The Gazette

o ur 4 0 th ye ar

A P P O I N T ME N T

VIS ITOR

Covering Homewood, East Baltimore, Peabody,

SAIS names new American

Melinda Gates visits Jhpiego

SAIS, APL and other campuses throughout the

co-director of Hopkins-Nanjing

program in Kenya, hears about

Baltimore-Washington area and abroad, since 1971.

Center, page 3

family-planning needs, page 9

March 21, 2011

The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University

E V E N T S

Volume 40 No. 27

T R A D I T I O N

Residencies at the end of the rainbow

CTY: Math, minds and a milestone

By Charles Beckman

Center for Talented Youth

Continued on page 9

2

KEITH WELLER

P

resident Barack Obama, in his January State of the Union address, challenged Americans, saying, “We need to teach our kids that it’s not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science Symposium fair.”

Two Johns Hopwill look at kins events—a major math education symposium and a success of ceremony honoring the brightest middle above-level school students in the country—take testing place this weekend as the Center for Talented Youth keeps front and center the president’s focus on high-achieving young people.

Researchers, former students and top math educators will convene on the Johns Hopkins Mount Washington campus on Friday, March 25, to mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, or SMPY. The study was founded in 1971 by Johns Hopkins psychologist and gifted education pioneer Julian Stanley, who would go on to found CTY in 1979.

Stanley died in 2005, and leading the study now, and attending the symposium, will be Camilla Benbow, a former graduate student of his, and David Lubinski, both of whom are now at Vanderbilt University. Benbow and Lubinski plan to complete a 50-year study involving 5,000 people who were first identified as academically talented in their middle school years in five groups identified between 1972 to 1997.

Leaders of the study say they believe that its goals are as vital as ever: to develop a better understanding of the unique needs of high-ability youth, and to determine what major forces influence their lives and their careers.

The data mountain has produced some jewels. Of the SMPY members

Clockwise: Swathi Eluri, Bridget Wild and Christopher Martin receive their ‘gold coins’ from Barry Solomon and Robert Dudas. Lorenza Frisoni and James Carson, with girlfriend Taylor Regis, share their news.

Pot of gold grants wishes to fourth-year medical students on Match Day

By Greg Rienzi

The Gazette

T

he fourth-year medical students may not have needed the luck of the Irish on March 17, but many wore green and crossed their fingers as they opened envelopes that contained the answer to where they will begin their careers as doctors.

From the many smiles, shrieks and tears of joy that followed, the majority got their wish.

The event is called Match Day, an emotionally charged gathering where all the students simultaneously open letters—precisely at the strike of noon— to find out the hospital where they have been accepted for residency.

Since this year’s Match Day fell on St. Continued on page 5

M I L E S T O N E

Messenger begins historic orbit around Mercury After six-year journey, APL-managed spacecraft arrives at its destination B y P a u l e t t e C a m pb e l l

Applied Physics Laboratory

A

t 9:10 p.m. on Thursday, March 17, engineers in the Messenger Mission Operations Center at the Johns

In Brief

New chair for JHM board; ‘Best Grad School’ rankings; student work in cancer nanotech

16

Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory received the anticipated radiometric signals confirming nominal burn shutdown and successful insertion of the Messenger probe into orbit around the planet Mercury.

The spacecraft rotated back to Earth by 9:45 p.m. and started transmitting data.

Upon review of these data, the engineering and operations teams confirmed that the burn executed nominally with all subsystems reporting a clean burn and no logged errors.

Messenger’s main thruster fired for approximately 15 minutes at 8:45 p.m., slowing the

Calendar

Info Sciences and Systems conference; ‘Changing Face of Surgical Education’

spacecraft by 1,929 miles per hour and easing it into the planned eccentric orbit about Mercury. The rendezvous took place about 96 million miles from Earth.

“Achieving Mercury orbit was by far the biggest milestone since Messenger was launched more than six and a half years ago,” said Messenger project manager Peter Bedini, of APL. “This accomplishment is the fruit of a tremendous amount of labor on the part of the navigation, guidanceContinued on page 7

14 Job Opportunities 14 Notices 15 Classifieds

2 THE GAZETTE • March 21, 2011 I N   B R I E F

‘U.S. News’ releases new Best Graduate School rankings

The Master of Liberal Arts (MLA) Program at Johns Hopkins University thrives on the curiosity, passion, and diversity of its students and faculty. Students can explore mythology, art, history, religion, literature, politics, sustainability, film, music, and much more.

Our program offers a flexible, part-time format with courses in the evenings and on Saturdays.

Choose from courses such as: Russian History, Race and Jazz, King Arthur, Romanesque and Gothic Art, Place and Vision, NYC: 1930’s to the Present, Shakespeare: Tragedies and Histories, and Religions of the Emerging World.

Attend an upcoming open hou

Francis B. Burch Jr. named chair of Johns Hopkins Medicine

B

se

Homewood Campus Thursday, April 7 6:30 -7:30pm

MASTER OF

liberal arts

T

he Johns Hopkins schools of Nursing and Public Health have more in common than their parent institution: Each received a No. 1 ranking in its field by U.S. News & World Report in its latest Best Graduate School rankings, released last week. (Nursing shared the top spot in a three-way tie with Penn and the University of Washington.) The two categories were last ranked in 2007, when Public Health was ranked first and Nursing fourth.

