The Gazette -- February 1, 2010 by The Johns Hopkins University

o ur 3 9 th ye ar

ARRA RE S EAR C H

HEADING TO HA ITI

Covering Homewood, East Baltimore, Peabody,

Cardiologist Allen Everett

The first of two groups of the

SAIS, APL and other campuses throughout the

hunts for biomarkers for IPH,

Johns Hopkins Go Team leaves

Baltimore-Washington area and abroad, since 1971.

an elusive killer, page 7

from BWI airport, page 3

February 1, 2010

The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University

E V E N T

Volume 39 No. 20

F A C I L I T I E S

LEEDing the way to a greener JHU

Foreign Affairs Symposium kicks off Tues. B y A m y L u n d ay

Homewood

Continued on page 12

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

ith a lineup of big-name speakers and a new, interactive Web site, the annual student-run Foreign Affairs Symposium is returning to the Homewood campus this week, with a talk by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times Nicholas op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof at Kristof is 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 2, in Shriver the first of Hall Auditorium. Kristof’s visit is big-name the first in a series of topical lectures and speakers panel discussions under this year’s theme, “Re-Engaging the World: The New Global Community.” Kristof will speak to that topic and will also discuss his new book, Half the Sky, about the health and autonomy of women and the key importance of their empowerment in reducing global poverty. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Also visiting campus this spring are James J. Yee, former U.S. Army chaplain of Islam, who will speak about his time as a chaplain at Guantanamo Bay, his imprisonment based on false charges of espionage and issues of concern in attempting to close the prison camp (Feb. 9); John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice in the George W. Bush administration, who will discuss his new book, Crisis and Command, about expansive executive power in times of crisis and grave threats to the United States (Feb. 17, 110 Hodson); Niall Ferguson, the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard and author (March 24); FBI Director Robert Mueller (March 25, time TBA); retired 1st Sgt. Matthew Eversmann (April 6); and Iranian-born writer and scholar of religions Reza Aslan (April 13). Jean-Hervé Bradol, president emeritus of Doctors Without Borders, France, is tentatively scheduled for

In the renovated basement floor of the East Baltimore campus’s 2024 E. Monument St. Building, Jack Grinnalds and Richard Sebour stand next to the plaque that marks it as the first location in the university to achieve LEED status.

East Baltimore building first in university to receive certification By Greg Rienzi

The Gazette

n Johns Hopkins’ quest to go green and significantly reduce its environmental footprint, the university has passed a major milestone. The School of Medicine recently received a LEED commercial interior silver certification for its renovated Department of Facilities Management offices and Clinical Information Systems Education Center—

both located on the basement floor of the 2024 E. Monument St. Building—making it the first location in the university to achieve LEED status of any kind. First, but not last. The School of Medicine has submitted four more of its buildings for LEED certiContinued on page 5

S U P P O R T

Rising to the challenge: The quiet contributors This is the first in an occasional series of articles about individuals and organizations that have made extraordinary commitments to the future of The Johns Hopkins University. By Mike Field

Development Communications

nless you stumbled upon it, you probably wouldn’t know about the Hodson Scholars Luncheon. For decades, it’s been an annual tradition on the Homewood campus, bringing administra-

In Brief

Ideas for Haiti; 2010 Biomedical Career Fair; free ‘student rush’ tix for Peabody concerts

tors, faculty and a select group of students together each December to acknowledge and celebrate a remarkable ongoing relationship that stretches back more than half a century. At the most recent luncheon, executives of the Hodson Trust—a charitable organization that exclusively supports just four Maryland educational institutions— announced awards totaling more than $1.74 million to The Johns Hopkins University for scholarships, research in oncology and nephrology, and publication of The Complete Prose of T.S. Eliot. The contribution brings

total Hodson Trust giving to the university to nearly $73 million since the first gift was made in 1958, leading university President Ronald J. Daniels to observe that “there are few other philanthropic organizations whose legacy at Johns Hopkins has been as profound and wide-ranging as that of the Hodson Trust.” Through 2009 the Hodson Trust has awarded more than $217 million to Johns Hopkins, Hood College, St. John’s College and Washington College, the four Maryland

C A L E N D AR

Peabody Faculty Chamber Music Concert; ‘Madness and Religion’; Podcasting 101

Continued on page 6

10 Job Opportunities 10 Notices 11 Classifieds

2 THE GAZETTE • February 1, 2010 I N B R I E F

Students brainstorm ideas for Haiti fund-raising efforts

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

Gov. Martin O’Malley greets Carol Greider and her children, Gwendolyn and Charles, as they arrive at his office.

Maryland honors Nobel laureate

he top elected officials in Annapolis opened their arms on Thursday for Carol Greider, Johns Hopkins’ newest Nobel laureate. Greider, who earlier last month accepted her 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in a ceremony in Stockholm, was honored on Thursday with twin recognition ceremonies in the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate. Both bodies gave her standing ovations and passed resolutions that praised Greider’s accomplishment and lifetime of achievements. Greider, the Daniel Nathans Professor and director of Molecular Biology and Genetics in the Johns Hopkins Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences, shared the Nobel with two other scientists for their discovery and work with the enzyme telomerase, which protects chromosome ends. The enzyme was later found to play a major role in cancer cell growth and diseases related to aging. Greider, accompanied by her children,

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Charles and Gwendolyn, began the day with a meeting with Gov. Martin O’Malley in the governor’s reception room. O’Malley welcomed Greider, her children and a small contingent of Johns Hopkins officials, including President Ronald J. Daniels, into the governor’s office, where Greider and O’Malley had a conversation about the importance of science education. Greider and company were then escorted to the House of Delegates, where speaker Michael E. Busch welcomed her warmly before the resolution was passed to honor her achievement. She was then whisked to the Senate chamber, where she received a similar welcome and words from Sen. Catherine Pugh and President Mike Miller. The event concluded with a reception in the Miller Senate Office Building, where many members of both houses stopped by to congratulate Greider, who, by all accounts, “charmed Annapolis” with her humility, passion for science and smile. —Greg Rienzi

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everal hundred students crowded into Homewood’s Glass Pavilion Tuesday, Jan. 26, to discuss ways to raise awareness of and money for relief efforts in Haiti. Just back from winter break, the students, some of whom come from Haiti or have family and friends in the Caribbean country, said they were drawn to the meeting by the images they saw after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12. “We are standing in solidarity in support of Haiti,” said junior Mike Rogers, one of the student organizers. “All of us here want to work with you to plan as a student body. As students, this is our responsibility.” The gathering brought out students from multiple Johns Hopkins schools and several university leaders. They brainstormed about ways to raise money and to keep the disaster in the public consciousness. “My family is OK, but there is so much need,” said junior Godefrey Chery, a student organizer from Haiti, who told fellow students that sending money is the best way to help earthquake victims at the moment. Some of the fund-raising ideas discussed were a Rock Out for Haiti battle of the bands, a walk/run through the Homewood campus, a student vs. faculty dodge ball game, an art auction featuring Haitian and other artists, a vigil or a Haiti festival. The group said it would decide later this month which ideas will kick off the Johns Hopkins Students for Haiti campaign. For more information about the students’ efforts or to get involved, contact the organizers at jhu.haiti.aid@gmail.com.

Date announced for 2010 JHMI Biomedical Career Fair

he JHMI Professional Development Office announced last week that it will host the fourth annual Biomedical Career Fair on Monday, March 1, on the School of Medicine’s Turner Concourse, East Baltimore campus. The event, scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., is open to all JHMI graduate students, postdocs, alumni, faculty and staff. Among those scheduled to attend are AAAS Science and Technology Fellowship, Biostat Solutions, Computercraft, Food and Drug Administration, Kelly Scientific Resources, Maryland Science Center, National Institute on Aging, National Research Council of the National Academies, Osiris Therapeutics and legal firm Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox. For additional information, contact the PDO at 410-502-2804 or jhmipdo@jhmi.edu.

Student rush tickets set for three Peabody orchestra concerts

limited number of free “student rush” tickets will be available for performances this month by the

Editor Lois Perschetz Writer Greg Rienzi Production Lynna Bright Copy Editor Ann Stiller

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Peabody Symphony Orchestra and the Peabody Concert Orchestra. On Saturday, Feb. 6, Friday, Feb. 12, and Saturday, Feb. 27, free tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis to students from Johns Hopkins and other colleges and universities beginning at 7 p.m. (one hour prior to each performance). Rush tickets may not be reserved in advance. The free tickets may be obtained, while they last, only by students who appear in person with ID at a student rush table opposite the Peabody Box Office, at 17 E. Mount Vernon Place. The three concerts will feature symphonies by Mahler (Feb. 6), Shostakovich (Feb. 12) and Mozart (Feb. 27), as well as contemporary works by Joseph Schwantner and Joan Tower commissioned by the Ford Made in America program. For complete information, go to www .peabody.jhu.edu/events.

Watch those cans and bottles: RecycleMania competition is on

ohns Hopkins is once again competing in RecycleMania, a 10-week challenge for colleges and universities across the country to see who can recycle the most and reduce total waste. Last year JHU took first place in three categories against participating Maryland schools, and this year the event organizers want to beat what are known as the Ivy League Plus schools. The entire Johns Hopkins community is asked to do its part to help the university increase its recycling rate and reduce its total waste by recycling all cans, bottles, paper and cardboard in the many designated bins on the various campuses. For more information about what and where to recycle and to see weekly results, go to the JHU Recycling Web site at www .recycle.jhu.edu.

JHH wins ANA award for outstanding nursing quality

he American Nurses Association, the largest nursing organization in the United States, has recognized The Johns Hopkins Hospital for consistently yielding outstanding patient outcomes that are tied directly to the high quality of nursing care. Five other hospitals were recognized with awards in other categories. “The Johns Hopkins Hospital exemplifies the commitment, leadership, data analysis and efficient use of resources that are needed by nursing executives and bedside nurses to produce the best possible patient outcomes,” said ANA President Rebecca M. Patton. “The NDNQI [National Database for Nursing Quality Indicators] program is all about using evidence from the reporting of outcomes to improve nursing care practices, staffing and systems for care delivery, and The Johns Hopkins Hospital has achieved that at a high level.”

Contributing Writers Applied Physics Laboratory Michael Buckley, Paulette Campbell Bloomberg School of Public Health Tim Parsons, Natalie Wood-Wright Carey Business School Andrew Blumberg Homewood Lisa De Nike, Amy Lunday, Dennis O’Shea, Tracey A. Reeves, Phil Sneiderman Johns Hopkins Medicine Christen Brownlee, Stephanie Desmon, Audrey Huang, John Lazarou, David March, Katerina Pesheva, Vanessa Wasta, Maryalice Yakutchik Peabody Institute Richard Selden SAIS Felisa Neuringer Klubes School of Education James Campbell, Theresa Norton School of Nursing Kelly Brooks-Staub University Libraries and Museums Brian Shields, Heather Egan Stalfort

The Gazette is published weekly September through May and biweekly June through August for the Johns Hopkins University community by the Office of Government, Community and Public Affairs, Suite 540, 901 S. Bond St., Baltimore, MD 21231, in cooperation with all university divisions. Subscriptions are $26 per year. Deadline for calendar items, notices and classifieds (free to JHU faculty, staff and students) is noon Monday, one week prior to publication date. Phone: 443-287-9900 Fax: 443-287-9920 General e-mail: gazette@jhu.edu Classifieds e-mail: gazads@jhu.edu On the Web: gazette.jhu.edu Paid advertising, which does not represent any endorsement by the university, is handled by the Gazelle Group at 410343-3362 or gazellegrp@comcast.net.

