The Gazette by The Johns Hopkins University

o ur 4 0 th ye ar

MLK J R . E V E N T

OBITUAR IES

Covering Homewood, East Baltimore, Peabody,

U.S. Surgeon General Regina

Longtime faculty members

SAIS, APL and other campuses throughout the

Benjamin, left, and Shirley

Charles O’Melia, left, and John

Baltimore-Washington area and abroad, since 1971.

Sherrod to be speakers, page 4

Doering have died, page 3

January 3, 2011

The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University

H O M E W O O D

Volume 40 No. 16

E V E N T

A day to remember

WSE receives largest gift, for new building By Dennis O’Shea

Homewood

Continued on page 2

JAY VANRENSSELAER / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

iberty Media Corp. chairman and Johns Hopkins alumnus John C. Malone has given the university’s Whiting School of Engineering $30 million for a building where researchers will collaborate with colleagues from other Johns John Malone Hopkins divisions to learn to tailor therapies for indiof Liberty vidual patients and devise systemsMedia gives based approaches to some of society’s $30 million biggest problems. The gift, the for endeavor largest ever to the Whiting School, will fund construction of a 56,000-square-foot research building on the university’s Homewood campus. Malone Hall will house two planned interdisciplinary research efforts in which the Whiting School will have a leadership role: It will be the home of the Systems Institute and the Homewood base for Johns Hopkins’ emerging initiative in individualized health. “We are deeply grateful to John Malone for this truly transformational gift,” said Ronald J. Daniels, the university’s president. “Scientists from all across Johns Hopkins will join together in Malone Hall, building on the foundation laid by the Whiting School’s own engineers, mathematicians and computational scientists. Together, they will attack important problems from a variety of perspectives; that kind of collaboration is what makes breakthroughs happen.” The initiative in individualized health is expected to bring together engineers, life scientists and medical researchers from across Johns Hopkins. They will focus on bringing information science into the practice of medicine, with an initial emphasis on cancer, in a manner that will allow an unprecedented focus on treatment designed for the individual patient. The approach grows out of the

A line of cars arrives at Green Mount Cemetery on Christmas Eve morning for the annual graveside remembrance of Johns Hopkins, who died on Dec. 24, 1873.

his year’s graveside remembrance of the university’s founder took an unexpected turn: The faithful arrived for the gathering at Green Mount Cemetery as they had each Christmas Eve day since 1998, the 125th anniversary of Johns Hopkins’ death, only to find the gates to the property inexplicably locked.

University community gathers at cemetery to pay tribute to founder By Lois Perschetz

The Gazette

With no way to gain access to the private facility, attendees huddled by the picturesque entrance while Ross Jones, vice president emeritus of the university, led the informal tribute to Mr. Hopkins, who died on Dec. 24, 1873. Jones, who organizes the annual obserContinued on page 2

O U T R E A C H

JH faculty highly value involvement of nearby urban community for improving research, survey finds By Michael Pena

Berman Institute of Bioethics

survey conducted by Johns Hopkins faculty members found strong support among their peers for working more closely with the minority inner-city community that surrounds the institution. Overall, 91 percent of faculty responders

In Brief

Record early acceptance applications; thank you video goes live; forensic nurse training

said closer ties make research more relevant to those it ultimately serves, and 87 percent said it improves the quality of research. “This is a huge, stunning finding,” says Nancy Kass, deputy director for public health at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. “Faculty are giving a ringing endorsement of how important working with the community can be when conducting research.”

Calendar

MLK Jr. Commemoration; Preparatory Jazz Ensembles; author/activist David Swanson

Beyond these sentiments, the survey found that Johns Hopkins health researchers who conducted studies in the surrounding community were more likely to hire and collaborate with local residents. The survey, published in the December issue of the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, is believed to be Continued on page 8

6 6 7

Job Opportunities Notices Classifieds

2 THE GAZETTE • January 3, 2011

Reminder about university textbook policy By Greg Rienzi

The Gazette

ith a new semester set to commence, Johns Hopkins officials are reminding faculty, staff and students of the recently enacted universitywide textbook affordability policy in compliance with new state and federal laws. The intent is to lower the cost of textbooks by ensuring that people have appropriate options and pertinent and timely information when selecting and purchasing course materials. The policy came in response to the Maryland College Textbook Competition and Affordability Act and the federal Higher Education Opportunity Act. Before selecting a textbook, faculty should consider such factors as price, available formats (hardcover, paperback and online editions) and the difference in content between current and previous

Remember Continued from page 1 vance, spoke of the vision not only of the man who left $7 million in his will to establish the university and hospital that bear his name but of the people who took the reins when they received the endowment, at that time the largest philanthropic bequest in U.S. history. Among those in attendance were Provost Lloyd Minor, Chief Information Officer

WSE

editions. Also, the university must post certain textbook-related information for all courses—such as a book’s ISBN identifier, whether a previous edition will suffice and anticipated class enrollment— within three weeks after selection of class materials by a faculty member. The university is encouraging early selection and adoption of textbooks and course materials so that students have an opportunity to explore budget-sensitive options. Faculty teaching in upcoming terms may expect to be contacted by their program or dean’s office and provided additional information or instructions about compliance with state and federal regulations. The policy, a letter from Provost Lloyd Minor, a list of divisional contacts and a FAQ sheet can be found at http://webapps .jhu.edu/jhuniverse/administration/ councils_committees_programs/textbook _taskforce.

Stephanie Reel, Alumni Association President Raymond Snow, staff, faculty, employees’ family members and others who wanted to take a moment during the busy holiday season to remember a man whose life continues to affect so many. The wreath that is customarily placed next to Mr. Hopkins’ simple tombstone “as a token of admiration and gratitude,” Jones said, was brought to its proper place when the cemetery reopened. G To read Mr. Hopkins’ obituary from the Dec. 25, 1873, edition of The Baltimore Sun, go to www.jhu.edu/125th/links/obit.html.

vided by John Malone,” said Jones, the Benjamin T. Rome Dean of the Whiting School, “will enable us to bring together Johns Hopkins experts to focus on innovative solutions to some of today’s most Continued from page 1 challenging problems. The work that will recognition that genetic and epigenetic diftake place in Malone Hall ultimately will ferences among patients explain, at least in have a profound impact on our world. We part, why traditionally developed drugs help are thrilled that John shares our vision for some people and not others. what engineering and other disciplines can Instead of a piecemeal, component-byaccomplish together.” component approach, the Systems Institute Widely recognized as a pioneer in comwill take a multidisciplinary munications and media, look at re-engineering entire Malone earned a massystems of national importer of science degree in tance, including medicine, industrial management health care delivery, netfrom Johns Hopkins work-enabled systems, inforin 1964, followed by a mation security, national doctorate in operations infrastructure and educaresearch three years later. tion. In addition to faculty He is chairman of Liberty in the Whiting School, Media Corp., a holding the institute will tap into company that, through the expertise of researchers ownership in subsidiarfrom the university’s three ies and other companies, health professions schools, is engaged primarily in Medicine, Public Health and the electronic retailing, Nursing; from the schools of media, communications Arts and Sciences, Business John C. Malone and entertainment indusand Education; and from the tries. Interests include Applied Physics Laboratory, already one QVC, Starz, the Atlanta Braves and Sirius of the nation’s leading centers of systems XM Radio Inc. engineering. Malone also is chairman of Liberty Global “I am pleased to be able to support the Inc., a holding company that, through ownWhiting School and its leader, Nick Jones,” ership of interests in subsidiaries and affiliMalone said, “in this exciting expansion ates, provides broadband distribution serof interdisciplinary research between the vices and video programming services to School of Engineering and so many of the subscribers in Europe, Latin America and other divisions of the university.” Australia. Malone Hall will stand at the southeast He is chairman emeritus of CableLabs and corner of Decker Quadrangle, the universia member of the boards of Ascent Media, ty’s newest, dedicated in 2007. It will adjoin the Cato Institute, Discovery CommunicaHackerman Hall, which houses computations, Expedia Inc. and Live Nation Entertional science and engineering programs, tainment. He was chief executive officer of and Mason Hall, the university’s admissions Tele-Communications Inc. from 1973 to and visitor center. Construction of the four1999, when TCI merged with AT&T Corp. story structure is expected to begin in 2012. Malone received his undergraduate degree “The generous financial support profrom Yale University in 1963. G

I N B R I E F

Early decision acceptances go out to 518 students

he Office of Undergraduate Admissions has sent out early decision acceptance letters and e-mails to 518 students, choosing the first members of the class of 2015 from the largest early decision applicant pool in the university’s history. The record number of applications, 1,330, was up more than 15 percent from last year, and Johns Hopkins’ early decision applications have nearly tripled over the past decade, according to John Latting, dean of undergraduate admissions. The previous record number was 1,155 in 2009. The anticipated incoming class size is 1,235. The 518 students come from 39 states and 20 countries. Two-thirds will attend the School of Arts and Sciences and onethird the School of Engineering. Significant demographic increases were seen in the early decision pool among siblings of current Johns Hopkins students, African-American students, international students (with the top five countries being South Korea, China, Canada, India and Turkey) and applicants from Southern and Western states. Latting said that the early decision class is diverse academically as well, with a growing number of students expressing interest in the humanities and social sciences. “I’m excited about this class,” Latting said. “You can measure them all you want in terms of their grades and test scores but, more importantly, I think they are just a great group of students in terms of what they will bring to our campus community. It’s a great beginning to the class of 2015.” Regular decision applications were due Jan. 1, with admissions decisions being released by April 1. Regular decision students are given until May 1 to enroll.

