“You Don't Understand!”

UUNNIIVVEERRSSIITTYY O OFF P PITITTSSBBUURGRHG HS CSHCOHOOLO OL FO MF EMDEICDIINCEIN E | S| P RFIANLGL 22001057 PITTMED “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” A DOC TUNES IN TO TEENS 4810_OFC_C2.indd 1 5/11/15 12:02 PM OVER THE TRANSOM RUSHING CORRESPONDENCE Nice piece about “The Rush We gladly receive letters (which we to the Hospital” (Winter may edit for length, style, and clarity). 2015). I have a few stories Pitt Med about transporting infants 400 Craig Hall to the NICU at Magee from University of Pittsburgh 1973–75. Your article caused Pittsburgh, PA 15260 me to remember the paddy Phone: 412-624-4152 wagon. I was an intern in Fax: 412-624-1021 the NICU, and we received a E-mail: [email protected] call from Allegheny General pittmed.health.pitt.edu Hospital that they had a baby who needed phototherapy for For address corrections, or to hyperbilirubinemia. None of In our Winter 2015 “The Rush to the Hospital” infographic, change your print/online subscription the Freedom House ambu- we showed how Pitt docs paved the way for prehospital care. preferences: lances were available; so we Illustration by Stacy Innerst. Pitt Med Address Correction called the police, and they ATTN: Andre Burton showed up with an old paddy wagon with a clear to me that the University of Pittsburgh M-200K Scaife Hall clanging bell instead of a siren. Because the has always been a leader in prehospital care University of Pittsburgh baby wasn’t really ill, and we had our own and resuscitation; thus the recent article talk- Pittsburgh, PA 15261 isolette and support equipment, we decided to ing about those early days (“The Rush to the Phone: 412-648-9090 go with them. These old cops were enthralled Hospital”) was appreciated. And I still fondly E-mail: [email protected] with the baby and wanted us to get him safely recall meeting Peter Safar as a brand-new faculty back to Magee. When we were stuck in traffi c member. I also enjoyed reading the article “The Join our flock and follow unresponsive to the clanging bell, the cop riding Most Kissed Face of All Time,” a story I had @PittMedMag on Twitter. shotgun got out and walked ahead shouting at never heard before. the drivers to “get the hell out of the way” for RECENT HONORS the baby. It was so endearing. John E. Prescott Pennsylvania Women’s Press One more story—about a trip to Chief Academic Offi cer Association Excellence in Punxsutawney, Pa., to pick up another baby for Association of American Medical Colleges Journalism Award phototherapy, this time with Freedom House. First Place, Health/Science Story It was snowing, and it was a long, slow drive. Before his appointment with the AAMC, Prescott (E. Vitone, “Don’t Spare the Horses”) When we got there, the nurses at this tiny old was dean of the West Virginia University School hospital were so glad to see us, and they made of Medicine and founding chair of its Department EDITOR’S NOTE us a nice dinner. We put the baby in the iso- of Emergency Medicine. In February, this magazine lost a dear friend lette, and we started back. When we stopped and former contributor, Edwin Kiester Jr., for gas, I got out to use the restroom. When I TWO THUMBS UP who died in Essex, Mass., at the age of 87. came out, the ambulance was gone and moving I had to stop midway through this issue (Winter Ed, a Pitt alum, wrote 2,000-some articles down the street! I ran after it in the slush and 2015) and write a note. Best issue I’ve seen in a (for magazines like Parade, The Atlantic, caught up at a traffi c light where I pounded on long time. Science, The Smithsonian, Reader’s Digest, the door. They were surprised. I graduated in 1979, and Peter Safar was my and Pitt Med) and 24 books (including, with Thought you would be amused by these mentor all through college and med school. He his wife, Sally, Better Homes and Gardens’ events of 40 years ago. personally taught our class CPR, demanding New Baby Book, which sold more than 4 mil- that we practice it to perfection: “Our patients lion copies); he was an honorary inductee Lucian K. DeNicola (Res ’75) will demand no less.” Just an incredible human of the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society. University of Florida—Jacksonville being. I miss him. Ed’s interviewees included Chiang Kai-shek Also, Ronald David was a fellow when I and William Shatner. He parachuted into AAMC-ABLE did my NICU rotation at Magee in 1978. He Vietnam as a journalist, sat in a trench Just a brief note to tell you that I really enjoy told us about two-thumb CPR in infants and, on Pork Chop Hill in Korea, and served in reading Pitt Med. Your magazine stands out if I