. In 1967 classmate Dor Brown, 43, got Alan involved in an allergy practice that he continued on a limited basis until final retirement in January 2001. Activities now include golf, woodworking, cutting gemstones (when inspired), and working out at the gym four times a week. Frank Dunn, 47, San Antonio, Texas, is hoping to get back into practice after an illness due to arsenic poisoning. Its been a slow process. Glenn Gordon, 47, Eugene, Oregon, sends warm greetings to his classmates and friends. He is retired and would welcome a visit any time fellow alumni are in his area. You can reach him by email at gmgordon@oregon.uoregon.edu. Rumbo, 53, Richardson, Texas, retired in September 2000. W. Cone Johnson, 54, Denton, Texas, retired after 47 years in practice. He was a pulmonologist for 42 of those years and was the first board-certified pulmonologist in west central Texas. Julius Burianek, 55, retired in April 2000 after practicing pediatrics in Baytown, Texas, for 38 years. L.E. Chapman, Jr., 55, Seabrook, Texas, retired last year. He writes that his health is good and that he is enjoying just being lazy. Alvin LeBlanc, 55, UTMBs associate dean emeritus for graduate medical education, was the recipient of the 2001 John C. Gienapp Award. This award recognizes the dedication of those who have made outstanding contributions to the enhancement of residency education and accreditation activities. Al was honored for his leadership, vision, and many accomplishments in graduate medical education. Ernest Rising Jr., 55, Arlington, Texas, retired from his orthopaedic surgery practice in November 2001. Melvyn H. Schreiber, 55, Galveston, was one of several UTMB faculty members honored at the School of Medicine commencement in May 2001. In recognition of his outstanding contributions to student education, the graduating class selected him as the recipient of the James W. Powers Memorial Award. This award recognizes a teacher of clinical subjects who, by his or her example and instruction, has contributed in an eminent way to the creation of a physician capable of practicing both the art and science of medicine. Mel is the Robert N. Cooley Distinguished Professor of Radiology at UTMB. Gordon Jones, 56, Broaddus, Texas, and his wife, Dot, enjoy living on Lake Sam Rayburn. They keep busy gardening, fishing, seeing friends, and with their three sons and one granddaughter. Gordon practiced radiology in Lufkin for 34 years. He has macular degeneration and cant drive, but otherwise is in good health. David Smiley, 56, Lamesa, Texas, retired from general surgery five years ago. He suffers from an Alzheimer-like disease and is in remission from prostate cancer. His wife, Evelyn Smiley, 57, is a part-time staff physician at Lamesa Primary Care Clinic. She writes that she still is sad both of their physician children were refused admission to UTMB. Joe Whetsell, 56, Tyler, Texas, retired in July 2001. Following a trip to France, he plans to learn how to use a computer, become a gardener, and do some volunteer work. James Shepherd, 58, Georgetown, Texas, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgetown Area Community Foundation. Allan Hanretta, 59, Santa Barbara, California, sends best wishes and prayers for the most abundant fulfillment of all dreams, wishes, and expectations to all members of the class of 1959. Thomas Kirksey, 59, Austin, Texas, is a diplomat of the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. He is executive vice president of medical affairs, Seton Health Care Network, at Brackenridge Hospital in Austin.
1950s
Pete Palasota, 50, Abilene, Texas, was the Taylor-Jones Haskell County Medical Societys 2001 Gold-Headed Cane Award winner. This award pays tribute to outstanding members of the medical profession, and presents to the public the qualities needed to produce an outstanding physician. Pete is the 16th recipient since 1961. Robert Wise, 50, Williamsburg, Virginia, is the Magee Professor of Medicine Emeritus at Thomas Jefferson Universitys Jefferson Medical College. He was a guiding force in bringing Jefferson Medical College and Hospital to its now eminent national status as a major university for medicine and allied health sciences. Robert Eckert, 51, Athens, Texas, retired from his family medicine geriatrics practice. Life is busy and good; he does not see how he ever had time for work. Dewey Peace Jr., 51, New Braunfels, Texas, and his wife, Nita, went on a twoweek river cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg, Russia, in September 2001. Clyde Morgan, 53, a dermatologist living in Abilene, Texas, is listed in the current Whos Who in Science and Medicine as well as Whos Who in the World. Noble
1960s
Carlos Mata, 60, San Antonio, Texas, practiced urology in Laredo until his retirement in December 1998. He now enjoys traveling, motorhoming, golfing, gardening, fishing in Rockport, and his seven grandchildren. Fred Castrow II, 61, Houston, was elected president of the American Academy of Dermatology. Tracy Gordy, 61, Austin, and Paul Wick, 61, Tyler, Texas, each received distinguished service awards from the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians in November 2001. Paul is the American Psychiatric Associations delegate to the American Medical Association. Tracy is chair of the American Medical Associations Current Procedural Terminology Panel. Tracy was also named Physician of the Year for 2001 and received the Gold-Headed Cane Award from the Travis County Medical Society. Malcolm Mazow, 61, Houston, was elected vice chairman of the Council of the American Academy of Oph-
47
C L A S S Notes
thalmology and is on the board of directors of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Daniel L. Creson, 62, is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the UT Mental Sciences Institute in Houston. He traveled to New York after the World Trade Center disasters to assess strategies for helping Arab- and Middle Eastern-Americans who have been living in fear since September 11. James Guckian, 62, Austin, Texas, is serving as acting executive vice chancellor for health affairs for the UT System, succeeding Dr. Charles Mullins. He reports to the chancellor and is directly responsible for six UT system health institutions in Houston, San Antonio, Tyler, Galveston, and Dallas-Fort Worth. He joined the UT System as executive associate for health policy and planning in 1988 and served as vice chancellor for health affairs and principal advisor to Dr. Mullins. Frank Lanza, 62, Houston, will be president-elect of the American College of Gastroenterology in October 2002. He will assume the presidency in October 2003. David McCarron, 62, Austin, Texas, plans to retire in September 2002. He needs additional time for fishing and hunting. Dana Copp, 64, retired from the United States Public Health Service several years ago. He recently returned to Austin, Texas, after being a professional gypsy for many years. Robert Faust, 64, retired from practice in April 2001. He lives in Lubbock, Texas. Howard Condren, 65, Miami, Oklahoma, is a semiretired orthopaedic surgeon. He does locum tenens and raises thoroughbred horses. William (Bill) Jacobs, 65, an associate professor in UTMBs division of cardiology, was awarded the Internal Medicine Faculty Teaching Award for 2001. He is the director of medical education and director of the UTMB HeartCenter clinics. Melton Horwitz 66, Houston, is a representative to the board of governors of the American Academy of OtolaryngologyHead and Neck Surgery, representing the Texas Association of OtolaryngologyHead and Neck Surgery. James Wells, 66, Long Beach, California, is president of the California Society of Plastic 2002. He has served the DCMS in various capacities since 1988. Don and his wife, Roberta, have two grown daughters. Robert Tenery Jr., 68, was listed in D magazine as one of its top 330 local physicians in 29 specialties in the Dallas, Texas, area. The magazine surveyed 1,000 primary care physicians and 4,000 specialists to find out who, among their peers, they would trust with their own health or that of their families. Johnny Alexander, 69, Lufkin, Texas, retired from private practice in September 2000. He continues to work part-time as a military reserve medical commander and as a consultant to the Texas Rehabilitation Commission. Katie Youngblood, 69, left her faculty position with the UTMB Family Practice Residency Program in Conroe, Texas, in August 1997. Before completely retiring in July 2001, she precepted there and at the Brazos Valley Family Practice Residency Program in Bryan, Texas.