Governor’s grant continues and expands forensic nurse training

enewed funding of a grant from the Maryland Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention will allow nurses from around the region to attend sexual assault forensic nurse examiner training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. This is the fifth year in which faculty member Daniel Sheridan has received the grant to conduct two 40-hour adolescent/ adult sexual assault forensic nurse examiner sessions. “A large percentage of the nurses throughout Maryland who are doing forensic sexual assault evidence exams have been trained through one of the previous Hopkins sessions,” Sheridan said, noting that the school teaches two out of the three adolescent/adult forensic nurse examiner trainings in Maryland. The class sessions are based on recommendations from the International Association of Forensic Nurses; to complete the 40

Editor Lois Perschetz Writer Greg Rienzi Production Lynna Bright Copy Editor Ann Stiller Photography Homewood Photography A d v e rt i s i n g The Gazelle Group Business Dianne MacLeod C i r c u l at i o n Lynette Floyd W e bm a s t e r Tim Windsor

to 60 additional clinical hours, Sheridan helps place the participants in programs close to their homes. The GOCCP also funded Sheridan to transfer a minimum of eight hours of the sexual assault training material to an online format. “By transitioning this 40-hour course to at least three days of an online format, we’ll be saving local programs thousands of dollars per each nurse trained,” he said.

End-of-year thank you video debuts on university homepage

y the end of Tuesday, its first day on the university’s home page, the Johns Hopkins end-of-year thank you video had captured more than 10,000 visitors, who viewed the video, behind-the-scenes photos and outtakes (yes, that is Nobel laureate Peter Agre warming up by singing the periodic table) and checked out the Gilbert and Sullivan–like lyrics. The video, dubbed The Model of a Modern University, was produced for the second year by the university’s Office of Marketing and Creative Services. Faculty, staff and students from all divisions took part in the production, hamming it up and lip-syncing the complicated lyrics. They all “sounded” great, thanks to the vocals provided by members of Peabody’s Opera Department. To see the video—and weigh in on Facebook or Twitter—go to modeluniversity.jhu .edu.

Project MUSE confirms 27 publishers for first e-books

roject MUSE has signed contracts with 27 scholarly publishers to offer their upcoming monographs in the humanities and social sciences as part of electronic book collections on the MUSE platform. MUSE is partnering for the program with many of the same publishers that currently contribute content to its successful electronic scholarly journal collections. Among those participating in the e-book initiative are Columbia University Press, University of Michigan Press, Georgetown University Press, Duke University Press, Indiana University Press, Penn State University Press, University of Illinois Press and the Johns Hopkins University Press. The first collections of frontlist monographs will be offered for purchase in fall 2011. Subject-based collections as well as a comprehensive collection of all available titles will be offered. Pricing and book title details are expected to be announced by late March. Book content will be seamlessly integrated with MUSE’s existing journal content, allowing users to search and browse across formats and easily discover related scholarship. Books will be offered in PDF format, searchable and retrievable to the chapter 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, Patrick Ercolano Homewood Lisa De Nike, Amy Lunday, Dennis O’Shea, Tracey A. Reeves, Phil Sneiderman Johns Hopkins Medicine Christen Brownlee, Stephanie Desmon, Neil A. Grauer, Audrey Huang, John Lazarou, David March, Vanessa McMains, Ekaterina 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.

January 3, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

O B I T U A R I E S

Charles O’Melia, 76, expert in water, wastewater treatment By Phil Sneiderman

Homewood

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

harles R. O’Melia, one of the world’s leading water treatment researchers, who also mentored more than 100 environmental engineering graduate students during almost three decades at The Johns Hopkins University, died Dec. 16, at age 76. Mary O’Melia, his wife of 54 years, said that her husband was diagnosed with brain cancer shortly after Thanksgiving and died in his sleep while receiving hospice care at the family’s home in Timonium, Md. “It was a very peaceful passing,” she said. In recent weeks, many friends, former students and professional colleagues had sent cards, sharing favorite memories. “It meant a lot to him,” Mary O’Melia said. At the time of this death, Charles O’Melia was a professor emeritus in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering in the university’s Whiting School of Engineering. O’Melia, known to family and friends as Charlie, left behind a highly respected body of work. In 2005 the journal Environmental Science and Technology paid tribute to O’Melia in a special issue, calling attention to his studies of how particles behave in water and how best to remove them. A commentary piece in the journal said, “His work has inspired scientists and engineers worldwide and has made a profound impact on the design and operation of water treatment plants.” In a joint message to the Whiting School, Nick Jones, dean of the school, and Edward Bouwer, chair of DoGEE, said, “A true scholar and gentleman, Charlie embodied the best of Johns Hopkins. His generosity and warmth of spirit were matched by a terrific dedication to his work as a researcher, educator and scholar. Charlie had a tremendous impact on the department, the university and the field of environmental engineering, and his passing is a terrible loss to generations of his colleagues, students, friends and leaders throughout the water industry and academia.” In an interview, Bouwer added, “Charlie’s impact on the profession of environmental engineering, especially in the area of water and wastewater treatment, has been immense. He did pioneering work on removal of particles from water. His models and methodology have really stood the test of time and are still being used today.” O’Melia was considered one of the world’s foremost experts in filtration and coagulation. In recognition of his water treatment expertise, he was chosen a decade ago to chair an advisory committee that reviewed the management of New York City’s water supply. His many honors included election in 1989 to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering. In 2000, he was the recipient of the Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize, one of the top awards in the field of water-related research and technology. The Clarke honor came with a gold medallion and a $50,000 prize. In an interview when the award was announced, O’Melia, known for his humble demeanor, said, “I’m going to keep the medal and give away the money. If I’d won the lottery, I wouldn’t give all of that money away. But this was an award associated with some of the work I’ve done, and I didn’t want to profit from it. I wanted to recognize some of the places that have helped my wife and me to get here. It was a team effort.” O’Melia donated some of the prize money to Manhattan College, where he received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1955. The gift was designated for an endowment honoring Donald J. O’Connor, a professor who introduced O’Melia to environmental engineering. The remaining funds were donated to Fontbonne Hall, a Catholic girls’ high school in Brooklyn, N.Y., that his wife attended.

Charles O’Melia at the 2004 American Chemical Society symposium and dinner held in his honor.

