The Gazette

o ur 4 0 th ye ar

N OTE WORTHY

S TARRING ROL E

Covering Homewood, East Baltimore, Peabody,

HSO plays ‘Scheherazade’ in its

New display system in lobby

SAIS, APL and other campuses throughout the

Annual Free Concert for

of Bloomberg Center honors

Baltimore-Washington area and abroad, since 1971.

Children and Families, page 2

Arthur Davidsen, page 7

March 7, 2011

The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University

C O M M E N C E M E N T

Volume 40 No. 25

A D M I S S I O N S

Lens on JHU and Baltimore

CNN star to send off JHU grads

By Greg Rienzi

The Gazette

Continued on page 4

2

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

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‘Learn More, See More, B’More’ video hosts Lucie Fink and Noah Guiberson, both freshmen at Johns Hopkins, take YouTube viewers on a tour of Woodberry Kitchen, a notable dining destination not far from the Homewood campus.

Student videographers show campus and city to future applicants

By Greg Rienzi

The Gazette

I

n the most recent episode of Learn More, See More, B’More, hosts Lucie Fink and Noah Guiberson race up Woodberry Kitchen’s steps to the upper level of the popular Hampden-area restaurant.

Once seated, the cheerful pair ponder the eclectic menu a moment before Fink pipes up. “Have you decided what you want yet?” she asks.

“No. This is harder than the neuro final,” jokes Guiberson. Fink, hands on head, laughs and agrees.

Enter Woodberry manager Corey Polyoka to the rescue. To help them decide what to eat, Polyoka offers a tour of the kitchen and a meet-and-greet with the restaurant staff.

Continued on page 9

will kirk / homewoodphoto.jhu.edu

areed Zakaria, the host of CNN’s flagship international affairs program and one of the most influential political commentators of his day, will be the featured speaker at this year’s university commencement ceremony, to be held on Fareed Zakaria Thursday, May 26, on Homewood Field. to speak at The Indianuniversitywide American journalist hosts CNN’s Fareed ceremony on Zakaria GPS and also serves May 26 as editor at large for Time magazine and as a columnist for The Washington Post. He was described in 1999 by Esquire magazine as “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation.” In 2010, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the top 100 global thinkers.

Jerry Schnydman, executive assistant to the president and secretary of the university’s board of trustees, extolled Zakaria’s extensive worldview and influence in international affairs.

“With so much going on in the world, in particular the political upheaval and sprouting democracy in the Middle East, we thought Dr. Zakaria would be an ideal voice for our graduates to hear from,” said Schnydman, who worked in concert with senior class representatives and the President’s Office in selecting this year’s speaker. “We’re excited to have him come to Johns Hopkins.”

Zakaria joins a pantheon of Johns Hopkins commencement speakers, a list that includes former Vice President Al Gore; comedian Bill Cosby; Elizabeth Dole, former senator and then president of the American Red Cross; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Brian Billick, then head coach of Baltimore Ravens; Sen. John McCain; Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House at the time;

Lauren Carney, a coordinator of the ‘Learn More’ series, and videographers Shayna Bordy, John Belanger and Peter Bai get ready to film a segment outside Woodberry Kitchen.

In Brief

O’Melia memorial; Radiothon results; changes for Homewood Escort Van; Maryland medal

12

10 Job Opportunities Musical robots; blogging workshop; French 10 Notices films; Women in Science Tea; blood drive 11 Classifieds Calendar

2 THE GAZETTE • March 7, 2011 I N B R I E F

Memorial to celebrate life of DoGEE’s Charles O’Melia

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At a Concert for Children and Families, one attendee is introduced to the French horn.

Hopkins Symphony: ‘Scheherazade’ two ways, for kids and grownups

By Edie Stern

Hopkins Symphony Orchestra

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he Hopkins Symphony Orchestra will offer a weekend of orchestral blockbusters for listeners of all ages.

At 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 12, HSO will present its 19th Annual Free Concert for Children and Families. Music Director Jed Gaylin will conduct excerpts from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and will illustrate how music can tell stories. After the one-hour program, the audience will be invited onstage to meet the musicians and see their instruments up close.

At 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 13, Gaylin and the orchestra will perform the complete Scheherazade and will welcome pianist Enrico Elisi for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor. Gaylin and HSO concert-

master Pervinca Rista will lead a pre-concert discussion at 2 p.m.

Elisi, who last appeared with the HSO in 2005, is stepping in for Stefan Jackiw, who had to cancel his planned performance. The Italian-born Elisi, a former student of Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Institute, maintains a busy international career as soloist, chamber musician, teacher, competition judge and conductor. He has just been named to the faculty of the Eastman School of Music.

Both concerts will take place in Shriver Hall Auditorium on the Homewood campus.

No tickets or reservations are needed for the children’s program. Tickets for the Sunday concert, available at the door, are free for Johns Hopkins students and Maryland state employees; $8 for other students, seniors (age 60+) and Johns Hopkins staff, faculty and alumni; and $10 general admission.

celebration of the life of Charles R. “Charlie” O’Melia will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 12, in 110 Hodson on the Homewood campus.

O’Melia, who died on Dec. 16, 2010, at the age of 76, joined the DoGEE faculty in 1980 and spent 27 years with the department, including two terms as chair.

“Charlie’s groundbreaking research on filtration, coagulation and the behavior of colloidal particles in aquatic systems is the cornerstone of our current knowledge in these areas,” said Whiting School Dean Nick Jones. “His work has inspired scientists and engineers worldwide and has made a profound impact on the design and operation of water treatment plants.”

A luncheon in the Glass Pavilion will follow the service. Those planning to attend are asked to RSVP to dogee@jhu.edu or 410516-7092.

Miller, Peterson recognized with Maryland Speaker’s Medallion

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ach year the speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates presents a medallion to a citizen in recognition of outstanding service to the state of Maryland. This year’s Speaker’s Medallion was presented jointly on Feb. 23 to two of Johns Hopkins’ leaders: Edward D. Miller, the Frances Watt Baker, M.D., and Lenox D. Baker Jr., M.D., Dean of the Medical Faculty and chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Ronald Peterson, president of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins Health System.

Speaker Michael Busch recognized Miller and Peterson for their dedication to operating “the finest hospital system in America, if not the world, for the past 20 years.” The speaker also recognized Johns Hopkins’ status as the leading recipient of funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Oversight, route changes set for Homewood Security Escort Van

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he Homewood Security Escort Van will be transitioned from the Security Office to the Office of Parking and Transportation on April 1 and, with recommendations from the Student Government Association and support from Homewood Student Affairs and University Administration, the service will alter its focus to more of a route-based transportation system in the coming months. Parking and Transportation will continue to provide both routes and point-to-point passenger services.

One of the first transition steps will be to rename the service. So that members of the Johns Hopkins community can cast their votes for a new name, which will be announced by early April, an SGA-

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 Webmaster Lauren Custer

sponsored poll has been posted at www .surveymonkey.com/s/YZN6DYQ. A contract to operate the service has been won in a competitive bidding process by Broadway Services Inc., which will take it over April 1. Current employees have been encouraged to apply for positions with BSI. For the first several months, BSI will operate the service in much the current model while studying data and ridership to evaluate potential changes. Additional route services are expected to be added by the fall semester, and point-to-point services will be provided only to areas not served by the routes.

Greg Smith, director of Parking and Transportation, said that plans include installing a GPS system on each van to help management and users keep track of vehicle locations and reduce waiting times.

One Straw Farm rep to talk about CSA opportunity

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oan Norman of One Straw Farm in Baltimore County is coming to the Homewood campus this week to speak about Community Supported Agriculture opportunities. Her talk will be at noon on Wednesday, March 9, in Levering’s Great Hall.

For three years, Johns Hopkins has been participating in a CSA program with One Straw Farm, facilitated by the Bloomberg School’s Center for a Livable Future and the university’s Office of Sustainability. Since then, it has grown to three pickups: the Facilities Management Office on Remington, for Homewood participants; the Muller Building, for STScI employees; and the School of Public Health, for the East Baltimore campus. Last year, more than 100 people participated.

Participants in a CSA program pay up front before harvest and pick up shares of whatever organic produce the farm grows every week from June to November. The arrangement helps cover production costs and provides a degree of financial support for small farms. It also enables farmers to diversify their crops by focusing on the local market, and produce travels less distance to the point of sale.

For more information, go to www .sustainability.jhu.edu/projects/csa.html.

Radiothon raises more than $850,000 for kids at Hopkins

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he 22nd annual MIX 106.5 Radiothon benefiting Johns Hopkins Children’s Center has raised more than $850,000, bringing the total raised to date to nearly $14 million.

The numbers were unveiled on Monday during the MIX Morning Show, following a three-day marathon broadcast from the hospital, Feb. 23 to 25. George Dover, director of Hopkins Children’s, joined DJs Jojo Girard, Reagan Warfield and Sarah Jacobs on the air for the announcement.

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

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March 7, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

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O B I T U A R Y

Alison Geyh of SPH, 52, studied air pollution at ground zero

ANA RULE

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lison Geyh, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, died Feb. 20 after a lengthy battle with cancer. She was 52.

Geyh joined the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in 2000 and built an international reputation with her work on air pollution, in which she applied her skills as a chemist to study the impact of air pollution on health. Geyh was widely known for her research on the health of cleanup workers at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.

“The Bloomberg School has lost a beloved friend and colleague,” said Dean Michael J. Klag in a letter to the school community.

“Far beyond her professional accomplishments, Alison will be dearly remembered as a treasured friend, colleague and mentor.”

In addition to her deep commitment to research, teaching and mentoring, family and friends know her for her passions for cycling, cooking, art and dance.

“She was a chemist by training, and she excelled at taking an idea and making it happen scientifically,” Patrick Breysse, a professor in Environmental Health Sciences, told The Baltimore Sun. “She carried herself like a dancer. She was rigid in her posture and was personally intense.”

Breysse told The Sun that after the attack on the World Trade Center, Geyh came to him and said, ‘I am going to New York.’ She literally got in a car and started driving.”

Geyh was one of the first health researchers at the site, where she worked with a team of her students. Worried about how the air

Alison Geyh assembling a cyclone in Phoenix. The air-sampling equipment was used in the Johns Hopkins Particulate Matter Research Center study in which scientists traveled to eight cities across the country collecting ambient air samples.

pollution would affect workers involved with the cleanup, she and colleagues collaborated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to conduct an extensive air quality and health assessment of truck drivers at the site. Her research findings, along with results from other studies, provide a strong justification for ongoing medical monitoring of cleanup workers, as was discussed in a 2007 New England Journal of Medicine article co-authored by Geyh.

More recently, Geyh was a principal inves-

tigator on a large EPA-funded research program to evaluate how the chemical composition of particulate matter air pollution can impact human health. As part of this study, she led a team of scientists in an eight-city air-sampling campaign to characterize differences in particulate matter composition across the United States. Results of this research are still pending. She also was collaborating on a study of indoor air pollution exposure from biomass cooking in Nepal.