February 1, 2010 • THE GAZETTE

O U T R E A C H

Johns Hopkins disaster team’s first group deploys to Haiti By Mark Guidera

Johns Hopkins Medicine

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

he Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response has deployed its first group of Johns Hopkins physicians, nurses and other experts to Haiti to help that nation’s injured and suffering. A second group will leave on Thursday. The medical experts serve on the Johns Hopkins Go Team, which has approximately 185 members who are trained to respond to disasters. Seven members of the Go Team left Baltimore last Wednesday in collaboration with the International Medical Corps, a humanitarian nonprofit organization based in Santa Monica, Calif. The second Go Team group will include approximately 15 Johns Hopkins medical experts, who may staff the 150-bed U.S. Navy Expeditionary Medical Treatment Facility being set up at the Port-au-Prince port. This facility will accept patients transferred from the USNS Comfort. Gabe Kelen, professor and chair of the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine and director of the Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response, said that he and other CEPAR leaders spent many days carefully evaluating a number of requests for medical assistance in Haiti and decided to move forward with the IMC and the Navy because of their strong credibility and disaster experience. “We didn’t want to just rush people down to Haiti and add to the chaos,” Kelen said.

Johns Hopkins Go Team members, clockwise from left: Mike Clemmens, a pediatrician at Anne Arundel Medical Center; Alicia Hernandez, a nurse in the JHH adult Emergency Department; Gene Gincherman, an emergency physician at Suburban Hospital; Tom Kirsch, an associate professor in Emergency Medicine in the School of Medicine and CEPAR director of operations; Rocky Cagle, a nurse in the JHH ICU; Emmanuelle Clerisme, an instructor in Pulmonary Medicine in the School of Medicine; and Beth Sloand, an assistant professor in Acute and Chronic Care in the School of Nursing.

“We wanted to commit to missions that would be highly effective in helping Haiti’s suffering and help the nation recover in the long term.” The Johns Hopkins mission that left Jan. 27 is being led by Tom Kirsch, an emergency

Jhpiego helps reopen, restock maternity ward in Haiti By Melody McCoy

Jhpiego

health care team from Jhpiego, a Johns Hopkins affiliate focused globally on maternal and child health, is on the ground in Haiti, working to restore safe and quality health care services for pregnant women, new mothers and their babies. Since three health care workers from the organization’s Baltimore office joined their Haitian colleagues in Portau-Prince about 10 days ago, the team has provided organizational support to reopen the maternity ward at General Hospital, the largest hospital in the capital, and helped replenish medical supplies for the ward. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that there are 63,000 pregnant women in the earthquake-affected areas and that 15 percent are likely to have potentially life-threatening complications. An estimated 7,000 are expected to deliver in the next month, according to the agency. Jhpiego is providing “return-to-work” support for Haitian medical staff so the maternity ward can operate with a complement of doctors, nurses and midwives

trained in obstetrics care. Until now, pregnant women brought to General Hospital were delivering their babies in tents on the hospital grounds, and a small contingent of overworked nurses and birth attendants were providing care. Reopening the maternity ward at General Hospital would put three operating rooms in service and reduce the risk of infection, which is difficult to manage in tents. Lucito Jeannis, Jhpiego’s country director in Haiti, said that the administrators of General Hospital said that Jhpiego’s long experience in Haiti was “critical to their commitment to work side by side in renewing the maternity ward.” Before the earthquake hit, Haiti had the highest maternal mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere—670 deaths per 100,000 live births—and that ratio is likely to increase unless a network of trained health workers can care for pregnant women, mothers and babies in a safe and sanitary environment. Jhpiego staff members, including three OB/GYNs, a nurse and other health care professionals, are working from the organization’s office in Port-au-Prince. Their work is being chronicled in the blog “On the Ground in Haiti” at http://blog. jhpiego.org.

Residents collect 1,100 crutches for victims of quake

hen a group of pediatric residents returned from working with earthquake victims in Haiti, they made a public plea for crutches desperately needed by those suffering from amputations and crush injuries. Their collection started last Monday at Johns Hopkins’ David M. Rubenstein Child Health Building, and by press time on Friday,

they had gathered more than 1,100 pairs of crutches, plus 50 walkers and 50 canes. Plans are still being made for shipping the supplies to Haiti, where they will be distributed to those in need of the devices. Inspired by the residents’ efforts, Suburban Hospital, a member of Johns Hopkins Medicine, is launching its own crutches drive.

cian and director of the Go Team, will lead the group that may staff the naval medical facility at the port. Catlett has served in a number of disasters, including Hurricanes Katrina, Ivan and Rita. She also is familiar with Haiti, having led three medical missions to the Central Plateau region of the island for Project Medishare for Haiti, a nonprofit dedicated to helping that country develop and improve public health services. She said that the teams deploying to Haiti will relieve doctors and other health care providers who are fatigued or who need to return home for other reasons. “The Go Team will use their medical and disaster skills to help in the ongoing crisis, as well as serve the long-term health needs of the people of Haiti,” Catlett said. The Go Team, which is funded by a Health Resources and Services Administration grant, was set up to provide highly trained medical support to areas hit hard by natural or man-made disasters in the United States and overseas. CEPAR provides administrative and logistical support for the team.

Related Web sites Johns Hopkins in Haiti:

physician who has served in a number of other disasters, including the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center towers in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Johns Hopkins volunteers are stationed at University Hospital in Port-au-Prince, where they will provide health care for the injured and ill affected by the massive Jan. 12 earthquake. Christina Catlett, an emergency physiPS-2010 JHU Gazette 1-14.qxd

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Haiti

http://webapps.jhu.edu/jhuniverse/ featured/haiti

Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response:

www.hopkins-cepar.org

International Medical Corps:

1/14/10

www.imcworldwide.org/Page .aspx?pid=289

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4 THE GAZETTE • February 1, 2010

Celentano named Dr. Charles Armstrong Chair of Epidemiology By Tim Parsons

School of Public Health

avid Celentano will be installed on Wednesday, Feb. 3, as the inaugural Dr. Charles Armstrong Chair and Professor of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Celentano, who had served as interim chair of the department since September 2008, was selected to lead it following an international search. The named professorship was established by Mary Emma Armstrong in memory of her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Charles Armstrong. Charles Armstrong was a colleague of Wade Hampton Frost, the first chair of the Department of Epidemiology. “David Celentano is an internationally recognized scholar known for his seminal

contributions to the epidemiology and prevention of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections,” said Michael J. Klag, dean of the Bloomberg School. “He is also a decisive administrator and gifted teacher, which makes him the perfect choice for the Charles Armstrong Chair and Professor of Epidemiology. I am also grateful to Mary Emma Armstrong for her generosity and commitment to public health in endowing this chair.” Celentano came to the School of Public Health as a student in 1973. He went on to earn a master of health science degree in 1975 and a doctor of science degree in 1977 after conducting his dissertation research with the renowned epidemiologist George Comstock. He joined the faculty in 1978 and holds joint appointments in International Health; Health, Society and Behavior; and at the School of Medicine. His research integrates behavioral sci-

ence theory and research with epidemiology, in the study of behavioral and social epidemiology. While originally trained in a chronic disease paradigm (alcoholism and cancer control), he began his research in HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases in the early 1980s. Celentano worked on some of the major cohort studies (ALIVE, MACS) in HIV epidemiology, and also conducted intervention research in the United States for heterosexual men and women, injection drug users and young men who have sex with men. Celentano turned to international research in 1990, when he began a long-term collaboration with Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand. He has worked on and directed numerous HIV/AIDS and STD epidemiological investigations and preventive interventions. He and his collaborators have clearly demonstrated that a behavioral intervention with young men (military conscripts) leads

to a sevenfold reduction in incidences of STDs and a halving of the HIV incidence rate. In addition, he documented the increased risk of HIV infection associated with STDs and alcohol use. More recently, his research group has been conducting a prospective study of hormonal contraception in relation to HIV seroconversion, research with significant family planning policy and health implications. Currently, he is the principal investigator of four NIH-supported studies in Thailand that focus on the association between the use of opiates, methamphetamines and other drugs and the spread of HIV, as well as interventions to affect this association. In 2006, Celentano was awarded an honorary doctorate in health sciences from Chiang Mai University; the degree was presented by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.

Kids with suspected development problems may not get referrals B y K at e r i n a P e s h e va

Johns Hopkins Medicine

any pediatricians score high on screening their patients for developmental delays but barely make a passing grade in referring children with suspected delays for further testing or treatment, according to a study from Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and other institutions to appear in the February issue of Pediatrics. Because screening is effective only if followed by referral and treatment, pediatricians need two separate formalized systems in their practices—one for screening and one for referral—the investigators write in their report, which was available online Jan. 25. The report also notes that pediatricians, and their patients, would fare better if the doctor’s office placed the referral on a patient’s behalf instead of handing the family a phone number to do so on its own. In 2006, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued guidelines that call for informal clinical evaluation of development of all children younger than 3 years during all well-child visits, and the use of a standard developmental screening test in all children at ages 9 months, 18 months and 24 (or 30) months. The AAP recommends that children who fail a screening test be referred to a specialist for more testing and to an early intervention program. The new study, launched as an AAP project to improve screening and referral, analyzed the procedures over nine months among 17 pediatric practices in 15 states, whose physicians and staff were trained on the new AAP guidelines.

Although screening rates improved after the training, from 68 percent to 85 percent of patients, referrals remained low, with only 61 percent of those with suspected delays sent for further testing and therapy. Among pediatricians who referred patients, many failed to follow up with the family to check whether they acted on the referral. The investigators said that many families don’t follow up, and that some don’t understand the reason for the referral in the first place. In addition, the investigators said, even when pediatricians did refer, their patterns were all over the map, with most failing to refer children to both a specialist and an early intervention program; rather, they chose one or the other. “The ultimate goal of screening is to improve outcomes for children with developmental delays, but in our study we found that many pediatricians did not act properly even when serious red flags were present,” said lead researcher Tracy King, a pediatrician at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. “This is where we should focus our efforts: making sure that more children with suspected delays get referred for testing and therapy.” King and colleagues said that referrals work best if they are placed by the pediatrician’s office on the patient’s behalf and tracked much like any other medical referral. Historically, referrals for developmental delays have not been treated as medical referrals but rather informally, by handing the parents a phone number and telling them to follow up with an early intervention program or a therapy provider. Follow-up is critical because children

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with developmental delays who are treated promptly fare better than those who get delayed treatment or no treatment at all, King said. For example, a child with a speech problem who receives early speechlanguage therapy will improve faster and do better in the long run than a child who is either not identified until later or whose referrals are not acted upon. To increase referral and follow-up, each practice should establish a separate referral log and tracking system that prompts staff, nurses and doctors not only to refer a patient but to call and check with the family periodically to ensure action. Other findings from the study include: • While nine of the 17 practices reported conducting developmental screening prior to the training, none of the 17 were following AAP screening guidelines. • After the training, all practices successfully incorporated AAP-recommended screening into their clinic routines. • Fourteen percent of all screened children during the nine-month study failed a developmental screening, a red flag signal-

ing possible developmental delays. • Referrals ranged from 27 percent to 100 percent among the 17 practices, with an average of 61 percent. • Unlike screening rates, referral rates did not increase over time. They dropped down even further during the second half of the nine-month study, with just over half the children who failed a screening test getting a referral. • The most common deterrent to universal use of standard screening tools was fear that the time it takes might slow down patient flow. Co-investigators are S. Darius Tandon, of Johns Hopkins; Michelle Macias, of Medical University of South Carolina; Jill Healy and Paula Duncan, both of University of Vermont; Nancy Swigonski, Indiana University School of Medicine; and Stephanie Skipper and Paul Lipkin, both of Kennedy Krieger Institute. The research was funded in part by the AAP, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Commonwealth Fund, among others.