O’Melia maintained lifelong ties to New York City. He was born in Manhattan in 1934 to a mother who taught elementary school and a father who was an accountant for a construction company. He grew up in the Bronx and Brooklyn and attended his father’s alma mater, Manhattan College. His fascination with the city’s bridges, tunnels and tall buildings initially led him to study civil engineering. But gradually he was drawn to the emerging field of environmental engineering. “It just seemed more intellectually challenging at the time,” he said in a 2000 interview with the Johns Hopkins Gazette. “It also allowed me to do something that involved serving the public.” In 1956, O’Melia earned his master’s degree in environmental engineering at the University of Michigan, then returned to New York City, where he took an engineering job with a consulting firm. That year he married Mary Curley, starting a family that grew to six children. The consulting job was short-lived, however, as O’Melia opted to return to Michigan to pursue his doctorate in environmental engineering, which he completed in 1963. Afterward, he taught at Georgia Tech, did further research at Harvard University and then served on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During these years, he developed a love of teaching and research that remained with him throughout his career. At UNC in 1971, O’Melia collaborated with his first doctoral student and a third researcher to produce a paper called “Water and Wastewater Filtration: Concepts and Applications.” The highly influential paper detailed particle activities in the water filtration process: interception, sedimentation and diffusion. O’Melia’s rigorous research on these processes eventually influenced U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filtration rules for removing harmful particles and microbes from water. In 1979, The Johns Hopkins University re-established a separate engineering school. O’Melia was recruited for a faculty post in the rejuvenated Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering and was hired in 1980. He spent 27 years with the department, including two terms as department chair, and mentored numerous master’s and doctoral students, many of whom went on to become prominent professors at other schools and leading figures in government and private engineering posts. “As a teacher, Charlie was simply extraordinary,” said William C. Becker, one of O’Melia’s former doctoral students and now vice president and director of Water Process Technology and Research at Hazen and Sawyer, a New York consulting firm. “He had a way of explaining very complex material in terms that were understandable. More importantly, he taught his students to always look at problems in terms of first principles but to also always keep an eye on the big picture. As an adviser he demonstrated creativity, clear vision and true excellence.” Becker also described O’Melia as “a phe-

nomenal role model” and “perhaps the most humble person I have ever met, always giving credit to others. In summary, Charlie embodied all of the characteristics of a true mentor.” During his years at Johns Hopkins, O’Melia saw his home department rise in stature. “It’s been remarkable to see the growth of environmental engineering in the department from almost nonexistent in 1980 to a program that’s consistently ranked among the best in the country,” O’Melia told Johns Hopkins Engineering magazine in 2007, when he announced his retirement. During his years on the faculty, he also served on national advisory panels and in water research organization positions, while continuing to conduct important studies in aquatic chemistry, environmental colloid chemistry, water and wastewater treatment, and modeling of natural surface and subsurface waters. In 1999, he was named the university’s Abel Wolman Professor of Environmental Engineering, a position established in honor of a renowned Johns Hopkins faculty member who pioneered modern water supply chlorination methods. O’Melia also continued to be the subject of tributes for his teaching and his research. One of the most noteworthy events occurred in 2004, when he was honored with a symposium and dinner at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society, held in Philadelphia. Over a three-day period, 44 oral presentations were delivered and a poster session held, all in honor of O’Melia and his research. Shortly after the event, O’Melia told The Gazette that he had been reluctant to be the

focus of such attention. But he also said that he had attended every scholarly presentation at the meeting and was delighted by the content. “I was impressed,” he said. “Everyone I talked to felt that the level of research was very high. To me, the good thing was to see more focus on this area of research—particles, pollutants and interfaces in water.” Regarding the tribute dinner, he added, “They showed a lot of playful old pictures that neither my wife nor I knew existed. There was a lot of mirth and laughter and camaraderie.” O’Melia’s favorite avocation was basketball. Until an injury sidelined him at age 60, he was known as a fierce competitor on the court in pickup games with his students and colleagues. He also was devoted to his family. Mary O’Melia said he had a chance to visit with all of his children and grandchildren in the weeks before his death. In addition to his wife, he is survived by daughters Kathleen O’Melia, of Timonium, Md., Mary Margaret O’Melia, of Chapel Hill, N.C., and Anne Marie O’Melia O’Conor, of Cincinnati; sons Charles “Chuck” O’Melia, of Atlanta, John O’Melia, of Towson, Md., and Michael O’Melia, of Chapel Hill; sister Anne Frances O’Melia, of Chappaqua, N.Y.; and 11 grandchildren. A memorial mass was held Dec. 29 at St. Joseph’s Parish in Cockeysville, Md. The university’s Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering will hold a service in honor of O’Melia at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 12, on the Homewood campus; the location will be announced after the start of the next semester.

John P. Doering, 73, professor of chemistry for four decades turned out to be particularly important in atmospheric chemistry modeling. In his last Homewood series of experiments, he collaborated with Jack Moore and Michael Copland of the University of Maryland on experiments in ohn P. Doering, a longtime faculty memwhich two electrons were ejected from a ber in the Krieger School of Arts and target atom, making it possible to study in Sciences’ Department of Chemistry, died detail how electrons avoid each other in the at home in Baltimore County on Dec. 13 atom. from cardiac arrest. He was 73. Born and raised in the Southwest, Doer Doering graduated Phi Beta Kappa from ing was broadly interested in the Johns Hopkins in 1958 and arts and music, especially opera; joined the faculty in 1964 after played the piano; and was an earning his doctorate at the accomplished painter. He was University of California, Berkebeloved by his students, colley in 1961 and working for leagues and friends for his wise, three years at the Los Alamos insightful sense of humor. Scientific Laboratory (now Los Doering is survived by his Alamos National Laboratory). wife, Zahava Dudnik Doering, He became a full professor in who taught at Johns Hopkins in 1970. Four decades of Johns what is now the Department of Hopkins freshmen studied in Sociology; seven children: Larry chemistry laboratories under his John Doering Doering; Elana Lubit, a 1981 supervision. He also had underalumna of the university; Karl Doering; graduate assistants in his labs and classes, Tamara Brent, a 1983 alumna who received was the thesis adviser of at least 11 doctoral her MD/PhD here in 1991; Don Doering, students and worked with numerous posta 1985 alumnus; Andrea Doering, of the doctoral fellows. Office of Technology Transfer; and Stefanie Doering’s research focused on the colliSchwenk; his children’s spouses; and 10 sions of electrons with atoms and molecules grandchildren. A private funeral service was in the gas phase that take place in the held Dec. 16 in Santa Fe, N.M. The Chematmospheres of planets and stars. He was a istry Department will honor Doering at a pioneer in the use of rockets and satellites time and place to be announced. for measurements of electrons in the Earth’s Donations can be made to research at atmosphere, and his laboratory provided the Johns Hopkins Parkinson’s Disease and electron spectrometers for three AtmoMovement Disorders Center (indicate John sphere Explorer satellite missions between Doering in the subject line of checks and 1970 and 1983 and measured the phomail to Zoltan Mari, MD, Johns Hopkins toelectron spectrum of the Earth’s atmoNeurology, 600 N. Wolfe St., Meyer 6-181, sphere to a degree of detail that remains Baltimore, MD 21287) or to the American unequaled. Society for the Preservation of Nature in In laboratory experiments, he studied Israel (go to www.aspni.org and click on the excitation and ionization of atoms and Donate Now; send e-mail to robin@aspni molecules by electron impact, and their .org indicating that a donation has been subsequent energy loss. His determination made in Doering’s honor). of the rates of excitation of atomic oxygen By Lisa De Nike

4 THE GAZETTE • January 3, 2011

Benjamin, Sherrod to headline MLK Jr. Commemoration The Gazette

.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and Shirley Sherrod, the former U.S. Department of Agriculture official forced to resign last summer following a racially shaded controversy, will be the featured guests and keynote speakers for Johns Hopkins’ 29th annual Martin Luther King Jr. birthday remembrance, an event that takes place this week. The theme is “Strength to Love: A Legacy for the Kings, a Future for America.” Begun in 1982, the Johns Hopkins Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration honors the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s legacy of nonviolent activism and community service. This year’s event will take place from noon to 1:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 7, in Turner Auditorium on the East Baltimore campus and will be broadcast to several other university and health system locations. Benjamin and Sherrod, both Southern women who rose to the top of their fields, join a notable list of past speakers that includes Maya Angelou, Louis Gossett Jr., Harry Belafonte Jr., the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, James Earl Jones, Jesse Jackson, Danny Glover, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King. President Ronald J. Daniels; Edward D. Miller, dean of the School of Medicine and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine; and Ronald R. Peterson, president of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, will give opening remarks. Gregory Branch, director of the Baltimore County Health Department and an instructor in the Department of Medicine at the School of Medicine, will act as master of ceremonies. Benjamin is the 18th surgeon general of the United States Public Health Service. As “America’s doctor,” she provides the best scientific information available on how to improve the health of individuals and of the nation. She also oversees the operational command of 6,500 uniformed health officers who serve in locations around the world. Benjamin is founder and former CEO of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Alabama, former associate dean for rural health at the University of South Alabama’s College of Medicine and immediate past chair of the Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States. In 1995, she was the first physician under age 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected to the American Medical Association board of trustees. She served as president of the AMA Education and Research Foundation and as chair of the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. In 2002, she became president of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, making her the first African-American female president of a state medical society in the country. In 1998, Benjamin was the United States

recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights. She was named by Time magazine as one of the nation’s 50 future leaders age 40 and under. Benjamin experienced Hurricane Georges in 1998, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and a devastating fire in 2006, often putting up her own money to cover others’ expenses. She also became nationally prominent for her business acumen and humane approach to preventive medicine. Levi Watkins, a professor of cardiac surgery in the School of Medicine who organizes the annual King remembrance, said that Benjamin can talk about access to health care and the great needs that exist in many poor U.S. communities. “She is an incredible lady of the South. She has U.S. Surgeon Generovercome many al Regina Benjamin obstacles. I feel it is timely to have a conversation about race and health, urban health in particular. Certainly that topic is a crucial one at Johns Hopkins,” said Watkins, associate dean for postdoctoral programs. “There are still major issues and health needs we need to address across this country.” Shirley Sherrod, a longtime expert on rural development and land trusts, joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2009 as the Georgia state director of rural development. She was the first black person to hold that position. In July 2010, Sherrod was forced to resign from her position at the USDA after conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted video excerpts on his website of a Sherrod address at an NAACP event. According to