Dr. James and Karen Wells
Surgeons. He also is serving a oneyear term as the 2002 president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. James recently went back to solo practice from a six-person practice that he founded. He has a daughter, Sara, 13, and a son, Greg, 30. Classmates who travel to the Long Beach area should be sure to get in touch with him or contact him via email at JRINKLE@aol.com. He sends best wishes to all, and is shown here with his wife, Karen. George Abdo, 67, practices full-time at Houston Northwest Medical Center at Cypress Fairbanks Hospital in Houston. He enjoyed his 35-year class reunion in March 2002. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas named Houston urologist Paul B. Handel, 67, a member of the Texas Affiliate Board. The board was created to advise the Health Care Services Corporations board of directors on local business activities, health care developments, and community relation opportunities and priorities in Texas. Handel is a former chair of the Texas Medical Association Council on Socioeconomics and former president of the Harris County Medical Society. Alan Baum, 68, Houston, was elected to the board of trustees of the Texas Medical Association (TMA) Foundation. Alan is a former president of the TMA. Don Read, 68, a Dallas, Texas, colorectal surgeon, was elected the 119th president of the Dallas County Medical Society (DCMS) in January
1970s
John E. Frandolig, 70, is enjoying retirement on his farm in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He recently returned from his sixth medical mission in the past three years to Haiti. The contrast between the poverty and natural beauty made an impression on him. Joe Pate, 70, Dublin, Texas, retired from family practice several years ago after two brain stem strokes. Luckily, only his speech was affected and he is happy and healthy. Joe and his wife still have many fond memories of Galveston and UTMB, and wish they could see all of their old friends. Edward (Ned) Snyder III, 70, Galveston, is president-elect of the Texas Academy of Internal Medicine, the Texas chapter of the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine. Manon Brenner, 71, Littleton, Colorado, is self-employed as a medical consultant for Social Security Disability and Planned Parenthood. She did a special fellowship in the University of Colorados family medicine department because of her interest in practicing general medicine in a
48
SUMMER 2002
C L A S S Notes
community health clinic system working with patients who fall between the cracks of insurance and Medicaid, i.e., the working poor. Douglas Horbelt, 72, was named the Daniel K. Roberts Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Kansas School of MedicineWichita. His numerous contributions to medical education and research in obstetrics and gynecology have created nationwide recognition for the Wichita campus. In addition to many teaching awards received throughout his career, the schools class of 2001 honored Douglas with the Golden Chair Award with deep appreciation for being a supportive friend, trusted advisor, gifted teacher, and respected mentor. Douglas is board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology and gynecologic oncology. He serves as an oral board examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and as a reviewer for several medical publications. A. Nelson Avery, 73, is the UTMB School of Medicines new faculty director of student recruitment. Delbert Domstead, 73, retired in March 2001 after almost 28 years of solo ob/gyn practice (and over 4,600 deliveries) in San Marcos, Texas. He hopes to learn how to sleep at night again and then go fishing. During his career he served as president of the medical staff, chief of credentialing, chief of obstetrics, president of his countys Tri-County Medical Society, and as a physician representative on a hospitals board of directors. Many colleagues are graduates of UTMB, and he was proud to serve with them. Charles Kuttner, 73, lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, Donna. Both of their grown children live nearby. Charles commutes by bus to Salem, Oregon, where he is the psychiatrist in a Veterans Administration mental health clinic. Jimmy Randles, 73, recently moved to a rural practice in Columbia, Louisiana. Robert McCrea, 74, is employed as an obstetrics/ gynecology staff physician at Cigna Healthcare in Tempe, Arizona. He recently was promoted to a colonel in the Air Force Reserves, working as a flight surgeon at Luke Air Force Base. Deborah Peel, 74, Austin, Texas, is president of the National Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and Consumers. The coalition is fighting to rebuild the shattered mental health care system by focusing media and public attention on the need to move mental health care to the top of the nations agenda. Guy Clifton, 75, Houston, is the Runnells Distinguished Chair and professor and chair in the Department of Neurosurgery at the UT Health Science Center Houston. He has been named director of TIRRs (The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research) Mission Connect program, an initiative to conduct collaborative research in central nervous system injuries, diseases, and disorders. Ann Sims, 75, Woodway, Texas, volunteers as the medical consultant for the Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children. As part of their Hometown Hero program, Time Warner Cable, Fox Sports Southwest, and the Baylor University Athletic Department honored Ann for her service to the Waco community. Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed Peggy Wakefield, 75, Corpus Christi, Texas, to serve on the Asthma and Allergy Research Advisory Committee. Peggy also was appointed as chair of the patient education committee for the Asthma Coalition of Texas. E.A. Clark, 76, Longview, Texas, is the medical director of Diagnostic Clinic of Longview PA, where he has been practicing pediatrics for 21 years. He was elected president of the 2001 2002 Triad Hospitals, Inc. National Physician Leadership Group. He also serves on Triads corporate board of directors. George F. Smith, 77, relocated from Tyler, Texas, to San Antonio, Texas, after accepting a position with Humana, Inc., in May 2001. He is the new vice president and chief medical officer for south Texas, overseeing all medical operations for San Antonio and Corpus Christi. George served as class host and enjoyed seeing classmates while celebrating their 25-year reunion during Homecoming in March 2002. Shelley Sekula Rodriguez, 79, Houston, is president of the 200102 Texas Dermatological Society. She won the Houston City Councils At Large Position 3 in a December 2001 election. She has a dermatology practice in Clear Lake, Texas, and is the widow of the late Sylvan Rodriquez, a former local news anchor.