Transmission dynamics of H1N1 similar to previous flu strains By Tim Parsons

School of Public Health

he April 2009 H1N1 outbreak at a Queens, New York, high school was widespread but did not cause severe disease, according to an analysis conducted by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Their findings suggest that the transmission and spread of H1N1 are similar to those of other seasonal influenza strains. The results appear in the Dec. 31 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. “Because this was the first major outbreak of 2009 H1N1 in the United States, it provided a rare opportunity to characterize the transmission dynamics and development of symptoms. Fortunately, we found that the characteristics of this disease were nearly identical to those of previously circulating influenza viruses, meaning that policies and models based on those assumptions could be applied to the control of 2009 H1N1,” said Justin Lessler, lead author of the study and a research associate with the Bloomberg School’s Department of Epidemiology. From April 24 to May 8, New York City

health officials confirmed 124 cases of 2009 H1N1 among 2,686 high school students and 248 school employees. An online survey identified another 800 students and employees with flulike symptoms during the same period. The initial infection may have come from students visiting Mexico, where 2009 H1N1 transmission was first detected. Based on their analysis, the researchers describe a disease with the same transmission characteristics as seasonal influenza, with the median time from infection to symptom onset being 1.4 days, symptoms lasting a median of 5.1 days and moderate transmissibility. “Schools were particularly affected in the early days of the pandemic, so it was important to measure the amount of transmission in this setting,” said Derek Cummings, the study’s senior author and an assistant professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Epidemiology. The estimated withinschool reproduction rate, or number of new infections caused by an infected person, was 3.3, comparable to school-based outbreaks of other influenza strains. The researchers were supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

February 1, 2010 • THE GAZETTE M E C H A N I C A L

E N G I N E E R I N G

Stressed nanomaterials display unexpected movement By Phil Sneiderman

Homewood

Green Continued from page 1 fication: the Ross Research Building, the Broadway Research Building and the Cancer Research Buildings I and II. The school hopes to achieve LEED existing building certification for these structures. In addition, no fewer than four other university buildings on three campuses are on track to achieve the environmental stamp of approval sometime this year, and more are expected to receive the go-ahead soon. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of highperformance “green” buildings. The certification process, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, promotes a wholebuilding approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. The certification works on a numerical system, with measures achieved scoring points on a checklist. Points are awarded and are weighted to reflect the degree of environmental impact, with platinum being the highest level of certification. The three classes of certification that are relevant to Johns Hopkins’ efforts are new construction, existing building and commercial interiors. Designers of the 2024 E. Monument St. space earned 30 points by reusing and recycling its furniture, recycling disposable materials during renovation and streamlining work spaces and restrooms, among other features. The leadership in Facilities Management saw this certification process as an opportu-

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

esearchers have discovered that, under the right conditions, newly developed nanocrystalline materials exhibit surprising activity in the tiny spaces between the geometric clusters of atoms called nanocrystals, from which they are made. This finding, detailed recently in the journal Science, is important because these nanomaterials are becoming more ubiquitous in the fabrication of microdevices and integrated circuits. Movement in the atomic realm can affect the mechanical properties of these futuristic materials—making them more flexible and less brittle, for example— and may alter the material’s lifespan. “As we make smaller and smaller devices, we’ve been using more nanocrystalline materials that have much smaller crystallites—what materials scientists call grains— and are believed to be much stronger,” said Kevin Hemker, professor and chair of Mechanical Engineering in Johns Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering and senior author of the Science article. “But we have to understand more about how these new types of metal and ceramic components behave, compared to traditional materials. How do we predict their reliability? How might these materials deform when they are subjected to stress?” The experiments conducted by a former undergraduate research assistant and supervised by Hemker focused on what happens in regions called grain boundaries. A grain or crystallite is a tiny cluster of atoms arranged in an orderly three-dimensional pattern. The irregular space or interface between two grains with different geometric orientations

Kevin Hemker, seated between models representing how atoms are packed within an individual grain in a material, holds a silicon wafer onto which nanocrystalline aluminum thin film specimens have been deposited.

is called the grain boundary. Grain boundaries can contribute to a material’s strength and help it resist plastic deformation, a permanent change of shape. Nanomaterials are believed to be stronger than traditional metals and ceramics because they possess smaller grains and, as a result, have more grain boundaries. Most scientists have been taught that these grain boundaries do not move, a characteristic that helps the material resist deformation. But when Hemker and his colleagues performed experiments on nanocrystalline aluminum thin films, applying a type of force called shear stress, they found an unexpected result. “We saw that the grains had grown bigger, which can only occur if

the boundaries move,” he said, “and the most surprising part of our observation was that it was shear stress that had caused the boundaries to move. “The original view,” he said, “was that these boundaries were like the walls inside of a house. These walls and the rooms they create don’t change size; the only activity is by people moving around inside the room. But our experiments showed that in these nanomaterials, when you apply a particular type of force, the rooms do change size because the walls actually move.” The discovery has implications for those who use thin films and other nanomaterials to make integrated circuits and microelectromechanical systems, commonly called

nity to continue to foster the school’s sustainability efforts. The office space’s lighting, color scheme and decorations were also changed to brighten the environment and boost morale and productivity. Jack Grinnalds, senior director of Facilities Management for the School of Medicine, said that “it’s important that Facilities Management be a leader in the institutions’ sustainability efforts to improve the environment, reduce energy costs and improve the operational efficience in our buildings.” The project, led by the architecture firm of Hord Coplan & Macht and Facilities Management, began in April 2008 following the decision to consolidate Facilities Management’s offices and relocate them to the basement level of the 2024 E. Monument St. Building. In its efforts to earn LEED certification for four of its other buildings, the school is making the necessary changes to its integrated pest management system, cleaning program and storm water management system, an effort that provides unique challenges given the urban environment. The school is also working on improving its recycling facilities and lighting fixtures, as well as reconfiguring computer systems to minimize energy use. “LEED requires us to think green even in our urban environment,” said Richard Sebour, the greening project leader and director of support services in Facilities Management. “Whereas space is at a minimum, we [still] needed to revamp our recycling and waste disposal systems for more sustainable efficiency.” The four other Johns Hopkins facilities that have been registered for LEED certification are Gilman Hall at Homewood, the Bernstein-Offit Building in Washington, D.C., the Center for a Livable Future office space at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and Building 200 at the Applied Physics Laboratory. The ruling on certification for all these facilities is expected sometime this year.

James Loesch, the plant facilities chief engineer and project management office supervisor at APL, said that the Lab also intends to register its next building, Building 30, for LEED certification at the silver level. This project will begin design shortly. “In addition, we are researching the feasibility of obtaining LEED existing-building certifications for recent additions to our campus—buildings 21, 17, 26—and possibly others,” he said. Davis Bookhart, manager of Energy Management and Environmental Stewardship and chair of the Johns Hopkins Sustainability Committee, said that getting buildings LEED certified is about more than bragging rights and hanging a piece of paper on the wall. “These buildings tend to be healthier buildings. You reduce the amount of toxins in the work environment that can be potentially harmful. The lighting levels in LEED buildings are also better and efficient, with more use of natural light,” Bookhart said. “All these benefits have been shown to reduce absenteeism and increase productivity. People are simply happier working or studying in a building that they know the institution took time out to upgrade and green.” Bookhart said that a critical mass of LEED-certified buildings will achieve a significant reduction in the university’s energy usage and environmental impact. “Ultimately, our focus is on resource conservation,” he said. “Energy reduction and energy savings go hand and hand, and the measures we take to green our buildings can significantly increase our cost savings and reduce the amount of negative environmental impacts, such as carbon dioxide emissions.” Bookhart said that the changes made to the Bernstein-Offit Building have cut water consumption in that building by more than 50 percent.

MEMS. The boundary movement shown by Hemker and his colleagues means that the nanomaterials used in these products likely possess more plasticity, higher reliability and less brittleness, but also reduced strength. “As we move toward making things at much smaller sizes, we need to take into account how activity at the atomic level affects the mechanical properties of the material,” Hemker said. “This knowledge can help the microdevice makers decide on the proper size for their components and can lead to better predictions about how long their products will last.” The journal article describing this discovery was inspired by a Johns Hopkins master’s thesis produced by Tim Rupert, then a combined bachelor’s/master’s degree student in mechanical engineering. Rupert, who is now a doctoral student at MIT, is lead author of the Science piece. Along with Hemker, the co-authors are Daniel Gianola, a former doctoral student and postdoctoral fellow in Hemker’s lab who is now an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania; and Y. Gan, of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Funding for the research was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

Related Web sites Kevin Hemker’s laboratory:

www.me.jhu/hemker/MicroNano/ index.html

Johns Hopkins Department of Mechanical Engineering:

www.me.jhu.edu

The ongoing renovation of Gilman Hall stands to make it the first LEED-certified building on the university’s Homewood campus. While some new campus buildings have been built to LEED standards, Gilman Hall will have Homewood’s first official stamp as a green building. The LEED effort started on day one of the renovation and will continue into the life of the building. The Gilman project will receive the basic level of certification in the new-construction level, and early projections show a potential for it to reach silver or possibly gold certification. Gilman Hall is eligible for new-construction status since more than 50 percent of the building will feature new construction and materials. So far, the work in Gilman Hall has included recycling and salvaging building materials, including marble slabs to be reused later and wood doorframes and transoms that will be left in place. The construction management plan also ensures that dust and chemicals are contained to protect stored materials and maintain the air quality of the worksite. A final air flush will take place just before the building reopens. The renovation project also includes ample use of recycled products. For example, the concrete poured in the basement and the drywall used for temporary walls and partitions contain recycled content. The project also racks up points for water and energy efficiencies. The building will be outfitted with low-flow plumbing fixtures to conserve water, and the mechanical systems will be both smart and major energy savers. Specifically, the building will feature highperformance windows, heat recovery units, fluorescent bulbs and rooms with occupancy sensors that automatically shut off the lights when the last person leaves. On a sunny day, the lights will even know to go on gradually as natural light fades. The building is scheduled to be completed this summer. G

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

6 THE GAZETTE • February 1, 2010

Provost Llyod Minor, Hodson Scholar Andrew Farber-Miller, Hodson-Gilliam Success Scholar Ashela Bean, Hodson Trust Chairman Gerald Holm and President Ronald J. Daniels at December’s Hodson Scholars Luncheon.

Hodson Continued from page 1 schools it supports in honor of its namesake, Col. Clarence Hodson, a Maryland resident who pioneered the concept of making small loans available to ordinary working-class Americans. In 1914 he established the Beneficial Loan Society, which eventually became one of the nation’s most successful lending institutions. Its trademarked jingle—At Beneficial, TOOT TOOT, You’re Good for More—remains instantly recognizable to generations of Americans. The company became part of Household International, now HSBC, in 1998. The Hodson Trust was settled in 1920 with shares of Beneficial by members of the colonel’s family with the express intention that it would be devoted to supporting education. Over the course of more than half a

century, the bulk of Hodson Trust giving to Johns Hopkins has been in the form of undergraduate scholarship aid, which currently falls into two categories. Hodson Scholarships are merit-based awards that cover roughly two-thirds of the cost of tuition each year for four years, and are offered to prospective students who both demonstrate exceptional academic achievement and make outstanding contributions beyond the classroom. Hodson-Gilliam Success Scholarships are need-based awards aimed specifically at underrepresented minorities and are intended to relieve a prospective student of the loan portion of his or her total financial aid package. This year, 82 students hold Hodson Scholarships, and 26 others are Hodson-Gilliam Success Scholars. According to Hodson Trust Chairman Gerald Holm, the focus on students of extraordinary promise is intended to bring a better future for all. “We are confident that we are investing in students who will make the most of their

We Come to School Every Day. We are in the company of some very smart and highly educated people, and we all serve a distinguished institution. Our creative services experts spend a lot of time listening and have learned a great deal here over the years, and our clients benefit from that every day. Marketing & Creative Services is a unit of Government, Community and Public Affairs. We have changed the name of our unit—an outgrowth of Design & Publications—but the most important part of our name is still the same as yours: Johns Hopkins. To see what we’ve been doing for Johns Hopkins University, please visit www.mcs.jhu.edu or to find how we can help you please contact Chris Cullen at ccullen@jhu.edu.