Breitbart, her comments showed how a federally appointed executive racially discriminated against a white farmer. The video set off a storm of controversy and criticism of Sherrod. Subsequent events showed that the posted video clip was taken out of context and was part of broader comments that conveyed a completely different meaning. The NAACP apologized for critical comments, and her boss at the USDA also apologized and offered her another job, which she declined. Sherrod was born in 1947 in Baker County, Ga., where her father, a deacon at the local Baptist church, was shot to death by a white farmer, reportedly over a dispute about livestock. No charges were returned against the shooter by an all-white grand jury. The murder of her father, when she was just 17 years old, had a profound impact on her life, she has said, and led to her decision to stay in the South to bring about change. She attended Albany (Ga.) State, where she received her bachelor’s degree in sociology and worked for civil rights with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, through which she met her future husband, the Rev. Charles Sherrod. Shirley Sherrod, for During the merly of the USDA 1960s, the couple helped form several land trusts in southwest Georgia, in particular, New Communities Inc., a collective farm co-founded by Shirley Sherrod in 1969. Located in Lee County, the 6,000-acre project was the largest tract of black-owned land in the United States. It was to be a laboratory and model for community land trusts designed to provide an

KEITH WELLER

By Greg Rienzi

Among the recipients of this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Awards are Ted Alban, Tong Zhang, Sammi Turner, Swanzeta Nciweni, Ann Marie Lee-Wilkins and Barry Meyer. Fanon Hill and Kathleen Norton are not pictured.

equitable and sustainable model of affordable housing and community development while providing African-American farmers the opportunity to farm land securely and affordably. The project encountered difficulties: White farmers accused participants of being Communists, and Gov. Lester Maddox prevented development funds for the project from entering the state. A drought in the 1970s, fertilizer suppliers selling the farmers inferior products and an inability to get timely government loans led to the project’s demise. Sherrod went on to work with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives to help black farmers keep their land. Sherrod later served on the board of the Rural Development Leadership Network, until she accepted her position with the USDA in 2009. Watkins said that Sherrod’s dismissal from the USDA is proof that racial discourse in America can still prove toxic. “Conversations of race are still very difficult issues for America, and it came up in the case of Shirley,” he said. “Honest and truthful conversations on race are still problematic. I know Shirley can give us an open and honest conversation and use her background as examples.” Friday’s celebration will include the 20th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Awards ceremony, in which eight Johns Hopkins employees will be honored for demonstrating through community service the spirit of volunteerism and citizenship that characterized King’s life. Being recognized from the university are Ted Alban, an assistant administrator in the School of Medicine; Fanon Hill, a materials handler at the Homewood campus; Kathleen Norton, a field director at the Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Tong Zhang, an immunology graduate student in the School of Medicine. Health system honorees are Barry Meyer, a facilities director at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center; Swanzeta Nciweni, a transplant information systems specialist at The Johns Hopkins Hospital; Sammi Turner, a special needs coordinator with Johns Hopkins Health Care; and Ann Marie Lee-Wilkins, a patient care manager at Bayview. The Unified Voices Choir, a gospel group whose ranks include both Johns Hopkins staff and community members, will provide musical entertainment beginning at 11:30 a.m. Those unable to attend can view the event on closed-circuit television in Levering Hall’s Arellano Theater on the Homewood campus; Hurd Hall and Tilghman Auditorium, or on JHH Patient Channel 54, on the East Baltimore campus; the Asthma and Allergy Auditorium at Bayview; the auditorium at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda; conference room C113 in Davis Hall at Mount Washington; the Kossiakoff Center Auditorium at the Applied Physics Laboratory; or the third-floor conference room at 901 S. Bond St. in Fells Point.

Visit our website to view the beautiful landscaped grounds, amenities, and house-sized apartments. Call our friendly staff and ask out about our fantastic special leasing offers for Johns Hopkins Faculty and Staff! Hear what your colleagues are saying about us: “Located at the end of Roland Avenue in a picturesque location, nested between a school, playground and a golf course . . swimming pool, fitness club and ample jog space makes it ideal for people who love physical activity . . . an ideal home.” Venkat P. Gunareddy, MD JHU School of Medicine

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E-mail: elkridgeestates@rocksco.com Office Hours: M-F: 8:30-5:00pm, Sat: 10:00-4:00pm A MMHA Gold Star Award Winning Community and Service Team

January 3, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

D I S C O V E R Y

New dinosaur species named for Johns Hopkins postdoc By Lisa De Nike

Homewood

COURTESY OF MARINA SUAREZ

new species of dinosaur discovered near Green River, Utah, has been named for a Johns Hopkins University postdoctoral fellow and her twin sister whose geology work while they were graduate students helped define the new species. Named Geminiraptor suarezarum for Marina Suarez, the Blaustein Postdoctoral Scholar in Johns Hopkins’ Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and her twin, Celina Suarez, now a postdoctoral student at Boise State University, the six- to seven-foot-long raptorlike dinosaur with large eyes and dexterous claws is thought to have lived about 125 million years ago, according to Utah’s Bureau of Land Management. The dinosaur’s Latin name means “Twin Predatory Thief of the Suarezes” in honor of the 29-year-old twins, who received their master’s degrees from Temple University and their doctorates from the University of Kansas. They discovered the site where

Marina Suarez, right, and twin sister Celina digging in Utah, where they discovered a dinosaur species now named for them.

the dinosaur’s remains—primarily an upper jawbone small enough to cradle in your palm—were found seven years ago in the Crystal Geyser Dinosaur Quarry area. Now known as the “Suarez Sisters’ Quarry,” the

pit is located within an area of Utah that paleontologists say contains the state’s second-largest collection of dinosaur remains. Geminiraptor suarezarum is the eighth new species of dinosaur identified in Utah this year, according to experts at Utah’s Bureau of Land Management. “We found the site in 2004, when I was working on my master’s at Temple,” said Marina Suarez, a native of San Antonio. “I was studying the depositional environment of a different dinosaur locality. Part of that research was describing sequences of rocks. I found the site because it was in a steep-sided gully that had good rock exposure. After scrabbling down the gully, I saw bone in the side of the hill, and the more we looked, the more we found.” Suarez eventually concluded that the deposits of bones indicated that dinosaurs had congregated at that site near a water source, probably a spring. The bones and remnants that the sisters found are now being curated by the College of Eastern Utah’s Prehistoric Museum. The recently discovered genus is one that is entirely new to science, according to James Kirkland, a paleontologist with the Utah Geological Survey with whom the

Suarez twins worked to excavate another quarry, about a mile from the discovery site. Based on the size of Geminiraptor suarezarum’s cranial capacity relative to its body size, paleontologists contend that this meat-eating dinosaur was probably smarter than most, perhaps about as intelligent as a modern-day opossum or roadrunner, Kirkland said. It also had an unusual hollow, inflatable upper jawbone that experts posit may have been used to help the creature vocalize. Geminiraptor suarezarum may have looked something like the Velociraptor featured in the popular 1993 film Jurassic Park, though much smaller. Having roamed and hunted for prey in Utah 125 million years ago, the newly discovered genus is among the oldest ever identified. Most North American troodontid (birdlike) dinosaurs date from about 72 million to 75 million years ago. “It’s an honor to have a dinosaur named for the site,” Suarez said. “When I was in the second grade, we had a dinosaur unit, and since then, I’ve never looked back. Finding a dinosaur is something every kid dreams of, so it was really exciting to be the first people to see the remains of animals that have been gone for millions of years.”

