Faculty Bibliography

A convoy of 10 refrigerated tractor-trailers that arrived from New Jersey yesterday afternoon was parked along Second Avenue from 30th Street to 32nd Street, providing space to store about 1,000 bodies. At dawn yesterday, a barge carrying pallets of ice tied up at a pier in Lower Manhattan. The ice will help preserve remains as they are recovered from the rubble. If the remains of the plane victims are recovered, the medical examiner's office may be able to identify the hijackers, who are presumed to have died with the innocent. Investigators hope to collect personal items the culprits left behind in their homes or hotel rooms -- hairbrushes, washcloths, dirty clothing -- that may contain traces of DNA. These could be matched with unidentified remains. Among the many unknowns in the terrorist attack on Tuesday is how many bodies were consumed beyond any hope of recognition. Jet fuel burns at about 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on circumstances, or about 200 degrees cooler than some house fires. Crematoriums heat the body to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes

So far, [Laman A. Gray Jr.] said, [Tom Christerson]'s recovery is faster than Tools', largely because Christerson 'was not as sick as Tools' was before the implant

Nearly 1 million babies conceived in test tubes have been born since 1978 when the first was conceived through an in vitro fertilization technique developed by a British scientist, Dr. Robert G. Edwards. Yesterday, Edwards' success in making infertility treatable made him one of five winners of this year's awards from the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. Edwards' work led to tests for detecting inherited disorders in embryos before they were implanted. His work, which won him the Lasker clinical award, also helped open the field of human embryonic stem cell research, which scientists say holds promise for developing new treatments for diabetes, Parkinson's and other diseases. The Lasker awards are often called America's Nobels because 63 Lasker recipients have gone on to receive Nobel Prizes in Sweden. The awards will be presented at a private luncheon in Manhattan on Sept. 21

[Tom Christerson] 'is doing superbly,' said [Laman A. Gray Jr.], who implanted the AbioCor artificial heart with [Robert Dowling]. 'He looks absolutely wonderful,' is awake and normal neurologically, Gray said

Both recipients have an AbioCor artificial heart, which is made by Abiomed of Danvers, Mass. Unlike Mr. Tools, though, the recipient yesterday did not have heart surgery before the implant, Dr. [Laman A. Gray Jr.] said. Mr. Tools had a coronary bypass operation about 10 years ago. Bleeding from scar tissue left from that made his implant operation more difficult. He also had to return to the operating room the night of his implant because of bleeding. The Food and Drug Administration has given Abiomed approval to implant up to five AbioCor hearts at Jewish Hospital and four other medical centers in Boston, Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia

Because DNA testing led to the identification of all the victims of the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 and those in the crashes of Swissair and EgyptAir flights, ''it is no longer acceptable not to use DNA testing to identify all remains,'' said Dr. Michael Baden, the chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police. He participated in the forensic pathology investigation of the T.W.A. crash off Long Island in 1996. Dr. [Robert Shaler] said that when bodies and tissues arrive at his office, teams of experts begin examining them visually to document any major injuries. The teams consist of medical examiners; morgue, DNA and toxicology scientists; and medical-legal investigators. The teams obtain fingerprints when possible and also collect samples for DNA and toxicology testing. If a blood sample cannot be obtained, members of the team remove a small piece of muscle for DNA testing. In the laboratory, scientists go through a number of steps to identify the victim's DNA and to compare it with samples from close relatives. In these steps, chemicals known as chelation compounds are added to the tissue to prevent the degradation of DNA. The resulting sample is heated and a protein is added to digest enzymes to break down the cell wall and release DNA. Scientists then use a color-coded system to determine the amount of DNA present, remove less than one billionth of a gram of DNA, and use a technique known as polymerase chain reaction to produce more purified DNA

A convoy of 10 refrigerated tractor-trailers that arrived from New Jersey on Wednesday afternoon was parked along Second Avenue between 30th and 32nd streets; they had space to store about 1,000 bodies. At dawn that day, a barge carrying pallets of ice tied up at a pier in lower Manhattan. The ice will help preserve remains as they are recovered from the rubble. If the remains of the hijackers are recovered, the medical examiner's office may be able to identify the culprits, who are presumed to have died with the innocent. Investigators hope to collect personal items the hijackers left behind in their homes or hotel rooms - hair brushes, washcloths, dirty clothing - that may contain traces of their DNA. These could be matched with unidentified remains. Among the many unknowns in the terrorist attack Tuesday is how many bodies the inferno burned beyond hope of recognition. Jet fuel burns at about 1,500 degrees, depending on circumstances, about 200 degrees cooler than some house fires. Crematoriums heat the body to 3,000 degrees for 30 minutes

Other doctors had been preparing to perform a human heart transplant when Barnard, then 45, shocked the world on Dec. 3, 1967, by removing a patient's dying heart and replacing it with a healthy one taken from an accident victim at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. Barnard arrived in Minneapolis just as the field of open heart surgery was developing, spurred by the new technologies that produced equipment like heart-lung machines. After being invited to lend a hand with the device one day, Barnard took further training at the Medical College of Virginia to become a heart surgeon in South Africa. Photo: Mike Hutchings, Reuters; Pioneering South African heart surgeon Christiaan Barnard died in Cyprus Sunday while on vacation. Barnard was 78.; Photo: The Associated Press File Photo; Princess Grace of Monaco has dinner in Monte Carlo with Barnard, who had become an international celebrity, in this 1968 file photo

Barnard's early transplant attempts met limited success. His first heart transplant patient, Louis Washkansky, lived 18 days, though his second, retired dentist Dr. Philip Blaiberg, lived more than 19 months. Other doctors had been preparing to perform a human heart transplant when Barnard, then 45, shocked the world on Dec. 3, 1967, by removing a patient's dying heart and replacing it with a healthy one taken from an accident victim at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. Photo: AP / Dr. [Christiaan Neethling Barnard] dines with Princess Grace of Monaco in Monte Carlo, Monaco, in August 1968. The handsome, charismatic surgeon enjoyed a playboy existence. ; Photo: AP / In later years, arthritis forced Barnard to quit active surgery in 1983. ;

[Christiaan Barnard]'s early transplant attempts met limited success. His first heart transplant patient, Louis Washkansky, lived 18 days, though his second, Philip Blaiberg, lived more than 19 months. Soon, surgeons elsewhere were trying the experimental operation, but initially with little success. Other doctors had been preparing to perform a transplant when Barnard, then 45, shocked the world on Dec. 3, 1967, by removing a patient's dying heart and replacing it with a healthy one taken from an accident victim during surgery at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. To some experts, perhaps Barnard's most important medical contribution was his courage to proceed with a human heart transplant at a time when other surgeons who had performed the operation only on animals continued to hesitate to proceed on humans