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educations and go on to change the world for the better,” he says. The annual Hodson luncheon is a celebration of those exceptional students. All Hodson Scholars and Hodson-Gilliam Success Scholars are invited, along with the university president and provost, Hodson Trust board members and guests, and some faculty. Each year, one Hodson scholar and one Success scholar are asked to speak about what scholarship support has meant for their time at Johns Hopkins. Hodson Scholar Andrew Farber-Miller, a senior who spoke at the December luncheon, says that he tried to convey the unparalleled opportunity the Hodson scholarship afforded him. “Coming to a prestigious university like Hopkins is a tremendous opportunity and challenge,” he says. “The Hodson Scholarship made it possible for me to take advantage of all that Hopkins has to offer inside and outside the classroom. The financial benefits were significant for me. Not having to hold a job during the academic year gave me the freedom to concentrate on my studies and also gave me the time to be able to make a contribution to the Hopkins community in other ways. The prestige associated with the scholarship provided an extra incentive for me to strive for excellence in

First person — Stephen Baylin, the Virginia & D.K. Ludwig Professor in Cancer Research in the School of Medicine’s Department of Oncology, reflects on his lab’s support from the Hodson Trust: “For the past several years, the Hodson Trust Foundation has provided invaluable support to our group to establish a research center—the Hodson Center for Cancer Research Scholars—for investigating the role of epigenetic abnormalities in the initiation and progression of lung cancer. “Specifically, [the trust’s] intent was to fund young investigators in their training years, with mentorship from both senior and junior faculty, for studies aimed at altering these abnormalities as a strategy to prevent the occurrence of these diseases and/or to treat their earliest stages. The intent is, also, to use innovative approaches, utilizing the latest technologies, to accomplish these goals. “The virtual center has helped bring together research in the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center that involves trainees and investigators from multiple departments at the medical school and on the Homewood campus. This support has helped underpin some of the most exciting progress we have made in both basic and clinical research, which hold great promise for accomplishing both of the above goals sought by the trust. “Specifically, accomplishments since the center was established have contributed greatly to implementing strategies to detect epigenetic changes in tumor DNA and lymph nodes that predict the course of patients after surgical treatment for what appear to be the earliest stage of lung cancer. Despite such stage designa-

everything I have done here.” After graduation in May, Farber-Miller plans to enroll in post-baccalaureate training and then go to medical school. At Johns Hopkins, he has participated in extracurricular activities related to his public health major, fraternity life and basketball, and he is an active volunteer with his hometown fire department. Bill Conley, dean of enrollment and academic services, says of the scholarships, “The Hodson Trust enables us to look at the cream of admitted students and encourage their enrollment. Our pool of candidates is as strong as any pool at any school. These scholarships give us an opportunity to shape the class, and are a tremendous inducement for the students to choose Hopkins,” he says. “The fact of the matter is that we have a very low scholarship endowment relative to our peers, and what scholarship dollars we

have are a critical tool in the recruitment and retention of students.” The trust’s generosity to Johns Hopkins has taken many other forms over the years, most notably with the construction in 2002 of the Homewood campus’s Hodson Hall, a $15 million, 44,000-square-foot, state-ofthe-art academic building that also houses the university’s board of trustees meeting room. In addition, the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Awards—which have become an integral part of the undergraduate learning experience on the Homewood campus— were sponsored and eventually completely funded by the Hodson Trust. In 2006, the trust broke new ground by agreeing to support the research and publication of an eight-volume series of the complete prose of T.S. Eliot. “This project will transform people’s notions of Eliot,” predicts Kathleen Keane, director of the Johns Hopkins University Press. “The Hodson Trust made a very innovative and far-sighted grant that will enable us not only to publish the papers but to fund the scholarly work needed to put it together. This is a truly transformative project that simply wouldn’t have happened without their support.” Ronald Schuchard, a renowned Eliot scholar and a professor at Emory University,

tion by current pathology criteria, some 30 percent or more of patients will suffer disease recurrence and fail to survive over a five-year period. “Studies by the Hodson-funded investigators, working principally with Drs. Malcolm Brock and James Herman in the departments of Surgery and Oncology, respectively, helped to discover a panel of genes that undergo abnormal epigenetic regulation in lung cancer. Simultaneous detection of cells with these specific abnormalities in tumor and in lymph nodes in the chest at the time of surgery predicts, with very high probability, which patients are likely to recur. This suggests a molecular restaging strategy to better chart the course of early-stage disease. A graduate student, Vasudev Bailey, working with Dr. Tza-Huei “Jeff” Wang in the Mechanical Engineering Department and Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Institute, has developed a nano assay to refine the above gene detection for ease and sensitivity, and this promises to enhance use of sputum and blood for additional power of the staging strategies and of early lung cancer detection. “These successes prompted Oncology Department faculty members Drs. Rosalyn Juergens and Charles Rudin, working with Dr. Brock, to institute the first trials of ‘epigenetic’ therapy to treat patients with advanced lung cancer in which robust, durable responses have been achieved in several patients who have failed previous chemotherapy regimens. This year, pursuant to these successes, the entire team is working together surrounding the first trial of such therapy to try and reduce the recurrence of lung cancer in patients after surgery for early-stage disease, and to determine if the gene marker strategy can predict those who will benefit from this approach.”

is leading the project, which will also allow the Press to develop the electronic edition of The Complete Prose of T.S. Eliot. “Overall, the Hodson Trust has been just a huge benefactor to Johns Hopkins,” says senior admissions officer John Birney, who relies on the Hodson Scholarships to help shape incoming undergraduate classes. “It’s not only the scholarships but also their support of things like the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Awards, the construction of one of our most advanced classroom buildings and so much else. They do a lot of good for Johns Hopkins that often goes unrecognized. But this is how much Hodson means to us: They are a great addition to the Hopkins family. Plain and simple, we couldn’t enroll these exceptional students without their help. These students wouldn’t be here without the Hodson Trust.” G

February 1, 2010 • THE GAZETTE A R R A

R E S E A R C H

Cardiologist tracks biomarkers for an elusive killer: IPH B y K at e r i n a P e s h e va

Johns Hopkins Medicine

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

ohns Hopkins Children’s Center cardiologist Allen Everett recently won more than $460,000 in stimulus grant funding to identify the biomarkers of idiopathic pulmonary hypertension, or IPH, a progressive and highly lethal condition in children and adults marked by persistently elevated pressure in the artery that carries blood from the heart to the lungs. Biomarkers—biological “byproducts” or “footprints” of disease—are substances that can be measured in bodily fluids or tissues to provide clues about disease presence and activity. Like antibodies, classic biomarkers that are evidence of exposure to viruses and bacteria, or proof of immunity following vaccination, biomarkers for IPH would allow physicians to better monitor disease progression and response to treatment. “A measurable, reliable biomarker to follow the patient’s response to medication could tell us who’s benefiting and who’s not, help us predict how well the patient will do and tells us if we should tweak the dose for a better effect,” Everett said. Currently, the most common way to track the course of IPH is an echocardiogram—an ultrasound image of the heart and the pulmonary artery—but the test is time-consuming, expensive and subject to misinterpretation. Perhaps more importantly, researchers say, there is no objective and accurate way for doctors to follow how well the patient is responding to medications. IPH patients are treated with vasodilators that expand and relax blood vessels to improve blood flow and ease pressure in the pulmonary artery and the heart. However,

Biomarkers for idiopathic pulmonary hypertension would allow physicians to better monitor disease progression and response to treatment, Allen Everett says.

up to 30 percent of patients do not respond to treatment, and nearly 70 percent of those who don’t respond die within five years of diagnosis, researchers say. Everett has already homed in on several promising candidate proteins as IPH biomarkers. Preliminary findings show that these proteins circulate at much higher levels in the blood of children with IPH than in children without the disease. The Johns Hopkins researchers are now trying to determine if the levels of these proteins drop when children respond

to treatment but remain elevated when they don’t. If they do, the next step to further validate the reliability of these biomarkers will be testing them in nearly 150 children and adults with IPH at Johns Hopkins and at the University of Colorado. “In order to classify these proteins as bona fide biomarkers, we also want to make sure they reliably and predictably detect changes in medication response in a larger group of patients,” Everett said. While the main goal of these new biomarkers is to monitor disease progression and response to treatment, they may also end up revealing fresh clues about the origin of IPH, investigators said. For example, whether a protein came from vascular cells rather than

from an inflammatory response may tell researchers if a patient’s disease stemmed from blood vessel injury rather than from blood vessel inflammation. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, informally known as ARRA, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute is investing its $763 million of economic stimulus funds into peerreviewed research on the prevention and treatment of heart, lung and blood diseases. Hopkins Children’s faculty and affiliated researchers have received more than $3 million in federal economic stimulus grants from the NIH, including the one to Everett. Everett’s team’s investigations are among the more than 340 stimulus-funded research grants and supplements totaling more than $160.3 million that Johns Hopkins has garnered since Congress passed ARRA, bestowing the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation with $12.4 billion in extra money to underwrite research grants by September 2010. The stimulus package—which provided $550 billion in new spending, including the above grants—is part of the federal government’s attempt to bring back a stumbling economy by distributing dollars for transportation projects, infrastructure building, the development of new energy sources and job creation, and financing research that will benefit humankind. Johns Hopkins scientists have submitted about 1,300 proposals for stimulus-funded investigations, ranging from strategies to help recovering addicts stay sober and the role that certain proteins play in the development of muscular dystrophy to mouse studies seeking to understand how men and women differ in their response to the influenza virus.

Old antidepressant offers promise in treating heart failure B y D av i d M a r c h

Johns Hopkins Medicine

team of researchers from Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have found in animal experiments that an antidepressant developed more than 40 years ago can blunt and even reverse the muscle enlargement and weakened pumping function associated with heart failure. In a report published in the Jan. 8 edition of Circulation Research, U.S. and Italian heart experts describe in a dozen key laboratory experiments in rodents how the antidepressant clorgyline, which is no longer in use in humans, blocks the action of enzyme monoamine oxidase-A, or MAO-A, and stops its breakdown of a key neurohormone. Norepinephrine, as it is called, controls the pace of blood pumping and makes the heart pump harder and faster in response to stress. The latest study results are believed to be the first evidence showing how elevated MAO-A activity biochemically drives heart failure and that its dangerous downstream effects can be stalled by drug therapy. “Our study helps describe heart failure as a vicious chemical circle of stimulant norepinephrine overload and breakdown, and it offers a disease blueprint with monoamine oxidase-A as the target for drugs similar to clorgyline to rein in the disease,” said cardiologist Nazareno Paolocci, senior study investigator. “When norepinephrine is not properly stored and released from the nerves directed to the heart, monoamine oxidase-A breaks it down, generating dangerous chemical species in the nerves and the heart muscle. These toxic free radicals produce the same deleterious effects on heart muscle size and pumping function long observed in heart failure,” he said. Paolocci, an assistant professor at the