Study of hallucinogen salvia shows intense, novel effects By Stephanie Desmon

Johns Hopkins Medicine

n what is believed to be the first controlled human study of the effects of salvinorin A, the active ingredient in Salvia divinorum, a controversial new hallucinogen featured widely on YouTube and other Internet sites, Johns Hopkins researchers report that the effects are surprisingly strong, brief and intensely disorienting but without apparent short-term adverse effects in healthy people. Since the NIH-funded research was done with four mentally and physically healthy hallucinogen-experienced volunteers in a safe medical environment, researchers say they are limited in their conclusions about

Related website Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit at Johns Hopkins:

bpru.med.jhu.edu

the compound’s safety, according to Matthew W. Johnson, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the study’s lead author. Johnson and the Johns Hopkins team say that they undertook the research in an attempt to put some rigorous scientific information into current concerns over the growing recreational use of Salvia divinorum, which is an herb in the mint family. The plant, which has been used for centuries by shamans in Mexico for spiritual healing, is the target of increased nationwide legal efforts to restrict its availability and use. Though little is known about the compound’s effects in humans, some legislators have been spurred to action after watching one of thousands of online videos chronicling the uncontrolled behavior that sometimes follows its use. However, because animal studies show that salvinorin A has unique effects in the brain, some scientists believe that the drug or a modified version of it may lead to medical advances in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, chronic pain, drug addiction and other conditions. Salvia leaves are typically smoked. Often the quantity of salvinorin A in the leaves has been boosted by the addition of a concentrated extract of the compound. The drug

is available online or in “head shops” and is legal in most states. More than a dozen states have outright bans on the product, and eight others have restrictions such as prohibitions for minors. About a dozen nations also have outlawed it. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration has included it in a list of “drugs and chemicals of concern,” but to date there is no federal prohibition against it. The findings of the Johns Hopkins study are published online in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. “Everything we knew up to this point about the effects of this drug in humans, other than a few surveys or anecdotal case reports, comes from accounts on websites or YouTube videos,” Johnson said. “Those are hardly scientific sources enabling a rigorous understanding of the effects of the drug. Even though the sample size in this study is small, we used an extremely well-controlled methodology, which provided a clear picture of the drug’s basic effects.” Johnson and his team say that this is a first step not just toward a greater understanding of the unique compound and its effects but also toward an understanding of the kappa opioid receptors in the brain, which animal studies have suggested salvinorin A targets. Researchers see potential in kappa opioid receptors—which are different from the receptors targeted by other hallucinogens or opiates such as morphine and heroin—for the development of therapeutic medications. “We’re opening the door for systematic study of this class of compounds, about which we know precious little,” said Roland R. Griffiths, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the study’s senior investigator. The study found that salvia’s effects begin almost immediately after inhalation; are very brief, with a peak of strength after two minutes and very little effect remaining after 20; and get more powerful as more of the drug is administered. Salvinorin A produced no significant changes in heart rate or blood pressure and no tremors, and no adverse events were reported. But, Johnson cautions, the sample size was small, and only healthy and hallucinogen-experienced volunteers participated, so conclusions of safety are limited. The study was conducted on four healthy, paid subjects—two men and two women— who had taken hallucinogens in the past. All participants completed 20 sessions over

the course of two to three months. They inhaled a wide range of doses of the drug in its pure form. At some sessions, they were given a placebo. Participants were asked to rate the strength of peak drug effect on a scale of 1 to 10. Participants were allowed to drop out of the study at any time if they felt they could not tolerate a stronger dose on the following visit. No one withdrew. Researchers say they were struck by the reaction of two participants who rated the strength of a high dose a 10, or “as strong as imaginable for this drug.” It is unusual, the investigators say, for volunteers with prior hallucinogen experience to report such intensity. Despite these strong experiences, heart rate and blood pressure were unaffected. While no adverse effects were noted in the controlled laboratory environment, Johnson says that the drug’s effects could be disastrous if a person were, for example, driving a car while on salvia. Few emergency room visits have been linked to its use; researchers believe the reason is that it wears off so quickly. Johnson says that subjects in the study reported very different experiences from those caused by hallucinogens such as LSD and so-called “magic mushrooms.” Those drugs, he says, tend to have powerful effects, but the person is typically still aware of the external world and can interact with it. “With salvia, the subjects described leaving this reality completely and going to other worlds or dimensions and interacting with entities,” Johnson said. “These are very powerful, very intense experiences.” Animal data suggest that the drug is not addictive, Griffiths says, and its intensity could keep people from returning to the drug again and again. “Many people take it once, and it pro-

If the weather outside is frightful ... reach for your phone for up-to-the-minute information on the university’s weatherrelated decisions. In Baltimore, the number is 410-5167781; from areas where Baltimore is a long-distance, call 800-548-9004. Information is also available at webapps .jhu.edu/emergencynotices.

duces such profound dysphoria that they don’t want to do it again,” he said. The research was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study are Katherine A. MacLean and Chad R. Reissig.

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6 THE GAZETTE • January 3, 2011 P O S T I N G S

B U L L E T I N

Job Opportunities 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#

45459 45953 45976 46001 46002 46011 46013 46014 46048 46050 46055 46064 46065 46071

POSITION

Sourcing Specialist Employer Outreach Specialist Associate Dean Librarian III DE Instructor, CTY Research Specialist Sr. Financial Analyst Budget Analyst Admissions Aide Research Program Assistant II Research Technologist DE Instructor, CTY Assistant Program Manager, CTY Volunteer and Community Services Specialist

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#

43084 43833 44899 44976 44290 44672 41388 44067 44737 44939 44555 44848 44648 44488 43425 43361 44554

POSITION

Academic Program Coordinator Grant Writer Maintenance Worker Food Service Worker LAN Administrator III Administrative Secretary Program Officer Research Program Assistant II Sr. Administrative Coordinator Student Affairs Officer Instructional Technologist Sr. Financial Analyst Assay Technician Research Technologist Research Nurse Research Scientist Administrative Specialist

School of Medicine

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

38035 35677 30501 22150 38064

46078 46085 46088 46090 46093 46097 46106 46108 46111 46127 46133 46152 46164 46166 46171 46179 46213 46215 46216 46267 46274

Student Career Counselor Laboratory Coordinator Annual Giving Officer Campus Police Officer Curriculum Specialist LAN Administrator III Outreach Coordinator Executive Assistant Center Administrator Monitoring and Evaluation Adviser Employee Assistance Clinician HR Manager Sr. Software Engineer Proposal Officer Sr. Staff Engineer Research Program Assistant Custodian Mail Clerk Software Engineer Training Facilitator Academic Program Coordinator

44684 42973 43847 45106 45024 42939 43754 42669 44802 44242 44661 45002 44008 44005 41877 44583 44715 44065 44112 44989 44740 39063 44603

Biostatistician Clinical Outcomes Coordinator Sr. Programmer Analyst Employment Assistant/Receptionist Payroll and HR Services Coordinator Research Data Coordinator Malaria Adviser Data Assistant Budget Specialist Academic Program Administrator Sr. Research Program Coordinator Research Observer Manuscript Editor, American Journal of Epidemiology Research Service Analyst Health Educator Multimedia Production Supervisor Research Program Coordinator Research Data Manager Sr. Laboratory Coordinator Sr. Research Assistant Sr. Administrative Coordinator Research Assistant Budget Analyst

37442 37260 38008 36886 37890

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

POSITION

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

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

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410-243-1216

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Notices New Welch Library Hours — The

Welch Medical Library building has changed its hours of operation because of increased use of expanded collections and services. The new hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The library is closed on Sunday. Additional phone and e-mail reference service is available Monday through Friday, 8 to 9 a.m.; Monday through Thursday, 6 to 9 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. When the new hours went into effect, book delivery services were expanded. By using the

B O A R D

library’s remote access options, resources will be available at any time. For more information, contact Stella Seal, associate director, Welch Services Center, at sms@jhmi.edu or 410-955-3392. Funding for Prostate Cancer Research — Tuesday, Jan. 11, is the deadline for apply-

ing for funding to support multidisciplinary research in prostate cancer through the Patrick C. Walsh Prostate Cancer Research Fund and the NCI-funded Prostate Cancer Spore grant. Awards of a maximum of $75,000 per year for up to two years are available to fund career development and developmental research programs (pilot projects). New ideas are encouraged. For more information, go to http:// prostatecancerprogram.onc.jhmi.edu.

