Faculty Bibliography

In making those advances, Dr. [Aaron T. Beck] set a new standard for determining the effectiveness of any type of psychotherapy, the Lasker jury said, by testing his radical new methods in clinical studies with a degree of rigor not previously applied to any form of talk therapy, including Freudian psychoanalysis. Dr. Beck published much of his work in his own journal, Cognitive Therapy and Research, in part because other psychiatrists resisted, if not rejected, his findings. The four other Lasker winners are Dr. Elizabeth H. Blackburn, 57, of the University of California, San Francisco; Dr. Joseph Gall, 78, of the Department of Embryology at the Carnegie Institution, Baltimore; Dr. Carol W. Greider, 45, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and Dr. Jack W. Szostak, 53, of Harvard Medical School. The awards to those four were made in two categories. Three of the recipients were cited for discoveries involving the structure and function of chromosomes, which are the strands of genes in cells that pass on hereditary information. Dr. Blackburn, Dr. Greider and Dr. Szostak are sharing the Lasker basic medical research award for predicting the existence of telomerase, and then discovering it. Telomerase is an enzyme that replenishes the tips of chromosomes

Four million people in the world became infected with H.I.V. last year, raising to 40 million the number now living with the virus that causes AIDS. Though governments, foundations and others are spending billions of dollars each year, the United Nations and AIDS experts say billions more are needed for drugs to help infected people in poor countries and for measures to prevent others from becoming infected. The Stephen Lewis Foundation of Toronto showed considerable imagination. The foundation, created by Mr. Lewis, the United Nations special envoy for AIDS in Africa, conducted a highly successful grass-roots gathering of about 300 African and Canadian grandmothers over the three days before the AIDS conference. African grandmothers who have lost children to AIDS and are now caring for their grandchildren described their lives to Canadian grandmothers (very few of whom are dealing with AIDS in their immediate families). The AIDS conferences, held every two years, aim to bridge science, politics and a number of other fields. The International AIDS Society's duty extends beyond holding conferences, said Dr. Pedro Cahn, an Argentine AIDS expert who is the group's new president. ''We have to raise our voice,'' Dr. Cahn said of the scientists who are the society's leaders

Invincible [Motion Picture] -- VINCE PAPALE (Mark Wahlberg) is a 30-year-old teacher and part- time bartender with only one year of high school football experience, when Dick Vermeil (Greg Kinnear), the new coach of the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles, decides to hold open tryouts. Papale, possessed of more persistence and enthusiasm than pure physical ability, tries out -- and manages to make the team, avoid major injury despite using light shoulder pads and even star in an NFL game by scoring the winning touchdown. [Ray Didinger] thinks that Papale's relatively 'fresh' body was a big asset, however. 'Papale didn't have the cumulative damage, he didn't have the scarring in his knees and shoulders that the other players had,' he says. Sports medicine research has found a raised risk of arthritis in the knees, hips and ankles of such players; Didinger estimates that more than 90% of professional footballers have significant knee and shoulder scarring. Although it may seem paradoxical, [Michael L. Gross] believes that the thin, less-protective shoulder pads also might have helped Papale because they increased his maneuverability and agility and helped him to avoid injury. (In the 1970s, when Papale was playing, all shoulder pads were light compared with today's.)

Earlier devices were much larger and intended as a bridge to heart transplants. The titanium and plastic Abiomed device can be used only in patients who are near death from the failure of both of the natural heart's pumping chambers. It can be implanted only in people 18 and older who are ineligible for a transplant and whose life expectancy would be a month without it. The diseased heart is removed to make room for the two-pound, or 0.9 kilogram, device. Implanted, a coil transfers power across the skin and recharges the device from the outside. An internal battery and a controller that monitors and controls the heart rate are implanted in the abdomen. The approval on Tuesday followed an extensive review of the panel's concerns and discussions with Abiomed, agency officials said. A second advisory panel review was not warranted because of the talks with Abiomed, said Heidi Valetkevitch, a spokeswoman for the agency. No implants were performed while the petition to sell the device was under review

The titanium and plastic Abiomed device can be used only in patients who are near death from the failure of both of the natural heart's pumping chambers. It can be implanted only in people 18 and older who are ineligible for a transplant and whose life expectancy would be a month without it

The meeting, in Johannesburg on Thursday and Friday, comes in response to recent reports from a number of the world's regions about a small but growing number of cases of the deadly strains, known as extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB. Although the resistant strains have been identified in all regions of the world, especially Asia and the former Soviet Union, the immediate goal is to help South Africa control an outbreak that killed 52 of 53 patients in a rural province in recent months. The deaths occurred swiftly, on average within 25 days, and included patients who were taking antiretroviral drugs for H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. If the strain keeps spreading, it could exceed by ''hundreds of times'' the outbreak of drug-resistant tuberculosis in New York City in the 1990's, Dr. [Mario C. Raviglione] said. That outbreak was brought under control by adopting strong measures, including observation of infected patients to make sure they took their drugs properly

The titanium and plastic Abiomed device can be used just in patients who are near death from the failure of both of the natural heart's pumping chambers. The device can be implanted only in people 18 and older who are ineligible for a transplant and whose life expectancy would be a month without it. In June 2005, a panel of heart experts appointed to advise the F.D.A. voted, 7 to 6, against approving the Abiomed device, in part because of concern that the risks from complications like bleeding, strokes and infection outweighed the benefits. Some panel members expressed concern about whether patients would live long enough with an improved quality of life to justify the risks. Abiomed is aiming to keep patients alive 18 to 24 months with the device, primarily by selecting slightly healthier candidates for the implant. The company has a target of 2008 to introduce an improved design that is 30 percent smaller and intended to work for five years, Mr. [Michael R. Minogue] said

Thyroid hormone receptors (TRs), expressed as TRalpha1, TRbeta1, and TRbeta2 isoforms, are members of the steroid hormone nuclear receptor gene superfamily, which comprises ligand-dependent transcription factors. The TR isoforms differ primarily in their N-terminal (A/B) domains, suggesting that the A/B regions mediate distinct transcriptional activation functions in a cell type-dependent or promoter-specific fashion. The nuclear receptor ligand-binding domain (LBD) undergoes a conformational change upon ligand binding that results in the recruitment of coactivators to the LBD. For glucocorticoid receptor and estrogen receptor-alpha, the same coactivator can contact both the LBD and A/B domains, thus leading to enhanced transcriptional activation. Very little is known regarding the role of the A/B domains of the TR isoforms. The A/B domain of TRbeta2 exhibits higher ligand-independent transcriptional activity than the A/B regions of TRalpha1 or TRbeta1. Thus, we examined the role of the A/B domain and the LBD of rat TRbeta2 in integrating the transcriptional activation function of the A/B and LBD domains by different coactivators. Both domains are essential for a productive functional interaction with cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB)-binding protein (CBP), and we found that CBP binds to the A/B domain of TRbeta2 in vitro. In contrast, steroid receptor coactivator-1a (SRC-1a) interacts strongly with the LBD but not the A/B domain. The coactivator NRC (nuclear receptor coactivator) interacts primarily with the LBD, although a weak interaction with the A/B domain further enhances ligand-dependent binding with TRbeta2. Our studies document the interplay between the A/B domain and the LBD of TRbeta2 in recruiting different coactivators to the receptor. Because NRC and SRC-1a bind CBP, and CBP enhances ligand-dependent activity, our studies suggest a model in which coactivator recruitment of NRC (or SRC-1a) occurs primarily through the LBD whereas the complex is further stabilized through an interaction of CBP with the N terminus of TRbeta2