Faculty Bibliography

The disease is named after Carlos Chagas, a Brazilian physician who first described it, in 1909. Chagas' usually spreads when someone is bitten by an insect, engorging itself with blood and passing the parasite in its feces onto the skin. The initial symptoms of Chagas' are usually mild or nonexistent. It generally takes decades for the Chagas parasite to cause death by slowly damaging heart muscle, the esophagus and the colon. By that time, drugs are ineffective in reversing the damage. The Santa Catarina outbreak is believed to be the largest known food-borne outbreak of Chagas' and the first that has led to an international warning, said Jennifer Marcone, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. She also said that the C.D.C. was not participating in the investigation because Brazil has many experts on Chagas' disease

Dr. Hilleman developed 8 of the 14 vaccines routinely recommended: measles, mumps, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, chickenpox, meningitis, pneumonia and Haemophilus influenzae bacteria (which brings on a variety of symptoms, including inflammation of the lining of the brain and deafness). He also developed the first generation of a vaccine against rubella or German measles. The vaccines have virtually vanquished many of the once common childhood diseases in developed countries. Luck played a major role in the discovery of adenoviruses. Dr. Hilleman flew a team to Missouri to collect specimens from troops suffering from influenza. But by the time his team arrived, influenza had died out. Dr. Hilleman, fearing that he would be fired for an expensive useless exercise, seized on his observation of the occurrence of a fresh outbreak of a different disease. His team discovered three new types of adenoviruses among the troops. Shifts can herald a large outbreak or pandemic of influenza, and Dr. Hilleman was the first to detect the shift that caused the 1957 Asian influenza pandemic. He read an article in The New York Times on April 17, 1957, about influenza among infants in Hong Kong -- cases that had escaped detection from the worldwide influenza surveillance systems

[Jonas Salk] favored a killed-virus vaccine, while [Albert Sabin] and most other researchers favored a live-virus version, which produced stronger immunity. But Salk's was safer and could be developed more quickly, giving it an edge in the vaccine competition. In 1949, in the prime of her career, the 38-year-old Morgan left Johns Hopkins to marry and become a homemaker. Had she remained, it's quite possible she would have beaten Jonas Salk to the killed-virus polio vaccine. The next step involved the testing of children, one she never got to take. In remembering the brilliance of Jonas Salk this week, it is wise to recall the help he received -- not the least from Morgan and [Dorothy Horstmann] -- in following his path to conquering polio

Skin color, a predictor of social interactions and risk factor for several types of cancer, is due to two contrasting forms of melanin, the darker eumelanin and lighter phaeomelanin. The lighter pigment phaeomelanin is the product of the antagonistic function of the agouti signaling protein (ASIP) on the alpha-melanocyte stimulating hormone receptor (MC1R). Studies have shown that a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the 3'UTR of the ASIP gene is associated with dark hair and eyes; however, little is known about its role in inter-individual variation in skin color. Here we examine the relationship between the ASIP g.8818A>G SNP and skin color (M index) as assessed by reflectometry in 234 African Americans. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) were performed to evaluate the effects of ASIP genotypes, age, individual ancestry, and sex on skin color variation. Significant effects on M index variation were observed for ASIP genotypes (F(2,236)=4.37, P=0.01), ancestry (F(1,243)=37.2, P<0.001), and sex (F(1,244)=4.08, P=0.05). Subsequent analyses revealed a strong effect on M index from ASIP genotypes in African American females (P<0.001). Our study suggests that the ASIP G>A polymorphism exhibits a dominant effect leading to lighter skin color and that variation in the ASIP gene may have been one of several factors contributing to reductions in pigmentation in some populations. Further study is needed to reveal how interactions between ASIP and several other genes, such as MC1R and P, predict human pigmentation.

Cigarette ads in popular magazines play a role in smoking and in brand preferences among women and men, but few studies have analyzed ads directed at women vs men, and no study has examined ads directed at women of different ethnic groups. Hence, we examined cigarette ads in popular magazines for White women, Latinas, and men 1998 through 2002 for the first time. Significant differences in the number of cigarette ads by magazine audience were found, along with significant differences in the type and brands of cigarettes advertised to each group. These preliminary findings suggest that the tobacco industry may target women in a manner that differs from its targeting of men, and may target Latinas in a manner that it does not target White women. Results are discussed in terms of the need for further research on tobacco ads directed at women