Missing molecules hold promise of therapy for pancreatic cancer

y determining what goes missing in human cells when the gene that is most commonly mutated in pancreatic cancer gets turned on, Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered a potential strategy for therapy. The production of a particular cluster of genetic snippets known as microRNAs is dramatically reduced in human pancreatic tumor cells compared to healthy tissue, the researchers report in a study published Dec. 15 in Genes and Development. When the team restored this tiny regulator, called miR143/145, back to normal levels in human pancreatic cancer cells, those cells lost their ability to form tumors. “Our finding that these specific micro RNAs are downstream of the most important oncogene in pancreatic cancer sets the stage for developing methods to deliver them to tumors,” said Josh Mendell, an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine and an early career scientist of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “When we restore microRNAs to cancer cells in which their levels are repressed, the cells no longer are tumorigenic. We have every reason to believe that the efficient delivery of miR-143/145, if achievable, would be therapeutically beneficial.” The team focused its investigation on KRAS, a member of the important RAS family of oncogenes that is mutated in almost all cases of the most common form of pancreatic cancer. The researchers conducted their studies in a multitude of model systems: human cells growing in culture as well as those harvested directly from tumors, and also in mice and zebrafish. First, using cell lines derived from pancreatic tumors and growing in culture, they added gene products such as mutant KRAS and an inhibitor of mutant KRAS, and then measured the microRNA responses. Next, they conducted the same experiments using cells from patients’ pancreatic tumors. Finally, they looked at pancreatic tissue from mice and zebrafish to see what happened when KRAS was activated. Every time, the team noted the same robust findings. When KRAS was activated, the microRNA cluster miR-143/145 was powerfully repressed, to a fraction of the levels in normal, noncancerous cells. Restoring the expression of miR-143/145 back to the level of normal cells was sufficient to confer “a very striking change in behavior of those cells,” Mendell said. When human pancreatic cancer cells with low microRNA levels were injected into mice, they formed tumors within 30 days. However, when the team restored the levels of microRNAs to the levels of normal cells and injected them into mice, tumors failed to form. Oliver Kent, a postdoctoral fellow in the Mendell laboratory and first author on the paper, said, “Our findings showed that repression of the miR-143/145 microRNA cluster is a very important component of the

tumor-promoting cellular program that is activated when KRAS is mutated in cancer cells.” At some point in the process of a normal cell evolving into a tumor cell, it loses microRNAs. When the KRAS gene is mutated—a common event in pancreatic cancer—it somehow purges cells of miR143/145, the cluster of microRNAs that normally put the brakes on tumorigenesis. “It is likely that some microRNAs will have very broad antitumorigenic effects in many different types of cancers,” said Mendell, whose lab is building animal models to investigate how different microRNAs participate in different tumor types. “In fact, there is already evidence that miR-143/145 can suppress other types of tumors such as colon and prostate cancer. On the other hand, the effects of some microRNAs will likely be very tumor-specific.” Merely 22 nucleotides in length, microRNAs are enigmatic bits of genetic material that, despite being pint-sized, apparently are mighty. This field of study is less than a decade old; scientists still don’t have a good grasp on the fundamental role of micro RNAs in normal biology. “We need a better understanding of their basic functions to more fully understand how microRNAs participate in diseases,” Mendell said. Having studied microRNAs in the context of several types of cancer, Mendell said that delivery remains a major issue for nucleic acid–based therapies. “There is a lot of work going on to develop ways to deliver microRNAs to different tissue sites,” Mendell said. “I’m optimistic that the liver and even the pancreas will become accessible to these types of therapies and benefit from them.” In addition to Mendell and Kent, authors of the paper are Raghu R. Chivukula, Michael Mullendore, Erik A. Wentzel, Georg Feldmann, Kwang H. Lee, Shu Liu, Steven D. Leach and Anirban Maitra, all of Johns Hopkins. The research was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Research, Sol Goldman Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research, Michael Rolfe Foundation for Pancreatic Research and National Institutes of Health. —Maryalice Yakutchik

Related websites Josh Mendell discusses microRNA therapy for pancreatic cancer:

www.youtube.com/ watch?v=rUGkGsABmcc

Mendell lab:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ geneticmedicine/people/faculty/ mendell.html

January 3, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

Classifieds APARTMENTS/HOUSES FOR RENT

Bolton Hill, 2 big BRs, 2.5BAs in immaculate TH, hdwd flrs, recent appliances, AC, new roof/windows, porch, bsmt, 2 prkng spaces, 4-min walk to metro, avail July. $1,850/mo. 410-383-7055 or viLca11@gmail.com.

M A R K E T P L A C E

Pikesville, 3BR, 2.5BA TH, W/D, bsmt w/ den, nr Old Court subway station. $1,500/ mo + utils + sec dep ($1,500). 443-742-2671 or 443-326-1081. Snowshoe Mountains, 1BR condo, sleeps 4, ski in/out. 571-331-0899 (for details, rates, availability) or dr_ndelev@yahoo.com.

Canton TH, perfect location, conv to JHH, total rehab, beautiful finishes, option to buy. Courtney, 410-340-6762 or cedwar15@ gmail.com.

Wyman Court Apts (Beech Ave), new spacious efficiency w/balcony, sunlight, 3 closets, 5-min walk to Hopkins. $625/mo. smartdocs@gmail.com.

Canton/Brewers Hill, cozy 2BR, 1BA + office RH, 1,300 sq ft, lg kitchen, open 1st flr, front BR has adjoining study, back BR has balcony, walk to waterfront/shops/restaurants, nr Patterson Park, pref 1-yr lease (negotiable). $1,250/mo + utils + sec dep. edandlora@gmail.com.

2011 E Fairmount Ave, 2BR, 1BA house w/ sunrm and office, W/D, dw, deck, 4 blks to medical campus. $1,200/mo. marinallynn@ mac.com.

Catonsville, 2 apts in Victorian Fieldstone Mansion of Academy Heights, high ceilings, new w/w crpt, updated kitchen and BAs, nr bus line, free prkng. $850/mo (1BR) or $995/mo (2BR). 443-386-4639.

Beautiful 3BR, 2BA condo w/garage, spacious, great location, walk to Homewood campus. 443-848-6392 or sue.rzep2@verizon .net.

HOUSES FOR SALE

Charles Village, spacious, bright 1BR studio apt, hdwd flrs, nr Homewood campus. $700/ mo. chandrikaus@yahoo.com.

Gardens of Guilford, newly renov’d, lg 2BR, 2BA condo in elegant setting, easy walk to Homewood campus. 410-366-1066.

Charles Village, spacious, bright 3BR apt, newly updated, nr Homewood. $1,350/mo. 443-253-2113 or pulimood@aol.com.

Gardenville, 3BR, 1.5BA RH in quiet neighborhood, new kitchen and BA, CAC, hdwd flrs, club bsmt, fenced, maintenance-free yd w/carport, 15 mins to JHH. $139,500. 443610-0236 or tziporachai@juno.com.

Charles Village, studio apt. $575/mo incl utils. murilo_silvia@hotmail.com. Hamilton, very lg 3BR apt, completely remodeled, close to bus stop, working fp. $1,100/mo incl heat. 443-621-4237. Hampden, 2nd flr apt on the Avenue. adecker001@yahoo.com. Hampden, 3BR, 2BA TH, dw, W/D, fenced yd, nr light rail. $1,100/mo + utils. 410378-2393. Harborview (23 Pier Side Drive), 1BR unit, 1st flr, great views of water and swimming pool, 2 health clubs, garage prkng, security incl’d; applicant must have good credit. $1,600/mo. 443-471-2000. Homewood, take over lease for 1BR, 1BA apt, 10th flr, 650 sq ft, fully crpted, 2 AC units, 2 central heating units, coin laundry in bsmt, gym, garage, security, ATM on ground flr, on bus route, at JHU shuttle stop. $950/mo incl heat and gas, lease ends mid-July. dr_igmh@hotmail.com. Lutherville, 5BR house in Baltimore Co, fully furn’d, perfect for doctor and family moving to Baltimore for internship/residency, avail July 1, pref long term. $3,200/mo + utils. 410878-7797 or annhillers@gmail.com. Mayfield, charming 3BR, 2BA house in historic neighborhood, hdwd flrs, fp, garage, yd and patio, nr Homewood/JHH/Bayview. $1,800/mo. 410-852-1865 or miriam .mintzer@gmail.com. Mt Vernon, sublet spacious, bright, fully furn’d 1BR apt, available Jan 31 to March, great view of Peabody and Washington Monument. $860/mo. 410-350-6229. Mt Washington, sublet fully furn’d 2BR in wooded gated community, W/D, dw, unlimited Netflix, fitness center, nr Mt Washington Center/light rail, reduced rent for cat care, avail Feb-March. 410-764-3494 or adhikarisacha@yahoo.com. WYMAN COURT HICKORY HEIGHTS Beech Ave. adj. to JHU!