1980s
Molly Droge, 80, Dallas, is president of the Texas Pediatric Society. She and her husband, Michael Droge, Ph.D., served as host committee members of the UTMB Presidents Outreach Visit to Dallas in February 2002. Jim Rohack, 80, Temple, Texas, was elected to a four-year term on the American Medical Association (AMA) Board of Trustees in June 2001. He received the largest vote count in the history of a board race, even over four incumbents. Jim has served in the AMA House of Delegates and is a former chair of the AMA Council on Medical Education. The Texas Academy of Family Physicians (TAFP) recently selected David Wright, 80, Austin, Texas, as the Texas Physician of the Year. He will be recognized at the TAFPs annual session and scientific assembly in July 2002. Sidney Aldridge,81, Southlake, Texas, has been a hospitalist at Cook Childrens Physician Network in Fort Worth for six years after being in private practice for ten years. She enjoys the challenge of a hospital practice and the interesting cases it presents. Sidney is married to Jim Bonnet, 80. They have three children. William Brelsford, 81, is a selfemployed rheumatologist. He has two children: Kate, 13, and George, 9. William has been living in his hometown of Tyler, Texas, for 13 years and loves it. He feels blessed to have a great practice in a wonderful town. D. Scott Miller, 81, Fort Worth, is the 200102 Texas Dermatological Societys president-elect. David Moeller, 81, The Woodlands, Texas, enjoyed a great 20-year class reunion (with a memorable group photo) in Galveston at Homecoming 2001. Cheryl Alston, 82, was selected for a position with the U.S. Department of State as a regional foreign medical officer. She left for El Salvador in
49
C L A S S Notes
November 2001. Cheryl will be the embassy doctor there and her region will include all of the countries from Mexico to Panama. Her husband, Dave Wilson, and three cats (no children) moved with her. To get in touch with Cheryl, write to: Health Unit, Cheryl L. Alston, M.D., Unit 3120, APO AA 34023. Justin Bartos, 82, Keller, Texas, is the 200102 president of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians. Dean Dimmitt, 82, is in an internal medicine private practice that is affiliated with the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. Classmates who remember him as Daddy Dean from medical school might feel a bit older when they hear that his son, Brad (born during his second year at UTMB), is now attending UTMBs School of Medicine. His other two sons are Nathan, 19, and Ben, 16. Dean got remarried in September 2001 to the former Patty Smith of Dallas. They enjoyed seeing many classmates at Homecoming in March 2002 when the class of 1982 celebrated its 20year reunion. Steven Dunton, 82, Conyers, Georgia, is the chief medical examiner of Gwinnett County. He also is a forensic pediatrician for Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta, which includes the two largest childrens hospitals in Georgia. Karen Kemper, 82, closed her 15-year-old pediatric practice in Abilene, Texas, and moved to Waco, where she joined three physicians at the Hillcrest Pediatric Pavilion. She and her husband of 32 years have four children and one grandchild. Their oldest daughter is the assistant district attorney in Plainview, Texas. One son is an aerospace engineering student at Texas A&M and the other son is in aviation school in Dubuque, Iowa. Karens youngest daughter is a junior in Wacos Vanguard College Preparatory School. Michael Mitchell, 82, Irving, Texas, moved from San Angelo to the Dallas-Fort Worth area where he joined Heartplacea single specialty cardiology groupand opened a new office at Harris Methodist Hospital. He and his wife, Sue, have three children: Kyle, 12; Jeff, 11; and Kristen, 9. Frank Emery, 83, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is in solo plastic and reconstructive surgery. Dave Espino, 83, recently was appointed vice chair for research and development in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio. He is now a full professor. Richard Jones, 83, is in private practice in ophthalmology in Sacramento, California. Stephen Tyring, 83, a UTMB professor of dermatology, microbiology and immunology, and internal medicine, will have his book, Human Papillomaviruses, Clinical and Scientific Advances, published by Oxford University Press. The book combines a discussion of current research with clinical features, current treatments and the future of treatment. Ronald Valdez, 83, is co-founder of the Institute for Womens Health, the largest obstetrics and gynecology group practice in San Antonio, Texas. J. Pierre Filardi, 84, writes that he had a great 2001 with a few personal milestones. First, he passed a certification course to become a certified triathlon coach. Later in the year he set a personal record of 5 minutes, 15 seconds in the mile run at the Congress Avenue mile run in Austin. Pierre practices pediatric anesthesiology. Charles Fraser, 84, was honored at an American Heart Association Ball in Houston in February 2002. He is chief of congenital heart surgery at Texas Childrens Hospital and Baylor College Medicine as well as cardiac surgeon-incharge at Texas Childrens Hospital. Mark Laney, 84, Fort Worth, Texas, was named president of the Cook Childrens Mark Laney Physician Network (CCPN) in May 2001. CCPN is part of the Cook Childrens Health System and is one of the largest pediatric group practices in the United States. Kenneth Furukawa, 85, writes that he finally is off of active military duty and working at a real job. He is a staff anesthesiologist at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Sacramento, California. Kenneth Quenneville, 85, practices emergency medicine in Eagle Lake, Texas. In addition to being the father of Genny, 4, and Ariel, 3, he is an airplane pilot and owner of a Cessna Centurion. Kathryn Buck, 86, Boerne, Texas, was named a distinguished alumnus of Austin College during a campus ceremony in October 2001. She is a pediatric emergency physician at San Antonios Methodist Childrens Hospital and received the hospitals Extreme Service Award in 2000. Kathryn is a member of the Governors Advisory Board and participates in Texas Department of Health meetings as well as serving her local community in many different programs. She and her husband, Danny, have four children. Robert Matteson, 86, a Galveston radiologist, is the 2002 president of the Galveston County Medical Association. Michael Lif Lifshen, 87, married Marny Lochhead in March 2001. Marny is a public relations consultant and Lif is a family physician in private practice in Austin. They support a growing family of two dogs, a cat, and a horse, and are anxiously awaiting a UT football national championship. Robert Minor, 87, and his wife, Estela Sosa, 87, live in Harlingen, Texas, where he is in an internal medicine group practice and she is in solo obstetrics and gynecology practice. Joseph Fernandez, 88, is still working at Southwest Medical Associates in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He and his wife, Farrell, are happy living there with their daughter, Abby. Another baby was born in December 2001. Glen Landesman, 88, Belle Mead, New Jersey, was appointed the director of the Department of Family Practice at Somerset Medical Center in addition to running his own full-time family medicine private practice. William Varner, 88, The Woodlands, Texas, is director of anesthesiology at Greater Houston Anesthesiologists. His many accomplishments include completing a fellowship in cardiovascular anesthesiology, being named Memorial Hermann Hospital Systems Physician of the Year, and receiving a masters degree in business adminis-