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and its Heart and Vascular Institute, and at the University of Perugia in Italy, cautions that the studies with clorgyline are initial proof of an important principle but that the drug is far from being used to treat heart disease in humans. He says that newer drugs in the same class, such as moclobemide (sold as Aurorix or Manerix, and already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration), will have to be tested first, citing numerous and potentially lethal drug effects with clorgyline that prevent it from being prescribed. Notable side effects from clorgyline, Paolocci said, include insomnia and agitation, and high blood pressure after ingesting foods containing the amino acid tyramine, a protein building block that stimulates a surge of stored stimulatory hormones, specifically, norepinephrine. Patients who have taken clorgyline, whose chemical binding to MAO-A is irreversible, had to carefully avoid such tyramine-rich foods as red wine, chocolate, certain beans, meat and especially aged cheeses. It was previous observations of this norepinephrine surge and accelerated breakdown that led logically, the team reported, to seeing if inhibitor drugs—preferably those already on the shelf—could stop or reverse the damage. Among the study’s first findings was that after six weeks, mice with failing hearts responded to concurrent low-dose clorgyline treatment, with restoration of normal heart function and only half the harmful changes seen in untreated mice over the same time period. Heart muscle cell death rates were normal in clorgyline-treated mice but three and a half times higher in untreated mice. Heart muscle chamber expansion also slowed in the clorgyline-treated group, returning to an average chamber dimension of 1.2 mm

when the heart was contracting. Hearts in the untreated group expanded to an average of 3 mm. In addition, depleted stores of the hormone norepinephrine were replenished in treated mice but not at all in untreated mice. The team said it believes that when norepinephrine is not properly stored in the nerves, it overflows into the heart, accelerating the hormone’s breakdown by MAO-A. This in turn leads to the buildup inside the heart of harmful reactive oxygen species, such as hydrogen peroxide, that strain normal muscle cell contraction. “Now that we know clorgyline works, we can focus future drug testing on newer, safer MAO-A inhibitors, such as moclobemide, whose chemical bindings are reversible, unlike those of clorgyline,” Paolocci said. Lead study investigator Nina Kaludercic, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins and the University of Padova in Italy, said that researchers had long known that the buildup of hydrogen peroxide was dangerous, but no one knew that MAO-A was a major source due to the elevated breakdown of norepinephrine or how MAO-A’s action spurred heart failure. In other experiments in live heart cells taken from mice and rats, Kaludercic and her colleagues clarified MAO-A’s connection to the muscle-enlarging effects of catecholamines, of which norepinephrine is one. They found that incubating the cells with norepinephrine for a day triggered increased MAO-A enzyme activity, generating hydrogen peroxide and muscle cell expansion, much like what happens in humans with failing hearts. Again, subsequent clorgyline treatment, at a single low dose of 2 micromoles per liter, reversed the damage. Another key finding was that the overflow of norepinephrine did not just lead to raised activity of the muscle’s alpha and beta receptors, which trigger the heart to beat

harder and faster, but also led to upped activity of MAO-A. Kaludercic said that these experiments “deepen our understanding” of the close ties between the brain and the heart, and of how problems with nerve-muscle interaction can influence key organ failure. Researchers next plan to analyze medical records from people who have taken MAO-A inhibitors to determine if their drug therapy offered any protection or lower risk of developing heart failure or other kinds of cardiovascular disease. They also plan experiments in animals to assess if clorgyline therapy can reverse heart failure at later stages of the disease, and at what dose. In addition, the team has proposed studies to evaluate other MAO-A inhibitors, including moclobemide, and what effects, if any, they have on failing hearts. Some 5.7 million American men and women suffer from chronic heart failure, which caused an estimated 290,000 deaths in 2005. A majority of sufferers have high blood pressure, the leading risk factor for the disease. Funding for the study, which took three years to complete, was provided by the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health. Clorgyline remains in use for scientific research and is sold by many different suppliers. The clorgyline used in this study was manufactured by Sigma-Aldrich. Moclobemide is manufactured by Roche. In addition to Paolocci and Kaludercic, researchers involved in this study were Eiki Takimoto, Ning Feng, Takahiro Nagayama, Djahida Bedja, Kathleen Gabrielson and David Kass, all of Johns Hopkins; Edwin Lai and Karel Pacak, of the National Institute on Chemical Dependency; Randy Blakely, of Vanderbilt University; Kevin Chen and Jean C. Shih, of the University of Southern California; and Fabio Di Lisa, of the University of Padova.

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February 1, 2010 • THE GAZETTE

Guided Care participants rate quality of health care higher

hronically ill older adults who are closely supported by a nurse-physician primary care team are twice as likely to rate their health care as high-quality than those who receive usual care, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The research, published online in the latest edition of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that after 18 months of a randomized controlled trial, Guided Care recipients rated their primary care significantly higher than did recipients of usual care with regard to coordination with specialists, support for self-management and help received with setting goals, making decisions and solving health-related problems. Guided Care patients were also 70 percent more likely to rate the time they had to wait for an appointment when sick as “excellent” or “good” and 50 percent more likely to rate the ability to get phone advice as “excellent” or “good.” Guided Care is a model of proactive, comprehensive health care provided by physician-nurse teams for patients with several

chronic health conditions. It is a type of “medical home” for this rapidly growing population. This model is designed to improve complex patients’ quality of life and quality of care while improving the efficiency of their treatment. The care teams include a registered nurse, two to five primary care physicians and other members of the office staff who work together for the benefit of each patient. Following a comprehensive assessment and planning process, the Guided Care nurse educates and empowers patients and families, monitors the patients’ conditions monthly and coordinates the efforts of health care professionals, hospitals and community agencies to be sure that no important health-related need slips through the cracks. “These findings show that Guided Care can improve many of the important dimensions of care quality,” said Cynthia M. Boyd of Johns Hopkins, lead author of the study and an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the School of Medicine and in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School.

“Improving chronic care is not just about reducing cost, but it also includes improving the quality of the care that patients receive.” Previously published data suggested that, compared to usual-care patients, Guided Care patients tended to spend less time in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities and had fewer emergency room visits and home health episodes, producing an annual net savings for health care insurers (after accounting for the costs of Guided Care) of $1,365 (11 percent) per patient, or $75,000 per nurse. Other studies have shown that Guided Care reduces family caregiver strain and improves physicians’ satisfaction with chronic care. A multisite randomized controlled trial of Guided Care involving 49 physicians, 904 older patients and 308 family members recently concluded in eight locations in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area. The three-year study was supported by a public-private partnership of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Institute on Aging, the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Jacob and Valeria

Langeloth Foundation, Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic States, Johns Hopkins HealthCare and the Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care. Additional authors of the study are Lisa Reider, Katherine Frey, Daniel Scharfstein, Bruce Leff, Jennifer Wolff, Stephen Wegener, Jill Marsteller and Chad Boult, all of Johns Hopkins; and Carol Groves and Lya Karm, both of Kaiser Permanente MidAtlantic States. The Guided Care model was developed by a team of clinical researchers at Johns Hopkins beginning in 2001 with funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Institute on Aging, the John A. Hartford Foundation and the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation. The team is supported by a Stakeholder Advisory Committee, comprising national leaders in medicine, nursing, psychology, public health, health policy, patient advocacy and health insurance. For more information, go to www.GuidedCare .org. —Tim Parsons

DID U TK UR MEDS? Texting can improve care of patients

rom a lethal distraction for drivers to dehumanizing personal interactions, text messaging has gotten a bum rap lately. But for doctors treating patients with chronic diseases, text messaging can be an invaluable tool, according to Johns Hopkins Children’s Center pediatrician Delphine Robotham. “For better or worse, this technology is here,” she said, “and sending a text to a patient’s cell phone about an upcoming appointment or a test, or simply to remind them to take their meds, is a great example of how we can harness new communication technology for a greater good.” Research has shown that up to half of patients may fail to take their daily medication properly, with forgetting being a top reason for nonadherence so, at least in some cases, a text reminder may be all that a patient needs, added Robotham, who has encouraged the use of appropriate texting among pediatricians at Johns Hopkins.

Several recent studies have looked at use of SMS (short message service, or text messaging) in a medical context, Robotham notes. For example, one study involving children with diabetes showed improved blood glucose testing rates among those using it. These children were also more likely to share their blood glucose test readings with their doctor’s office. In another study, patients on immunosuppressive drugs after a liver transplant had improved medication adherence. The liver study detected measurable clinical benefits from text messaging: Acute liver rejection episodes dropped dramatically as a result of better medication adherence. Chronic conditions that require daily medication, such as HIV, asthma and TB, or daily testing, such as diabetes, are great candidates for “SMS therapy,” Robotham said. Johns Hopkins Children’s Center tuberculosis expert Sanjay Jain understands all F E B .

too well the challenges of getting patients to follow months-long drug regimens. “Texting is an even more popular mode of communication outside the United States, and especially so in developing countries, where most of the TB cases are, so I could see this being a great new way to reach those hard-to-reach patients,” Jain said. The Johns Hopkins Children’s Center may soon formalize the use of this technology with teen health expert Maria Trent designing and hoping to launch a pilot study using text-message reminders for patients with pelvic inflammatory disease. Treatment involves several weeks of antibiotics and requires that all patients come back for retesting after finishing their medication. Pediatric HIV expert Allison Agwu has been using texts to remind her patients of follow-up appointments and has seen good response. She also is preparing to launch a formal study. The reasons behind the grow1

–

Calendar Continued from page 12 From the Baltimore ECA Study,” a Mental Health seminar with Hochang Ben Lee, SoM and SPH. B14B Hampton House. EB “Block Copolymer Nanoparticles by Flash Nanoprecipitation: ProDrug Strategies,” a Materials Science and Engineering seminar with Margarita Herrera-Alonso, WSE. 110 Maryland. HW Wed., Feb. 3, 3 p.m.

“Painting the Cysteine Chapel: New Tools to Probe Oxidation Biology,” a Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences seminar with Kate Carroll, University of Michigan. West Lecture Hall (ground floor), WBSB. EB

Wed., Feb. 3, 4 p.m.

“Statistical Methods for Testing Genetic Effects in the Presence of Possible Gene-Gene and Gene-Environment Interactions,” a Biostatistics seminar with faculty candidate

Wed., Feb. 3, 4 p.m.

Arnab Maity, Harvard School of Public Health. W2030 SPH. EB Thurs.,

Feb.

9:30

a.m.

“Resistance to Nevirapine and Its Impact on Strategies to Prevent and Treat HIV Infection in Children Living in Resource-Poor Countries,” a Molecular Microbiology and Immunology thesis defense seminar with Anitha Moorthy. W2030 SPH. EB “Why Is Congress So Bad at Overseeing Intelligence?” a Political Science seminar with Amy Zegart, UCLA. 366 Mergenthaler. HW Thurs., Feb. 4, noon.

“Latent Tuberculosis: What’s Going On in There?” a Molecular Microbiology and Immunology/Infectious Diseases seminar with Joanne Flynn, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. W1020 SPH. EB

Thurs., Feb. 4, noon.

Thurs., Feb. 4, noon. “Social Life of Mitochondria Within the Pancreatic Beta Cell: Dynamic

Clubs, Exclusive Networks and Depolarized Singles,” a Cell Biology seminar with Orian Shirihai, Boston University. Suite 2-200, 1830 Bldg. EB “Internally Evolving Sequences in the Service of Cognition,” a Neuroscience research seminar with Gyorgy Buzsaki, Rutgers University. West Lecture Hall, WBSB.

Thurs., Feb. 4, 1 p.m.

“Ranking and Selection of Many Alternatives Using Correlated Knowledge Gradients,” an Applied Mathematics and Statistics seminar with Peter Frazier, Cornell University. 304 Whitehead. HW

Thurs., Feb. 4, 4 p.m.

“Targeted Sequencing of Genomic and Transcriptomic Variations,” a Biology special seminar with Jin Billy Li, Harvard Medical School. 100 Mudd. HW

Thurs., Feb. 4, 4 p.m.