A sought-after mentor and excellent

classroom teacher, Geyh was a 2006 and 2010 recipient of the Advising Mentoring and Teaching Recognition Award sponsored by the student assembly at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alison Daniel was born in Germany, where her father was on assignment in the military, and raised in Anaheim, Calif., where as a teenager she was a “Cinderella dancer” in the Disneyland Electric Light Parade. In 1976, she moved to New York City, where she performed ballet professionally for a number of years before entering Columbia University. There she earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry and met her future husband, Edward Geyh.

They married in 1986 and moved to Massachusetts, where she earned her doctorate in physical organic chemistry at Brandeis University and did postdoctoral work at Harvard University.

Geyh’s family said that she will be remembered for her fierce commitment to her work, her grace and athleticism, her dignity and humility, her remarkable ability to mobilize people to get things done, her unwavering sense of ethics and her deep love for her family, colleagues, students and friends.

She is survived by her husband; her sister, Christine Daniel, and her partner, Cecily Peterson; her father, Richard Daniel, and his wife, Jinny; Edward’s sister, Paula Geyh; and her two cats, Pixie and Jackie.

A gathering of friends and family was held Feb. 26 at the Mount Washington Conference Center.

Feet first? Old mitochondria might be responsible for neuropathy B y C h r i s t e n B r o wn

lee

Johns Hopkins Medicine

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he burning, tingling pain of neuropathy may affect feet and hands before other body parts because the powerhouses of nerve cells that supply the extremities age and become dysfunctional as they complete the long journey to these areas, Johns Hopkins scientists suggest in a new study. The finding may eventually lead to new ways to fight neuropathy, a condition that often accompanies other diseases, including HIV/AIDS, diabetes and circulatory disorders.

Neuropathies tend to hit the feet first, then travel up the legs. As they reach the knees, they often start affecting the hands. This painful condition tends to affect people who are older or taller more often than younger or shorter people. Though these patterns are typical of almost all cases of neuropathy, scientists have been stumped to explain why, said study leader Ahmet Hoke, a professor of neurology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Hoke and his colleagues suspected that the reason might lie within mitochondria, the parts of cells that generate energy. While mitochondria for most cells in the body have a relatively quick turnover—replacing themselves every month or so—those in nerve cells often live much longer to accommodate the sometimes long journey from where a cell starts growing to where it ends. The nerve cells that supply the feet are about 3 to 4 feet long in a person of average height, Hoke said.

Consequently, the mitochondria in these nerve cells take about two to three years to travel from where the nerve originates near the spine to where it ends in the foot.

To investigate whether the aging process during this travel might affect mitochondria and lead to neuropathy, Hoke and his colleagues examined nerve samples taken during autopsies from 11 people who had HIVassociated neuropathy, 13 who had HIV but no neuropathy and 11 HIV-negative people who had no signs of neuropathy at their deaths. The researchers took two matched

samples from each person: one from where the nerves originated near the spine and one from where the nerves ended near the foot.

They then examined the DNA from mitochondria in each nerve sample. Mitochondria have their own DNA that’s separate from the DNA in a cell’s nucleus.

The researchers report in the January Annals of Neurology that in patients with neuropathy, DNA from mitochondria in the nerve endings at the ankle had about a 30-fold increase in a type of mutation that deleted a piece of this DNA compared to mitochondrial DNA from near the spine.

The difference in the same deletion mutation between the matched samples in people without neuropathy was about threefold.

Since mitochondria quit working upon a person’s death, the scientists looked to a monkey model of HIV neuropathy to see whether these deficits affected mitochondrial

function. Tests showed that the mitochondria from the ankles of these animals didn’t function as well as those from near their spines, generating less energy and producing faulty proteins and damaging free radicals.

Hoke said that as mitochondria make the trek from near the spine to the feet, their DNA accumulates mutations with age.

These older mitochondria might be more vulnerable to the assaults that come with disease than younger mitochondria near the spine, leading older mitochondria to become dysfunctional first. The finding also explains why people who are older or taller are more susceptible to neuropathies, Hoke said.

“Our mitochondria age as we age, and they have even longer to travel in tall people,” he said. “In people who are older or taller, these mitochondria in the longest nerves are in even worse shape by the time they reach the feet.”

Hoke noted that if this discovery is confirmed for other types of neuropathy, it could lead to mitochondria-specific ways to treat this condition. For example, he said, doctors may eventually be able to give patients drugs that improve the function of older mitochondria, in turn improving the function of nerve cells and relieving pain.

Related websites Ahmet Hoke:

neuroscience.jhu.edu/ AhmetHoke.php

Neurology and Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ neurology_neurosurgery

Students invited to apply for undergraduate arts prizes B y H e at h e r E g a n S ta l f o rt

JHU Museums and Libraries

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tudents are invited to apply for the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts and the President’s Commendation for Achievement in the Arts in recognition of outstanding accomplishment in the arts during the 2010–2011 academic year.

Students who are in good standing and on track to receive a degree in May 2010 may apply simultaneously for both of the annual undergraduate arts awards by submitting separate applications. Applicants must specify whether they are applying for one award or both.

Ten copies of a complete application must be submitted by 5 p.m. on Friday, March 25. Full guidelines, application forms and submission details may be found at getintothearts.jhu.edu/sudlerprize.

The Louis Sudler Prize for outstanding artistic talent and achievement in the composition

or performance of music, drama, dance or the visual arts is awarded to a graduating senior from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Whiting School of Engineering, School of Nursing or Peabody Institute, or a fourth-year student in the School of Medicine. The winner, whose submission cannot be related to his or her major field of study, receives a $1,500 cash award, and his or her name appears in the commencement program.

The President’s Commendation for Achievement in the Arts is a service award honoring a graduating senior who has contributed extensively to the arts in the Homewood and/or Baltimore communities. Students in the schools of Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Nursing or the Peabody Institute may apply for the commendation. All art forms are eligible for consideration. The winner receives a certificate, and his or her name appears in the commencement program.

A committee of faculty and administrators from the Homewood campus, the School of Nursing, the Peabody Institute and the

School of Medicine will review nominees and their supporting materials for both awards and make recommendations to President Daniels, who will make the final selections.

The Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts has been honoring undergraduate students with artistic talent since 1983. It is made possible through the generosity of Louis Sudler, a Chicago businessman and philanthropist who died in 1992. In addition to Johns Hopkins, the award is given at numerous other colleges and universities, including Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Purdue, Duke, Rice, Stanford, Emory, Michigan State, Dartmouth, Oberlin and MIT. The President’s Commendation for Achievement in the Arts was established in 1989 by Steven Muller, Johns Hopkins president from 1972 to 1990.

Any questions concerning the 2011 Sudler Prize and President’s Commendation should be directed to Winston Tabb, Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums, at wtabb@ jhu.edu.

4 THE GAZETTE • March 7, 2011

Johns Hopkins team explores PARIS, finds key to Parkinson’s

By Maryalice Yakutchik

Johns Hopkins Medicine

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ohns Hopkins scientists have discovered that PARIS—the protein—facilitates the most common form of Parkinson’s disease, which affects about 1 million older Americans. The findings of their study, published March 4 in Cell, could lead to important new targets for treatment.

Previous research has shown that a protein dubbed parkin protects brain cells by “tagging” certain toxic elements for natural destruction. Mutations in the parkin gene cause rare forms of Parkinson’s disease, or PD, that run in families, but its role remained unclear in sporadic late-onset PD, the prevalence of which is increasing as the population ages. Using genetically altered mice as well as human brain tissue, the Johns Hopkins team showed that another protein, PARIS, accumulates when the parkin gene is mutated and its protein-degrading ability is blocked.

Too much toxic PARIS tamps down the manufacture of a protective protein named PGC-1alpha. The less protection afforded to brain cells by this protein, the more they die and the greater the progression of PD. “Of all the important changes that lead to the death of brain cells as a result of parkin inactivation, our studies show that PARIS is, without a doubt, a key player,” said Ted Dawson, the Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Professor in Neurodegenerative Diseases in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and scientific director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering.

To pin down the role of the PARIS protein, the researchers first knocked out the parkin gene in embryonic mice. These animals, despite a 20 percent buildup of PARIS compared with wild-type mice, showed no significant change in the levels of the protective PGC-1alpha, and none of the neurodegeneration that is characteristic of PD, which the researchers measured by counting brain cells. In order to bypass the compensation that they suspected was at play

in these young mice (which typically live about two years), the team next disabled the parkin gene in 8-week-old (adult) mice.

By 10 months of age, these animals with the temporal loss of parkin showed three times the amount of PARIS accumulation in brain cells—similar to the amount in brain tissue from human patients who had mutations in the parkin gene or sporadic PD. Also, PGC-1alpha levels had decreased and a significant loss of neurons—known as neurodegeneration—had occurred.

“Some might wonder why this same kind of compensation isn’t occurring in humans,” Dawson said. “Well, it is, but the difference is time. It usually takes us 60 or more years to get the most common form of PD. A body can compensate for only so long and so much. By disabling the gene in the brain cells of adult mice, we accelerated that process and thwarted compensation.”

In a further experiment with PARIS, the team created a so-called double knockout by disabling the gene for PARIS in those same mice in which the gene for parkin already was knocked out. The protective PGC-

1alpha levels of these animals—which had no parkin or PARIS—were rescued, and no neurodegeneration occurred. The team then demonstrated that genetically altered mice with an abundance of PGC-1alpha were protected against the same significant loss of neurons.

When the scientists looked at human brain tissue, they also found evidence that PARIS is dependent on parkin function and a chief regulator of the protective PGC1alpha. By comparing tissue of patients who died with Parkinson’s disease with those who died of other causes, they established that when parkin is shut down and PARIS, the “garbage” protein, accumulates, PGC1alpha levels drop precipitously and neurons die en masse.

“No one has shown that neurons can be rescued by knocking out any of the other elements that parkin tags for destruction,” Dawson said. “The fact that we can prevent parkin-associated brain cell death by blocking PARIS gives [us] a promising new drug target that could someday enable us to slow or stop the progression of PD.”

With people living longer, more people are developing this common, debilitating neurological disorder, according to Dawson, noting that one in 100 people are afflicted at the age of 60, and four times that many by the age of 80.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Bachmann Strauss Dystonia and Parkinson Foundation.

Authors of the study, in addition to Dawson, are Joo-Ho Shin, Han Seok Ko, Hochul Kang, Yunjong Lee, Yun-Il Lee, Olga Pletinkova, Juan C. Troconso, and Valina L. Dawson, all of Johns Hopkins.

Zakaria

which airs Sundays worldwide on CNN. He has conducted in-depth interviews with prominent world figures including the Dalai Lama, Barack Obama, King Abdullah II, Dmitry Medvedev and Moammar Gadhafi, as well as countless intellectuals, business leaders, politicians and journalists. In its first year, GPS garnered an Emmy nomination for an interview with China’s Premier Wen Jiabao.