Studio from $570 1 BD Apt. from $675 2 BD from $785

Hickory Ave. in Hampden, lovely Hilltop setting!

2 BD units from $750, or, with Balcony - $785!

Shown by appointment - 410-764-7776

www.BrooksManagementCompany.com

Hampden, updated 3BR, 2BA duplex, spacious eat-in kitchen, dw, mud rm has W/D, CAC, Internet, covered front and back porch, fenced yd, free street prkng (front and back). $215,000. 410-592-2670. Homewood, luxury 1BR, 1.5BA condo in Colonnade (across from Homewood Field), balcony, W/D, CAC/heat, exercise rm, underground prkng, 24-hr doormen, rent option available. 410-925-9330. Mays Chapel, 2BR, 2BA condo on ground flr, w/laundry rm. $174,000. http:// 3gurteencourt.com. Mt Washington, restored 1865 3BR, 1.5BA farmhouse on private lane, fantastic deck overlooks acre of wooded and open land. $259,000. 443-562-1634. Mt Washington, fully renov’d 2BR, 2BA condo, amazing kitchen and BAs, 1-car garage. $164,000. www.zillow.com/ homedetails/1703-Mount-Washington-CtAPT-K-Baltimore-MD-21209/36594022_ zpid.

ROOMMATES WANTED

in Fells Point, W/D, free Internet access, quiet street, best neighborhood, close to everything, 15-min walk to SoM. $350/mo to $400/mo + utils. xzhan45@gmail.com. F wanted to sublet furn’d master BR and BA in luxury 2BR, 2BA apt in the Carlyle, safe area, 5-min walk to JHMI shuttle stop, 3-min walk to Homewood campus, avail until Jan 31, W/D, free wireless Internet. $485/mo. 410-350-5852 (after 6pm) or sunqianmei5825@163.com. F wanted for furn’d rm w/priv BA in lg 2BR, 2BA condo on N Charles St, 8th flr, amazing view, swimming pool, gym, sauna, doorman, 24-hr security, underground prkng, walk to Homewood campus/shuttle. $1,000/ mo incl utils (not Internet or dish). 443478-7914. Prof’l wanted for rm in Perry Hall TH, must be responsible, neat, clean, no pets/smoking, cable, phone and Internet service provided, refs and sec dep ($200) req’d. $500/ mo incl utils. 410-256-1505.

CARS FOR SALE

’86 Mercedes 560 convertible w/hard and soft tops and cover, garage-kept, in excel cond, 80K mi, must sell. $8,200/best offer. 443-676-1046 or lan.afram@comcast.net.

ITEMS FOR SALE

Moving sale: Full-length Christian Dior silver fox coat, Hoover Windtunnel vacuum, sm dining set, exercise equipment, Da-Lite projector screen, Panasonic TV, 35mm cameras, music cassette tapes, office supplies, new exterior French doors. spiritwinggirl@ hotmail.com. Sand beach chairs (2), three-step ladders (2), dresser w/shelves, reciprocating saw, printer, digital piano. 410-455-5858 or iricse.its@verizon.net. Chickering baby grand piano, in excel cond, all ivory keys in great cond; price negotiable. 410-366-4488 or stamusicministry@ gmail.com. Ski equipment for a 7- to 12-yr-old child: Swiss boots, $35; Leedom helmet, $35; poles, $5 or $60/all. 410-580-9479 (eve). Queen-size bed w/boxspring, 6 mos old, $75; desk, sm bookshelf, sm bedside table, computer chair, $50/all; lamps (3), $5/ea. sb_6@hotmail.com (pics/inquiries). Yamaha outdoor 2-way spkrs, black, model# NS-AW1, $50; Thule Set-to-Go kayak saddles (2 pairs, 4 total), can sell separately, $125/ both pairs; Thule rooftop ski carrier, holds 2 pairs of skis, great cond, $75; best offers accepted, e-mail for photo. grogan.family@ hotmail.com.

Red Cross pins from Europe, 15 different. $28. 443-517-9023 or rgpinman@aol.com. New, heavy-duty motorized scooter, weight capacity up to 500 lbs. $4,500/best offer. 410-562-5140 or 443-942-0857.

SERVICES/ITEMS OFFERED OR WANTED

Lost: Charles Village/Waverly area, a black Axiom saddlebag for bike, inside red leather wallet, Hugo Boss prescription sunglasses, valuable music score (Pierrot Lunaire); any info appreciated. 443-825-5760 or danielle .buonaiuto@gmail.com. Free to good home: Princess Penelope is a very mellow F cat, spayed, FeLV-negative, has rabies/FVRCP, dewormed, just had kittens, is tolerant of rough handling, has never scratched or bitten. 443-255-2352 or vmarine2@yahoo.com. LC/MS system, free to any lab that wants one, includes Finnegan LCQ (electron spray ion source); Whatman nitrogen generator, model 75-72; Edwards 30 external vacuum; XCalibur 2.0 software pkg. 410-614-7277. Absolutely flawless detailing. Jason, 410630-3311. Winter tennis anyone? Seeking 3.0-rated M and F players for a USTA mixed doubles team, January-March, indoor courts. Lagom335@hotmail.com. Database programmer/volunteer needed for ambitious ecology project. Mark, 410-4649274. Seamstress available for clothing alterations and other small sewing projects. 410-4043548 or lexisweetheart@yahoo.com. Clarinet and piano lessons available, current Peabody clarinet master’s student, 7 yrs’ experience. $20/half-hour, $40/hour. 240994-6489 or hughsonjennifer@gmail.com. Piano lessons w/Peabody alum w/doctorate, patient instruction, all levels/ages welcome. 410-662-7951. Piano tuning and repair, PTG craftsman serving Peabody, Notre Dame, homes, churches, etc, in Central Maryland. 410382-8363 or steve@conradpiano.com. Tutor avail for all subjects/levels; remedial and gifted; also help w/college counseling, speech and essay writing, editing, proofreading, database design and programming. 410-337-9877 (after 8pm) or i1__@hotmail .com. Friday Night Swing Dance Club, open to the general public, great bands, no partners necessary. 410-663-0010 or www .fridaynightswing.com. Need help with your JHU retirement plan investments portfolio? Confidential consultation. 410-435-5939 or treilly1@aol.com.

30-yr-old F wants roommate to share fully furn’d Charles Village RH, shared BA, 3 blks to shuttle stop. $900/mo. 706-7990836.

Wizards tickets! Games available include Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, Phoenix Suns and Orlando Magic; see John Wall and the team take on the league’s best talent. 443-629-1802 or tchance1980@gmail.com.

Licensed landscaper avail for fall/winter leaf or snow removal, other services incl yd cleanup, lawn maintenance, trash hauling. Taylor Landscaping LLC. 410-812-6090 or romilacapers@comcast.net.

Looking for someone to share 2BR, 1.5BA RH nr Patterson Park, nr JHH. arcroshani@ hotmail.com.

Conn alto saxophone, best offer; exercise rowing machine, $50; both in excel cond. 410-488-1886.

Fiberglass dock box wanted, must be 6 ft or longer and in good condition. 443-5707299 or arthur.perschetz@bakerd.com.

F student/prof’l wanted for master BR in 2BR Fells Point apt (960 Fell St, Belts Landing), on the promenade w/pool, hot tub, workout facility, 24-hr surveillance, prkng garage, 6-mo lease avail Feb 1, pets OK (no scales, feathers or spiders). 269-998-0401 or vrobelme@gmail.com. Grad student/prof’l wanted for furn’d 2BR, 1BA apt nr Hampden, nr JHU/grocery/ shops/restaurants, pref nonsmoker, references req’d. $550/mo + 1st month deposit ($550) incl utils. 443-615-4875 or cscime@ hotmail.com. Furn’d 1BR and own BA in 3BR, 2BA apt

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

• We cannot use Johns Hopkins business phone numbers or e-mail addresses. • Submissions will be condensed at the editor’s discretion. • Deadline is at noon Monday, one week prior to the edition in which the ad is to be run. • 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.