Fri., Feb. 5, 9 a.m.

ing social popularity of text messaging are manifold and complex, but Robotham and colleagues said they believe that SMS use in the medical setting will soon catch up. “Why wouldn’t it?” Robotham said. “A patient can read a text instantly and respond unobtrusively. It doesn’t require Internet access or picking up the phone in the middle of class or an important meeting. Sometimes, I call patients and I get no response, but when I text, I get a response immediately.” Pediatric specialists as well as primarycare pediatricians should not overlook SMS technology, the Johns Hopkins researchers said, but there are caveats: Texting is not a substitute for all communication, it could be expensive, and it doesn’t always ensure reaching a patient who may have changed her number or lost her phone. “It won’t be a silver bullet, but it could certainly be a nice little tool in an arsenal of many other tools,” Robotham said. —Katerina Pesheva

“The Con-

tribution of Industrial Food Animal Production to the Transmission and Emergence of Influenza A Virus,” an Environmental Health Sciences thesis defense seminar with Jessica Leibler. E9519 SPH. EB “Building Capacity in Uganda to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality Due to Malaria,” a Center for Communication Programs seminar with Chime Catherine Mukwakwa, Stop Malaria Project, Uganda. W1020 SPH. EB F r i . , F e b . 5 , 12:15 p.m.

“Chemoautotrophically Based Microbial Communities in an Extreme Subsurface Environment,” an Astrobiology seminar with Jill Banfield, University of California, Berkeley. Part of the series Planets, Life and the Universe. Bahcall Auditorium, STScI. HW

Fri., Feb. 5, 12:30 p.m.

Mon., Feb. 8, 11 a.m. “Prognostic Significance of Depression After Myocardial Infarction,” an Epidemiology thesis defense seminar with Kapil Parakh. W2017 SPH. EB

“Heat-Gated TRPV Ion Channels: ‘V’ is for Versatile,” a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology seminar with Michael Caterina, SoM. W1020 SPH. EB Mon., Feb. 8, noon.

Mon., Feb. 8, 12:15 p.m. “About Meiotic Silencing ...,” a Carnegie

Institution Embryology seminar with Rodolfo Aramayo, Texas A&M. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW SPECIAL EVENTS

Installation of David Celentano as the inaugural Dr. Charles Armstrong Chair of Epidemiology. (See story, p. 4.) Reception to follow in the Gallery. Sponsored by the Bloomberg School of Public Health. W1214 SPH (Sheldon Hall). SPH

Wed., Feb. 3, 4 p.m.

SYMPOSIA Tues., Feb. 2, 8 p.m. The 2010 Foreign Affairs Symposium— “Re-Engaging the World: The New Global Community” with New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof. (See story, p. 1.) Shriver Hall. HW

W OR K S HO P S Thurs., Feb. 4, 1 p.m. “Podcasting 101,” a Center for Educational Resources workshop, designed for faculty and TAs (staff are also welcome to attend). To register or for more information, go to www .cer.jhu.edu. Garrett Room, MSE Library. HW

10 THE GAZETTE • February 1, 2010 B U L L E T I N

P O S T I N G S

Job Opportunities

Notices

B O A R D

No notices were submitted for publication this week. The Johns Hopkins University does not discriminate on the basis of gender, marital status, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or other legally protected characteristic in any student program or activity administered by the university or with regard to admission or employment.

Homewood

Office of Human Resources: Suite W600, Wyman Bldg., 410-516-8048 JOB#

POSITION

41384 41564 41584 41630 41663 41749 41790 41836 42035 42037 41238 41260 41340 41343

Assistant Program Manager, CTY Sr. Systems Engineer Executive Assistant Instructional Designer IT Project Manager Law Clerk Development Data Assistant Development Coordinator Information Technology Auditor Internal Auditor LAN Administrator Campus Police Sergeant Campus Police Lieutenant, Investigative Services IT Manager

Schools of Public H e a l t h a n d N u r s i n g Office of Human Resources: 2021 East Monument St., 410-955-3006 JOB#

POSITION

41848 41562 41151 42499 42453 41473 41388 42206 40189 42479 41398 42542 42453 42299 40927 42428

Sr. Administrative Coordinator IT Service Coordinator Research Assistant Associate Director, Financial Aid HR Administrator Leave and Records Program Specialist Program Officer Sr. Financial/Contracts Analyst Laboratory Assistant Sr. Research Nurse Research Data Analyst Academic Program Administrator HR Administrator Leave and Records Retention Specialist E-Learning Coordinator, PEPFAR Research Program Assistant II

School of Medicine

Office of Human Resources: 98 N. Broadway, 3rd floor, 410-955-2990 JOB#

POSITION

38035 35677 30501 22150 38064

Assistant Administrator Sr. Financial Analyst Nurse Midwife Physician Assistant Administrative Specialist

41467 41521 41676 41695 42088 41161 41453 41503 41585 41782 41881 41965 41980 42019 42072 42129 41856 41900 41921 42021 42103

Instrument Shop Supervisor Research Technologist Campus Police Officer Sr. Laboratory Coordinator Development Officer Sr. Technical Support Analyst Academic Adviser Director, Multicultural Affairs Financial Manager Recreational Facilities Supervisor Academic Program Manager Accounting Specialist Sr. Research Assistant Associate Director, Financial Aid Testing and Evaluation Coordinator Financial Aid Administrator Electrical Shop Supervisor Research Technologist Fulfillment Operations Manager Locksmith Sr. Energy Services Engineer

42220 42011 42434 42400 42540 42392 39306 42512 42247 41785 41724 40770 42099 42351 38840 41877 41995 41652 38886 42347 41463 40769 39063 41451

Programmer Analyst Program Specialist Audio Production Editor Clinic Assistant Program Administrator Administrative Coordinator Programmer Analyst Sr. Research Assistant Research and Community Outreach Coordinator Sr. Program Officer Program Coordinator Sharepoint Developer Administrative Coordinator Research Community Outreach Coordinator Communications Specialist Health Educator Sr. Medical Record Abstractor Development Coordinator Research Assistant Research Program Coordinator Research and Evaluation Officer Software Engineer Research Assistant Multimedia Systems Specialist

37442 37260 38008 36886 37890

Sr. Administrative Coordinator Sr. Administrative Coordinator Sponsored Project Specialist Program Administrator Sr. Research Program Coordinator

This is a partial listing of jobs currently available. A complete list with descriptions can be found on the Web at jobs.jhu.edu.

Woodcliffe Manor Apartments

S PA C I O U S

G A R D E N A PA RT M E N T L I V I N G I N

R O L A N D PA R K

• Large airy rooms • Hardwood Floors • Private balcony or terrace • Beautiful garden setting • Private parking available • University Parkway at West 39th St. 2 & 3 bedroom apartments located in a private park setting. Adjacent to Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus and minutes from downtown Baltimore.

410-243-1216

105 West 39th St. • Baltimore, MD 21210 Managed by The Broadview at Roland Park BroadviewApartments.com

SAIS Bologna Center, first U.S. grad school in Europe, turns 55

Students gather for a group photograph in front of the main entrance of the Bologna Center, located at Via Belmeloro 11, around 1961, when the school moved into its permanent home. A major renovation was completed in 2007.

B y O d e t t e B o ya R e s ta

SAIS Bologna Center

his spring, the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies will celebrate the 55th anniversary of its founding during the annual Alumni Weekend with special guests, notably President Ronald J. Daniels and the rector of the University of Bologna, Ivano Dionigi. The theme of the weekend, scheduled for April 23 to 25, will be “The State of Higher Education in Europe and in the United States.” Alumni classes celebrating special reunions will gather to reminisce and will also have the opportunity to “return to class” with mini-lectures offered by resident and adjunct professors. In 1955, a small group of scholars, led by C. Grove Haines, founded the Bologna Center. Haines, a professor of diplomatic history at SAIS, had been searching since the late 1940s for the perfect location for an American graduate school abroad. The decision to set up in Bologna, Italy, began to take shape when Felice Battaglia, the

rector of the University of Bologna at the time, offered to provide office and classroom space. What followed was an ambitious and successful quest by Haines to obtain funding and support from various sources to make this dream a reality. The aim of the Bologna Center was to educate future leaders to reach beyond national boundaries and biases, to learn from each other and to work cooperatively toward common international goals in the postwar period, a time when the world needed rebuilding and uniting. Home to the oldest university in Europe, Bologna had a tradition of education, cultural heritage and political vitality that made it an attractive location for SAIS’ European branch. The April event will be an occasion to reflect on how the center has grown over the years. What began in 1955 as an experiment—the first U.S. graduate school established in Europe—has developed into a program in international relations that is unique for its longevity, its global perspective and its ability to adapt and remain relevant amid the key challenges of the times. For more about the Bologna Center, go to www.jhubc.it.

Kidney donor study: How do AfricanAmericans access health info online?

aura Taylor, an assistant professor in the School of Nursing’s Department of Health Systems and Outcomes, is studying how living-kidney donors and caregivers gain support in the organ donation process. The $450,000 two-year grant she received from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Nursing Research will expand Taylor’s Living Donor Information Network for Caregiving, known as LINC, a Johns Hopkins–based Web site for livingkidney donors and their “informal caregivers,” who are usually relatives. Taylor said she hopes to gain critical insight into how African-Americans in particular utilize the Internet to gain information and seek emotional support. Taylor has worked at The Johns Hopkins Hospital since 1987 and since 1994 has cared for patients who have undergone liver, kidney, and pancreas transplantation. For the past decade, she has studied the linkage between organ donors, information

technology and donors’ trust in the medical staff. In the randomized controlled trial, donor candidates and their informal caregivers will be invited to join LINC, which features a discussion board, PDF files on kidney donation, video clips and podcasts. The initiative was prompted, in part, by the fact that African-Americans constitute the majority of patients with end-stage renal disease but less than 12 percent of the living-kidney donors last year. A 2007 Pew Internet study revealed differences in African-Americans’ and Caucasians’ use of the Internet to access health information. “What we really don’t know is, What are African-Americans seeking on the Internet?” Taylor said. “I hope to create educational resources that’ll best meet the needs of the African-American population. Maybe, then, more African-Americans will consider living-kidney donations because they feel more confident in the information they’re receiving.”

February 1, 2010 â&#x20AC;˘ THE GAZETTE

Classifieds APARTMENTS/HOUSES FOR RENT

Bayview, 3BR, 2BA house, W/D, CAC, finâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d bsmt, sec dep and refs reqâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d, must see. 410-905-5511. Bayview area, choice of 2-3BR apt (1st flr) or 1BR apt (2nd flr). $600/mo + sec dep. 443-255-9692. Bolton Hill, lg fully furnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d 1BR apt, avail January-August, quiet house, access to transportation. $1,075/mo + utils. maryhartney@ gmail.com. Butchers Hill, 1BR, 1BA condo in historic mansion, W/D, quiet, safe neighborhood nr JHMI shuttle/Hopkins. $800/mo + utils. 443-370-6869 or ianosaur@hotmail.com. Butchers Hill, 2BR, 2.5A RH, steps to medical campus, hdwd flrs, W/D, CAC, rear yd, off-street prkng inclâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d. $1,200/mo + utils. 443-838-5575. Charles Village, 2BR, 2BA corner condo w/ balcony, 24-hr front desk, clean, 1,200 sq ft, nr JHMI shuttle, CAC/heat, all utils inclâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d. 410-466-1698. Charles Village/University One, bright, spacious 1BR, 1BA condo, CAC/heat. $1,145/ mo incl all utils. marionmalcolm@comcast .net. Cockeysville (Briarcliff Apts), 2BR + den, 2BA apt in TH, W/D, CAC/heat, walk to Dulaney High, lg living and dining areas, kitchen. $1,050/mo ($500 cash back). 410336-0762 or johnjxw@yahoo.com. East Baltimore, 3BR, 1BA TH, partly furnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d. $950/mo + utils + sec dep. Nancy, 410-6790347 or Anita, 410-675-5951 or amt2813@ gmail.com. Federal Hill, charming 2BR, 1.5BA house recently renovâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d, hdwd flrs, stainless steel appls, eat-in kitchen, dw, AC, yd, nr 95 nr Southside Marketplace (off Fort Ave), short-term lease, avail March 5. $1,295/mo + utils. 410-456-2565 or janetmargaret@ comcast.net. Fells Point (Fleet and Wolfe), restored 3BR, 2.5BA RH, W/D. $1,600/mo + utils + sec dep. 443-629-2264 or aynur.unalp@gmail .com. Fells Point (Wolfe at Gough), newly renovâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d 3BR RH w/master suite, 1,800 sq ft, back patio, garden. $1,900/mo. 410-245-1343 or jmwinicki@gmail.com. Hampden, 3BR, 2BA TH, dw, W/D, fenced

M A R K E T P L A C E

Approx. $60,000 Gross Annual Rent Sale to be held on the premises

3217 & 3219 Guilford Ave â&#x20AC;˘ Balto. 21218

Thurs., February 18th at 1:00 pm

For more info call Nick Luciani at 443-465-4761. Deposit $40,000 total. Terms & conditions on our website. 410.828.4838 www.AlexCooper.com

St Paul, hdwd flrs, front and back porch, enclosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d garage, 8-min walk to Homewood campus. 410-366-7383.

yd, nr light rail. $1,100/mo + utils. 410-3782393.