50
SUMMER 2002
C L A S S Notes
tration from the University of Houston. William also started a development company, Ocean Resort Properties, in Crystal Beach Galveston. Harris Baden, 89, lives in Washington State with his wife, Gina, and their three children. He practices pediatric critical care. faculty at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine (awilkin@wfubmc.edu). Christopher McMillan, 95, is in a radiology residency at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Upon completion, he will be boardcertified in family medicine and radiology. He will join Texarkana Radiology Associates in the summer of 2002. Christopher and his wife, Lindsey, are very happy to be moving back to Texas. They have two children, Emily and Patrick. David S. Patterson, 95, (Rob Pattersons brother) practices neuro-radiology in Austin. David Wood, 95, Fairfield, California, completed his radiology residency in the spring of 2002. He moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he will enter a neuro-radiology fellowship at the University of Wisconsin. Ashley Davis, 96, and her husband moved to Boise, Idaho, in April 2001. Their daughter, born in July 2001, was a face presentation yikes! Ashley works for a family doctor in solo practice. Michele Gilbert, 96, has been practicing in Austin, Texas, since August 2000. She is one of nine physicians at Renaissance Womens Group. She moved into a new home in northwest Austin in October 2001. Matthew Ryan, 96, Galveston, joined UTMBs faculty in August 2001. His second child, a son named Tristan, was born in January 2001. Amy Simon, 97, Grand Rapids, Michigan, completed her plastic surgery residency in June 2002. She will spend the next year in two fellowships: six months in reconstructive breast surgery and six months in a combined aesthetic and oculoplastic surgery fellowship in Atlanta. She had fun seeing classmates in Galveston during Homecoming 2002. Trey (Enrique F.) Benavides III, 98, and Melissa (Myrick) Benavides, 98, are the proud parents of a son, Enrique F. Benavides IV, born on May 23, 2001. They both finished family practice residencies at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, where Trey is now starting an obstetrics residency. Melissa joined North Tarrant Family Practice. Jeremy L. Gibson, 98, completed his residency in pediatrics at Scott & White Memorial Hospital and the Texas A&M University System Health Science Center College of Medicine in June 2001. He will remain in Temple, Texas, and practice pediatrics at Scott & White. David Lozano, 98, Helena, Alabama, started a pediatric pulmonology fellowship in July 2001 at the University of Alabamas Birmingham Childrens Hospital. George Walls, 98, Houston, is a corporate physician at ExxonMobil. He and his wife are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Caroline, on February 1, 2002.
1990s
Gene Forrester, 90, is a nephrologist living in The Woodlands, Texas. He and his wife, Kim, have two young children, Elizabeth and Andrew. David Handley, 92, and Melissa Hanson Handley, 92, write that they are doing just great. Melissa Isbell, 90, San Antonio, Texas, is married to Patrick Isbell, 90. She is a full partner with Renal Associates, P.A. Their children are Nicholas, Cassie, Sean, and another daughter who was born in November 2001. Robert F. Rob Patterson, 93, Pensacola, Florida, was mentioned in national news stories for his part in treating the 8-year-old boy whose right arm was bitten off by a shark in July 2001. Rob, a pediatric intensivist in the critical care department of the Nemour Childrens Clinic, says that although it is rare for him to treat shark bites, his exposure to such patients during medical school in Galveston was great experience. Richard Tyer, 93, joined Central Texas Neurology Consultants in June 2001. He has offices in Round Rock and Austin, Texas. Carlos Cruz, 94, Little Rock, Arkansas, is a vascular surgeon who joined the staff at the University of Arkansas as an assistant professor. Kimberly Wherry Roys, 94, Topeka, Kansas, married Dr. Michael Roys in June 2000. She is a radiologist with the subspecialty of abdominal imaging and prenatal sonography. Her husband is an interventional radiologist. Since graduation, Aimee Wilkin, 94, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, completed residency (medicine) and an infectious diseases fellowship at the University of Cincinnati. She spent the following two years as faculty at Johns Hopkins Universitys AIDS service while pursuing a masters degree in public health. Aimee is married to Arjun Chatterjee, M.D., and is on the
2000s
Bobby Ritter, 01, is doing his internship and residency in urology in Tyler, Texas. You can reach him by email at rhritter@yahoo.com. Catherine Walsh, 01, Providence, Rhode Island, wishes everyone the best. She is doing her residency at Brown University. Renee Remi Solis, 01, and Edward (Ned) Snyder IV, 00, (shown here in their engagement picture) were married in Galveston on June 22, 2002. She currently is in her internship at Christus St. Joseph Hospital in Houston and will complete her dermatology residency in Galveston. Ned is a plastic surgery resident at UTMB.
Renee Remi Solis and Edward (Ned) Snyder IV
51
C L A S S Notes
In Memory
Anthony M. Orlando 33, San Antonio, Texas, November 13, 2001 W. Burgess Sealy 34, Fort Worth, Texas, May 23, 2001 Henry G. Wallace 34, city unknown, December 30, 2001 Shirley S. Bowen 35, Houston, October 12, 2001 Granville J. Hayes 37, Alvin, Texas, October 12, 2001 Ed S. Crocker 38, Houston, November 4, 2001 John C. Kennedy 38, Houston, February 3, 2002 Andrew J. Magliolo 38, Austin, Texas, January 8, 2002 W. Pruett Watkins 38, Austin, Texas, January 11, 2002 G. Valter Brindley Jr. 39, Temple, Texas, June 17, 2002 Herbert A. Schubert 39, Rogers, Texas, July 19, 2001 Thomas J. Archer Jr. 40, Austin, Texas, January 9, 2002 James A. Hunter Jr. 40, Rusk, Texas, October 28, 2001 Fredrick F. Rogers 40, Corpus Christi, Texas, November 8, 2001 Alfred M. Tocker 40, Wichita, Kansas, October 23, 2001 John B. Webb 41, San Antonio, Texas, November 7, 2001 Ned Snyder Jr. 42 (March), Brownwood, Texas, October 11, 2001 Capres S. Hatchett Jr. 42 (December), Amarillo, Texas, November 18, 2001 Ervin J. Skrivanek 42 (December), Ennis, Texas, August 25, 2001 Robert L. Stubblefield 42 (December), Houston, January 18, 2002 Milton R. Hejtmancik 43, League City, Texas, June 21, 2002 Charles W. Coussons 44, Nacogdoches, Texas, May 3, 2001 Edwin Goodall 44, Breckenridge, Texas, January 12, 2002 Donald R. Lewis 44, Paris, Texas, February 23, 2002 C. Vernon Caver 45, Honolulu, Hawaii, April 14, 1999 Joseph G. Holt Jr. 45, Denton, Texas, January 20, 2002 Dennis M. Voulgaris 45, Wharton, Texas, June 18, 2001 Charles N. Jones 46, Winthrop, Arkansas, August 10, 2001 John E. Martin 46, Houston, January 18, 2002 I. Emil Carroll 47, Albuquerque, New Mexico, July 31, 2001 Frank L. Dunn 47, San Antonio, Texas, date unknown O. Harold Ross 47, Nederland, Texas, November 11, 2001 Truett C. Boles 48, Arlington, Texas, May 14, 2001 Robert H. Fain 48, Houston, March 25, 2002 Carroll E. Murtha 48, Abilene, Texas, July 17, 2001 Thomas W. Risley 52, Fort Worth, Texas, November 4, 2001 Raymond R. Thomas 53, Eagle Lake, Texas, March 14, 2001 Kenneth P. Dobbs 54, Dallas, July 20, 2001 John H. Langston, Jr. 56, New Braunfels, Texas, September 26, 2001 John M. Bardwil 57, Olympia, Washington, February 2, 2002 James D. Lancaster 57, Fort Stockton, Texas, May 24, 2001 Bill V. Hewett 59, Huntsville, Alabama, January 16, 2002 John C. Ramsay 60, Victoria, Texas, December 20, 2001 Edward L. Wall 60, Houston, March 8, 2002 Ronald D. Cress 61, Texas City, Texas, September 6, 2001 James R. Hampton 68, El Paso, Texas, February 13, 2002 Daniel P. Kohler 70, Beaumont, Texas, November 6, 2000 William C. Reeves 71, Greenville, North Carolina, date unknown Paula L. Price 87, Temple, Texas, April 27, 2001