8 THE GAZETTE • January 3, 2011

B y E k at e r i n a P e s h e va

Johns Hopkins Medicine

collaborative, government-led effort to guide and standardize diagnosis, treatment and management of food allergies has resulted in the release of an official set of recommendations for physicians. The guidelines were published online by the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at www.jacionline.org and also are available at www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/foodallergy/ clinical/Pages/default.aspx. They were developed by the National Institutes of Health and leading researchers and clinicians, professional and patient advocacy organizations, and the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, among others. Food allergies are among the most common medical conditions, believed to affect three out of 100 Americans, and the number of affected people has been rising steadily in the last 20 years for reasons not well understood, scientists say. “Paradoxical as it may be, up until now we have lacked uniform guidelines based on hard scientific evidence about how to diagnose and treat these very common conditions that affect the lives of millions of people,” said Robert Wood, one of the six

Community Continued from page 1 the first to systematically assess how faculty members in an urban institution perceive the involvement of residents from the adjacent disadvantaged communities in their activities. Among faculty who responded to the survey, those whose research was based in the community were far more likely than other researchers to hire local residents to carry out their work; more than 80 percent of these faculty said they collaborated with neighborhood organizations or leaders. Further, faculty who conducted community-based research were more likely to involve local residents in designing study procedures, developing interventions and disseminating the results when compared to other researchers who involved community residents in their studies. The survey results were based on a questionnaire sent to 2,930 faculty members at Johns Hopkins, 715 of whom completed the survey. Of these, researchers at the Berman Institute of Bioethics and their communitybased partners analyzed the responses of 291 who reported having conducted human research that included residents of the largely minority community around the Johns Hopkins medical campus, in East Baltimore. The survey distinguished between research carried out in the community and studies within the institution that recruited area residents. Kass and her colleagues said that the results, while drawn from Johns Hopkins’ own research experience, should be encouraging for peer institutions that want to improve community engagement efforts and build better relationships between wellfunded research centers and the urban, often disadvantaged, neighborhoods that surround them. The survey was part of the work of the Environmental Justice Partnership, a collaborative created in 2003 with funds from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The partnership includes faculty and staff from the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, community outreach staff from East Baltimore and a community board made up of East Baltimore residents and leaders and members of neighborhood organizations. “Communities are not against research.

lead authors of the guidelines and director of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. The guidelines are designed for use by specialists, primary-care physicians and other health care staff. They consolidate the latest available data into straightforward and consistent protocols for diagnosis and treatment. “Because the guidelines will give physicians a uniform and consistent pool of information on the latest and most effective diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, patients are more likely to get the most-upto-date care regardless of where they seek care,” Wood said. Some topics covered in the guidelines are: • Clear-cut definitions of food allergy and food intolerance, two commonly confused but completely different conditions. • What tests should be used for the proper diagnosis of a food allergy, including a discussion on skin-prick and blood testing versus gold-standard oral food challenges. • Management of life-threatening and non-life-threatening allergic reactions. • Advice on management of life-threatening reactions (anaphylaxis) for patients and physicians, including an anaphylaxis emergency action plan. • Development and natural course of food allergies, by type of allergy and age.

They just want to be an equal partner, with the same benefits as the researchers,” said East Baltimore native Patricia Tracey, a community-relations coordinator at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “They want the researchers to teach them how to conduct their own research, to construct surveys, to analyze their data, to disseminate and to publish their findings.” The survey also found that faculty researchers want more skills on how to involve the community. “We are trained to do research, to construct surveys, to analyze data and to publish our findings,” said Kass, the Phoebe R. Berman Professor of Bioethics and Public Health at the Berman Institute, “but we’re seldom taught how to work with communities, particularly communities that are different from our own.” Kass and her team said that the results suggest that institutions need to identify more strategies for providing such training, and that funders should consider requiring that community members be involved in research-related tasks before awarding grants, at least for projects based in and targeted to specific communities. In the journal article, the survey team wrote that it was surprised by how few faculty shared research findings with local residents who volunteered. “That finding is a powerful reminder of the ethical duty that we as faculty have to communicate with community members,” Kass said. “We depend on local residents for research that we conduct to address important health issues. We then need to do our part and let the community know what we learned.” The survey was led by Clara GoldbergFreeman, who spent five years as project manager of the Environmental Justice Partnership. In addition to Kass and Tracey, the team included Andrea Gielen, a professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Bloomberg School; and East Baltimore native Barbara Bates-Hopkins, a community relations coordinator for the Johns Hopkins Center in Urban Environmental Health. Mark Farfel, an associate professor at the Bloomberg School at the time of the survey, also co-authored the article and was the original principal investigator for the Environmental Justice Partnership. He now works for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. G

COURTESY OF SARAH GODWIN

Official food allergy treatment guidelines for physicians released

The residents of Mason Hall—home of Undergraduate Admissions—teamed up with their colleagues in Parking and in Grounds to raise awareness of the Homewood campaign for the United Way. Event organizers Lillian Donovan, Sarah Godwin and Paul Jacobus cajoled co-workers to donate items for an in-house silent auction, among them upgraded parking, a handmade holiday wreath and a private two-hour professional ice-skating lesson. The event was deemed a tremendous success, with 100 percent office participation (through donations or bidding) and more than $1,600 raised for the campaign. The auction was held Dec. 6 to 10 with the results announced at a celebration lunch on Dec. 16.

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Calendar COLLOQUIA

“Vehicle Mounted Identification Friend or Foe (VMIFF): Leveraging Existing Targeting Systems for Fratricide Mitigation,” an Applied Physics Laboratory colloquium with Lt. Commander Robert Kerchner and Nancy Haegel, Naval Postgraduate School. Parsons Auditorium. APL

Fri., Jan. 7, 2 p.m.

L E C TURE S Mon., Jan. 10, 4 p.m. The Dean’s Lecture II—“Advancing the Science of Health Care Delivery” by Peter Pronovost, SoM. Sponsored by the School of Medicine. Hurd Hall. EB

Thurs., Jan. 6, 1 p.m. “Balloons, Bagpipes and Blood: Imaging Hemodynamics in the Awake Mouse Cortex,” a Neuroscience research seminar with Patrick Drew, Pennsylvania State University. West Lecture Hall (ground floor), WBSB. EB

“How It’s Made: Building a Male Brain,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Margaret McCarthy, University of Maryland School of Medicine. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive.

Mon., Jan. 10, 12:15 p.m.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration, with guests U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and former USDA official Shirley Sherrod. (See story, p. 4.) Turner Auditorium. EB The event can also be viewed on closed-circuit television in Levering Hall’s Arellano Theater on the Homewood campus; Hurd Hall and Tilghman Auditorium, or on JHH Patient Channel 54, on the East Baltimore campus; the Asthma and Allergy Auditorium at Bayview; the auditorium at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda; conference room C113 in Davis Hall at Mount Washington; the Kossiakoff Center Auditorium at the Applied Physics Laboratory; or the third-floor conference room at 901 S. Bond St. in Fells Point. Fri., Jan. 7, noon to 1:30 p.m.

MUSIC

The Preparatory Jazz Ensembles perform. Cohen-Davison Family Theatre. Peabody

Sat., Jan. 8, 3 p.m.

READ I N G S Mon., Jan. 10, 7 p.m. Author and activist David Swanson will discuss and sign copies of his book, War Is a Lie. Barnes & Noble Johns Hopkins. HW

S E M I N AR S

“Biological Basis of Frailty and Late-Life Decline,” a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology seminar with Jeremy Walston, SoM. W1020 SPH. EB

Mon., Jan. 3, noon.

“The Placebo Issue: Ethics, Science and Regulation,” a Center for Clinical Trials seminar with Susan Ellenberg, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. W2030 SPH. EB Wed., Jan. 5, 8:30 a.m.

Thurs., Jan. 6, noon. “Exploring Cellular Origins and Molecular Alterations in Prostate Cancer,” a Cell Biology seminar with Angelo DeMarzo, SoM. Suite 2-200, 1830 Bldg. EB

Calendar

Key

APL BRB CRB EB HW PCTB SAIS

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

Applied Physics Laboratory Broadway Research Building Cancer Research Building East Baltimore Homewood Preclinical Teaching Building 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