Zakaria became Time editor at large in October 2010 after spending 10 years overseeing all of Newsweek’s editions abroad. He has received numerous honors for his writing, including a 2010 National Magazine Award for his October 2001 Newsweek cover story, “Why They Hate Us.” Before joining Newsweek in October 2000, he spent eight years as managing editor of Foreign Affairs, a post to which he was

appointed at age 28.

A noted author, Zakaria has written several books, including most recently The New York Times bestseller and critically acclaimed The Post-American World. He’s a regular commentator on many news programs and a frequent and popular guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Born in India in 1964, Zakaria went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University and a PhD in political science from Harvard University. He currently serves as a trustee of Yale.

He lives in New York City with his wife, son and two daughters.

More information on this year’s commencement ceremony, and a full list of speakers for all university divisional ceremonies, will be available later this spring at www.jhu.edu/commencement. G

Continued from page 1 and others from the worlds of politics, sports, media and entertainment.

The most recent journalist to serve as speaker was Tom Brokaw, who spoke to graduates at the 2002 ceremony.

In an effort to promote a more unified Johns Hopkins family, the university last year fused the universitywide commencement ceremony with the Homewood undergraduate diploma ceremony for one grand graduation observance. The result is a single ceremony, at which Zakaria will speak, for graduates from all divisions and campuses.

Since 2008, Zakaria has hosted GPS,

Related websites Ted Dawson:

http://neuroscience.jhu.edu/ TedDawson.php

‘Cell’:

www.cell.com

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March 7, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

5

Docs can know which heart grafts vulnerable to clogging B y D av i d M a r c h

Johns Hopkins Medicine

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team of heart experts at Johns Hopkins has found that dual lab tests of blood-clotting factors accurately predict the patients whose blood vessels—in particular, veins implanted to restore blood flow to the heart during coronary artery bypass grafting, or CABG—are more likely to fail or become clogged within six months.

One test gauges the speed of blood platelet clumping, and the other measures the level of a clumping chemical byproduct.

Researchers say that the danger from such treatment failures following CABG is that the heart can return to its original state of having an insufficient blood supply.

Chest pain and other symptoms may return, upping patients’ chances of requiring further surgery to bypass the newly clogged arteries or angioplasty to widen them.

Reporting in the March 1 edition of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the Johns Hopkins team found that a commercially available test of how fast blood-clotting platelets actually clump together, called PFA-100, reliably predicted vein graft failure in 229 people from the mid-Atlantic region who had had CABG performed within the previous six months at one of four hospitals. Those who ranked in the quarter with the slowest blood-clotting times had an 11 percent vein graft failure rate, while those whose blood clotted fastest had a 28 percent risk.

Tests of another highly reactive chemical whose action is normally suppressed by aspirin, urinary 11-dehydro-thromboxane B2, or UTXB, were equally linked to vein graft failure. The quarter of study participants with the lowest amounts of UTXB had a 12 percent likelihood of one or more veins occluding, while in the quarter with the highest amounts of UTXB, the rate was 29 percent.

When results of both tests were combined, patients with the “most-sticky” platelets and highest UTXB levels had a nearly sevenfold increased risk of vein graft failure, compared to those who had the “least-sticky” platelets and lowest UTXB levels.

“Now we have a particularly useful series of tests to help physicians identify patients

at high risk who really need closer follow-up to check for potentially clogged grafts,” said study senior investigator Jeffrey Rade, an interventional cardiologist.

However, the team’s ultimate goal, Rade says, is to use these tests to help develop replacement or add-on treatments to daily doses of blood-thinning aspirin, the current mainstay for warding off clot formation and subsequent vein graft failure.

According to Rade, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart and Vascular Institute, these two tests offer physicians new tools for early detection of bypass patients at greatest risk of vein graft failure, giving them advance warning and, potentially, buying time to try drug or surgical therapies that might slow down or reverse the narrowing and buildup of plaque and dead cells inside the grafted vein.

He said that previously known risk factors were the size of the vein to be bypassed, with veins smaller than 1.5 millimeters having twice the failure rate of larger veins, and, similarly, vein grafts with slower blood flow having a two to three times greater likelihood of failing.

In CABG, blood vessels from other, readily accessible parts of the body, usually the chest wall or leg, are removed and reattached to the heart to restore open blood flow, rerouting blood to avoid arteries blocked by underlying coronary artery disease.

Some 448,000 CABG procedures were performed in the United States in 2006, the last full year for which estimates are available. Nearly all patients took daily doses of the blood-thinning drug aspirin to prevent subsequent blood clots.

And the chances of vein graft failure need to be taken seriously, the researchers said, pointing out that despite such treatment, one-third of study participants had completely occluded or blocked veins within six months of their bypass surgery.

“These numbers are extremely valuable and show us that we have to continue to work to make an already effective surgery even better,” said study co-investigator John Conte, a cardiac surgeon.

Moreover, Conte noted, 19 percent of all vein grafts were completely occluded in study participants after six months, though the vast majority of the patients had no

symptoms of heart failure, such as chest pain and shortness of breath, to indicate that something was wrong.

“Eventually, pre-bypass tests may determine that some at-risk patients are better having only arterial grafts instead of vein grafts, or drug therapy without surgery, or more aggressive angioplasty instead of more bypass surgery,” said Conte, a professor at Johns Hopkins, where he is also director of the heart and lung transplantation programs at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Conte said that the team’s next steps are to perform both tests before patients undergo bypass surgery and to assess whether subsequent treatment helps people live longer. Plans are also under way to examine any factors that might boost or lower UTXB levels, and lower a patient’s vulnerability.

The Johns Hopkins scientists pursued the study because aspirin is widely used and known to cut in half any risk of vein graft failure after CABG, and they wanted to assess what role, if any, aspirin resistance might play. To their surprise, aspirin resistance was quite rare, in less than 1 percent of study participants six months after surgery. So, they decided to investigate other aspects of platelet function, including thromboxane production, to see if there was any other chemical connection to vein graft failure. In all, the latest study tested nearly a dozen chemical factors involved in platelet function.

As part of the so-called Reduction in Graft Occlusion Rates study, known as RIGOR, all participants had their blood tested before and immediately after bypass surgery. Some 368 people, mostly men, were enrolled in the study, which took place from 2003 to 2006.

Blood testing was repeated in those who survived past six months. Study participants, whose ages ranged from 34 to 88, also had an advanced CT scan, using a 64-CT multirow detector scanner that can produce clear images of the tiniest blood vessels, letting researchers measure the extent of any blockages.

Funding support for the study was provided by the Johns Hopkins General Clinical Research Center; the National Institutes of Health Institute for Clinical Translational Research; Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Partnership, of Bridgewater, N.J., the manufacturer and distributor of Plavix, a clot-busting drug; and AstraZeneca,

Two-thirds of older adults now have hearing loss B y C h r i s t e n B r o wn

lee

Johns Hopkins Medicine

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early two-thirds of Americans age 70 and older have hearing loss, but those who are of black race seem to have a protective effect against this loss, according to a new study led by Johns Hopkins and National Institute on Aging researchers. These findings, published online Feb. 28 in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, provide what is believed to be the first nationally representative survey in older adults on this often ignored and underreported condition.

Contrary to the view that hearing loss is of only minor importance in old age, study leader Frank Lin, an assistant professor in the Division of Otology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a core faculty member in the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health, said that studies including his own have strongly linked it to other health problems, such as cognitive decline, dementia and poorer physical functioning. And he noted that relatively little is known about risk factors that drive hearing loss.

To fill in some of the blanks, Lin and his colleagues analyzed data from the 2005–2006 cycle of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a research program that has periodically gathered health data from thousands of Americans since 1971. In

the 2005–2006 cycle, the hearing of participants 70 years or older was checked using a test that determined whether they could detect tones in frequencies used in speech.

When the researchers analyzed the numbers from 717 volunteers, they found that about 63 percent of them had hearing loss that ranged from mild to severe. Mixing in demographic data showed that those who were older or male were more likely to have hearing loss, or more severe hearing loss, than younger or female subjects.

The researchers also found that being black appeared to be protective. While about 64 percent of white subjects had hearing loss, only about 43 percent of black subjects did.

After accounting for other factors that are associated with hearing loss such as age and previous noise exposure, black participants had only a third of the chance of having hearing loss when compared with white participants.

Lin noted that he and his colleagues aren’t sure why being black might prevent hearing loss, but they and other research teams have suggested that pigment produced by cells in the skin and inner ear might protect the

inner ear by absorbing free radicals, among other mechanisms.

Despite the overwhelming number of older adults with hearing loss, the study found that only one-fifth use hearing aids, with only 3 percent of those with mild hearing loss taking advantage of these devices.

“Any way you cut it, the rates of hearing aid use are phenomenally low,” Lin said. He and his colleagues are currently planning a study to see whether hearing aid use could prevent some of the conditions connected to hearing loss.

of Wilmington, Del., the manufacturer of Brilinta, another anti-clotting medication.

Additional study support came from Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, of Deerborn, Ill., which provided the PFA-100 testing kits used in the study, and GlaxoSmithKline, of Research Triangle Park, N.C., the maker of enteric-coated aspirin.

In addition to Rade and Conte, Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study were Tyler Gluckman, Jodi Segal, Steven Schulman, Edward Shapiro and Thomas Kickler.

The four hospitals that participated in the study were The Johns Hopkins Hospital; Christiana Hospital, Christiana, Del.; Peninsula Regional Medical Center, Salisbury, Md.; and Walter Reed Army Hospital, Washington, D.C.

Related websites Jeffrey Rade:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heart_ vascular_institute/experts/ physician_profile.html?profile=72 09DC1919066DA26A70A68B2D 14CCE7&directory=1B2D0F30B5 9D39A341B0C23CB2B204D9

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heart_ vascular_institute/experts/ physician_profile/4AF79101560 836D76926CC787A359F96/ John_Conte,%20MD

content.onlinejacc.org/cgi/ content/abstract/57/9/1069

John Conte:

‘Journal of the American College of Cardiology’ article:

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March 7, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

7

By Lisa De Nike

Homewood

S

ixteen years ago, on March 2, 1995, the Astro-2 space shuttle mission— carrying not only the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope but also Johns Hopkins payload specialist Sam Durrance and mission specialist John Grunsfeld on his first flight—launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a two-week dedicated astronomy mission.

Last Friday, some 35 members of that space mission team gathered at the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy on the university’s Homewood campus for an anniversary luncheon and the dedication of a new educational and informational display system named in honor of the late Arthur F. Davidsen, the Johns Hopkins astrophysicist and professor who was principal investigator for the HUT project.

Davidsen died in 2001 at the age of 57.

Located in the Bloomberg Center near Schafler Auditorium, and paid for by the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, the new 55-inch flat screen display will feature astronomy and physics content of general interest, providing “a dynamic and engaging element to the lobby,” according to Bill Blair, an ex-HUT team member and research professor in Physics and Astronomy, who organized the event.