School of Nursing
1930s
Alice M. Gallagher, 35, has lived in Mission, Texas, since 1942. She has lost contact with all of her classmates and would love to hear from them. Former classmates can write her at 3005 N. Conway Ave., Mission, Texas, 78572.
1940s
Jean M. Bardgette, 47, Thousand Oaks, California, is retired, traveling and doing well. Lynda V. Bisbey, 48, La Marque, Texas, writes that her husband of 52 years passed away in December 2000. She is so grateful for the close friendships of her former classmates. They are her family and are very precious to her. Ruth E. Cole,
52
SUMMER 2002
C L A S S Notes
49, Murray, Kentucky, writes that when she graduated her degree was from the Austin campus with only one quarter on Galveston campus. She and her classmates were R.N. graduates for a degree in nursing education. Agnes J. Greak, 46, Liberty, Texas, celebrated her 54th wedding anniversary on October 5, 2001. She has five sons, fourteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Ellen Mauldin Johnson, 42, San Antonio, Texas, visited with former classmate, Louise Evans Getty and husband Ben, in West Columbia, South Carolina, in August 2001. They are both retired and doing well. They live part-time in a retirement community and parttime in Lugoff, South Carolina, in a country home. Ellen also is retired and volunteers two days a week for a thrift shop sponsored by the Methodist Hospital. She has two children, five grandchildren and five greatgranddaughters. Katherine (Virginia) Jones, 49, Bryan, Texas, writes that she and her husband celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in November 2000. Her nursing classmates Bernice Spreen and Margie Draehn, were in her wedding. Katherine and her husband have two children, three grand children and two greatgrandchildren, and they have lived in Bryan all of their married lives. Ina Claire McTarnahgan, 48, met with classmates Pearl, Lea, Lynda, and Margie in California for golf, boating, and fun. Ina has moved into her new home in Grand Junction, Colorado, and she loves being retired. Christine R. Pavalko, 45, Pasadena, Texas, is retired and she enjoys receiving all the information sent to alumni in the mail. Ruth Lynch Townsend, 46, Bryan, Texas, was the only one from the Class of 1946 to attend the 55year reunion during UTMBs Homecoming in March 2001. She had a great time and she hopes to see more of her class at Homecoming 2006 for their 60-year reunion. Ruth would love to hear from former classmates. retired to begin a new career in the textile recycling business. They have eight grandchildren and two wonderful cats that keep them busy. Ella Ruth (Nelson) Bedgood, 59, Atlanta, Texas, attended her 45-year high school reunion in Liberty, Texas. Ella hopes that her nursing class will have one soon. She has many fond memories of UTMB and the good nursing training she received that prepared her for future occupations of various types. Ella has a total of 40 years of nursing of which all have been very rewarding. Dr. Dorothy A. Chesley, 57, Austin, Texas, retired as director of the Nurse Oncology Education Program (NOEP). She is a consultant for NOEP working on a project for parish nurses. The goal is to educate parish nurses to promote quality of life at the end of life. Dr. Chesley was also inducted into the Alumni Association Hall of Fame during Homecoming in March 2001. Dorothy Daeschner, 51, San Antonio, Texas, announces the birth of her granddaughter, Ava Solange Gough, born on August 16, 2001. Ava also was welcomed by her big sister, Isabella. Tatsuko A. (Tachibana) Dolloff, 55, Crossville, Tennessee, is enjoying her new home on the lake with her husband, Howard, and golfing in the winter in Florida. Her son Paul has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. Her son Matthew completed a masters degree in English at UTAustin and is now working toward a Ph.D. Meredith R. Ferguson, 57, works part-time as a school nurse. She moved to Waco, Texas, after her husband died two years ago. Meredith would love to hear from her classmates. Ellarein J. Fourcade, 54, Santa Fe, Texas, is looking forward to her 50-year class reunion. Kathleen (Kitty) Nentwich Janiga, 57, San Antonio, Texas, retired in May 1999 after 26 years of teaching at San Antonio College. She now manages ranch land and volunteers in parish nursing. She occasionally works at the college part-time to support her habits of traveling and quilting. Billie Jo Maneth, 57, Flower Mound, Texas, is retired and currently does volunteer work, participates in new neighborhood activities, continues to sing with the community chorus and travels to Houston frequently to help her brother care for their mother. Billie and her husband enjoy several weekends a month at their ranch near Victoria, Texas. She would appreciate hearing from classmates at Manethfarm@aol.com. Dr. Mary Lucille Moore, 59, Friendswood, Texas, was appointed professor emeritus at the UTMB School of Nursing in September 2000. June Morgan, 57, Greenville, Texas, was widowed in March 2000. She lives on a farm raising hay and she has six granddaughters. Caroline Mosher, 55, Richardson, Texas, is retired from a regular job, but she keeps her hand in nursing by going on medical mission trips. For the past two years, she has traveled to San Cristobal, Guatemala, and helped to open a hospital for a week by serving as a clinic nurse for one of the doctors. Caroline would enjoy hearing from anyone. Donna B. Vaughn, 59, Corpus Christi, Texas, writes that she had bilateral total knee replacements and is doing well. She hopes to either return to work soon or retire.
1960s
Jean A. Cox, 61, Austin, Texas, published her memoirs in a book titled A Long Way From the Cotton Patch. More than a life story, it describes the economic and political climate during the years of the Great Depression, as it affected families living on small farms in West Texas. The rigors of a three-year nursing school program in Austin during World War II in the Cadet Nurse program are detailed, as well as a thirty-five-year nursing career at UTMB and three different Veterans Administration centers. Jean also says that her maiden name was Cox and then she worked at UTMB under the name of Jean Stekoll, then married and graduated under the name of Jean Rowland. She was widowed and then married Richard Cox, so she is back to the name she started out with. Jewell Braun Ellis, 61, Austin, Texas, retired in June 2001 after forty
1950s
Nancy J. Addis, 53, Athens, Texas, moved from Galveston in 2000. She and her husband, Sid, became un-
53
C L A S S Notes