Gardenville, 3BR, 1.5BA RH, new kitchen and BA, CAC, hdwd flrs, club bsmt w/cedar closet, maintenance-free yd, carport, quiet neighborhood, mins to JHH. $139,999. 443610-0236 or tziporachai@juno.com.

Hampden (41st St), 3BR apt w/new BA, new paint, living rm, dining rm, kitchen, pantry, dw, W/D, garage, nr I-83/JHH, mins to downtown. $1,350/mo incl utils. 443-474-1492.

Harborview, 2BR, 1BA bungalow, lg private yd with view of the city, lots of offstreet prkng. $169,900. 443-604-2797 or lexisweetheart@yahoo.com.

Hampden, 3BR, 1BA TH, dw, W/D, AC, hdwd flrs, fenced yd, nr shuttle to JHH, walking distance to JHU, pets OK. $1,395/mo. 443-604-4207.

Middle River, gorgeous TH w/3BRs, 1.5BA, immaculate hdwd flrs, beautiful finâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d bsmt, more. $175,000. 443-559-9386. cooke09@ gmail.com.

Homewood (295 W 31st St), 2BR TH, W/D, gas heat, deck, fenced yd, no smokers/no dogs. $1,000/mo. Val Alexander, 888-3863233 (toll free) or yankybrit@hotmail.com.

Mt Vernon, 1BR condo w/high ceilings, dw, disposal, hdwd flrs, intercom, fps w/marble, low condo fees. $146,900. jchris1@umbc.edu.

Mt Washington, 5BR, 3.5BA house, 2-car garage. $2,200/mo + utils. 443-939-6027 or qzzhao@gmail.com. Patterson Park, 2BR, 1.5BA house, hdwd flrs, crpt upstairs, stainless steel appls, skylight, exposâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d brick, 1.25 mi to JHMI. $1,100/mo. 443-286-4883. Patterson Park (145 N Lakewood), 3BR, 1BA house, appls, hdwd flrs, w/w crpt, gas heat, yd, 1 blk to park, nr water/square. $1,100/mo + utils. okomgmt@hotmail.com. Pikesville, 3BR, 3.5BA EOG TH w/updated appliances, replacement windows, fp. $1,500/ mo + utils. 443-629-6795 or 212-991-8173. Roland Park, lg 2BR apt w/dining rm, fp, balcony, less than 1 mi to Homewood campus. $1,000/mo (1st month free). 443-386-1879. Roland Park, 2BR + den condo, all new inside, gorgeous view, nr Homewood campus. 410-747-5037, nhh@comcast.net or go to http://sites.google.com/site/devonhillrental. The Atrium (118 N Howard St), studio apt, quiet, clean, secure, 24-hr front desk, resident prkng bldg next dr (connected by bridge) great location nr Inner Harbor, nr 95/395/I-83, utils and AC inclâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d in rent. 410-703-6026, blueskyballoon@gmail.com ACA SIGN-OFF or www.atriumapts.net/features/studio.cfm. Lg 2BR, 2BA condo w/balcony, 10th flr, new bamboo flrs, new appls, pool, sauna, gym, indoor prkng, half-mile to campus/shuttle, start date negotiable. $1,850/mo incl all utils. janstrat@verizon.net. I need to transfer my 1BR apt lease. $700/mo + utils. gitanjali.das@gmail.com. Spacious 2BR, 2BA condo, 2 blks to Homewood campus, 24-hr front desk security. $1,550/mo incl utils. 443-500-5074 or dani .amzel@gmail.com.

PUBLIC AUCTION SALE

Two Multi-Family Dwellings in Charles Village

HOUSES FOR SALE

Bolton Hill, immaculate TH, 2 big BRs, 2.5BAs, cathedral ceiling, hdwd flrs, new roof and windows, all appliances recent, ideal location. $313,000. 410-383-7055.

Roland Park, 2BR co-op apt next to Homewood campus, overlooks Wyman Park, walk to JHMI shuttle. $134,000. 443-615-5190. Timonium (8 Tyburn Ct), updated, spacious 4BR, 3BA single-family house, 2 mi to I-83 and light rail station. $375,500 (rent-to-own option). Debbie, 410-241-4724. Vistana Resorts in Orlando, timeshares avail, two 2BR villas and one 1BR villa, 25% of listing price. silviaarana1701@hotmail.com.

Renovated TwHm For Rent near Federal Hill 4BD/3BA, w/finish.LL. 3 decks overlooking HarborView Marina. Pkg pad. Easy access to I-95; stadiums, museums, restaurants, shops. Security/ref. required $3100/mo. Avail. 3/1/2010. Larry Nadar, 240-882-3467.

Sunny upstairs apt in historic Lauraville, priv entrance, shared kitchen, nr JHH/JHU. $600/mo incl utils. 443-844-4094.

CARS FOR SALE

â&#x20AC;&#x2122;01 Honda Accord, silver, new brakes, great cond, 183K mi. $4,500. 410-205-9576. â&#x20AC;&#x2122;98 Honda Civic LX, 4-dr sedan, dk green, 5-spd manual, power windows/locks, new tires/brakes/mufflers, excel cond, 98K mi. $3,200. Wenji Sun, 443-824-0735 or hzyongwang@yahoo.com. â&#x20AC;&#x2122;01 Toyota Corolla CE, clean Carfax report, looks and runs great, Md inspâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d, 140K mi. $3,500. nagee786@yahoo.com. â&#x20AC;&#x2122;01 Chevrolet Metro, new tires/brakes/timing belt, full service history, Md inspâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d, excel cond, 92K mi. $2,900/best offer. Lisagrant1@gmail.com. â&#x20AC;&#x2122;04 Toyota Camry LE, automatic, new tires, in great cond, 60K mi. $10,500. 410-4191731 or mallychin@yahoo.com.

Conn alto saxophone, in mint condition. $650/best offer. 410-488-1886.

-RKQV +RSNLQV *D]HWWH )HEUXDU\

Johns Hopkins / Hampden

www.brooksmanagementcompany.com

Couch/futon, located in Mt Vernon. $120/ best offer. 425-890-1327.

SERVICES/ITEMS OFFERED OR WANTED

Found: Bag of stationery items, on Jan 19 at Punjab Grocery store or JHU escort shuttle; owner may contact nidhi_khosla7@yahoo .com. Free to loving home: 8-yr-old M golden retriever w/pre-existing treated epilepsy, comes w/6-mo supply of medicine. 410-3777354.

Thinning out my library: various used Spanish, Latin American lit and lit criticism; also feminist criticism. $1-$2/ea. alexnones@ gmail.com.

Ideal gift for Valentineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day/birthdays: collection of beautiful sea shells, large and small, rare finds, prices negotiable. kangxiaoxu1@ gmail.com (for pics/further discussion). Need help with your JHU retirement plan investments portfolio? Free, confidential consultations. 410-435-5939 or treilly1@ aol.com. Friday Night Swing Dance Club, open to public, no partners necessary. 410-583-7337 or www.fridaynightswing.com. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sing your heart outâ&#x20AC;? karaoke avail for special events, parties, birthdays, all age groups, childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parties a specialty. Angie, 410-440-3488. Learn Arabic, MSA and colloquial, all levels, lessons tailored to needs of individual or group, native, experienced teacher. thaerra@ hotmail.com. Landscaper/certified horticulturist avail to maintain existing gardens, can also do planting, designing and masonry; free consultations. 410-683-7373 or grogan.family@ hotmail.com. Interior/exterior painting, home/deck power washing, general maintenance; licensed, insured, free estimates, affordable. 410-3351284 or randy6505vfw@yahoo.com. Licensed landscaper available for leaf and snow removal, trash hauling, lawn maintenance spring/summer, Taylor Landscaping LLC. 410-812-6090 or romilacapers@ comcast.net.

PLACING ADS

Canton-Fells Pt.-Patterson Pk.-Mt. Vernon

WYMAN COURT APTS. (BEECH AVE.) Effic from $570, 1 BD Apt. from $675, 2 BD from $775 HICKORY HEIGHTS APTS. (HICKORY AVE.) 2 BD units from $750 Shown by Appointment 410-764-7776

Car mats for 2009 Honda Accord, used gently for 3 mos, $40; glass dining table w/4 matching chairs and matching coffee table, $200; best offers accepted. Anitha, 612-2393672.

Affordable piano lessons for Hopkins employees, students and faculty. www .maymay-piano.com.

Share 2BR, 2BA apt in the Carlyle w/F JHU grad, air conditioners in BRs and living rm, hdwd flrs, W/D in unit, dw, gym, pool, restaurant, cafe, lounge/study rm in bldg, nr Homewood/JHMI shuttle. $725/mo + elec. 469-951-7479 pr shambryk@yahoo.com.

Charles Village, spacious, beautiful 5BR, 3BA house, nr BMA/shuttle and shops on

www.cantonmangement.com

Leather couch, overstuffed chair and ottoman, lt brown, 7 yrs old. $450. 410-9750696.

ROOMMATES WANTED

ITEMS FOR SALE

410-342-2205 or visit our website:

Great Valentineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day gift! Christian Dior Norwegian blue fox fur coat w/silver shades, womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s size 8-10, mint cond. $1,000. 443824-2198.

Looking for furnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d BR w/BA, on temporary basis, 1-4 wks (flexible) in March/April, nr 501 St Paul St. 415-931-1338.

Canton, 2BR, 2.5BA TH, 3rd flr, secure, waterfront views, upgraded kitchen, luxury BA, 2-car garage. Sonny, 443-955-2040.

Great 1, 2, & 3 bedroom rehabbed townhomes and apartments available! Competitive prices. Call Brooke,

Table w/shelves, computer, chair, printer, microwave, 3-step ladder, reciprocating saw, tripods, digital piano. 410-455-5858 or iricse .its@verizon.net.

Wyman Park and 31st St, fully renovâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d 3BR, 2BA TH, central HVAC, hdwd flrs, 2-car garage, 2 mins to JHU/BMA. $289,900 (rent option at $1,400/mo). 410-908-7583 or syakov@yahoo.com.