Grunsfeld, who later flew on three shuttle missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope and is now deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute and a research professor at Johns Hopkins, spoke briefly at the dedication, along with Professor Warren Moos and Blair. Davidsen’s widow, Frauke Davidsen, sponsored the luncheon and was present for the dedication.

For more on HUT and Astro-2, go to praxis .pha.jhu.edu/hut.html and praxis.pha.jhu.edu/ astro2/astro2_15year.html.

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

Starring role

Bill Blair, Frauke Davidsen, Dan Reich, Warren Moos and John Grunsfeld with a plaque and electronic display honoring the late Arthur Davidsen.

Pilot program throws tough problems at new APL staff B y P a u l e t t e C a m pb e l l

Applied Physics Laboratory

M

ilitary satellite communications systems are more critical than ever to the Navy’s ability to project force and conduct operations around the globe. Twelve APL staff were challenged with developing alternative forms of communications, and last fall they presented their findings to Pacific Fleet Command senior staff.

“They were very well-received,” said Jerry Krill, assistant director for science and tech-

nology. “They were commended for offering solutions that stirred the waters, spurring strategists to approach the problem in new ways.”

The staff were participants in the pilot session of APL’s Early Career Advanced Systems Project, designed to provide APLers who have one to five years’ experience with the opportunity to develop advanced crossmission concepts, learn systems engineering and gain insight into the breadth of APL capabilities.

“Typically, when staff first arrive—particularly straight out of college—they are put on a task that’s part of a larger microcosm

Colombian harpist Edmar Castaneda and his eponymous quartet bring folkloric traditions to the sounds of Latin jazz.

T

Music at Evergreen

he Edmar Castaneda Quartet—Edmar Castaneda, Colombian harp; Shlomi Cohen, soprano sax; Dave Silliman, drums; and Andrea Tierra, vocals—will bring its unique sound to Evergreen Museum & Library’s Bakst Theatre at 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 12.

Castaneda has embraced the folkloric traditions of his native Colombia while carrying them forward into the world of Latin jazz.

Since moving to the United States in 1994, he has taken New York and the world stage by storm with the sheer force of his

virtuosic command of the harp—revolutionizing the way both audiences and critics view an instrument not commonly associated with the jazz idiom. Castaneda has been described by The New York Times as “almost a world unto himself.”

The concert is part of the Music at Evergreen series. Tickets, which include museum admission and a post-concert reception, are $15 members, $20 public and $10 students (full-time with ID). Seating is limited and reservations are recommended; go to www .brownpapertickets.com/producer/22987 or call 410-516-0341.

of the system, and as they build experience, their tasks broaden,” Krill said.

But increasingly, those early-career staff have been asking for more, said Aili Kujawa, head of the Human Resources and Services Department. Focus groups of early-career staff held in 2009 revealed that they felt their work was often limited in scope and impact. They wanted to collaborate outside of their groups and business areas, or with other early-career staff, and to use the skills inherent to their generation.

“They were eager to do meaningful, impactful work, and wanted more interaction with sponsors,” Kujawa said.

So APL senior management came up with the Early Career Advanced Systems Project, or ECASP, to allow these staffers to work on a high-profile project and collaborate with senior experts from across the Lab. The participants were nominated by their department heads. “We ended up with a totally diverse mix in terms of expertise, race and sex, and fields of study,” Kujawa said, “and the solutions they came up with reflected that diversity.”

The participants were frequently cloistered in “skunkworks” fashion in a room in Montpelier 6 so that they would not be distracted. The team broke into three groups: one studied user needs, and the other two developed separate concepts to meet the mission requirements.

The National Security Analysis Department’s John Benedict served as their mentor, and they were able to tap the expertise of seasoned staff, most particularly Rob Nichols and Steve Jones, of the Applied Information Sciences Department, and Mike Shehan, of the National Security Analysis Department.

In addition, other subject-matter experts provided briefs on potential enabling technologies.

Raphael Austin, a threat and combat system engineer with the Air and Missile Defense Department, helped develop a balloon-assisted relay system for establishing a long-range communications capability. He also performed the link analysis required to size up the communications equipment and conducted thermal analysis of a highaltitude payload container.

“ECASP really helped shed light on tasking and collaborating with people from other departments,” Austin said. “Working with the other team members gave me an excellent opportunity for networking, and to work on a joint project in an environ-

ment conducive to candid thought sharing.”

Sarah Rigsbee, a human-systems integration engineer with the National Security Technology Department, led the team that focused on user needs. “As the only human factors [or HF] engineer on the project, I feel like I was able to offer a unique perspective and skill set,” she said. “I was able to work with two team members and introduce them to the HF discipline. It was a very rewarding experience to be a task lead, and help educate the team on the importance of HF considerations and different HF methodologies and analyses.”

Participants said they appreciated the challenge’s high visibility. “The problem we were given was important to the Navy, so it felt like a worthwhile challenge, and it was interesting to see how APL’s expertise could be applied,” said Michael Newkirk, a modeling and simulation software engineer in the National Security Analysis Department. “Since I develop mostly software, it was nice to work on a project where the final product would be a real-world system. It was useful to apply APL’s systems engineering cycle to this problem, and the additional briefing and sponsor interaction opportunities were helpful for the development of presentation skills.”

Krill and Kujawa said that APL also benefits. “The key to retaining good staff,” Kujawa said, “is providing interesting and challenging work.”

“It also gives us an opportunity to tap into the inherent innovative nature and fresh knowledge of recent graduates, and illustrate to our sponsors that we are growing our next-generation scientists and engineers,” Krill added.

“The key to last year’s project was the ECASP team working well together and demonstrating much creativity and initiative both individually and as a team,” Benedict said. “Senior Lab experts supplied them with potential ingredients, but in the end the team of young staff developed the illustrative recipes for success that were briefed out to various sponsors.”

The second project involves 15 staff and began in February. Their challenge? To develop an innovative concept to enable small ships to launch and recover large unmanned aerial vehicles as a potential “game-changing” capability for the Navy.

This article appeared previously in The APL News.

HAVE A HEART? GIVE BLOOD. For more information, go to www.hopkinsworklife.org/community/blood_drive.html

8 THE GAZETTE • March 7, 2011 M A R C H

Calendar Continued from page 12 the musicians and see their instruments up close. Shriver Hall. HW Sat., March 12, 3 p.m. Music at Evergreen presents the Edmar Castaneda Quartet. (See story, p.

7.) $20 general admission, $15 for museum members, $10 full-time students with ID. Sponsored by JHU Museums. Evergreen Museum & Library.

Sun., March 13, 3 p.m. Peabody Preparatory faculty recital with Zane Forshee, guitar; Jung-Eun Kang, piano; Matthew HorwitzLee, violin; Andrea Picard, violin; Jeni Herrera, viola; Jill Collier violoncello; and Alina Kozinska, soprano. Griswold Hall. Peabody Sun., March 13, 3 p.m. Hopkins

Symphony Orchestra performs Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat, Opus 73 (Emperor), with guest artist Enrico Elisi, piano. 2 p.m. Pre-concert talk with conductor Jed Gaylin. (See story, p. 2.) $10 general admission, $8 for senior citizens, nonJHU students, and JHU faculty, staff and alumni; free for JHU students with valid ID. Shriver Hall. HW READ I N G S / B OO K TA L K S

The Writing Seminars presents recent graduates Caki Wilkinson, Dan Groves, Carrie Jerrell and Stephen Kampa, reading from their recently published, or pending, first books. Mudd Hall Auditorium. HW Wed., March 9, 6:30 p.m.

S E M I N AR S

“Disparities in Obesity Prevalence: Role of Diet Quality and Diet Cost,” an International Health thesis defense seminar with Anju Aggarwal. W2008 SPH. EB Mon., March 7, 9 a.m.

Mon., March 7, noon. “Deconstructing Cilia and Flagella Function With Cryo-Electron Tomography and Structural Proteomics,” a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology seminar with Daniela Nicastro, Brandeis University.

W1020 SPH. EB Mon., March 7, 12:10 p.m. “Elec-

tronic Health Records (EHR)— Anatomy of Value,” a Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health seminar with Col. Thomas Greig, U.S. Department of Defense. W3008 SPH. EB “Invasive Podosomes and Cell-Cell Fusion,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Elizabeth Chen, SoM. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW Mon., March 7, 12:15 p.m.

“A Republic Amidst the Stars,” a History seminar with Eran Shalev, Haifa University. Co-sponsored

by Humanities. 308 Gilman. HW

Mon., March 7, 4 p.m.

“Extension of Weighted-L^2 Holomorphic Functions From Singular Hypersurfaces,” an Analysis/PDE seminar with Dror Varolin, SUNY Stony Brook. Sponsored by Mathematics. 304 Krieger. HW Mon., March 7, 4 p.m.

Tues., March 8, 10 a.m. “Explor-

ing Policymakers’ and Health Researchers’ Perceptions of Policymaking in Argentina: A Mixed Methods Approach,” an International Health thesis defense seminar with Adrijana Corluka.

W2030 SPH. EB Tues., March 8, noon. “Regulating Cytoskeletal Structure and Function During Bacterial Cytokinesis,” a Biological Chemistry seminar with Erin Goley, Stanford University School of Medicine. 612 Physiology. EB Tues., March 8, 12:10 p.m.

“Learning With Youth Through the Arts: Understanding and Addressing Community Violence,” a Graduate Seminar in Injury Research and Policy with Michael Yonas, University of Pittsburgh. Sponsored by the Center for Injury Research and Policy, the Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence and the Center for Gun Policy and Research. 208 Hampton House. EB

7

–

1 4

Effects of Insecticide-Treated Bed Net Introduction on Anapheline and Culicine Mosquito Behavior and Insecticide Resistance in Southern Zambia,” a Molecular Microbiology and Immunology thesis defense seminar with Laura Norris. W1214 SPH. EB Wed., March 9, 1 p.m. “Hospital Coding Practice, Data Quality and DRG-Based Reimbursement Under the Thai Universal Coverage Scheme,” an International Health thesis defense seminar with Krit Pongpirul. E9519 SPH. EB

“Targeting Cell Survival for ProteinProtein Interaction Modulator Discovery,” a Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences seminar with Haian Fu, Emory University. West Lecture Hall, WBSB. EB

Wed., March 9, 4 p.m.

Wed., March 9, 4 p.m. “Subsample Ignorable Likelihood for Regression Analysis With Missing Data,” a Biostatistics seminar with Roderick Little, University of Michigan. W2030 SPH. EB

“Urban Health Challenges in India,” a Population, Family and Reproductive Health seminar with Rajeev Ahuja, World Bank. Cosponsored by the Urban Health Institute. 202 Pinkard Bldg. EB Wed., March 9, 4 p.m.

“Pathways of Membrane Protein Insertion and Quality Control,” a Cell Biology seminar with Ramanujan Hegde, NIH/NICHHD. Suite 2-200, 1830 Bldg. EB

Thurs., March 10, noon.

