Faculty Bibliography

A series of reports about new problems with anti-AIDS drugs and setbacks in vaccine trials left many participants thinking that their best hope against the epidemic is the strategy they have had since it began: prevention. The mood was a sharp contrast to the euphoria at the last AIDS meeting, in Vancouver, British Columbia, two years ago. There, scientists reported that combinations of new drugs, called protease inhibitors, had allowed many people infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, to leave their deathbeds, even to return to work. As Dr. Hoosen Coovadia, of Durban, South Africa, explained it, AIDS affects 40 percent of the children he treats in a large black hospital there. Yet, Coovadia, who is chairman of the next World AIDS Conference in 2000 in Durban, said that he had never used any anti-HIV drugs. His hospital cannot afford them, he said

Troubling questions like these have filled medical history when promising new therapies have gone sour. The questions come up now in a dramatic way in AIDS because of a recently recognized constellation of findings known as the lipodystrophy syndrome. It produces a different pattern from the wasting syndrome long known as a part of AIDS. Several published reports have linked the syndrome to the drug cocktails that contain one of the powerful protease inhibitor drugs that were introduced in the last two and a half years. Many discussions at the 12th World AIDS Conference that ended here last week focused on the syndrome as experts from several countries reported new cases. Dr. David A. Cooper of Sydney, Australia, an international leader in AIDS research, and Dr. Andrew Carr expanded on their earlier published findings that 74 out of 116 or about 64 percent of patients taking protease inhibitors developed the syndrome, compared to 1 out of 132 who did not

In certain areas of Africa, one in four adults is infected with the virus that causes AIDS, and around the world the disease now rivals the greatest epidemics of history, according to a United Nations report issued recently. One is that more women of childbearing age are HIV-infected in Africa than elsewhere. A second is that African women have more children on average than those on other continents. Thus, one infected woman may pass the virus onto a higher average number of children. A third reason is that nearly all children in Africa are breast-fed. But breast-feeding is thought to account for between a third and a half of all HIV transmission from mother to child

Dr. (Peter) Piot's team quickly showed that the Zairian patients had developed AIDS through heterosexual sex -- a finding that was initially met with disbelief by medical experts. But Dr. Piot (pronouced PEA-ott) knew his work was important. The leader, whom Dr. Piot declined to name, contended that his country's blood supply was safe. But Dr. Piot, fresh from a visit to a blood bank, knew better because the bank had no laboratory kits to screen blood before transfusions. The skeptical leader called the blood bank and learned that the blood was in fact dangerous. He summoned his health minister and ordered him to adopt the United Nations AIDS Program's recommendations. That country's program now works well, Dr. Piot said. ''Go to Zaire tonight,'' Dr. Piot was told. Earlier, the same Belgian officials had opposed sending a team to investigate the epidemic in Yambuku, Zaire, from which Dr. Piot's team in Antwerp had isolated the new virus. Suddenly, Dr. Piot's presence in Zaire was needed because American, French and South African scientists were there and the Belgians did not want to be embarrassed by not being represented

Dr. Michael DeBakey moved like a dancer in a pas de deux, anticipating his surgical partner\'s every move during a quadruple bypass operation on a woman at the Methodist Hospital here recently. As DeBakey deftly manipulated scalpels, scissors and forceps for more than three hours, his hands never quivered. What made it an extraordinary operation is that DeBakey, the pioneering heart surgeon, turned 90 earlier this month. With bushy eyebrows, long dark hair combed back on a balding scalp and a tinge of gray on his sideburns, DeBakey looks 20 years younger. Though he takes fewer surgical cases these days, he maintains a whirlwind schedule of travel and consulting. He is celebrating his 50th year at Baylor College of Medicine, and only a disability would make him retire, DeBakey said

Clinical research awards are going to three scientists: Dr. Alfred Knudson Jr., a former president of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia; Dr. Peter Nowell, a professor of pathology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and Dr. Janet Rowley of the University of Chicago. The defective gene occurred in the 22nd chromosome and it became known as the Philadelphia chromosome after the city where Nowell worked. In the 1970s, Rowley used a new Swedish chemical staining technique developed to discover that the Philadelphia chromosome's small size resulted from exchanges of pieces of genetic material. A crucial piece of chromosome 22 broke off and moved to chromosome 9, while a piece of chromosome 9 jumped to the breakpoint on the 22nd chromosome

Six scientists who made discoveries dating to 1960 that identified the genetic basis of cancer will receive this year's Albert Lasker awards. Clinical research awards are going to Dr. Alfred Knudson Jr., a former president of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia; Dr. Peter Nowell, a professor of pathology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; and Dr. Janet Rowley of the University of Chicago. Basic medical research awards are going to Dr. Lee Hartwell, president of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle; Dr. Yoshio Masui of the University of Toronto; and Dr. Paul Nurse of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London

Clinical research awards are going to three scientists: Dr. Alfred G. Knudson Jr., a former president of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia; Dr. Peter C. Nowell, a professor of pathology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and Dr. Janet D. Rowley of the University of Chicago. The three scientists receiving basic medical research awards are Dr. Lee Hartwell, president of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle; Dr. Yoshio Masui of the University of Toronto, and Dr. Paul Nurse of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London. In 1960, few scientists believed that cancer had a genetic basis. But in that year, Dr. Nowell, working with the late Dr. David Hungerford, shattered that widespread belief by showing such a link to a form of leukemia. Dr. Nowell's team discovered that individuals with chronic myelogenous leukemia had an abnormally small chromosome in all their cancerous white blood cells

Dr. Michael DeBakey moved like a dancer in a pas de deux, anticipating his surgical partner's every move during a quadruple bypass operation on a woman at the Methodist Hospital recently. As DeBakey deftly manipulated scalpels, scissors and forceps for more than three hours, his hands never quivered. What made it an extraordinary operation is that DeBakey, the pioneering heart surgeon, turns 90 on Monday. With bushy eyebrows, long dark hair that is combed back on a balding scalp, and a tinge of gray on his sideburns, DeBakey looks 20 years younger. Though he takes fewer surgical cases these days, he maintains a whirlwind schedule of travel and consulting. He is celebrating his 50th year at Baylor College of Medicine, and only a disability will make him retire, DeBakey said

HOUSTON -- Dr. Michael DeBakey moved like a dancer in a pas de deux, anticipating his surgical partner's every move during a quadruple bypass operation on a woman at the Methodist Hospital here recently. As DeBakey deftly manipulated scalpels, scissors and forceps for more than three hours, his hands never quivered. What made it an extraordinary operation is that DeBakey, the pioneering heart surgeon, turns 90 on Monday. With bushy eyebrows, long dark hair that is combed back on a balding scalp and a tinge of gray on his sideburns, DeBakey looks 20 years younger. Though he takes fewer surgical cases these days, he maintains a whirlwind schedule of travel and consulting. He is celebrating his 50th year at Baylor College of Medicine, and only a disability will make him retire, DeBakey said. A recent checkup found DeBakey in the physical shape of a man much younger, with normal heart function, cholesterol and other blood tests, he said. He has been a hospital patient twice. Once was for surgery for a near-fatal bleeding ulcer in 1984. The other was for smoke inhalation suffered in rescuing his infant daughter, Olga, after a Christmas tree caught fire in his home in 1978. 'I just barely made it out,' he says