remember correctly, published something in World War II in occupied Germany, where because of the quality of the information pre- Pediatrics about it. he ran the Armed Forces Radio Network in sented, the impressive layout, and its focus on Again, an incredible issue. Thanks. Frankfurt when he was 19. He lived all over all of the school’s missions. the world and had a nose for a story. This As an emergency physician, it’s been John W. Blenko (MD ’79, Res ’82, Fel ’83) magazine and this editor are better for University of Maryland having crossed his path. —Erica Lloyd 4810_IFC_C3.indd 01 5/14/15 8:21 PM PITTMED UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE MAGAZINE, SPRING 2015 VOL. 17, ISSUE 2 Gingko pneumoloba DEPARTMENTS Papilio paranasal OF NOTE 3 Secrets of the heart, unlocked. Get up; stand up. Stand up for your health. 6 A new view of TB. CLOSER 7 Blood beneath your feet. INVESTIGATIONS 8 Cellular surprise. Burning the Candida at both ends. Social media stampede. ATTENDING 32 Is it a boy or a girl? It’s not always so clear. MATCH RESULTS 34 Love is in the air. ALUMNI NEWS 36 Purohit at the heart of the problem. 34 Winter Academy turns 10. Grubman on a beastly disease. Colon transtagnum LAST CALL 40 WWE and wee ones. FOR REAL! 40 1/2 Phages: foes or friends? 14 FEATURES The Ecology Within 14 Pitt scientists tackle the human microbiome, trillions of bitty bugs that outnumber our own cells tenfold. This teeming mass of micro- 40 organisms seems to hold the power to tame our immune systems. CONTRIBUTORS BY ELAINE VITONE In 2012, HEATHER BOERNER [“The Case for Candida”] met an HIV-discordant couple (he was positive, she was negative) who had elected to have a baby together the new-fashioned way, with help from HIV medication taken as PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis. Mother and child were happy, healthy, and HIV-negative years later—an increasingly common triumph of biomedicine, Boerner learned: “I said, ‘This is not the HIV I grew up with!’” For her e-book published last year, Positively “You Don’t Understand!” 20 Negative: Love, Pregnancy, and Science’s Surprising Victory Over HIV, Boerner followed two couples through this journey that would’ve been unimaginable not long ago. Boerner is now working on Elizabeth Miller helps others tune in to teens. expanding the book. An excerpt was recently published in The Atlantic. COVER STORY BY JENNY BLAIR MICHELLE LEVEILLE [“The Ecology Within”] created the gutsy landscapes in this issue. Don’t let the fantastical fool you, though—she also sketches hyperrealistic illustrations for the Los Angeles Zoo, among other biologically inspired visual works. In college, Leveille thought she’d be an exotic bird veterinarian, but a bout with meningitis and a visit to the gross anatomy lab steered her toward the visual arts. (Birds still come to her though: She has a king vulture, Gus, and a talkative African Pathological Futures 26 grey parrot, Grayson.) At one point, she advertised herself online as an “anatomical illustrator”—“Boy See how Pitt people are getting personal with the immense human did that backfire!” she says. We’ll leave it to your imagination what kinds of photos she received. genome (and epigenome, and exome, and transcriptome …). COVERR BY ROBYN K. COGGINS Through rigorous studies, Elizabeth Miller has found ways to get teens to open up about thorny issues. She’s become an übergodmother for the youth of Pittsburgh and beyond. (Cover: Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy, Corbis © 2015.) 4810_1_C3.indd 01 5/11/15 11:40 AM DEAN’S MESSAGE PITTMED hen I look up in the PUBLISHER universe, I know I’m small, Arthur S. Levine, MD but I’m also big. I’m big EDITOR IN CHIEF Wbecause I’m connected to the universe, and the Erica Lloyd universe is connected to me. ART DIRECTOR —Neil deGrasse Tyson S Elena Gialamas Cerri O Z N A R Quelle chance! We are not biologically autono- F SENIOR EDITOR A U H Elaine Vitone mous: The company we keep includes 10,000 S O J ASSOCIATE EDITOR (and counting) species of microbes that inhabit Robyn K. Coggins our bodies. We have many more bugs in us, and on us, than we do our own cells. For the most part, the microorganisms that inhabit us are not pathogens; many are active con- CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Chuck Staresinic tributors in the story of our physiology—as we are to theirs. (Don’t miss this issue’s “The Ecology Within” to fi nd out what Pitt people are learning about this “microbiome.”) INTERN Micaela Corn We walk around with 8 million microbial genes—more than 360 times as many as our “own” genes.

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