Tues., March 8, 2 p.m. “Interpretable Set Analysis for HighDimensional Data,” a Biostatics thesis defense seminar with Simina Boca. E9519 SPH. EB

Thurs., March 10, noon. “Insect Behavior and Sensory Signaling Regulated by TRP Channels,” a Molecular Microbiology and Immunology/Infectious Diseases seminar with Craig Montell, SoM. W1020 SPH. EB

Tues.,

Thurs., March 10, 1:30 p.m.

March

8,

4:30

p.m.

Fri., March 11, 11 a.m. “Stratified Wake Flows,” a CEAFM seminar with Alan Brandt, APL. 50 Gilman. HW Fri., March 11, 11 a.m. “Evaluation of an Active Case-Finding Program for TB and HIV in South Africa,” an Epidemiology thesis defense seminar with Adrienne Shapiro. W2015 SPH. EB Fri., March 11, 2 p.m. “Modification of Lead Toxicity by Socioeconomic Factors and Implications for Environmental Policy,” a Health Policy and Management thesis defense seminar with Ramya Chari. 461 Hampton House. EB Mon., March 14, 10 a.m. “Risk Factors for and the Management of Venous Thromboembolism,” an Epidemiology thesis defense seminar with Anand Narayan. Room 1500 Q, 2024 E. Monument St. EB

“ ‘It’s Not What You Know, But Who You Know’: Examining the Role of Social Captial in Understanding Drug Use Related Behaviors,” a Health Behavior and Society thesis defense seminar with Pritika Chatterjee. W2030 SPH. EB

Mon., March 14, 10:30 a.m.

“Designing an Open-Science, HIT Supported Learning Health System: The Case of Pediatrics,” a Health Policy and Management brown bag lunch seminar with Christopher Forrest, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and L. Charles Bailey Jr., University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Cookies, fruit and drinks provided. 208 Hampton House. EB

Mon., March 14, noon. “The Dynamic Control of Stem Cells,” a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology seminar with Ronald McKay, SoM. W1020 SPH. EB

“Coset Sum: An Alternative to the Tensor Product in Wavelet Construction,” an Applied Mathematics and Statistics seminar with Youngmi Hur, WSE. 304 Whitehead. HW

Mon., March 14, 1 p.m.

Tues.,

Thurs.,

Mon., March 14, 3 p.m.

8,

4:30

p.m.

“Query-focused Summarization Using Text-to-Text Generation: When Information Comes From Multilingual Sources,” a Center for Language and Speech Processing seminar with Kathy McKeown, Columbia University. B17 Hackerman. HW “Variability in Vision and Photopsias in Retinitis Pigmentosa Are Related to Disease Severity and Psychosocial Factors,” a Graduate Training Program in Clinical Investigation thesis defense seminar with Ava Bittner. W2008 SPH. EB Wed., March 9, 8 a.m.

Wed., March 9, noon. “Health Care Needs of People Affected

by Conflict: Future Trends and Changing Frameworks,” an International Health/Center for Refugee and Disaster Response seminar with Paul Spiegel, UNCHR. W3030 SPH. EB Wed., March 9, 12:15 p.m.

Wednesday Noon Seminar— “Methylation of the FKBP5 Gene as a Biomarker of Cortisol Burden” with Gary Wand, SoM. Sponsored by Mental Health. B14B Hampton House. EB Wed., March 9, 12:30 p.m. “The

March

10,

2

p.m.

“Growth and Nutritional Status of Untreated HIV-Infected Zimbabwean Children and Treated HIV-Infected Nigerian Children,” an International Health thesis defense seminar with Adetayo Omoni. W2033 SPH. EB Thurs., March 10, 2:15 to 5:30 p.m., and Fri., March 11, 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The

Futures Seminar—Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, with Michael Prather, University of California, Irvine; Jess Adkins, Caltech; James Farquhar, University of Maryland, College Park; Douglas Burbank, University of California, Santa Barbara; and Ben Weiss, MIT. Mason Hall Auditorium (Thursday) and Charles Commons (Friday). HW

Thurs.,

March

10,

3

p.m.

“Challenges for 100 Milligram Flight,” a Mechanical Engineering seminar with Robert Wood, Harvard University. 111 Mergenthaler. HW Thurs., March 10, 4 p.m. “Fat, Flies and Videotape: Intracellular Trafficking in Drosophila,” a Biology seminar with Michael Welte, University of Rochester.

100 Mudd. HW

“Lemur (League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots),” an artist’s lecture on the group of artists and technologists who create robotic musical instruments by Lemur’s founder Eric Singer. (See story, p. 12.)

Co-sponsored by the JHU Digital Media Center, the departments of Computer Science (WSE) and Computer Music (Peabody), and the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (WSE). B17 Hackerman. HW

Tues., March 8, 6 p.m.

The 2011 Foreign Affairs Symposium— Global Citizenship: Re-

examining the Role of the Individual in an Evolving World. Glass Pavilion, Levering. HW •

Wed., March 9, 7 p.m.

•

Mon., March 14, 8 p.m.

Mon., March 14, noon.

“Higher Dimensional Moduli and Related Problems,” an Algebraic Geometry/Number Theory seminar with Zsolt Patakfalvi, University of Washington. Sponsored by Mathematics. 308 Krieger. HW March

gion and Starting a College,” a slide talk by cartoonist and graphic novelist James Sturm on his work; a book signing will follow.

Co-sponsored by Homewood Art Workshops and Homewood Arts Programs. 101 F. Ross Jones Bldg., Mattin Center. HW

“Statistical Methods for Inter-Subject Analysis of Neuroscience Data,” a Biostatistics thesis defense seminar with Haley Hedlin. E9519 SPH. EB

“The Significance of Wealth in Understanding Associations Between Race and the Risk of Low Birth Weight,” a Population, Family and Reproductive Health thesis defense seminar with Adam Allston. E4130 SPH. EB

Mon., March 14, 4 p.m. The Bodian Seminar—“Push-Pull Perceptual Learning Reduces Sensory Eye Dominance and Improves Stereopsis” with Zijiang He, University of Louisville. Sponsored by the Krieger Mind/Brain Institute. 338 Krieger. HW

SPECIAL EVENTS

Women in Science Tea, in honor of Women’s History Month, bringing together female scientists from various academic levels and sectors of science to network, make new friends, mentor or be mentored.

Sponsored by the Biomedical Scholars Association, the Hopkins Biotech Network and the Greater Baltimore Chapter of the Association for Women in Science. Turner Concourse. EB

Mon., March 7, 2 p.m.

Mon., March 7, 5:30 p.m. “Cartooning, Internet Addiction, Reli-

Richard Koo, chief economist, Nomura Research Institute.

Cybersecurity panel with local experts from Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, CyberSecurity and the Office of Innovative Technologies at the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development.

Sat., March 12, 10:30 a.m.

Memorial to celebrate the life of Charles O’Melia. (See In Brief, p.

2.) 110 Hodson. HW SYMPOSIA Tues., March 8, 3:30 to 5 p.m.

“Race and Research,” an Urban Health Institute symposium with Camara Jones, epidemiologist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To RSVP, go to www .jhsph.edu/urbanhealth/our_work/ symposia/jones.html. W1214 SPH. EB

W OR K S HO P S Thurs.,

March

10,

1

p.m.

“Creating and Grading Quizzes in Blackboard,” a Bits & Bytes workshop, providing an introduction to this teaching tool. To register, go to www.cer.jhu.edu/ events.html. The training is open to Homewood faculty, lecturers and TAs; staff are also welcome to attend. Sponsored by the Center for Educational Resources. Garrett Room, MSE Library. HW Sat., March 12, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. “So You Want to Be a

Blogger,” an Advanced Academic Programs workshop on the science of online writing, with blogging consultant Tamar Abrams; blogger and freelance writer Meredith Fineman; Gus Sentementes, The Baltimore Sun; and Matt Zymet, director of digital media, National Geographic Channel. The panel will cover topics including Getting Started, Finding a Niche/ Developing Your Voice, Tools; Market Yourself, Building Loyalty/ Audience Interaction and Monetization/Measuring Success. $45 for JHU students and alumni; $60 for non-JHU attendees. To register and RSVP e-mail knapper1@ jhu.edu. 210 Hodson. HW

March 7, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

9

Traditional Chinese medicine mystery solved by researchers Discovery of molecular mechanism reveals antitumor possibilities

By Audrey Huang

Johns Hopkins Medicine

R

esearchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have discovered that a natural product isolated from a traditional Chinese medicinal plant commonly known as thunder god vine, or lei gong teng, and used for hundreds of years to treat many conditions including rheumatoid arthritis works by blocking gene control machinery in the cell. The report, published as a cover story in the March issue of Nature Chemical Biology, suggests that the natural product could be a starting point for developing new anticancer drugs.

“Extracts of this medicinal plant have been used to treat a whole host of conditions and have been highly lauded for anti-inflammatory, immunosuppressive, contraceptive and antitumor activities,” said Jun O. Liu, a professor of pharmacology and molecular sciences at Johns Hopkins. “We’ve known about the active compound, triptolide, and that it stops cell growth, since 1972, but only now have we figured out what it does.”

Triptolide, the active ingredient purified from the plant Tripterygium wilfordii Hook

Videos Continued from page 1 They’ll even get a chance to help the pastry chef make a cake. Rachel Ray, eat your heart out.

You won’t find this show on the Food Network or Travel Channel but rather the website of the Johns Hopkins University’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

The Woodberry Kitchen episode is one of many videos—all written, produced and directed by students—created specifically for Admissions’ Web presence.

In September 2010, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions posted an ad looking for student videographers. The intent was to enhance its recently redesigned website with professional-looking videos that promote life at Johns Hopkins and in Baltimore.

The concept of the videographer positions came from Maggie Kennedy and Shelly Placek, both with Undergraduate Admissions.

Placek, a communications specialist, said that they also saw it as an opportunity for students to get real-world video production experience.

The office hired four students—freshman

F, has been shown in animal models to be effective against cancer, arthritis and skin graft rejection. In fact, Liu said, triptolide has been shown to block the growth of all 60 U.S. National Cancer Institute cell lines at very low doses, and even causes some of those cell lines to die. Other experiments have suggested that triptolide interferes with proteins known to activate genes, a finding that gives Liu and colleagues an entry point into their research.

The team systematically tested triptolide’s effect on different proteins involved with gene control by looking at how much new DNA, RNA and protein is made in cells.

They treated HeLa cells with triptolide for one hour, compared treated to untreated cells and found that triptolide took much longer to have an effect on the levels of newly made proteins and DNA, yet almost immediately blocked manufacture of new RNA. The researchers then looked more closely at the three groups of enzymes that make RNA and found that low doses of triptolide blocked only one, RNAPII. But the RNAPII enzyme complex actually requires the assistance of several smaller clusters of proteins, so more investigative narrowing down was required, Liu said.

