Faculty Bibliography

Dr. [Richard Doll] said he believed that an important factor in the gap was that the male body was bigger and had more cells, providing a greater chance for something in a cell to go wrong. 'Lung cancer mortality in nonsmokers, for example, is about 20 percent higher in males than females, and one can easily account for that by the greater number of cells' in the airways, Dr. Doll said. The data analyzed by Dr. [Eileen Crimmins] are not nearly as bleak as is commonly believed. 'The difference in death rates makes women look less healthy in old age,' Dr. Crimmins said. 'The males have died off before they become disabled.' 'It is not that women have a greater tendency to get health problems,' Dr. Crimmins said, 'but that they live long enough' to fall into the most vulnerable period of life for disabling illness. And, she said, 'they live longer once they have them.'

In a surprising finding that is likely to intensify the hunt for viruses as causes of cancer, scientists have linked an AIDS-associated virus with a common blood cancer. The virus, Kaposi's sarcoma herpes virus, was discovered in 1994 among individuals who had AIDS and Kaposi's, a cancer that affects the skin and internal organs. In the new study, the virus was linked to multiple myeloma, the second most common blood cancer in this country, after non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The Kaposi's virus was found in all 15 myeloma patients tested but not in 16 patients with other cancers and 10 healthy volunteers, the authors said in a report being published today in the journal Science. The virus was also detected in patients with two related, but less common blood disorders, Waldenstrom's and amyloidosis, Dr. James R. Berenson, a co-author, said in an interview. To their surprise, the scientists found the Kaposi virus only in noncancerous cells and not in the malignant myeloma ones. The Los Angeles team suspects that the Kaposi's sarcoma virus may cause myeloma indirectly by the infected cells chemically stimulating other cells to become malignant

AIDS: Malignant tumors, particularly Kaposi's sarcoma and certain cancers of the lymph system, have been common in AIDS patients since 1981. The array of cancers is broadening and researchers are looking for insight into the increases in frequency. An emerging theory is that most AIDS-related cancers are linked to viral infections; however, physicians do not know if HIV enhances the ability of other viruses to produce certain cancers. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) held a meeting to discuss the incidences, types, and treatments of cancers. These cancers include squamous cell cancer of the eye, in situ carcinomas of the cervix and anus, plasmacytoma, and leiomyosarcoma. The proportion of cancers that may be caused by the anti-HIV drugs are unknown and current techniques used to track cancer in AIDS patients need to be updated. If the frequency of AIDS-related cancers continues to increase or is linked to anti-HIV drugs, patients and their physicians need to be informed quickly

Dr. Alfred D. Hershey, who used a household blender to do experiments that made him a Nobel laureate by proving that DNA is the molecule that carries genetic information, died on Thursday at his home in Syosset, N.Y. He was 88. Dr. Hershey, who did much of his work at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, shared a Nobel Prize in 1969 with Dr. Salvador E. Luria and Dr. Max Delbruck for their work in discoveries concerning the genetic structure of viruses and how they replicate, which provided new insights into viral diseases and inheritance. By the time he was honored by the Swedish Nobel Committee, Dr. Hershey had been engaged in his field of research for decades. Indeed, when he won his prize, other scientific leaders said that without his work, Dr. James D. Watson and Dr. Francis H. C. Crick would not have been able to accomplish their own work for which they had been awarded a Nobel seven years earlier: development of their helix model of DNA, which determined its molecular structure

The findings, published today in the British journal Nature are a result of the first scientific study of sex discrimination in the awarding of a large number of research positions, said the authors, Dr. Christine Wenneras and Dr. Agnes Wold. The authors, from the University of Goteborg, decided to investigate the evaluation system after they lost out in their own pursuit of jobs in 1994. To do the study, they had to go to court to use the Swedish freedom of press act to obtain numerical scores that were developed as scientists, in a confidential peer review system, evaluated grant proposals, job applications and publications of other scientists. The peer review system is a linchpin of science all over the world. To avoid wasting ''a large pool of promising talent,'' the Swedish doctors urged colleagues to do similar studies in other countries. ''Scientists are supposed to be objective,'' Dr. Wenneras said, and ''the credibility of the academic system will be undermined in the eyes of the public if it does not allow a scientific evaluation of its own scientific evaluation system.''

The New York Blood Center, under pressure from the Food and Drug Administration and facing allegations of improper testing procedures, will close its laboratory in Manhattan that screens for a variety of infectious diseases and hire an independent lab to do the testing, center officials said yesterday. The laboratory will close within 60 to 90 days, but the blood center itself will stay open. Another laboratory, which has yet to be selected, will screen donated blood for evidence of the microbes that cause infections like AIDS, syphilis and hepatitis, said Dr. John W. Adamson, the president of the blood center. It collects and distributes about 80 to 85 percent of the blood products used in the greater New York area. ''Everything is being done to make blood used in transfusions as safe as we can possibly make it,'' Dr. Adamson said in an interview. ''There is no evidence at this time that any unit of blood or blood product has led to infection because of mistesting.''