Faculty Bibliography

On the grimmer side, other findings indicate that human bird flu infections may be more widespread than initially suspected and possibly transmitted by feces. The virus was found in a child with severe diarrhea and encephalitis, but no respiratory symptoms, leading health officials to ask doctors to consider testing feces for A(H5N1) virus more often. In Southeast Asia, some scientists can test for A(H5N1) virus only under trying conditions. Dr. [Klaus Stohr] cited one lab where scientists can work on influenza for only two hours a day because they share the space and equipment with colleagues who study other infectious agents. Under such circumstances, contamination of tests can be a serious problem. One possibility is to send specimens with known amounts of virus to rate laboratory proficiency in detecting the amount, a costly and demanding exercise. Scarcity of epidemiologists can also delay the medical detective work to trace how patients became infected and whether they spread the virus to contacts. In addition, scientists need the viruses isolated from new bird flu cases to monitor for mutations and genetic changes

Similarly to p53, p73alpha and p73beta induce growth arrest and/or apoptosis in response to DNA damage or when exogenously expressed. However, how they trigger apoptosis remains unresolved. After stable transduction of either p73alpha or p73beta, a greater apoptotic response was observed for p73beta in both primary and tumor cells. Consistently, blocking ectopic and endogenous p73beta expression by specific shRNA significantly decreased apoptotic levels after DNA damage. We found that p73beta targets the apoptotic program at multiple levels: (i) facilitating caspase activation through p53-dependent signals and (ii) inducing p57KIP2, while down-regulating c-IPA1 and IEX1 through a p53-independent mechanism. p73beta-mediated apoptosis was considerably reduced after inhibition of p57(KIP2) by small interfering RNA, IEX-1 overexpression, and in mouse embryo fibroblasts derived from p57-/- mice. Data from this study offer evidence for the apoptotic activity exclusive of p73beta. In the clinical context, these results might have potential therapeutic implications, because p73beta could induce alternative apoptotic responses in tumors harboring p53 mutations

Dr. Zvi Y. Fuks, left, who was arrested on Wednesday on securities fraud charges stemming from sales of ImClone stock, has asked to be relieved of his duties as chairman of the department of radiation oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center ''while he attends to personal matters,'' officials said yesterday. Earlier, a center official said that Dr

The World Health Organization said Vietnamese officials had reported 10 more cases of human avian influenza, including three deaths

Two friends of Samuel Waksal, the former chief executive of ImClone Systems, have been arrested and charged with insider trading for selling their shares in ImClone after receiving a tip from Waksal. Dr. Zvi Fuks, chairman of the department of radiation oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and Sabina Ben-Yehuda, who worked at Scientia, an investment company set up by Waksal, were charged with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud in a federal criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday in New York. Fuks and Ben-Yehuda pleaded not guilty. The complaint contends that they sold their shares in ImClone in December 2001 after Waksal told them that the government was about to deny approval of the drug Erbitux, news that would cause ImClone shares to plummet when it became public. After Waksal was arrested on similar charges in June 2002, he denied passing the information to Ben-Yehuda and telling her to inform Fuks. But according to the criminal complaint, Waksal gave a different version of events when testifying before a grand jury last month. If convicted, the two face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine for securities fraud, and five years and a $250,000 fine for the conspiracy charge. The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed civil charges against the two, alleging insider trading. The commission is seeking fines and the amount of the losses the defendants avoided by selling their shares

There were two attending chest surgeons, not one, ''given that it was President [Bill Clinto],'' Dr. [Joshua Sonett] said. He and his partner, Dr. Kenneth M. Steinglass, the hospital's chief thoracic surgeon, ''helped each other out on this case,'' Dr. Sonett added. ''A large thick rind'' of inflammatory tissue encased the lower lobe of the lung, making the less-invasive procedure impossible, Dr. Sonett said. They next had to release the trapped part of the lung so it could re-expand to its normal size. Dr. Sonett said his team operated in a different area of Mr. Clinton's chest than Dr. Craig R. Smith did in the bypass surgery. ''The two recoveries are really quite independent,'' Dr. Sonett said

Dr. Zvi Y. Fuks, the Manhattan cancer doctor who was arrested yesterday on securities fraud charges stemming from sales of ImClone Systems stock, was the matchmaker who helped make ImClone successful. He arranged a meeting that led to ImClone's licensing of the cancer drug Erbitux, its first and so far only product. Dr. Fuks, who was a member of ImClone's scientific advisory board, and Sabina Ben-Yehuda, 51, were arrested on charges brought in United States District Court in Manhattan stemming from their sales of ImClone stock in 2001. Both are friends of Samuel D. Waksal, an ImClone founder. It is not clear how Dr. Fuks and Samuel Waksal came to know each other. Dr. Waksal knew many people in the medical community in New York, where ImClone is based, and in Israel, where Dr. Fuks went to medical school

The possible case of the nurse in Hanoi takes on particular potential importance because of his occupation. Bloomberg News reported that he had carried the avian influenza patient on a stretcher and provided direct care at a hospital. If tests identify the A(H5N1) strain as the cause of his illness, and other sources of exposure are ruled out, he could become the first health worker to have contracted avian influenza

One heart surgeon not associated with the case, Dr. Konstadinos Plestis of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, said that irritation from even a small amount of fluid collecting in the chest after bypass surgery could lead to the formation of a layer of tissue that can cover the left lower lobe of the lung like a thick sock. When asked to specify the risk on a scale of 1 to 10, Dr. Joshua Sonnet, a chest surgeon who will perform Mr. [Bill Clinton]'s operation, did not give an answer. To free the lung, surgeons must peel off the thickened tissue in an operation that takes about two hours, Dr. Plestis said. One of the first steps in the surgery, to give doctors room in which to work, is to collapse the lung, which is done with a special breathing tube that blocks air supply to one lung. Dr. Plestis said that to remove the thickened tissue, doctors normally try the least invasive method first, inserting a miniature video camera and surgical tools between the ribs through three small punctures in the chest

The new cases bring to at least 42 the number of human cases of A(H5N1) avian influenza that Vietnam has reported to the W.H.O. Of those, at least 31 have been fatal. Thailand has reported 17 human cases of avian influenza, of which 12 were fatal. Cambodia has reported one fatal case. At the same time, infectious disease and laboratory workers from W.H.O., Japan and the United States have been working with Vietnamese officials to improve the accuracy of influenza testing in Vietnam. Scientists in Tokyo are testing specimens from seven people who actually may have been positive for the avian A(H5N1) strain in Vietnam but were classified as negative