years working at Brackenridge Hospital, primarily in cardio care. She now plans to do some reading, sewing, and traveling. D. Ellen Kerr, 68, Fort Worth, Texas, enjoys treating patients with primary and secondary lymphedema. For fun, she and her husband, Lee Unger, went tent camping in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky in September 2001. Dr. Katherine J. Moore, 61, Houston, earned her doctorate in education in 1995. She is currently working as manager for Employee Health Services at Compaq Computer Corporation/Hewlett-Packard in Houston. She manages two on-site clinics serving approximately 12,000 employees. Katherine continues her considerable involvement with the American Association for Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN) and the Commission for Case Manager Certification (CCMC). She is serving a four-year term as a commissioner for CCMC at the national level and continues legal nurse consulting and occupational health consulting parttime, an activity that she plans to expand when she retires. She has two grown daughters and one grandchild. Dr. Bonnie L. Rickelman, 63, Austin, Texas, holds national board certification by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and recognition by the Texas Board of Nurse Examiners as an advanced practice clinical specialist in adult psychiatric-mental health nursing. She also holds national certification as a group psychotherapist and licensure as a marriage and family therapist. Her research interests include theory development and predictor models of suicidal behaviors and cognitive interventions to optimize healthier attributions and prevention of demoralization, depression, and suicide. She is interested in further study of attachment and quality-of-life profiles in older adults. She is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. Kathleen CunninghamSmith, 63, Gaithersburg, Maryland, received the Information Technology Award for Knowledge Advancement from Sigma Theta Tau International. The annual award salutes nurses, groups, and society chapters that have used information technology to improve health care and further their profession. Sigma Theta Tau recognized her and two other Washington area nurses for creating and conducting the continuing education program, Weekend Immersion in Nursing Informatics (WINI). This program has been presented 24 times throughout the United States and in Canada. Master of Science in Nursing from UTMB in 1976. Her husband, Harold, is working at the Burke Mental Health Center in Lufkin, Texas. Her son Nathan is a senior at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and her son Allen is a freshman at UT-Austin.
1980s
Sister Mary Chaudet, 81, St. Louis, is active in the Nurses for Newborns Foundation, which provides a safety net for families most at risk, to help prevent infant mortality, child abuse, and neglect through in-home nursing visits, providing health care, education, and positive parenting skills. She was the first full-time staff nurse in 1993. Mary was recognized by Oprahs Angel Network for her contributions to this organization. Alexia Green, 84, Lubbock, Texas, was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson fellow for 20012004. She was one of twenty nurses selected nationally to receive executive nurse leadership training by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Carmen Kranz Green, 80, Houston, is president of Qstaff, Inc., a temporary staffing agency in Houston. She has been married for five years and has two children. Henry Guevara, 80, Georgetown, Texas, presented research findings at the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses conference in San Francisco on case management of temporary workers at Applied Materials. Winifred Lorraine Langham, 84, Texas City, Texas, was the recipient of the 2001 Martin Luther King Award at UTMB. She was the first Nursing Service employee to receive the award. Holly Fatherree Rost, 84, Southlake, Texas, is busy keeping up with her childrenMegan, 15, Alex, 13, Tommy, 12, Khristina, 10, and Katie, 7. She volunteers as a nurse at her childrens school.
1970s
Kleanthe Anthe Caruso, 75, League City, Texas, was appointed chair of an American Nurses Association (ANA) task force to revise standards of care for correctional nursing. Dianne M. Fasano, 78, Houston, has been a coordinator for health care ministry at St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Clear Lake since 1996. Patricia E. Felkins, 76, Floresville, Texas, is self-employed as an independent case manager. She also is chairman of the Case Manager Society of South Texas (CMSST) until August 2002. Patricia has a small herd of goats for eating the grass on her five acres of land and guineas to eat the grasshoppers. She enjoys the outdoor life very much. Kay McEwen Shepard, 71, Plano, Texas, is a certified occupational health nurse specialist (COHN-S) and a certified case manager (CCM). She is also an officer of a local branch of the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses. Kay was the first undergraduate to marry and have a child while in school at UTMB. She and her husband have been married for 33 years and that baby boy, Michael, is married with a 4-year-old little girl. Their younger son, Jason, is currently in college. LTC Phyllis J. Smith, 76, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, U.S. Army, Army Nurse Corps, retired from the military after more than twenty-two years of combined active duty and active reserve service. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from UTMB in 1974 and her
1990s
Helen Louise Boling, 94, Toledo, Ohio, is a pediatric nurse practitioner working as part of a large mid-level provider program (NPs/PAs) at Toledo
54
SUMMER 2002
C L A S S Notes
Hospital and Toledo Childrens Hospital. It is a very interesting job located in a small, but great and growing city. Brant T. Erwin, 97, Hillsboro, Texas, moved to Anchorage, Alaska, in May 2001, leaving his job as chief nursing officer at Hill Regional Hospital in Central Texas to start a new job at Providence Hospital in Alaska. He loves being back in the clinical setting. Former classmates can write him at 2130 East 56th Avenue #104, Anchorage, AK, 99507. Constance M. Freeman, 93, League City, Texas, is a part-time private duty nurse in Galveston for a family that underwrote a loan that she received while attending UTMB. She operates an e-commerce and investment business from home that gives her time and financial freedom. Adele Gutierrez, 94, Houston, was promoted to chief nurse at Magnolia Health CenterHouston Health Department in July 2001. Jason T. Paslean, 97, Pearland, Texas, writes that he is working in Houston at Memorial Hermann Life Flight as a flight nurse. Jason got married on October 12, 2001. Kelly SnyderRuemmele, 94 and 00, Houston, graduated from the Primary Nurse Practitioner program in December 2000, and is employed as a certified pediatric nurse practitioner at Gendi Pediatrics in Pasadena. Kelly also gave birth to her daughter, Laura Page, on May 22, 2001. Brenda S. Salisbury, 87 and 93, Baltimore, works in the operating room in open heart and coordinates the main operating room at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She is an active member of the Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses Baltimore Chapter. Deborah Saunders, 91, Cypress, is the Texas regional manager of the Newborn Hearing Screen Program at the Pediatric Medical Group in Houston. Sister Mary Lambert OMara 54, Monroe, Louisiana, November 20, 2000 Dora Louise Brenan Drobel 42, Roswell, New Mexico, February 12, 2001 J. Elizabeth White 27, San Angelo, Texas, March 11, 2001 Lorna McKoy 31, Dallas, May 31, 2001 Joretta F. Wilmer 84, Houston, April 2001 Mary E. Wilhelm 57, Green Valley, Arizona, July 20, 2001 Audie Stricklin Mensing 38, San Antonio, Texas, September 1, 2001 Mary E. Fisher, a beloved faculty member and instructor of the School of Nursing, died on August 1, 2001. Mary worked for the past 25 years as an educator in nursing degree programs. In May 2001, she was awarded the UTMB School of Nursing Faculty Excellence Award. Marys family has established a scholarship in her memory at UTMB. Contributions can be addressed to the Mary E. Fisher Nursing Scholarship Fund, UTMB School of Nursing, 301 University Boulevard, Galveston, TX, 77555-1132.
Gift annuity pays you and UTMB