Using a small gene fragment in a test tube, the researchers mixed in RNAPII components and in some tubes included triptolide, and in others did not, to see which combinations resulted in manufacture of new RNA. Every combination of proteins that included

a cluster called TFIIH stopped working in the presence of triptolide.

But again, TFIIH is made of 10 individual proteins, many of which, according to Liu, have distinct and testable activities. Using information already known about these proteins and testing the rest to see if triptolide would alter their behaviors, the research team finally found that triptolide directly binds to and blocks the enzymatic activity of one of the 10, the XPB protein.

“We were fairly certain it was XPB because other researchers had found triptolide to bind to an unknown protein of the same size, but they weren’t able to identify it,” Liu said.

To convince themselves that the interaction between triptolide and XPB is what stops cells from growing, the researchers made 12 chemicals related to triptolide with a wide range of activity and treated HeLa cells with each of the 12 chemicals at several different doses. By both counting cells and testing XPB activity levels, the team found that the two correlate; chemicals that were better at decreasing XPB activity were also better at stopping cell growth and vice versa.

“Triptolide’s general ability to stop RNAPII activity explains its anti-inflammatory and anticancer effects,” Liu said. “And its behavior has important additional implications for circumventing the resistance that some cancer cells develop to certain anticancer drugs. We’re eager to study it fur-

ther to see what it can do for future cancer therapy.”

This research was supported in part by discretionary funds from the Johns Hopkins Department of Pharmacology and the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.

Authors on the paper, in addition to Liu, are Denis Titov, Qing-Li He, Shridhar Bhat, Woon-Kai Low, Yongjun Dang and Michael Smeaton, all of Johns Hopkins; Benjamin Gilman, Jennifer Kugel and James Goodrich, of the University of Colorado, Boulder; and Arnold Demain, of Drew University.

John Belanger, sophomore Peter Bai and seniors Shayna Bordy and Joju Varghese— and worked with the university’s Office of Marketing and Creative Services, specifically, director of video strategy Jay Corey, to acquire the necessary equipment.

The students started shooting right away and posted their first videos in October.

They began with a This Month at Hopkins feature in which the students show a sampling of activities taking place on and around the Homewood campus, such as concerts, classes, sporting events, recreational fun and more. The videos, overdubbed with music, typically feature four or five events with snippets of random scenes, such as students throwing a Frisbee or working on a paper in the library.

Then the students moved on to features, such as ones on campus security and the university’s Quidditch team, based on the fictional sport in the Harry Potter series.

They also shot dorm-room tours, filmed MTV Cribs–style In conjunction with the Hopkins Interactive technology team, the videographers have worked on Learn More, See More, B’More, a cable TV–like series that will take viewers to must-see destinations in Baltimore. Next month, the website will show an episode shot at the National Aquarium.

The series was created by Fink, a fresh-

man Writing Seminars major and Hopkins Interactive member, who based the idea on Globe Trekker, the award-winning TV series on PBS. The first episode was about winter at Johns Hopkins and featured two brilliant unrehearsed comic moments from President Ron Daniels lighting an outdoor menorah.

Fink, an unabashed fan of reality TV, said that she’s having a blast with the series.

“It’s a lot of fun. We get to show places to prospective students and their parents that make Baltimore look really great and a fun place to come to,” said Fink, who displays a natural on-screen chemistry with her cohost, Guiberson, also a freshman. The two particularly ham it up for the title credits, a fast-moving montage shot at various spots in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

“Noah and Lucie are awesome hosts. They are really funny and cute,” Placek said.

Fink said that the plan is to shoot one Learn More, See More, B’More episode a month for the next four years, until she graduates.

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions for the Homewood schools launched Hopkins Interactive in December 2005 to offer a view of JHU from the inside out. The centerpiece of the site is a collection of blogs in which current Arts and Sciences and Engineering students document their lives here, everything from the classroom experience to the weekend scene in Baltimore. The site

also features message boards, student profiles and videos.

Daniel Creasy, associate director of Undergraduate Admissions, was the mastermind behind Hopkins Interactive, and his technology team has worked hand in hand with the student videographers.

The Admissions videos have been a hit, generating thousands of views, Placek said.

“The cool thing about the videos is that most of the ideas come right from the students, and they do all the work,” Placek said.

“They make the contacts, write the scripts, shoot and edit the video. They bring a lot to the table.”

Shayna Bordy, a senior film and media studies major, edited the Woodberry episode and shot its black-and-white footage. Bordy, who hopes to get into television or movie production after Johns Hopkins, said that she had the Food Network series Diners, Drive-ins and Dives in mind while filming.

With all the videos, Bordy said that she wants other students to know there is life outside the Milton S. Eisenhower Library.

“A lot of kids get stuck in the Homewood bubble,” she said. “This video series gets admitted students to realize there are other things beside the campus, and gets high school students to realize that if they came here, there’s plenty to see and do.” G To see the Woodberry Kitchen episode and the other student videos, go to http://apply.jhu.edu.

Related websites Jun O. Liu:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ pharmacology/research/liu.html

Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at Johns Hopkins:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ pharmacology/

‘Nature Chemical Biology’ study and cover:

www.nature.com/nchembio/ journal/v7/n3/full/nchembio.522 .html

www.nature.com/nchembio/ journal/v7/n3/covers/index.html

This Spring start to ENJOY the best in apartment living in historical Roland Park surrounded by gardens and preserved residential architecture. Experience quiet, country-side living minutes from downtown, close to public transportation and located just over the county line. Walk to trails, shops, restaurants and schools!

Call or email us and come see for yourself what your colleagues already know about living at Elkridge!

“Located at the end of Roland Avenue in a picturesque location, nestled between a

school, playground and a golf course . . swimming pool, fitness club and ample jogging space makes it ideal for people who love physical activity . . . an ideal home.”

Venkat P. Gunareddy, MD JHU School of Medicine

A MMHA Gold Star Award Winning Community and Service Team Call Today! 888-614-6390 E-mail: elkridgeestates@propmail.com Office Hours: M-F: 8:30-5:00pm, Sat: 10:00-4:00pm

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6025 Roland Avenue Baltimore, Md. 21210

“Our family couldn’t be happier. We feel a part of a large family. The location is perfect for going downtown or traveling in the greater Baltimore area, convenient to I-83 and I- 695. The facilities are top-notch, well-maintained, and all service requests are promptly and courteously handled by the competent and friendly office staff and service team. They really do spoil you here.”

Henry Perry JHU School of Public Health

10 THE GAZETTE • March 7, 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#

POSITION

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

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

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

Notices Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Awards ­— Applications are now being

accepted for several awards in the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

Applications are due on March 28 and should be addressed to Ami Cox, fellowship coordinator, 225 Mergenthaler Hall. More information can be found online at www.jhu .edu/scholarships.alphalist.html. Submit any questions to ami@jhu.edu.

The Bander Family Fund Award will provide up to $4,000 to one or two freshman, sophomore or junior Arts and Sciences students who want to pursue an independent project over the summer. The project may be local or international in scope.

The William F. Clinger Jr. Award has made $10,000 available to the School of Arts and Sciences in support of undergraduate international research. The funds will be divided between two to four freshman,

B O A R D

sophomore or junior Arts and Sciences students who want to pursue an international independent project, either local or international, over the summer.

The J. Brien Key Graduate Student Assistance Fund will help subsidize significant travel-related research expenses—for example, registration and/or travel costs to attend a professional meeting, especially one at which you are presenting the results of your research, or the travel costs to conduct research or interviews critical for your thesis or dissertation. Four awards of $500 are available. Applicants should submit a proposal of no more than two pages explaining how the funds will be used. Included should be a proposed budget and a brief budget justification as well as a summary of other sources of funding that you have obtained or that are available. The application should also include a letter of endorsement from your thesis/dissertation adviser. As a condition of the award, recipients will write a letter of thanks to Dr. Key, providing details about how they have benefited from the award.

Going green in OR could reduce costs without risking safety

By Stephanie Desmon

Johns Hopkins Medicine

J

ohns Hopkins researchers say that they have identified practical strategies to implement environmentally friendly practices in operating rooms and other hospital facilities that could result in vastly reduced health care costs and pose no risk to patient safety.

Experts say health care facilities are second only to the food industry in contributing to waste products in the United States, producing more than 6,600 tons per day and more than 4 billion pounds annually. Operating rooms and labor-and-delivery suites, the researchers say, account for nearly 70 percent of hospital waste.

Reporting in the February issue of the Archives of Surgery, the Johns Hopkins team says that hospital operating rooms notoriously open sterilized equipment that is never used, install energy-sucking overhead lights and fill red bags labeled as medical waste with harmless trash that could be disposed of more cheaply.

“There are many strategies that don’t add risk to patients but allow hospitals to cut waste and reduce their carbon footprints,” said study leader Martin A. Makary, an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “If we’re going to get serious as a country about being environmentally conscious, we need to look at our biggest institutions. When an individual decides to recycle or dispose of waste differently, it has an impact. But when a hospital decides as an organization to go green, the impact is massive.”

For their report, Makary and his team reviewed previously published research about hospitals’ environmental practices, looking in depth at 43 studies, and then convened a panel of experts to generate a list of practical strategies that could be implemented by surgical units to cut the waste they identified. The panel’s top-five strategies were reducing and segregating operating room waste, reprocessing single-use medical devices, making environmentally conscious purchasing choices, managing energy consumption and managing pharmacy waste.

In surgical suites, for example, two kinds of disposal bags are used to separate waste: red bags for infectious and pathological waste and clear bags for noninfectious waste.

Makary says that as much as 90 percent

of what ends up in red bags does not meet the criteria for red-bag waste, which costs far more to process. “Although hazardous and regulated medical waste (equivalent to infectious waste) makes up only 24 percent of medical waste, it accounts for 86 percent of costs,” the study team concluded.

Makary says that the volume of medical waste could be decreased by more than 30 percent solely by proper waste separation.

Many discussions of green initiatives, such as recycling single-use medical equipment, Markary says, have been framed as a choice between what is best for the environment and what is best for patients, with patients the obvious priority. But the team’s research, he says, shows that there are ways to be green without compromising patient safety.

One medical center, the authors note, instituted a system of making clear plastic bags more readily available during surgical preparation and then replacing them with red bags just before the patient was wheeled into the operating room, where most red-bag waste is generated. The center also began washing and reusing all of its surgical scrubs and jackets. These two changes made up the lion’s share of a 50 percent reduction in medical waste volume over seven years, and Makary says that patient safety was not compromised.

The Johns Hopkins team says that wider adoption of the practice of recycling medical equipment is a potentially big saver of health care dollars and landfill space. Such equipment, Makary says, includes laparoscopic ports and durable cutting tools typically tossed out after a single use. Previous experience has shown that with proper sterilization, recalibration and testing, reprocessing equipment is safe, he adds. Often in surgery, items are taken out of their sterile packaging—sometimes in duplicate—in order to make them quickly available should they be needed over the course of an operation. That practice needs to be reconsidered, he says.

