Faculty Bibliography

Earlier, Stephen E. Schmidt, Mr. [Dick Cheney]'s chief spokesman, said doctors would operate only on the popliteal artery in the vice president's right knee. The change in plans was ''an intraoperative decision,'' Mr. Schmidt said, meaning the doctors made the decision to also work on the left knee in the operating room. An aneurysm is a bulge in an artery that develops silently and weakens the artery. While aneurysms in the brain, chest and abdomen tend to burst, causing damage from internal bleeding, aneurysms in the leg are much more likely to form blood clots. They, in turn, can cause a number of complications. A severe one is gangrene and a need for amputation. In Mr. Cheney's case, the doctors implanted two overlapping Viabahn stent-grafts in the right popliteal artery, and the placement ''went exceedingly smoothly,'' according to the statement. The doctors then decided to repair the aneurysm behind the left knee and ''there were no complications.''

That procedure entails inserting a metal stent covered by a synthetic graft into an artery in the upper thigh and then threading it to the aneurysm and anchoring the device in place, said vascular surgeons not connected with [Dick Cheney]'s case. Cheney, 64, has the same kind of aneurysm in an artery behind his left knee and will undergo a similar surgical procedure to repair it 'in the near term,' his office said. That procedure entails inserting a metal stent covered by a synthetic graft into an artery in the upper thigh and then threading it to the aneurysm and anchoring the device in place, said vascular surgeons not connected with [Dick Cheney]'s case. Cheney, 64, has the same kind of aneurysm in an artery behind his left knee and will undergo a similar surgical procedure to repair it 'in the near term,' his office said

Mr. [Dick Cheney], it said, will also undergo a similar procedure ''in the near term'' to repair an aneurysm behind his left knee. Both knee aneurysms, previously disclosed, were detected during a routine checkup this summer. They are the latest problem with the heart and circulatory system of the vice president, who has suffered four heart attacks, the first at age 37 in 1978, and who underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 1988 and had a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted in 2001. On Sept. 16, Mr. Cheney's office said he would be undergoing a procedure electively, under local anesthesia, so his aneurysms would ''not become a problem over time.'' That statement suggested that the vice president had not experienced any symptoms from the aneurysms, since if he had, treatment would have been performed much sooner, vascular surgeons not connected with his case said in interviews. There are a number of ways to fix popliteal aneurysms, including standard surgical techniques. Mr. Cheney's decision to undergo the minimally invasive procedure, a newer technique, surprised vascular surgeons

The avian flu virus, or H5N1, has killed millions of birds in China and Russia, either directly or because they've been destroyed to prevent its spread. The virus has infected around 112 humans, fewer than 60 of whom have died. Despite the small numbers, public health officials in Russia, Germany, and the United States -- along with the media -- have loudly sounded the alarm: Avian influenza is about to transform into a massive human killer that could kill 50 million to 100 million people. Yet the science behind all the worry is questionable. It rests on the unproven claim that the avian flu will develop exactly like the strain that caused the flu pandemic of 1918. A March 2004 article in Science showed that the 1918 flu -- which infected close to a billion people and killed 50 million or more -- made the jump from birds to humans through a slight change in the structure of its hemagglutinins, the molecules by which the virus attaches itself to body cells. This mutation allowed the virus to kill more World War I soldiers than weapons did, effectively ending the war when forces on both sides became too sick to fight. I recall one patient who was filled with fear about West Nile virus, SARS, mad-cow disease, bird flu -- everything that came down the media pike. He extended this worry to every test a doctor ordered for him. When I took over his care, it took me a long time to learn how to inform him without scaring him. Gaining his trust meant being careful not to sound false alarms

The 2005 Lasker Awards for medical research are going to scientists who discovered stem cells, invented genetic fingerprinting and developed a powerful technology that played a crucial role in mapping the human genome. Ms. [Nancy Brinker] started and ''nurtured the grass-roots breast cancer advocacy movement,'' the Lasker Foundation said. Now 58, Ms. Brinker is also a breast cancer survivor. Working with mice, Dr. [Ernest A. McCulloch] and Dr. [James E. Till] designed a system to measure the sensitivity of bone marrow cells to radiation. With rigorous experiments that relied on principles from microbiology, they showed that the spleen contained cells that divided into the three main types of blood cells -- red, white and platelets

