UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE | FEBRUARY 2006 PITTMED DARK ARTS THE WORLD BEYOND VISIBLE LIGHT OVER THE TRANSOM EAST COAST TREMORS records the history so well. I The resemblance is more than skin-deep: Not only is Pitt Med a very attractive publica- do so enjoy reading all issues. Seinfeld look-alike Josh Englert (MD ’05) tion, but the articles are excellent. I fi nd them was a head writer of Lasix Unloaded, a wonderful resource for information about Catherine Petrou the Scope and Scalpel Society’s 50th science, health, and the people responsible for Pittsburgh production. He appears with fellow Lasix such important work. head writers Brad Sobolewski (MD ’04, I remember the “triumph of the Salk vaccine” ALMOST READY top) and Neil Badlani (MD ’05, bottom). well and, in particular, how reticent the East FOR PRIME TIME Producers Jonathan Bickel (MD ’04) and Coast MDs were to accept solutions that did not I enjoy reading Pitt Med and Rachel Norris (MD ’04) are shown wear- originate with them. found the enclosed picture ing glasses. The photo originally appeared The Massachusetts Crippled Children’s [from the Class Notes reply in our May 2004 issue. Although we’d Program was set up to care for the victims of card, shown right] in the last enjoy their contributions, none of these the 1938 polio epidemic that devastated the several issues. The individu- creative docs is on the magazine staff. area. We really had no treatment other than als were not identifi ed, but I the warm wraps of the Sister Kenny Method, assume they are on the edito- the respirator for severe pulmonary cases, and rial staff. The reason for this note is to point We gladly receive letters (which we may orthopaedic surgery. (My job from 1940 to out the remarkable resemblance of the circled edit for length, style, and clarity). 1946 was to arrange for surgery, then braces, gentleman to one Jerry Seinfeld. Pitt Med shoes, etc.) How relieved we were when we were 400 Craig Hall able to have the vaccine available for our own Edwin S. Kremer (MD ’55) University of Pittsburgh children in 1955. It’s wonderful that Pitt Med Erie, Pa. Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Phone: 412-624-4152 Fax: 412-624-1021 E-mail: [email protected] STRONG DRIVE http://pittmed.health.pitt.edu The Annual Pitt Med Golf Outing, created and run For address corrections: Pitt Med Address Correction by students, benefits them as well. Proceeds go to M-200k Scaife Hall two graduating Pitt med students who stand out University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15261 for their community service efforts. So play 18 E-mail: [email protected] for them. It’s the least you can do. CLARIFICATIONS/ CORRECTIONS ANNUAL PITT MED GOLF OUTING In our November issue, we mistakenly APRIL 29 listed the 2004/05 slate of Medical Alumni Association officers. In this Quicksilver Golf Club issue, we list the current officers (p. 39). Midway, Pa. RECENT MAGAZINE HONORS For information: IABC Best of Show (Magazine Design, Elena Gialamas Cerri) Rob Klune or Matt Kaufman [email protected] IABC Golden Triangle Award of Excellence, Magazine Design [email protected] 412-648-9090 IABC Golden Triangle Award of Honor, Magazines www.pittmedgolfouting.org CASE District II Accolades Silver, Visual Design in Print, Covers CASE District II Accolades Bronze, Best Article (Jessica Mesman’s “So You Want to Change the World?” ) PITTMED UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE MAGAZINE | FEBRUARY 2006, VOL. 8, ISSUE 1 DEPARTMENTS OF NOTE 3 Carnegie Museum star faculty will teach at the med school. Alzheimer’s and daydreams. Whose liver is it, anyway? CLOSER 7 Now showing: one defibrillator, one parrot, a bucket of fried chicken, and Chuck Norris. INVESTIGATIONS 8 Gene therapy trials for muscular dystrophy. This microvesicle influences the immune system in ways no one imagined. A new course focuses on day-to-day practice dilemmas. 98.6 DEGREES 33 Faculty honoraria benefit students. ATTENDING 34 The evangelical pathologist. 2819 ALUMNI NEWS 36 FEATURES Fellowship alum George Mazariegos cures MSUD with transplants. Dark Arts 12 Plying the world beyond visible light. LAST CALL 40 COVER STORY / IMAGE ESSAY George Washington with all of his teeth. IMAGES BY JAMES CONWAY, ANGELA GRONENBORN, AND JOANNE YEH; TEXT BY CHUCK STARESINIC What Matters Most 19 CONTRIBUTORS How to treat people. Perspective-changing moments from members of the new Charles G. Watson Chapter of the Humanism Art director ELENA GIALAMAS CERRI says keeping this magazine visually “fresh” is the sine qua non of her design philosophy. Cerri has designed all 26 issues of Pitt Med. Her approach in Medicine Society. blends classical typography and unconventional images, among other artistic secrets. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University, Cerri sharpened her design skills in New York, ANONYMOUS SUBMISSIONS lending her talents to Elle, Self, and the J.Crew catalog. At Pitt Med, her work has garnered the FOLLOW-UP BY CRAIG CAHALL attention of scads of award givers, including the Pittsburgh chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators, which bestowed upon her Pitt Med design the Best in Show honor at the 2005 Golden Triangle Awards. An even more notable recent event in Cerri’s life: celebrating the first birthday of her child, Antonio, in December. She lives in Shadyside. 24 Pitt med alumni know CRYSTAL KUBIC as the cheerful voice who answers when they call the Forget It? Medical Alumni Association. Nothing involving the MAA happens without her, including the delivery Guo-Qiang Bi tells us how we remember and forget. of the magazine you are reading. She has managed Pitt Med’s circulation as it has grown from 7,000 to more than 20,000. BY JOE MIKSCH Crystal grew up in Cadiz, Ohio, showing horses until discovering cars and boys. Despite her small-town background, she loves Pittsburgh. Perhaps the biggest surprise in her six years with the MAA is the sense of family she has found with so many alumni, especially MAA executive director Susan Dunmire (MD ’85, Res ’88) and her predecessor, Ross Musgrave (MD ’43). Eye on Glaucoma 28 COVERR Joel Schuman can see into your future. With their dark arts, structural biologists explore the world beyond visible light, becoming privy to evolutionary lineages of viruses, how to make machines out of molecules, and then some. BY MEGHAN HOLOHAN (Image courtesy Joanne Yeh.) DEAN’S MESSAGE PITTMED ife levels all men: death reveals the eminent. —George Bernard Shaw PUBLISHER Arthur S. Levine, MD The world has lost two great women in the span of a week. No person is igno- EDITOR IN CHIEF L Erica Lloyd rant of the life of Coretta Scott King—a force for ART DIRECTOR peaceful social change and an icon of grace and Elena Gialamas Cerri courage. Fewer know the circumstances of the SENIOR EDITOR life of our own Katherine Detre, for many years Chuck Staresinic one of our university’s most distinguished faculty JULIA STRAUT MAROUS ASSOCIATE EDITOR members, who came to Pitt in 1974. As a young, Joe Miksch Jewish woman in Budapest, Katherine survived the German occupation by cloaking her PRODUCTION COORDINATOR religion and ancestry as she worked as a streetcar conductor and lived in a Catholic convent. Chuck Dinsmore While in medical school, she learned that her father and brother had perished in concentra- STAFF CONTRIBUTORS tion camps, and she immersed herself in her medical studies as an antidote to despair. Later, Erin Lawley to escape the Communists, she managed to slip across the border to Austria. OBITUARIES CONTRIBUTOR Katherine completed her medical studies in Canada—no small feat after landing on Macy Levine, MD ’43 North American soil without speaking English. A friend from Budapest, Thomas Detre CIRCULATION MANAGER (who would become her husband and my predecessor as senior vice chancellor for the health Crystal Kubic sciences at this university), encouraged her to join him at Yale. There she studied biometry. She blossomed into an important and singularly creative scientist. CHIEF EDITORIAL ADVISOR At Yale in 1970, Katherine served as the principal epidemiologist and biostatistician for the Kenneth S. McCarty Jr., MD, PhD fi rst clinical trial to compare the effectiveness of surgery to that of medical treatment for coro- EDITORIAL ADVISORS nary artery disease. Not everyone welcomed the results, which demonstrated a survival benefi t Edward Barksdale Jr., MD Steve N. Caritis, MD, Res ’73 for surgery for left main-stem coronary artery disease but not for other manifestations of Paula Davis, MA coronary artery disease. Despite making many “experts” unhappy, the trial results became Susan Dunmire, MD ’85, Res ’88 Jonathon Erlen, PhD highly infl uential and remain widely respected. This would become a recurring theme in Joan Harvey, MD Katherine’s life. As she built the Epidemiology Data Center in Pitt’s Graduate School of John Horn, PhD Public Health, she was steadfast in her assertion that therapies could be proven safe and effec- Steven Kanter, MD David Lewis, MD tive only through rigorous science. The center, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, Margaret C. McDonald, PhD has coordinated the design, data management, and analysis for more than 60 major medical Ross Musgrave, MD ’43 David Perlmutter, MD research projects. Katherine’s work persuaded a generation of physicians and epidemiologists Gabriel Silverman, Class of ’09 at Pitt and elsewhere of the importance of careful statistical analysis and well-managed clini- Peter Strick, PhD cal trials. Her work has had major implications for patient care—notably in determining the Gerard Vockley, MD, PhD Simon Watkins, PhD most effective approaches for treating coronary artery disease in diabetic patients.