“The overall carbon footprint of the hospital has not been a priority in the past,” Makary said. “But we live in a much more cost-conscious medical climate now, and there is a lot that hospitals can do to go green.”

This research was supported by philanthropy from Mr. and Mrs. Chad and Nissa Richison.

Gabriel A. Brat, of Johns Hopkins, also participated in this study.

Read The Gazette online gazette.jhu.edu

March 7, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

Classifieds APARTMENTS/HOUSES FOR RENT

Belvedere, beautifully renov’d 3BR, 2BA TH, available June, discount for 2-yr lease. $1,600/mo (furn’d) or $1,450/mo (unfurn’d).

410-929-6008 or belvedererental@gmail .com.

Bolton Hill (Park Ave), beautiful 8-rm apt, 1,300 sq ft, 1BR + guestroom and 1BA separate office and dining rm, gorgeous shared yd. $1,595/mo. gbaranoski@covad.net.

Canton, lg 2- or 3BR, 2BA house, pets negotiable. $1,800/m. 410-598-7337.

Deep Creek Lake/Wisp, cozy 2BR cabin w/ full kitchen, call for wkly/wknd rentals, pics avail at jzpics@yahoo.com. 410-638-9417.

Elrino St, spacious, bright EOG TH, 1st flr has 2BRs, 1.5BAs, living rm, 2 kitchens, hdwd flrs, W/D, fin’d bsmt, $950/mo + utils; 2nd flr has 1BR, 1BA, kitchen and living rm, $600/mo + utils. 443-386-9146, 443386-8471 or lcmbfan@yahoo.com.

Hamilton, cute 1BR apt, 2nd flr, private entrance, new refrigerator, w/w crpt, driveway, no pets, credit and refs req’d. $550/mo + utils + sec dep. 410-661-4360.

Hampden, 4BR, 2BA apt, private prkng. $1,300/mo + utils. adecker001@yahoo. com.

Hampden, lg 1BR apt on the Avenue, updated, spacious BA, updated kitchen, stainless steel appls, expos’d brick, fin’d bsmt, back porch w/yd, energy-efficient house. $1,150/mo. Richard, 410-206-8979.

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 on 1st flr has great views of water and swimming pool, 2 health clubs, garage prkng, 24-hr security incl’d, safe area; applicant must have good credit. $1,600/mo. 443471-2000.

Mt Vernon (Charles Towers), beautiful junior 1BR, 1BA apt, 725 sq ft, heat/AC, natural light, swimming pool, gym, W/D in bldg, 5-min walk to shuttle, sublet April to end of August w/option to renew. $1,030/ mo incl utils. 443-453-8604 or vanvliete@ gmail.com.

Ocean City, Md, 3BR, 2BA condo (137th St), ocean block, steps from beach, off-street prkng (2 spaces), lg swimming pool, walk to restaurants/entertainment. 410-544-2814.

Original Northwood, 3BR, 1.5BA house w/ garage. $1,400/mo. 443-324-4917.

Parkville, charming 1BR, 1BA cottage house w/huge yd, new flrs, W/D, bsmt, driveway. $900/mo. 410-422-0146 or pelelika2001@yahoo.com.

M A R K E T P L A C E

cious rms, new appls, deck, backyd, 10 mins to Owings Mills metro. $1,500/mo. www.21136rent.com (for pics and details).

Roland Park, spacious 2BR, 2BA condo, furn’d, W/D, walk-in closet, swimming pool, cardio equipment, .5 mi to Homewood, secure area. $1,600/mo. 410-218-3547 or khassani@gmail.com.

Bsmt in 2BR, 1BA house in Catonsville, spacious, big backyd, sm shed for extra storage, W/D, clean neighborhood, own prkng pad for 2 cars. Saleem, 410-369-6590 or saleemrph@yahoo.com.

Towson/Rodgers Forge, newer, unfurn’d 3BR TH w/garage, short-term rental, no pets. $2,500/mo + sec dep. 410-323-3090.

Wyman Park, sunny 2BR apt, AC, laundry in bldg, easy walk to Homewood/JHMI shuttle, avail May 15. $1,150/mo. 443-6155190.

4BR, 5BA house at NW corner of Homewood campus, AC, fenced yd, 10-min walk to Charles St shuttle, avail from July 1, 2011, to August 15, 2012, ideal for sabbatical yr w/ family at Hopkins. Marta, 410-366-4388.

HOUSES FOR SALE

Eastwood, fully renov’d 2BR, 1.5BA TH, ready to own, stainless steel appls, granite counters, new windows/new roof. $124,900.

410-812-3490.

Gardenville, 3BR, 1.5BA RH in quiet neighborhood, new kitchen and BA, CAC, hdwd flrs, club bsmt w/cedar closet, fenced, maintenance-free yd w/carport, 15 mins to JHH. $139,500. 443-610-0236 or tziporachai@juno.com.

Locust Point, 1BR Silo Point condo (Best High-Rise Development USA), game rm, fitness center, right off I-95. $269,900. 410377-7489 or silopointcondo420@gmail.com.

Roland Park, 6BR, 3BA house, 3 stories, 2 half-BAs, modern kitchen, 1/2 acre landscaped lot. $690,000. 410-207-5467.

Lg 1BR condo in luxury high-rise, secure bldg w/doorman, W/D, CAC/heat, swimming pool, exercise rm, nr Guilford/JHU. $179,000. 757-773-7830 or norva04@gmail .com.

Renov’d 2BR EOG house w/2 full BAs, kitchen w/maple cabinets and breakfast bar, hdwd flrs, expos’d brick, good closet space, living rm, separate dining rm, fenced rear patio, 2-car prkng pad. 410-419-6575 or sachette1@verizon.net.

ROOMMATES WANTED

Big, fully furn’d BR in new TH, walking distance to JHMI, pref nonsmoker/no pets. $550/mo. 301-717-4217 or jiez@jayzhang .com.

HICKORY HEIGHTS

Shown by appointment - 410-764-7776 www.BrooksManagementCompany.com

ITEMS FOR SALE

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 photos. grogan .family@hotmail.com.

Reisterstown, 3BR, 2.5BA TH, lg, spa-

2 BD units from $750 w/Balcony - $785!

’04 VW Golf, silver w/black interior, good mileage, 43K mi. $7,600. annenatk@yahoo. com.

Storage and car garages, 1 mi from JHH. $100/mo. Jon, 410-294-2793.

F wanted to share brand new 2BR, 2.5BA house in Patterson Park. $800/mo incl all utils. 908-347-7404 or s.delia.1@gmail.com.

Studios - $595 - $630 1 BD Apts. - $710-740

’02 VW GTI, 5-spd manual, new tires, state insp’d, excel cond, 109K mi. $6,500. pico. niner@gmail.com (info/pics).

Baby items, almost brand new: huge play yard, combi stroller, bumbo seat, rainforest bouncer, much more; pics available. anuray6@gmail.com.

Perry Hall, beautiful 3BR, 2.5BA TH, hdwd flrs, deck, garage, pets welcome, walk to restaurants, grocery and parks. $1,900/mo.

443-621-7984 or jjohnston76@gmail.com.

Hickory Avenue in Hampden!

CARS FOR SALE

Beautiful 3BR, 2BA condo w/garage, spacious, great location, walk to Homewood campus. $1,800/mo. 443-848-6392 or sue.rzep2@ verizon.net.

Patterson Park, newly rehabbed 2BR, 1BA TH, CAC, W/D, fenced yd, 1 blk to bus lines, great neighborhood and neighbors. $1,025/mo. Gene, 410-975-5761.

Beech Ave. adj. to JHU!

Rm available nr Patterson Park. 972-5338468 or rabinsharma764@gmail.com.

Third flr of Roland Park home, share w/F + 2 children (7 and 12), 2 sunny rms, priv BA, share kitchen and laundry, radiator heat, CAC, newly renov’d, nr Evergreen Cafe and Miss Shirley’s, short bus ride/walk to Homewood campus. $575/mo. aweil@ baitman.org.

1BR and common areas of furn’d 3BR, 1.5BA house in Original Northwood, renov’d BA, steam rm, 46” TV, back and front yds, patio, ample street prkng, direct bus to JHMI/JHU. $600/mo incl utils. cjouny@gmail.com.

WYMAN COURT Just Renovated! A lovely hilltop setting on

11

Furn’d BR in 3BR, 2BA apt in Fells Point, W/D, free Internet access, quiet street, best neighborhood, close to everything, free shuttle to SoM. $350/mo to $400/mo + utils. xzhan45@gmail.com.

Genuine Chesterfield leather sofa w/2 armchairs, like new. melinv@hotmail.com.

Singer Touch&Sew, new in sealed box, never used, fully electronic, 70 built-in stitches, many accessories. $150. wightp1959@ hotmail.com.

Leather couch and loveseat, $500; 7-pc queen bedrm set, black, $700; tall bookcases (2), $100/both; electric fireplace display, $50; couch/loveseat sets (2), $100/ea; lg file drawers (2), $50/both; all in excel cond.

443-670-1046 or lan.afram@comcast.net.

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

410-488-1886.

SERVICES/ITEMS OFFERED OR WANTED

Fabulous, quality licensed family daycare in NE Baltimore, this Hopkins family loves her. Vanessa, 443-527-8653.

Kalisilat/JKD self-defense class. 443-9830707 or www.cftks.webs.com.

Badminton racket stringing service, quick turnaround time, arrange for pick-up. 925980-8265 or badminton@jhu.edu.

Group of medical students looking for partly furn’d (beds, study tables) 2BR, 2BA apt March 31-June 30, nr JH shuttle, pref walking distance to JHMI, safe neighborhood, budget of $1,200/mo (negotiable) incl utils. dr.saran.soman@gmail.com.

Free: Baldwin Arcsonic piano and bench, to anyone who can pick it up from my Columbia home, excel cond. 410-207-4475.

Responsible F college student looking to babysit family for the summer, has car, Red Cross CPR- and babysitting-certified. ctgodack@eckerd.edu.

Depression/bipolar support group, Sundays 11 am-12:30pm at Grace Fellowship Church in Lutherville. Dede, 410-486-4471 or dedebennett@comcast.net.

Volunteers needed for ambitious ecology project. Mark, 410-464-9274.

Friday Night Swing Dance Club, open to public, great bands, no partners needed.

410-663-0010 or www.fridaynightswing .com.

Absolutely flawless detailing and mobile power-wash service. Jason, 443-421-3659.

St Patrick’s luncheon and bingo, 10:30am, March 18, 37th and Roland Ave (nr Homewood campus and Hampden). 410-3664488.

Piano lessons by graduate student at Peabody Institute, affordable rates. 425-8901327.

Great photos, headshots for interviews/ auditions, family pics, production shots, weddings, events. Edward S Davis photography/videography. 443-695-9988 or esdavisimaging@gmail.com.

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

Tutor 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.

Clarinet and piano lessons available from current Peabody clarinet master’s student, competitive rates. 240-994-6489 or hughsonjennifer@gmail.com.