[Nancy Brinker] created the Komen foundation in 1982 to fulfill a promise to her sister, Susan Komen, who had died of breast cancer at age 36. Now 58, Brinker is also a breast-cancer survivor

Mr. [Cheney], 64, who has had four heart attacks, will remain overnight in the hospital after the procedure. Steve Schmidt, his spokesman, described the surgery as an elective procedure so it would ''not become a problem over time.'' The aneurysm is in the popliteal artery behind Mr. Cheney's right knee, his spokesman said. During a routine examination in July, the vice president's doctors ''identified small, dilated segments of the arteries behind both knees,'' according to a statement

Polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs, or neutrophils) are critical for human innate immunity and kill most invading bacteria. However, pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus avoid destruction by PMNs to survive, thereby causing human infections. The molecular mechanisms used by pathogens to circumvent killing by the immune system remain largely undefined. To that end, we studied S. aureus pathogenesis and bacteria-PMN interactions using strains originally isolated from individuals with community-acquired (CA) and hospital-acquired infections. Compared with strains from hospital infections (COL and MRSA252), strain MW2 and a methicillin-susceptible relative, MnCop, were significantly more virulent in a mouse model of S. aureus infection, and caused the greatest level of pathology in major vital organs. Although phagocytosis of each strain triggered production of reactive oxygen species and granule-phagosome fusion, those from CA infections were significantly more resistant to killing by human PMNs and caused greater host cell lysis. Microarray analysis of the strains during neutrophil phagocytosis identified genes comprising a global S. aureus response to human innate host defense. Genes involved in capsule synthesis, gene regulation, oxidative stress, and virulence, were up-regulated following ingestion of the pathogen. Notably, phagocytosis of strains from CA infections induced changes in gene expression not observed in the other strains, including up-regulation of genes encoding virulence factors and hypothetical proteins. Our studies reveal a gene transcription program in a prominent human pathogen that likely contributes to evasion of innate host defense

Ruge was standing near Reagan when John W. Hinckley Jr. shot him in the chest outside the Washington Hilton and followed in another car as the Secret Service sped the president to George Washington University Hospital. Ruge later said in interviews with this reporter that he had erred in neglecting to invoke the 25th Amendment to transfer presidential powers to vice-president George Bush temporarily, because of Reagan's need for emergency chest surgery, requiring general anesthesia. Ruge said that he wanted to be publicly invisible as the White House physician and declined to talk with medical reporters at the time. But Ruge later said that he had also erred in refusing interviews

Medical records of the former Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, from the French military hospital where he died in November, which had been held in secrecy, reveal that his death was caused by a stroke that resulted from a blood disorder caused by an unknown infection. The first independent review of the records, obtained by The New York Times, shows that despite extensive testing, his doctors could not determine the underlying disease that killed him. But the records dispel one significant and widespread rumor that Arafat died of AIDS. The course of his illness and pattern of his symptoms make AIDS highly unlikely, according to independent experts who reviewed the records at the request of The Times. The experts also suggested that poisoning was highly unlikely, although senior Palestinian officials continue to allege that Arafat, who died Nov. 11 at age 75 after an illness lasting a month, was poisoned. The records also indicate that Arafat did not receive antibiotics until Oct. 27, or 15 days after the onset of his illness, which was originally diagnosed as a flu. That was only two days before he was transferred to the Percy Military Training Hospital in Clamart, outside Paris, and it was probably too late to save him, according to the Israeli and American medical experts consulted by The Times. They agreed to review the records on condition that they not be identified by name. The specialists have no prior connection to the case. A senior Palestinian official provided Arafat's medical records to Avi Isacharoff and Amos Harel, Israeli journalists who are working on a new edition of their book, 'The Seventh War: How We Won and Why We Lost the War With the Palestinians.' They agreed to share the records in collaboration with The Times, which did its own investigation. Arafat's final illness began suddenly when he vomited and had abdominal pain and watery diarrhea hours after his supper in his compound in Ramallah, where the Israelis had kept him isolated for three years. These symptoms included a constant urge to defecate, but no fever, and continued for two weeks. He became stuporous and lost three kilograms, or seven pounds