CD Rates Too Low, Stocks Unpredictable? Support UTMB and Enjoy Gift Annuity Payments
Many individuals, especially those on fixed incomes, have been hurt recently by low interest rates and volatile stock market reports. Certificates of deposit that paid 8 percent or more in the past are being rolled over at 5 percent or less. Bonds are not much better. Bull or bear stock market rollercoaster rides are not to everyones liking, and some stock investments may pay dividends of only 2 to 5 percent.
Many senior alumni and friends of UTMB age sixty-five and better are learning about the University of Texas Foundations Gift Annuity Program which benefits UTMB and provides guaranteed, fixed payments. Rates pay as much as 7 to 10 percent, depending on age. In addition to offering an option that pays attractive rates to our donors, UTMB programs also enable donors to obtain tax-free payments and charitable income tax deductions that provide important tax savings.
Reviewing the Charitable Gift Annuity

A life income gift annuity provides the following benefits: A source of income for your or your spouses lifetime A charitable income tax deduction An opportunity to establish an endowed fund in your name or the name of a loved one Favorable treatment of capital gains taxes on gifts using appreciated stocks For more information, contact the Office of Gift Planning Services at (409) 772-5151 or e-mail wdmcgaug@utmb.edu or visit us on the web at www.utmb.edu/giftplanning/.
In Memory
Hunda Marguerite Perdue Dorr 42, San Antonio, Texas, February 28, 1999
55
BODY & SOUL
Ambling towards Nirvana