Piano lessons w/Peabody alum w/doctorate, patient instruction, all levels/ages welcome.

410-662-7951.

Private piano lessons by graduate student at Peabody Institute, affordable rates. 425890-1327.

Learn Arabic w/experienced native teacher, MSA and colloquial, all levels, lessons tailored to your needs, individual or group. thaerra@hotmail.com.

Piano/harpsichord lessons offered by Peabody Institute grad student, reasonable rates; call to schedule an appointment.

425-890-1327.

Need help with your JHU retirement plan investments portfolio? Free, confidential consultation. 410-435-5939 or treilly1@ aol.com.

LCSW-C providing psychotherapy for adults and couples w/sexual health or sexuality concerns, EHP accepted. 410-235-9200 #6, or shane.grant.lcswc@gmail.com.

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.

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• 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.

12 THE GAZETTE • March 7, 2011 M A R C H

7

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1 4

Calendar

Nations Foundation. To RSVP, e-mail eregloballeadersforum@jhu .edu or call 202-663-5686. Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Bldg. SAIS Wed.,

B L OOD DR I V E Tues., March 8, and Wed., March 9, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. JHU/

Tues., March 8, 4:15 p.m. “Biosynthesis of Molecular Scaffolds: Indanomycin and Thiostrepton,” a Chemistry colloquium with Wendy Kelly, Georgia Institute of Technology. 233 Remsen. HW 9,

3:30

Fri.,

p.m.

“ ‘In the Last Stages of Irremediable Disease’: American Hospitals and Dying Patients Before World War II,” a History of Science, Medicine and Technology colloquium with Emily Abel, UCLA. Seminar Room, 3rd floor, Welch Medical Library. EB

“Two Sides of Mikhail Gorbachev at the End of the Cold War: Decisions on Strategic Defenses and Biological Weapons, 1985–1991,” an Applied Physics Laboratory colloquium with journalist David Hoffman. Parsons Auditorium. APL

Fri., March 11, 2 p.m.

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

“Becoming Asia: Change and Continuity in Asian International Relations Since World War II,” a SAIS China Studies Program discussion with Richard Wich, SAIS. To RSVP, e-mail zji@jhu.edu or call 202-6635816. 806 Rome Bldg. SAIS Mon., March 7, noon.

Mon., March 7, 12:30 p.m.

“Turkey in Europe, the Middle East and Beyond,” a SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations discussion with Turkish ambassador to the United States, Namik Tan. To RSVP, e-mail transatlanticrsvp@ jhu.edu or call 202-663-5880.

Rome Auditorium. SAIS Mon.,

March

7,

4:30

p.m.

“Exiting From Japan’s ‘Lost Two Decades’,” a Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies discussion with economists Osaomi Orita and Iori Kawate. (Event is open to the SAIS community only; the speaker’s comments are off the record.)

To RSVP, e-mail reischauer@ jhu.edu or call 202-663-5812. 202 Rome Bldg. SAIS Tues.,

March

8,

9:30

a.m.

“Civil Society-Military Relations

BRENDAN FITZGERALD

Thurs., March 10, 3 p.m.

“The Number of Meanings of English Number Words,” a Cognitive Science colloquium with Chris Kennedy, University of Chicago.

134A Krieger. HW

p.m.

March

11,

12:30

p.m .

“Promoting Diplomacy Through Science,” a SAIS International Development Program discussion with Peter Agre of SPH and president of AAAS; and Vaughan Turekian, AAAS. To RSVP, e-mail developmentroundtable@jhu.edu or call 201-739-7425. 200 Rome Bldg. SAIS

“Supernovae and Dark Energy,” an STSci colloquium with Andy Howell, Las Cumbres Observatory. Bahcall Auditorium, Muller Bldg. HW

Thurs., March 10, 3:45 p.m.

12:45

Wed., March 9, 5 p.m. “Playing Our Game: Why China’s Industrial Rise Doesn’t Threaten the West,” a SAIS China Studies Program discussion with Edward Steinfield, MIT. To RSVP, e-mail zji@jhu .edu or call 202-663-5816. Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Bldg. SAIS

COLLOQUIA

March

9,

SAIS

American Red Cross blood drive.

For more information, e-mail johnshopkinsblooddrive@jhmi .edu or call 410-614-0913. Turner Concourse. EB

Wed.,

March

“Reviewing the Obama-Calderon Meeting,” a SAIS Latin American Studies Program discussion with Riordan Roett and Francisco Gonzalez, SAIS. To RSVP, e-mail jzurek1@jhu.edu or call 202-6635734. 736 Bernstein-Offit Bldg.

A sampling of mechanized objects used to make music.

Musical robots

A

n unusual group of “musicians” created by Lemur—the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots—will be performing this week on the Homewood campus.

Founded in 2000 by Eric Singer, Lemur is a group of artists and technologists who create exotic, sculptural musical instruments that integrate robotic technology. The result is computer-controlled mechanized acoustic musical instruments that can perform music by and with human musicians. Singer will present examples of projects created by Lemur, and will talk about members’ work with robotics, programming art, cross-disciplinary collaboration and building musical instruments.

The event takes place at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8, in B17 Hackerman Hall and will be followed by a short reception and Q&A session in the lobby, with light refreshments.

The artist’s lecture is made possible with support from the Whiting School’s Computer Science Department and Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics, and the Peabody Institute’s Computer Music Department, and is offered in conjunction with Baltimore’s Mobtown Modern concert series, which is hosting a concert with Lemur and Todd Reynolds at 8 p.m. the following evening at the Windup Space.

and Human Security,” a SAIS Conflict Management Program panel discussion with Rosa Brooks, U.S. Department of Defense; Lisa Schirch, 3D Security; Mark Mykleby, special strategic assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Fulco van Deventer, Cordaid. To RSVP, go to https://salsa.wiredforchange.com /o/6060/p/salsa/event/common/ public/?event_KEY=21278. Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Bldg. SAIS Tues.,

March

8,

12:30

p.m.

“ThinkImpact: Summer Internship Opportunities,” a SAIS Careers in Development brown bag lunch discussion with Saul Garlick, founder and director, ThinkImpact. 206 Rome Bldg. SAIS Wed., March 9, noon. “Opportunities for Hopkins Faculty and Staff in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA),” an Office of Sustainability discussion with Joan

Norman, One Straw Farm. (See In Brief, p. 2.) Great Hall, Levering. HW Wed., March 9, 12:30 p.m.

“The Egyptian Uprising: Context and Contestation,” a SAIS African Studies Program discussion with Diane Singerman, American University. To RSVP, e-mail itolber1@jhu.edu or call 202663-5676. 736 Bernstein-Offit Bldg. SAIS Wed., March 9, 12:30 p.m. “Grow-

ing Green in a Crowded, CarbonConstrained World,” a SAIS Energy, Resources and Environment Program panel discussion with moderator David Jhirad, director, ERE; Achim Steiner, UNEP; Kate Gordon, Center for American Progress; and Richenda Van Leeuwen UNF. Co-sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme and the United

Fri., March 11, 2 p.m . “Reasonable Expectations: Civil Society as Peacemaker—Findings From a Multi-Country Study,” a SAIS Conflict Management Program panel discussion with Thania Paffenholz, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Switzerland; Lisa Schirch, Eastern Mennonite University; and Michael Lund, moderator, Management Systems International Inc. To RSVP, go to https://salsa.wiredforchange.com /o/6060/p/salsa/event/common/ public/?event_KEY=21681. Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Bldg. SAIS

F I L M / V I DEO Tues., March 8, through Sat., March 12. Second Tournees Fes-

tival of Contemporary French Cinema. All films will be in French with English subtitles. For details, go to https://sites.google.com/site/ jhutournees2011. HW •

Tues., March 8, 7:30 p.m.

•

Wed., March 9, 7:30 p.m.

35 Shots of Rum (35 Rhums).

26 Mudd.

It’s Hard to Be Loved by Jerks (C’est dur d’etre aime par des cons). 101 Remsen.

•

Thurs., March 10, 7:30 p.m.

•

Sat., March 12, 3:30 p.m.

Days of Glory (Indigenes). 101 Remsen.

Frantz Fanon: His Life, His Struggle, His Work (Frantz Fanon: Sa vie, son combat, son travail). 26 Mudd.

Screening of the film Empire of Silver, followed by a discussion with the film’s director Christina Yao. Sponsored by the SAIS China Studies Program. To RSVP, e-mail zji@jhu.edu or call 202-663-5816.

806 Rome Bldg. SAIS Mon., March 14, noon.

I N FOR M AT I O N SESSIONS Thurs., March 10, 5 p.m. “Using Flickr Commons and the Internet Archive for Research and Teaching,” a Milton S. Eisenhower Library

information session on how to use library resources for research.

To register, go to www.library .jhu.edu/researchhelp/workshops .html. Electronic Resource Center, M-Level, MSE Library. HW “Using Networking to Build Interdisciplinary Collaborations in Women’s Cancers,” a Johns Hopkins Women’s Health Research Group networking session with speaker Kala Visvanathan, SPH. Bring lunch; light refreshments and beverages will be provided. To RSVP, go to www.jhsph.edu/urbanhealth/ whrg/session_031411.html.

W3030 SPH. EB

Mon., March 14, noon.

L E C TURE S The Thalheimer Lectures by Ned Block, NYU. Sponsored by Philosophy. HW

•

•

Mon., March 7, 4 p.m.

“Attention and the Question of Whether Perception Is Sparse or Rich.” 50 Gilman.

Wed., March 9, 4 p.m.

“Attention and Mental Paint.” 110 Maryland.

Thurs., March 10, 4 p.m. “They Want to Kill the Charruas,” a Program in Latin American Studies lecture by Ceres Victora, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul Porto Alegre, Brazil. 114 Maryland. HW Thurs., March 10, 5 p.m. “The Mythologist and the Freak of Nature: A Reading of Pindar’s First Olympian,” a Classics lecture

by Andrew Ford, Princeton University. 108 Gilman. HW Thurs., March 10, 5:15 p.m.

“Italy Through the Dromoscope,” a German and Romance Languages and Literatures lecture by Stephanie Malia Hom, University of Oklahoma. 479 Gilman. HW Mon., March 14, 4:30 p.m.

Kempf Lecture—“The Arf-Kervaire Problem in Algebraic Topology: Part 1” by Doug Ravenal, University of Rochester. Sponsored by Mathematics. 304 Krieger. HW MUSIC

Hopkins Symphony Orchestra presents its annual concert for children and families, performing Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. (See story, p. 2.) After the performance, the audience is invited onstage to meet

Sat., March 12, 1 p.m.

Continued on page 8

Calendar

Key

APL BRB CRB EB HW JHOC

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

Applied Physics Laboratory Broadway Research Building Cancer Research Building East Baltimore Homewood Johns Hopkins Outpatient

Center KSAS Krieger School of Arts

and Sciences NEB New Engineering Building 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