Rent Condo in The Carrollton Currently rented by JHU doc & will be avail. March 1, 2010, 1BD-1BA, kitch, DR, LR, underground parking addtl. $875.00/mo. + util. Call Mr. & Mrs. John DelGuzzo at 610-458-8764 or jadelguzzo@comcast.net

Classified listings are a free service for current, full-time Hopkins faculty, staff and students only. Ads should adhere to these general guidelines: â&#x20AC;˘ One ad per person per week. A new request must be submitted for each issue. â&#x20AC;˘ Ads are limited to 20 words, including phone, fax and e-mail.

â&#x20AC;˘ We cannot use Johns Hopkins business phone numbers or e-mail addresses. â&#x20AC;˘ Submissions will be condensed at the editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s discretion. â&#x20AC;˘ Deadline is at noon Monday, one week prior to the edition in which the ad is to be run. â&#x20AC;˘ Real estate listings may be offered only by a Hopkins-affiliated seller not by Realtors or Agents.

(Boxed ads in this section are paid advertisements.) Classified ads may be faxed to 443-287-9920; e-mailed in the body of a message (no attachments) to gazads@jhu.edu; or mailed to Gazette Classifieds, Suite 540, 901 S. Bond St., Baltimore, MD 21231. To purchase a boxed display ad, contact the Gazelle Group at 410-343-3362.

12 THE GAZETTE • February 1, 2010 F E B .

–

Calendar COLLOQUIA

“Cosmopolitanism and International Eugenics in the Mid-Twentieth Century,” a History of Science and Technology colloquium with Alison Bashford, University of Sydney. Seminar Room, 3rd floor, Welch Medical Library. EB

Thurs., Feb. 4, 3 p.m.

APL

Fri., Feb. 5, noon to 6 p.m.

D I S C U S S I O N / TA L K S

“The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan and the History of the Cold War,” a SAIS American Foreign Policy Program discussion of a book by Nicholas Thompson with Thompson, Eliot Cohen, director, SAIS Strategic Studies Program; Michael Mandelbaum, director, American Foreign Policy Program; and Richard Perle resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Building. SAIS

Mon., Feb. 1, 5:30 p.m.

G RA N D ROU N D S

“Mesenchymal Chondrosarcoma: Novel Morphologic, Immunophenotypic and Molecular Understanding and Discussion of Its Round Cell Tumor Mimickers,” Pathology Grand Rounds with Julie Fanburg-Smith, AFIP. Hurd Hall. EB

Mon., Feb. 1, 8:30 a.m.

General Preventive Medicine Grand Rounds presents the 2010 J. Douglas Colman Lecture, “Will Health Insurance Reform Improve Health Literacy? Impact on the Safety Net and Vulnerable Populations,” by Barbara DeBuono, Porter Novelli. Sponsored by the General Preventive Medicine Residency Program. W1214 SPH (Sheldon Hall). EB Thurs., Feb. 4, 4 p.m.

L E C TURE S Mon., Feb. 1, 5:15 p.m. “Godless Perversity, Godlike Sovereignty: Christian Thomasius and Jean Amery on Torture,” a German and Romance Languages and Literatures lecture by Elisabeth Weber, University of California, Santa Barbara. 101A Dell House. HW

Mon., Feb. 1, 4:30 p.m.

Tues., Feb. 2, 12:30 p.m. The 2010 Anna Baetjer Lecture—“A Farmboy Reflects on Farming” by Nicholas Kristof, columnist, New York Times. Sponsored by Environmental Health Sciences. E2014 SPH (Sommer Hall). EB

Tues., Feb. 2, 10:45 a.m.

The First Annual Sandra J. Skolnik Lecture by Harriet Meyer, president of the Ounce of Prevention Fund and co-chair of the Illinois Early Learning Council. Sponsored by the Urban Health Institute, the Maryland Family Network, PNC Bank, Legg Mason, M&T Bank, Bank of America and Citi. W1020 SPH. EB

Tues., Feb. 2, noon. “How Cells Get Their Shapes and Assemble Into Organs,” a Biological Chemistry seminar with Max Heiman, Rockefeller University. 612 Physiology. EB

Thurs.,

C O N F ERE N C E

“The New Geopolitics of the Middle East,” a Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Jewish Studies Program lecture by Efraim Inbar, BESA Center. Smokler Center for Jewish Life (Hillel). HW

Tues., Feb. 2, 3:30 p.m.

Fri., Feb. 5, 2 p.m. “Cyber Threats and Trends,” an Applied Physics Laboratory colloquium with Richard Howard, Verisign. Kossiakoff Center Auditorium.

“Madness and Religion,” a graduate conference on religion and psychiatry with keynote speakers Pascal Boyer, Washington University, St. Louis, and George Graham, Georgia State University. Sponsored by Philosophy and Evolution, Cognition and Culture. Sherwood Room, Levering.

Mon., Feb. 1, 7 p.m.

‘New York Times’ columnist Nicholas Kristof talks on Tuesday.

Foreign Affairs Continued from page 1 April 15, and Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is also expected to speak, though the date and location are to be announced. Also scheduled are several panel discussions: “Obama’s First Year” (Feb. 25), “The Way Forward: U.S. Military Strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan” (March 10) and “The War in Our Neighborhood: Narcoterrorism in Latin America” (April 21). In conjunction with the Alumni Association, the symposium will present during Alumni Weekend a “Nobel Prize” panel featuring alumni who have won the prestigious award (April 9; details TBA). All events take place at 8 p.m. in the Glass Pavilion, with doors opening at 7:30 p.m., unless otherwise noted above. At each event, the students will be collecting donations for the relief effort in Haiti, with proceeds going to the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Refugee and Disaster Response. It’s no small feat to pull together the symposium each year. Planning for the 2010 program began in May 2009, when undergraduates Mark Brennan, a sophomore majoring in international studies; Max Cohen, a senior majoring in international studies and economics; and Yuvaraj Sivalingam, a senior majoring in political science, were selected as the executive directors. As Sivalingam put it, “There is no off-season for FAS.” The early stages of the planning process include coming up with a theme, creating a shortlist of potential keynote speakers and developing an ongoing strategy for raising money. But the most important part is assembling the rest of the staff; this year, 22 students were chosen from a pool of 60 applicants. “The process begins years in advance at times, and is all about building relationships,” Brennan said. “This year, many of the speeches will be a culmination of over nine months of dialogue between the symposium, speakers’ bureaus and many nonprofit and government offices. So much of programming is perseverance and diligence and, more often than not, a stroke of sheer luck.” “Programming is done by the entire group,” Sivalingam said, “as we feel that one of the most rewarding aspects of being involved with FAS is having the opportunity to contact and work with the very leaders that we hope to bring to campus. We believe that we have put together an incredibly strong lineup this year, and that is a result of a strong staff that deserves a good deal of credit. Having such a talented group to work with makes our jobs as directors much easier.” Cohen said that while being a director is “undoubtedly a hard job,” it’s one that he finds rewarding. “This year’s symposium promises to be the best yet and showcases many speakers that I am dying to meet,” he said. “We get the chance to meet and have dinner with many of our speakers, but also to say that I brought Nicholas Kristof and the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, to campus.” Visitors to the symposium’s Web site, www.jhu.edu/fas, will find new features such as links to video clips of some of the speakers’ appearances on The Daily Show and BBC News, along with links to articles about them. The students will also post images and videos after the lectures at Johns Hopkins. The team hopes that people will leave comments and carry on discussions on the site. “We felt we needed to, at the very least, move toward creating a Web site that would help us accomplish our goals as a symposium,” Sivalingam said. “We hope to foster intellectual discourse on campus by creating a space in which students and members of the public may interact and engage with global leaders regarding current, pressing international issues.” G

Feb.

5:15

p.m.

“...‘of readers who could swim’: Hamann’s Passages,” a German and Romance Languages and Literatures lecture by Andrea Krauss, KSAS. 101A Dell House. HW Fri., Feb. 5, 5:15 p.m. “All Is Leaf: Difference, Form and Phenomenology Around 1800,” a German and Romance Languages and Literatures lecture by Thomas Pfau, Duke University. 101A Dell House. HW

MUSIC Tues., Feb. 2, 8 p.m. Faculty Chamber Music Concert, featuring works by Beethoven, Webern and Brahms. $15 general admission, $10 for senior citizens and $5 for students with ID. Friedberg Hall. Peabody

Peabody Spotlight presents pianist Michael Sheppard. Part of a series of midday concerts sponsored by the JHMI Office of Cultural Affairs. Concerts will be broadcast on channel 54 within the hospital. Turner Auditorium. EB

Wed., Feb. 3, noon.

Sat., Feb. 6, 8 p.m. Peabody Symphony Orchestra performs works by Mills, Schwantner and Mahler. $15 general admission, $10 for senior citizens and $5 for students with ID. Friedberg Hall. Peabody

S E M I N AR S

“The Role of RanGTP Gradient in Mitotic Spindle Assembly and Nuclear Envelope Formation,” a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology seminar with Petr Kalab, NCI/NIH. W1020 SPH. EB

Mon., Feb. 1, noon.

“Juvenile Hormone and the Timing of Drosophila Metamorphosis,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Lynn Riddiford, Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW

Mon., Feb. 1, 12:15 p.m.

Mon., Feb. 1, 4 p.m. “Photosynthesis in the (Near) Dark: Biosynthesis of Bacteriochlorophyll C and the Structure of Its Supramolecular Aggregates in Chlorosomes,” a Biophysics seminar with Donald Bryant, Pennsylvania State University. 111 Mergenthaler. HW

“An Infinite Loop Space Machine for Symmetric Monoidal 2-Categories,” a Topology seminar with Angelica Osorno, MIT. Sponsored by Mathematics. 308 Krieger. HW “Use of Preclinical Stroke Models to Address Efficacy and Mechanisms of Action of Neuroprotective Agents,” a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology seminar with Sylvain Dore. W1020 SPH. EB

Tues.,

Feb.

12:10

p.m.

“Advancing Gun Policies to Combat Illegal Guns,” a Graduate Seminar in Injury Research and Policy with Arkadi Gerney, Office of the Mayor, New York City and Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Sponsored by the Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence. 250 Hampton House. EB Tues., Feb. 2, 3 p.m. “Measuring Contaminant Flux in Groundwater: Why and How,” a Geography and Environmental Engineering seminar with Mark Goltz, Air Force Institute of Technology. 234 Ames. HW Tues., Feb. 2, 4:30 p.m. “Zero Loci of Normal Functions,” an Algebraic Geometry/Number Theory seminar with Gregory Pearlstein, Michigan State University. Sponsored by Mathematics. 308 Krieger. HW Tues., Feb. 2, 4:30 p.m. “Segmental Conditional Random Fields and Their Features,” a Center for Language and Speech Processing seminar with Geoffrey Zweig, Microsoft. B17 CSEB. HW Tues., Feb. 2, 6 p.m. “Fraxel Repair Laser,” a Johns Hopkins Dermatology seminar with Rebecca Kazin. Suite 350, Pavilion I, Johns Hopkins at Green Spring Station.

“Can We Believe Any Surgical Trials? Expertise Bias and Other Challenges in Their Conduct,” an Epidemiology seminar with Mohit Bhandari, McMaster University. W2030 SPH. EB

Wed., Feb. 3, 8:30 a.m.

Wed.,

Feb.

12:15

p.m.

“Psychological Aspects of Cardiovascular Disease: Perspective Continued on page 9

Calendar

Key

APL BRB CRB CSEB

(Events are free and open to the public except where indicated.)

Applied Physics Laboratory Broadway Research Building Cancer Research Building Computational Science and Engineering Building EB East Baltimore HW Homewood KSAS Krieger School of Arts and Sciences PCTB Preclinical Teaching Building SAIS School of Advanced International Studies SoM School of Medicine SoN School of Nursing SPH School of Public Health WBSB Wood Basic Science Building WSE Whiting School of Engineering