BY JAMES S. GOODWIN
I recently spent three days in

Florence with twenty other gerontologists in an attempt to define frailty. One of the cardinal signs of frailty, we all agreed, is slow walking speedthe patient who takes forever to get from the waiting room to your office. We advocated prospective trials of brisk walking in frailty prevention. All this left me vaguely unsettled, because I am a great lover of the art of walking slowly. One theory of language holds that the number of words available to describe a phenomenon reflects the subtlety with which we can think about it. Eskimos have eleven or thirteen or some other large uneven number of words for snow, while the Trobriand Islanders have none. Thus, the Trobrianders cannot even think about snow, much less talk about it. In that case, at some point in our history walking slowly must have been very important indeed. Amble, mosey, stroll, saunter, shuffle, lumber, ramble, shamble, sidle, meander, wend, sashay and more. In earlier times perhaps we needed all these words. But not any more. We might amble in our dreams, but not on the freeway. One strides in the corridors of power; saunterers are not welcome. People rush to their massages, their yoga classes. Slow walking is on the verge of extinction, at risk of relegation to ritual, to surface only at weddings and funerals to evoke vestigial emotions from a more placid era. It need not be so. My youngest daughter knows how to mosey. Thumbs in jeans, hips abducted 15 degrees, this gait is accomplished by synchronised flexion of the hip and knee, such that the foot is lifted with the lower part of the leg still perpendicular to the ground. Then the knee is extended to 180 degrees, and the weight shifts forward to that leg, which is planted on the ground about twelve inches in front of where it started. The mosey is a magnificent walk, more like a dance. It fairly screams with the revels of the journey, the sheer joy of motion. Had the Wright brothers known how to
mosey, they would not have needed an aeroplane. Henry David Thoreau devoted a long essay to sauntering, which he thought was derived from Sainte Terre; a saunterer was a holy lander, a walker of sacred ground. I have spent some effort in life teaching others to saunter. It is important to me. The saunterer lives in the present. What is important is where you are, not where you are going. Sauntering is a simple but all-consuming act. Hustling, hurrying, rushingthis is all about the future, ignoring the present to get to the future. But is the future worth the rush, worth the sacrifice of the present? The amble is, of course, uniquely American, embedded in our Constitution. Our founding fathers composed the preamble, then ambled to clear their minds, then wrote the rest of the document. It is always easier to teach people how to do something rather than feel something or be something. Rather than attending classes to learn to reduce stress and resolve conflict, maybe we could all learn how to amble. The amble is the ambulatory equivalent of a deep breathing exercise. It is impossible to simultaneously fight and amble. When we reach Nirvana, we will not be permitted to dash or scoot. We will be expected to know how to amble. So here I am, a conflicted geriatrician. How do I integrate my personal love of sauntering with my professional beliefs in the benefits of rapid walking? Life is complex. Perhaps we will evolve to a set of recommendations that acknowledge this complexity. Power walking, running, joggingthose we will recommend as helpful for the body. But moseying, ambling, and sauntering are necessary exercises for the soul. James S. Goodwin is professor of geriatrics and director of the Sealy Center on Aging. This essay was previously published in slightly different form and is reprinted with permission from Elsevier Science (The Lancet, April 13, 2002, Vol. 359, p. 1358).
56
SUMMER 2002

UTMB Quarterly Summer 2002

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originalbeschreibung:

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

UTMB Quarterly Summer 2002

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

F E AT U R E S

Of Biodefense, Bioterrorism, and the Coming BSL4 Laboratory

Death in the Wind

Quotations from Chairman David H. Walker

Following the Viral Trail Around the World

The Quotable Dr. Peters

Photo courtesy of NASA

BIODEFENSE, BIOTERRORISM, AND THE COMING

Last October 5, UTMB created its new Center for Biodefense.

U U TB MB QA UR ATR R LY SM UME M S UT M QU ET RELY RE R 2 02 00 20 2

TE HE UIN V SI TY OT F ET EA XS AM S E M EID CL AB LR BA RN AC NH CH AT GL A V TN ON TH UN V IE RESR IT Y OF X D C IA AT GA VLE SE TS O

what you guys

have been told, it it was those

Soviet scientists and technicians had manufactured

enormous quantities of anthrax, plague, and smallpox, while

Quotations from Chairman David H. Walker

Natural Cause Called Unlikely in Two Anthrax Cases

Laboratories on the Front Lines

Natural Explanation for Anthrax Cases Unlikely

FBI Subpoenas Labs, Schools in Anthrax Probe

N.Y. Workers Anthrax Deepens Mystery

Hardball with Chris Matthews

The Quotable Dr. Peters

As Investigation Churns, More Attacks Are Expected

BioterrorismRx for Anthrax: Knowledge, Calm and Common Drugs

Killers TrailWhy Anthrax Probe Is Increasingly Hunting Domestic Lone Wolf

Experts: Surge in Incidents Suggests Bioterrorism

Making Anthrax a Weapon is Hard

Anthrax: Who is Behind the Attacks?

Evaluating the Need for Smallpox Vaccinations

Nanoparticles could fix cells

Earning while learning

Killing with kindness

Shots across Texas and beyond

Thanks a million twice

Green report card

Facing the end

Doctors and Domestic Violence

Evelyn Tiffany-Castiglioni, Ph.D.

School of Allied Health Sciences

New news from old friends

Dr. James and Karen Wells

Renee Remi Solis and Edward (Ned) Snyder IV

Gift annuity pays you and UTMB

Reviewing the Charitable Gift Annuity

BODY & SOUL

Ambling towards Nirvana

I recently spent three days in

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen