Faculty Bibliography

Dr. Marc Feldmann and Sir Ravinder N. Maini of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London won the clinical-medical - research award for a discovery that led to development of powerful drugs that can soothe joint pain and restore mobility among people with rheumatoid arthritis

Christopher Reeve, the actor whose struggle against paralysis has given new hope to patients with severe spinal injuries, has won the Lasker public-service award. Reeve was paralyzed from the shoulders down when he was thrown headlong from a horse in 1995. He is now chairman of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation and a leading advocate for increasing financial support of medical research aimed at curing not only his injury, but a wide variety of other conditions. The Lasker committee said it was citing Reeve, 50, 'for his perceptive, sustained and heroic advocacy for medical research in general and victims of disability in particular.'

[Christopher Reeve] was paralyzed from the shoulders down when he was thrown headlong from a horse in 1995. He was honored for transforming his personal tragedy into public service. He is now chairman of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation and a leading advocate for increasing financial support of medical research aimed at curing not only his own injury, but a wide variety of other conditions

Dr. Marc Feldmann and Sir Ravinder N. Maini of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London won the clinical medical research award for a discovery that led to development of powerful drugs that can soothe joint pain and restore mobility among people with rheumatoid arthritis. The therapy, known as anti-TNF, for tumor necrosis factor, has also benefited people with other autoimmune disorders, like the bowel ailment Crohn's disease and a form of arthritis caused by psoriasis. Feldmann, an Australian immunologist, and Sir Ravinder, who was born in India, overcame major scientific skepticism when they began their anti-TNF work in 1984. It has led to the development of three licensed drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune disorders -- Remicade, Enbrel and Humira. [Robert G. Roeder] will receive $50,000, and Feldmann and Sir Ravinder $25,000 each. The public service award does not have a monetary prize. Since the Laskers were first awarded in 1946, 66 winners have later received Nobel Prizes

A puzzling cluster of pneumonia cases among U.S. troops in Iraq and other countries in the war region seems to be partly related to the fact that many had taken up smoking shortly before they became ill, Pentagon officials said on Tuesday. He said that the military had investigated the cluster because of the particular severity of the pneumonia -- all patients needed assistance from mechanical ventilators to breathe. Most responded 'fairly dramatically' within days after such therapy and antibiotics, said Col. Bob DeFraites, the Army's chief of preventive medicine. Tobacco smoke is a prime suspect because it is known to damage lungs and increase their susceptibility to pneumonia. Also, at least one published paper has reported a similar link between smoking and severe pneumonia

A puzzling cluster of pneumonia cases among American troops in Iraq and other countries in the war region seems to be partly related to the fact that many had taken up smoking shortly before they became ill, Pentagon officials said yesterday. He said the military has investigated the cluster because of the particular severity of the pneumonia -- all patients needed assistance from mechanical ventilators to breathe. Most responded ''fairly dramatically'' within days after such therapy and antibiotics, said Col. Bob DeFraites, the Army's chief of preventive medicine. Tobacco smoke is a prime suspect because it is known to damage lungs and increase their susceptibility to pneumonia. Also, at least one published paper has reported a similar link between smoking and severe pneumonia

He said the military had investigated the cases because of the severity of the pneumonia; all patients needed assistance from mechanical ventilators to breathe. Most responded 'fairly dramatically' within days after such therapy and antibiotics, said Col. Bob DeFraites, the Army's chief of preventive medicine

He said the military had investigated the cluster because of the particular severity of the pneumonia -- all patients needed assistance from mechanical ventilators to breathe. Most responded 'fairly dramatically' within days after such therapy and antibiotics, said Colonel Bob DeFraites, the Army's chief of preventive medicine. The investigators are leaning to a noninfectious cause and are focusing on one finding 'that has jumped out at us,' that nine of the 10 patients with high eosinophil counts reported that they had started smoking recently, DeFraites said. Tobacco smoke is a prime suspect because it is known to damage lungs and increase their susceptibility to pneumonia. A combination of stress, heat, dust and other factors may have acted in concert with smoking to cause illness, he said

This is a big study that generally supports everything we have said about the risks of hormone therapy, said Dr. Rowan Chlebowski of the Research and Education Institute at Harbor-University of California at the Los Angeles Medical Center in Torrance, California. Dr. Valerie Beral of Oxford University led the new study, which was paid for by the British government and Cancer Research UK, a charity. The study involved about one-fourth of British women between the ages of 50 and 64

For example, it will be more difficult to eradicate polio than smallpox because smallpox produced a rash that was relatively easy to detect and distinguish from other skin diseases. But polio is just one of many conditions that can paralyze. So epidemiologists must check each case for polio virus as they try to rule out other causes. Also, only an estimated one in 200 people infected by polio develops paralysis; the overwhelming majority experience only diarrhea and other nonspecific gastrointestinal symptoms. Suspecting that he could do more as a public health specialist than as a practicing physician, Dr. [David L. Heymann] went to the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. After graduating in 1974, he worked on the smallpox eradication program in India. Then to fill in time before joining the Epidemic Intelligence Service program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Dr. Heymann treated workers constructing the oil pipeline on the North Slope of Alaska. In 1988, Dr. Heymann moved to the agency's headquarters in Geneva to work on AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. In 1995, he went back to Africa to help contain an Ebola outbreak in Kikwit, Congo. The W.H.O. then put Dr. Heymann in charge of its emerging infections program. His team showed how the Internet and other modern means of communication can be combined with traditional epidemiological methods, like isolating infected and suspected cases, to help track the spread of infectious diseases and speed up their control