Also ranked this year were schools of medicine (Johns Hopkins, No. 3 among research-oriented schools), education (tied for 18th) and engineering (26th).

Notable specialty rankings include No. 1 in biomedical engineering, community/ public health nursing and internal medicine (tie) and No. 2 in AIDS, drug/alcohol abuse (tie) and geriatrics.

For complete listings, go to www.usnews .com/rankings.

&/$ B*D]HWWH$G 0/$B LQGG

Learn more and RSVP online today at mla.jhu.edu

30

Park Heights JCC Early Childhood Programs 3 M o n t h s – 4 Ye a r s

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Hands-on Learning

altimore trial lawyer and businessman Francis B. Burch Jr. has been elected chairman of the board of Johns Hopkins Medicine, effective July 1. The current chairman of the DLA Piper global board and co-chairman of DLA Piper LLP (U.S.), Burch within the last decade led the transformation of Piper & Marbury, a regional Maryland law firm with 250 lawyers, to DLA Piper, a top10 global legal practice with 71 offices in 29 countries and more than 3,500 lawyers. Burch has been a member of the Johns Hopkins Medicine board of trustees since its inception in 1996. He succeeds C. Michael Armstrong, who has been chairman since 2005.

Burch also is a trustee of the university and is on the board of overseers of the Carey Business School. He recently served on the search committee that selected university President Ronald J. Daniels. He also has served on the board of the Dome Corp.

f a new home is in your plans, hop on the bus with the Live Near Your Work program to tour the LNYW areas of Baltimore City. Learn about the neighborhoods and housing styles, tour featured homes and enjoy treats from Di Pasquale’s Italian Marketplace.

Live Near Your Work on Wheels is scheduled for 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, April 2.

Participants will have the opportunity to learn about the LNYW program, including the expansion of the $17,000 A-2 tier located in East Baltimore, and the increase to $3,000 for D-tier grants. Representatives from Greater Homewood Community Corp.,

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

the Southeast Community Development Corp. and Central Baltimore Partnership will present information about their areas and the home-buying incentives available through Healthy Neighborhoods.

Seating is limited, and registration is re­quired. To register, go to hrnt.jhu.edu/service/ fasapregistration or call 443-997-7000.

Symposium to highlight student work in cancer nanotech

T

he Institute for NanoBioTechnology will host a mini-symposium on Wednesday, March 23, to showcase research by students affiliated with its Engineering in Oncology Center and Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence. Talks begin at 9 a.m. in Homewood’s Hackerman Hall Auditorium and will conclude by noon.

Speakers from the Whiting School will be predoctoral fellows in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Stephanie Fraley, Laura Dickinson and Craig Schneider and postdoctoral fellows Christopher Hale, Jaeho Park and Eric Balzer; from Biomedical Engineering, predoctoral fellow Yi Zhang and undergradute Kelvin Liu; and from Mechanical Engineering, postdoctoral fellow Sam Walcott.

Also giving presentations are predoctoral fellow Dipankar Pramanik, in Pathology at the School of Medicine, and John Fini, director of Intellectual Property for the Homewood schools.

The Engineering in Oncology Center aims to unravel the physical underpinnings involved in the growth and spread of cancer. The Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence uses a multidisciplinary approach to develop nanotechnology-based tools and strategies for comprehensive cancer diagnosis and therapy and to translate those tools to the marketplace.

Shriver Hall Concert Series announces 2011–2012 season

S

hriver Hall Concert Series will open its 46th season in October with a performance by the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Also scheduled for 2011–2012 are violinist Christian Tetzlaff and pianist Lars Vogt, cellist Steven Isserlis, chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy, lieder baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, pianist Richard Goode, the Takacs Quartet and “Bach pianist� Angela Hewitt. Ticket prices will remain $219 for all eight concerts and $38 for single tickets.

In collaboration with the Baltimore Museum of Art, Shriver Hall Concert Series @the BMA Discovery Series presents three “rising-star� performers in free Saturday afternoon concerts. Artists for 2011–2012 will be the Johannes String Quartet, pianist George Li and the 2011 Yale Gordon Competition winner, pianist Yury Shadrin. For concert details, go to www.shriverconcerts .org.

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

The Gazette is published weekly September through May and biweekly June through August for the Johns Hopkins University community by the Office of Government, Community and Public Affairs, Suite 540, 901 S. Bond St., Baltimore, MD 21231, in cooperation with all university divisions. Subscriptions are $26 per year. Deadline for calendar items, notices and classifieds (free to JHU faculty, staff and students) is noon Monday, one week prior to publication date.

Phone: 443-287-9900 Fax: 443-287-9920 General e-mail: gazette@jhu.edu Classifieds e-mail: gazads@jhu.edu On the Web: gazette.jhu.edu Paid advertising, which does not represent any endorsement by the university, is handled by the Gazelle Group at 410343-3362 or gazellegrp@comcast.net.

March 21, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

3

Department of Energy calls on expertise of materials scientists

By Phil Sneiderman

Homewood

I

n a search for experts to help address the nation’s energy challenges—how to generate and use power more efficiently— materials scientists might not immediately come to mind.

But two Whiting School faculty members who study materials recently played key roles in developing a report for the U.S. Department of Energy that identified materialsrelated products and processing technologies that could someday serve as game-changers in areas such as energy efficiency and energy-related business opportunities.

The two Johns Hopkins participants were Kevin Hemker, professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and

Jonah Erlebacher, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

In a recent interview, the faculty members said that materials scientists have an obvious role to play in saving energy when they work on fuel cells and lighter materials for automobiles. The Department of Energy– sponsored meetings, they said, gave them a chance to meet with other prominent materials scientists to help direct attention and resources toward more complex energyrelated projects.

Hemker, who has a secondary appointment in Materials Science and Engineering and who studies the mechanical behavior of nanomaterials, served on the Energy Materials Blue Ribbon Panel. This group, organized early last year by the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, singled out the four most-promising research topics

related to materials and energy, including higher-performance materials for extreme environments and multimaterials integration in energy systems.

Erlebacher, whose research projects include catalysts and fuel cells, served on a technical working group that focused on a third target research area identified by the Blue Ribbon Panel: functional surface technology. This group looked at catalysts and coatings that can help reduce the loss of energy during chemical processes and curtail the release of environmentally harmful gases.

“It was an incredibly rewarding experience,” Erlebacher said. “We were brainstorming about where the really important research areas are and where materials scientists can make the most difference.”

Hemker said that one of the areas he was most interested in was the development

of materials and coatings that can enable power plant engines to operate safely at a higher temperature. The increased temperature leads to more energy efficiency, he said.

The recommendations produced by Hemker, Erlebacher and their colleagues have been presented to top Department of Energy officials. The goal is to guide federal energy policies and the allocation of research funding.

“The message,” Hemker said, “is that materials science has a big role to play in addressing the nation’s energy challenges.”

The reports to which Hemker and Erlebacher contributed were released recently by the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society and can be viewed online at the group’s energy website, energy.tms.org/initiatives/ LTMP.aspx.

Guided Care reduces health service use by ill older adults

By Tim Parsons

Bloomberg School of Public Health

A

new report shows that older people who receive Guided Care use fewer expensive health services compared to older people who receive regular primary care.

Research published in the March edition of Archives of Internal Medicine found that after 20 months of a randomized controlled trial, Guided Care patients experienced, on average, 30 percent fewer home health care episodes, 21 percent fewer hospital readmissions, 16 percent fewer skilled nursing facility days and 8 percent fewer skilled nursing facility admissions; only the reduction in home health care episodes was statistically significant.

According to the study, Guided Care produced even larger reductions in a subset of patients who received their primary care from one well-managed health system.

Guided Care patients in Kaiser Permanente of the Mid-Atlantic States experienced, on

average, 52 percent fewer skilled nursing facility days, 47 percent fewer skilled nursing facility admissions, 49 percent fewer hospital readmissions and 17 percent fewer emergency department visits; the differences for skilled nursing facility days and admissions were statistically significant.

“These data suggest that Guided Care can reduce avoidable health service use and costs in well-managed systems,” said lead author Chad Boult, a professor in the Health Services Research Division at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“Because they are part of a delivery system in which their health professionals already work as a team, Kaiser Permanente and similarly coordinated systems may be better able to achieve cost savings with a comprehensive, team-based care model such as Guided Care,” Boult said. “We would like to further explore which elements of the Kaiser-Permanente culture may have helped Guided Care reduce the use of costly health services.”

This multisite randomized controlled trial of Guided Care involving 49 physicians, 904 older patients and 319 family members

A P P O I N T M E N T

SAIS names new American codirector of Hopkins-Nanjing Center ter’s program—the first Sino-U.S. master’s degree accredited in both countries—and SAIS the certificate program.

Patent most recently has served, since late 2009, as vice president of communications he Johns Hopkins University Paul and marketing for Orchestrall, a PhiladelH. Nitze School of Advanced Interphia-based China market entry company. national Studies has named Jason His more than 20 years of China-related Patent the new American co-director of the experience began after college, when he Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and taught English in the far northeast industrial American Studies, effective May 1. city of Qiqihar. Since that time, his work Established in 1986, the center, located has spanned the education, nonprofit and in Nanjing, China, is a postgraduate edubusiness sectors. He later lived in cational joint venture between Guangzhou, Chengdu and BeiJohns Hopkins and Nanjing unijing, where in 2004 he became versities, providing approximately the inaugural director of Stanford 200 students from the United University’s Overseas Studies ProStates and other countries and gram based at Peking University.

China the unique opportunity to While with the Stanford program, live and study together. Amerihe also taught courses on lancan and international students guage and culture and conducted take the majority of their classes scholarly research. In 2007, Patin Mandarin, while Chinese stuent transitioned to the private dents study mostly in English. In Jason Patent sector, working near Philadelphia addition, the center has the only as a management consultant for Gap Interopen stack, uncensored library in China, national, leading a team of linguists charged containing more than 100,000 English and with innovating methods of using language Chinese volumes. SAIS administers the to improve business performance. center’s activities on behalf of Johns Hop Patent received his bachelor’s degree in kins.

East Asian studies from Harvard University As the Nanjing-based American co-diin 1990, a master’s degree in East Asian rector, Patent will be responsible for the studies from Stanford University in 1994 management of the center’s affairs with the and a doctorate in linguistics from the UniChinese co-director, as well as the adminversity of California, Berkeley in 2003. istration of the recently established masBy Felisa Klubes Neuringer

T

recently concluded in eight locations in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area. The three-year study was funded by a private-public partnership of the John A. Hartford Foundation, Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and National Institute on Aging.

Additional authors of the study are Lisa Reider, Bruce Leff, Kevin D. Frick, Cynthia M. Boyd, Jennifer Wolff, Katherine Frey, Lya Karm, Stephen T. Wegener, Tracy Mroz and Daniel O. Scharfstein.

Guided Care is a model of proactive, comprehensive health care provided by physiciannurse teams for people with several chronic health conditions. Primary care practices can adopt Guided Care to help become patientcentered medical homes or accountable care organizations. The model is designed to improve quality of care and quality of life while improving the efficiency of treating the

sickest and most complex patients.

Guided Care teams consist of a registered nurse, two to five physicians, and the other members of the primary care office staff who work together for the benefit of each patient; they assess the patient and family caregiver at home, create an evidence-based care plan and patient-friendly action plan, monitor the patient’s conditions monthly, promote patient self-management, coordinate the efforts of all the patient’s health care providers, smooth the patient’s transition between sites of care, inform and support family caregivers and facilitate access to community resources.

Previous articles have reported that Guided Care patients and their family caregivers rate the quality of their health care more highly than do other patients, and that Guided Care improves physicians’ satisfaction with the chronic care they provide.

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4 THE GAZETTE • March 21, 2011

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March 21, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

Match Continued from page 1 Patrick’s Day, the color green was ubiquitous, from the balloons and shamrock decorations to the cookies and cupcakes. The envelopes came in the shape of gold coins that students pulled from a pot at the end of a balloon rainbow. The school’s Alumni Office also sold green T-shirts.

The event took place on the second floor of the Armstrong Medical Education Building, a space filled with family members, classmates and professors who came to show support.

The 2011 graduating class contains 44 women and 55 men, and all but two have chosen to enter a residency program next year. The most popular specialties are internal medicine, pediatrics, anesthesiology, orthopedic surgery, radiology and general surgery. Internal medicine and pediatrics have traditionally been the most sought-

after specialties for Johns Hopkins graduates over the past two decades.

Match Day takes place every year on the same day—the third Thursday in March—at medical schools around the country. The National Resident Matching Program, designed to keep the matches fair and objective, pairs the wishes of the students with the needs of hospitals’ residency programs. Prior to Match Day, students complete lengthy paperwork, interview on site with hospitals and then provide a ranked list of top choices.

Hospitals submit a similar list indicating openings, preferred students and specialty or generalist preferences. Each applicant is matched via computer algorithm to the hospital residency program that is highest on the applicant’s list and has offered the applicant a position. Johns Hopkins students often match to their first- or second-choice sites.

The students secured placement in some of the country’s most prestigious hospitals, including Johns Hopkins (34 of the 97), Massachusetts General, UCLA Medical Center and Mayo Clinic. G

New study suggests ALS could be caused by a retrovirus

A

retrovirus that inserted itself into the human genome thousands of years ago may be responsible for some cases of the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The finding, made by Johns Hopkins scientists, may eventually give researchers a new way to attack this universally fatal condition.

While roughly 20 percent of ALS cases appear to have a genetic cause, the vast majority of cases appear to arise sporadically, with no known trigger. Research groups searching for a cause of this so-called sporadic form had previously spotted a protein known as reverse transcriptase, a product of retroviruses such as HIV, in ALS patients’ serum samples, suggesting that a retrovirus might play a role in the disease. However, these groups weren’t able to trace this reverse transcriptase to a specific retrovirus, leaving some scientists doubting whether retroviruses are involved in ALS. Seeking to verify whether a culprit retrovirus indeed exists, Avindra Nath, a professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and colleagues examined brain samples from 62 people: 28 who died from ALS, 12 who died from chronic systemic diseases such as cancer, 10 who died from accidental causes and 12 who had another neurodegenerative disease, Parkinson’s, at the time of their deaths. Using a technique known as polymerase chain reaction, the researchers searched for messenger RNA, or mRNA, transcripts from retroviruses, a chemical signature that retroviruses were active in these patients.

In samples from the ALS and chronic disease patients, the search turned up mRNA transcripts that came from human endog-

enous retrovirus K, or HERV-K. This retrovirus is one of thousands that became a part of the human genome after infecting our ancestors long ago. Nowadays, these retroviruses are no longer contagious but are instead passed along through inheritance in part of the genome that scientists consider “junk” DNA. When Nath and his colleagues took a closer look at the mRNA, they saw that the transcripts seemed to originate from different parts of the genome in the samples from ALS and systemic disease patients.

The transcripts also came from different tissues in the brain. While patients with ALS tended to have HERV-K transcripts present in areas surrounding the motor cortex of the brain—the area affected by the disease—the other patients’ transcripts were spread more diffusely through the brain.

Although the researchers express caution, the findings, reported in the January Annals of Neurology, suggest that HERV-K might be the ALS retrovirus that researchers have been looking for.

“This paper doesn’t establish causation beyond the level of doubt, but it does provide some promising links between HERV-K and ALS,” Nath said. “We’ve never found a putative retrovirus for this disease before, so this opens up a whole new area.”

Nath and his colleagues plan to study whether HERV-K might cause neuronal damage, a step closer to linking this retrovirus to ALS. They also plan to study what factors may cause HERV-K to reactivate in some people and lead to ALS symptoms.

Researchers might eventually be able to fight ALS, Nath said, using antiretroviral drugs specific to HERV-K. —Christen Brownlee

The Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center Psychiatry and Arts Series

An evening of music and conversation with

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Singer/Songwriter

March 24, 2011 | Free Tea at 5 PM Performance at 5:30 Hurd Hall The Johns Hopkins Hospital hopkinsmedicine.org/meg_hutchinson

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6 THE GAZETTE • March 21, 2011

Newer not better when it comes to type 2 diabetes drugs

By Stephanie Desmon

Johns Hopkins Medicine

A

n inexpensive type 2 diabetes drug that has been around for more than 15 years works just as well and has fewer side effects than a half-dozen other, mostly newer and more expensive, classes of medication used to control the chronic disease, new Johns Hopkins research suggests.

In its report, published online March 14 in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the Johns Hopkins team found that metformin, an oral drug that was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1995, not only controlled blood sugar but also was less likely to cause weight gain or raise cholesterol levels.

“Metformin works for most people. It’s cheaper—there’s a generic form. It’s tried and true,” said study leader Wendy L. Bennett, an assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

“Our study shows that even though there are all these newer drugs, metformin works just as well and has fewer side effects.”

The study is an update of Johns Hopkins research published in 2007 that also showed there were advantages to metformin. New classes of medication for adult-onset diabetes have been approved by the FDA since then, and Bennett and her colleagues wanted to know if the newer drugs were any better than the older crop. The research team also looked for the first time at the

efficacy of two-drug combinations to treat the chronic disease, which has become increasingly common with more than onethird of diabetes patients needing multiple medications. Researchers found that while two drugs worked better than one in those patients whose blood sugar remained poorly controlled on a single medication, there were also side effects associated with adding a second medication.

“Diabetes is an enormous public health problem, and patients have difficult decisions to make about what medications they should be taking,” Bennett said. “Our study provides good information comparing drugs and can be used to inform those decisions.”

Bennett and her colleagues reviewed 166 previously published medical studies that examined the effectiveness and safety of diabetes drugs, as well as their impact on long-term outcomes, including death and cardiovascular, kidney and nerve diseases.

The team had previously looked at several popular classes of oral diabetes medication— metformin (sold as Glucophage, Fortamet and others), second-generation sulfonylureas (Amaryl, Glucotrol and more), thiazolidinediones (Avandia and Actos) and meglitinides (Starlix and Prandin)—and added two new classes of drugs, dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors (Januvia and Onglynza) and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists (Byetta and Victoza), which are given by injection.

No drug or combination of drugs was shown to have an advantage in improving long-term outcomes, Bennett said, primar-

ily because there weren’t enough long-term studies, particularly of newer medications.

While most drugs reduced blood sugar similarly, metformin was consistently associated with fewer side effects. Though metformin is associated with increased risk of gastrointestinal side effects, Bennett, an internist, said that she finds many of her patients can overcome them by starting with a low dose and taking the medication with meals, though patients with severe kidney disease may avoid it. The sulfonylureas and meglitinides were associated with increased risk for hypoglycemia, or dangerously low blood sugar levels.

The thiazolidinediones increased risk of heart failure, weight gain and fractures. In September 2010, the FDA placed restrictions on the use of Avandia because of concerns that the drug increases the risk of heart attack.

Meanwhile, the new medications, because there are no generic options, are significantly more expensive than older ones. One hundred metformin pills cost about $35.57, or 35 cents a pill, while 30 Januvia pills (a DPP-4 inhibitor) cost $192.52, or $6.42 a pill—nearly 18 times as much.

While the drugs all reduce blood sugar levels, Bennett said that more research is needed into whether they actually improve outcomes for diabetics in the long run. It remains an open question as to whether patients with type 2 diabetes who have their blood sugar controlled by medication will reduce their chances of having complications associated with the disease, including eye, kidney and nerve diseases, she said.

“Some of the drugs haven’t been on the

market long enough to study the long-term effects or even some of the short-term rare side effects, so we need longer studies in patients who are at highest risk for complications,” Bennett said.

More than 25 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, and the number of diagnoses has been steadily rising, with 1.9 million new cases diagnosed in 2010. Like many chronic illnesses, diabetes disproportionately affects older people, and its prevalence is higher among racial and ethnic minorities. The annual economic burden of diabetes is an estimated $132 billion and increasing, mostly attributable to costly complications of the disease.

The study was paid for by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

In addition to Bennett, Johns Hopkins researchers involved in this work are Nisa M. Maruthur, Sonal Singh, Jodi B. Segal, Lisa M. Wilson, Spyridon S. Marinopoulos, Milo A. Puhan, Padmini Ranasinghe, Lauren Block, Susan Hutfless and Eric B. Bass.

Related websites Evidence-based Practice Center at Johns Hopkins:

www.ahrq.gov/clinic/epc/j hopkepc.htm

Wendy Bennett:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/gim/ faculty/Bennett.html

For smokers, Internet both promotes, undermines cessation

By Tim Parsons

Bloomberg School of Public Health

A

new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows both the intended and unintended consequences of cigarette taxes.

According to an analysis of Internet search data, the 2009 U.S. federal cigarette excise tax increase successfully drove many smokers online to find ways to quit smoking, but more often smokers responded by shopping online for tax-free or cheap cigarettes in an apparent effort to evade the tax hike.

The study is the first evaluation of smokers’ responses to the tax, which increased from $0.39 to $1.01 per pack under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, reforms. The findings are published in the March 16 edition of PLoS One. “Smokers can use the Web to continue or kick their habit, but, until now, we haven’t been able to observe these behaviors in real time,” said lead study author John Ayers, a doctoral candidate at the Bloomberg School. “This study shows how the Internet

is a double-edged sword, both promoting and undermining smoking, which remains the leading cause of premature death in the U.S. Online vendors sell reduced or taxfree cigarettes using policy loopholes or by illegally evading the taxes altogether, while health advocates use the Web to promote cessation.”

For the study, Ayers and a team of scientists from University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and the Children’s Hospital (Boston) Informatics Program, known as CHIP, studied the impacts of the tax by monitoring queries to Google-powered search engines a year before and after the increase. The researchers found that around the time the increase took effect, searches regarding smoking cessation and tax avoidance reached new highs, increasing about 50 percent and 300 percent, respectively, over baseline. However, cessation searches approximated pre-tax levels within two weeks of the tax, while searches for taxfree and cheap cigarettes remained about 60 percent higher a year after the tax. Analyses of search trends for two recent state-specific cigarette excise tax increases, in Florida and New York, corroborated these trends.

Study co-author Kurt Ribisl, whose research focuses on policy issues related to Internet tobacco sales, noted, “I am troubled to see the spike in people searching for cheap cigarettes around the time of tax increases. These tax increases are the leading way to reduce smoking while generating substantial revenue. This is a wake-up call for states and the federal government to crack down on tax evasion from Internet tobacco sales.”

Co-author John Brownstein, director of the Computational Epidemiology Group within CHIP and co-founder of Health Map (healthmap.org), said, “This was the first study to use real-time search query surveillance for a health policy evaluation. Search query surveillance is a promising approach for low-cost, public and real-time insight into population health.”

“Health professionals need to anticipate how the public may respond to changes in health policies or new health information.

We can create new approaches for utilizing Internet searches to help the public make the best decisions to improve their health,” said Daniel Ford, vice dean for clinical investigation for Johns Hopkins Medicine,

who was not affiliated with the study. “It has been a challenge to find ways to engage smokers who are not actively considering quitting. When policies lead to increased Internet searches for cheap cigarettes, this might provide an important opportunity for reaching these smokers,” Ford said.

“Most smokers want to quit smoking, and it is paramount that governments implement evidence-based policies to help people quit, including raising tobacco taxes,” said Joanna Cohen, director of the Bloomberg School’s Institute for Global Tobacco Control. “The good news here is that in absolute terms, more people searched for smoking cessation rather than illicit cigarettes, even after the taxes promoted tax evasion.”

Health advocates say they have options for influencing online behaviors. “In the future, we can target smokers with advertisements tailored to individual search queries that discourage tax evasion and promote cessation,” Ayers said. “Had such systems already been in place to take advantage of the increases in cessation and tax evasion searches around the SCHIP tax, there would likely be fewer smokers today.”

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March 21, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

7

A

team of researchers from the United States and Europe has identified a single genetic mutation in the CUBN gene that is associated with albuminuria both with and without diabetes. Albuminuria is a condition caused by the leaking of the protein albumin into the urine, which is an indication of kidney disease.

The research team, known as the CKDGen Consortium, examined data from several genomewide association studies to identify missense variant (I2984V) in the CUBN gene. The association between the CUBN variant and albuminuria was observed in 63,153 individuals of European ancestry and in 6,981 individuals of African-American ancestry, and in both the general population and in individuals with diabetes. The findings are published in the March edition of JASN. Chronic kidney disease is a serious public health problem in the United States and around the world. Characterized by reduced kidney function or kidney damage, the disease affects approximately 10 percent of U.S. adults. Elevated levels of urinary albumin (albuminuria) are a cardinal manifestation of chronic kidney disease. Higher levels of albuminuria, even within the low normal range, are associated with not only increased risks of end-stage renal disease, requiring kidney transplant or dialysis, but also cardiovascular disease and mortality.

Important risk factors for chronic kidney disease include diabetes and hypertension, although kidney disease clusters in families. The hereditary factors

underlying chronic kidney disease have been difficult to determine until recently, when new methods to search for risk genes became available. The CKDGen Consortium applied one of the new methods, called genomewide association study. In 2008, Johns Hopkins researchers used similar methods to identify common variants for nondiabetic end-stage renal disease, gout and sudden cardiac death.

“The significance of this finding is that even though the field has known about cubilin [the protein encoded by CUBN] function from experimental animal studies, our study was the first to establish the link between a genetic variation in this gene and albuminuria,” said Linda Kao, an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and the senior Johns Hopkins author on the study. “The identification of CUBN and its association with albuminuria will lead to a multitude of follow-up work that will help us begin to understand the mechanism behind albuminuria and, hopefully, will ultimately lead to novel treatment targets.”

The research was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the Icelandic Heart Association and the Icelandic Parliament, the German Research Foundation, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research and the Netherlands Heart Foundation, and the European Commission. —Tim Parsons

PAUL E. ALERS / NASA

Gene variant influences chronic kidney disease risk

At APL, NASA administrator Charles Bolden shakes hands with Eric Finnegan, Messenger mission systems engineer, as APL Director Ralph Semmel, second from right, and Ed Weiler, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, look on, after the spacecraft successfully inserted itself in Mercury’s orbit.

Messenger Continued from page 1 and-control and mission operations teams, who shepherded the spacecraft through its 4.9-billion-mile journey.”

For the next several weeks, APL engineers will be focused on ensuring that Messenger’s systems are all working well in Mercury’s harsh thermal environment. Starting on March 23, the instruments will be turned on and checked out, and on April 4 the primary science phase of the mission will begin.

“Despite its proximity to Earth, the planet Mercury has for decades been comparatively unexplored,” said Messenger principal

investigator Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. “For the first time in history, a scientific observatory is in orbit about our solar system’s innermost planet. Mercury’s secrets, and the implications they hold for the formation and evolution of Earth-like planets, are about to be revealed.”

Messenger is carrying seven science instruments and is fortified against the blistering environs near the sun, which is 28.67 million miles away. The insertion placed the spacecraft into a 12-hour orbit about Mercury, with a 124-mile minimum altitude.

APL designed and built the spacecraft.

The lab manages and operates the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. G

8 THE GAZETTE • March 21, 2011

JHU team creates stem cells from schizophrenia patients New technique used to reprogram cells with risk gene for major mental illness

By Maryalice Yakutchik

Johns Hopkins Medicine

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sing skin cells from adult siblings with schizophrenia and a genetic mutation linked to major mental illnesses, Johns Hopkins researchers have created induced pluripotent stem cells using a new and improved “clean” technique.

Reporting online Feb. 22 in Molecular Psychiatry, the team confirms the establishment of two new lines of iPS cells with mutations in the gene named Disrupted In Schizophrenia 1, or DISC1. They made the cells using a nonviral “epiosomal vector” that jump-starts the reprogramming machinery of cells without modifying their original genetic content with foreign DNA from a virus.

The stem cells from these two new lines, the scientists say, can be coaxed to become brain cells such as neurons. Because they have the DISC1 mutation, they stand to play an important role in the screening of drugs for treatments of major mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, as well as provide clues about the causes of these diseases.

“Most people think of stem cells only as potential transplant therapy to replace damaged cells or tissue, but for psychiatric diseases, which have proven a challenge to scientific understanding just as a sheer cliff challenges a climber, these cells provide a toehold,” said Russell L. Margolis, a professor of psychiatry and neurology and director of the Johns Hopkins Schizophrenia Program. “Nature put in only a few little grab

holds, and now we are generating our own so we can scale the cliff of mental illness faster.”

The benefit of maintaining the original genome of cells being reprogrammed outweighs the fact that the episomal vector approach is both time- and labor-intensive, said Guo-li Ming, an associate professor of neurology in the Institute for Cell Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

“The efficiency of the new technique is very, very low,” Ming said, citing a rate of 0.0006 percent or less and comparing it to the rate of efficiency of virally infected reprogrammed cells, which hovers at about 0.001 percent. “Human cells grow slowly, and this kind of reprogramming takes time.”

However, the episomal vector method solves tricky problems associated with the more efficient viral approach, which involves inserting foreign genes into the cell’s genome and potentially interrupting or influencing other genes that can change cell behavior. It also relieves worry about weird cell behavior later due to reactivation of introduced genes that remain in the genome, the researchers say.

The skin biopsy samples used in the study came from an American family first reported 25 years ago to have multiple family members affected with schizophrenia. A genetic analysis conducted by Margolis and colleagues six years ago discovered that a mutation in the DISC1 gene was common to all members of the family with severe mental illness. Two years ago, Margolis and Christopher A. Ross, director of the Division of Neurobiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, collected the skin samples and delivered them to Ming’s team, which thus far has successfully reprogrammed two of those samples into the new iPS cell lines.

Skin cell samples from the remaining family members, as well as from unrelated indi-

viduals with schizophrenia, are still works in progress in the Ming lab, potentially becoming additional stem cell lines, Ming says.

Using the cultured skin cells, the team delivered a package of so-called reprogramming factors into the cytoplasm—as opposed to the nucleus, where the cell’s genetic material resides—via bits of DNA (episomal vectors) that are serially diluted during cell division after making their special delivery.

These cells then were grown in culture while the scientists monitored them for changes.

It took a wildly variable window of time— anywhere between three weeks and three months—for the elongated and single-layered skin cells to begin to change shape and cluster together, a telling sign that they were on the path to becoming stem cells, Ming says.

“Seeing the colonies was heartening evidence of reprogramming but not proof of ground state of pluripotent stem cells,” Ming said. “We had to go through a series of characterization processes—which generally takes about six months or more, depending on your rigor—to prove that.”

The team then conducted a series of tests to verify not only that the genes they used to introduce the reprogramming factors were undetectable from the transformed cells but also to prove their pluripotency.

First, the researchers confirmed that these cells could generate differentiated cells from all three germ layers—the endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm—that eventually give rise to all of an animal’s tissues and organs. By changing the recipe of the culture media in which the cells were growing, the team coaxed the cells to become not only neurons but also fat cells and bone and muscle tissue, for instance.

To confirm that these were bona fide iPS cells with the ability to differentiate into all different cell types, the researchers performed a stringent test that involved

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injecting the presumed stem cells into mice whose immune systems were suppressed and noted that cells from the three germ layers were present in the tumors that formed.

“The hard work of generating and characterizing these iPS cells is a prelude for future studies,” Ming said. “Now we can look at neural cells differentiated from these iPS cells in order to investigate the mechanisms and functions of the DISC1 gene in the nervous system, and understand the role it may play in diseases such as schizophrenia. These future studies may lead to the identification of new molecules that might serve as drug targets.”

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, and International Mental Health Research Organization.

Authors on the paper, in addition to Ming and Margolis, are Cheng-Hsuan Chiang, Yijing Su, Zhexing Wen, Nadine Yoritomo, Christopher A. Ross and Hongjun Song, all of Johns Hopkins.

Related websites Guo-li Ming:

www.hopkins-ice.org/neuro/int/ ming.html

www.neuroscience.jhu.edu/ GuoliMing.php

Russell Margolis:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ psychiatry/expert_team/faculty/M/ Margolis.html

‘Molecular Psychiatry’:

www.nature.com/mp/index.html

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Gates visits Jhpiego program in Kenya, hears about family planning

By Ann LoLordo

Jhpiego

who scored at 700 or above on the math or verbal side of the SAT, 50 percent eventually received a doctoral degree, compared with 1 percent of the general population.

In other words, the above-level test is startlingly effective at predicting academic achievement among high-scoring middle school students.

“This finding is significant to CTY because it validates a key CTY practice—of using above-level tests, such as the SAT with middle school students, to identify academic talent,” said Lea Ybarra, the center’s executive director.

The study also illustrates that students scoring 700 on the SAT math or verbal sections by age 13 show marked differences in income, patents earned and tenure-track academic positions secured at top U.S. universities over a comparison group of students who earned scores of 500 SAT math or verbal at the same age.

As a steadfast proponent of predictive values of above-level standardized testing, the study has held its sail in some buffeting crosswinds over time. A 2006 article in American Psychologist stated that “standardized tests are thus not sufficiently predictive of future performance. Individuals are not necessarily more meritorious if they obtain the highest scores on standardized tests.”

The SMPY study directors’ rejoinder, based on their own research: “This is simply not the case.”

Personal stories about individual talent development certainly abound at Johns Hopkins. Jason Eisner, an associate professor of computer science in the Whiting School who was identified by Stanley in 1981, is one. “I liked thinking about numbers and variables from an early age,” Eisner said, referring to his preschool years. Guided by his parents, both supportive math professionals, he devoured as a fourth-grader books

by Martin Gardner and Raymond Smullyan, in middle school taught himself to program and attended CTY for three summers, and in high school connected with an older high school mentor who would later win a gold medal in the International Math Olympiad.

The SMPY organizers’ goal for the symposium is to ensure that current and future Jason Eisners get the nurturing they need.

Friday’s sessions at the invitation-only event

everywhere want the same things for their children, that we all want to set our children up for a successful future.”

Jhpiego, whose urban health program has been recognized for its innovative strategies to increase access to quality health care and

will summarize findings of the 40-year study, and attendees will hear former students’ first-person reports of the factors that contributed to their own high achievement in mathematics. Sessions include topics such as “Interventions and Experiences That Contribute to the Development of High Mathematical Achievement” and “Turning Talented Math Learners Into Creative Producers, Innovators and Entrepreneurs.”

In addition to Benbow and Lubinski, key participants include Linda Brody, director of the Study of Exceptional Talent, or SET, at CTY; Bharath Sriraman, of the University of Montana; and Susan Athey, an eminent Harvard economist and a SET member.

Two days later, as part of CTY’s weekend focusing on top talent, the center hosts its national Grand Ceremony at 1 p.m. on Sunday, March 27, in Shriver Hall on the Homewood campus.

The Grand Ceremony is the culmination of 84 regional awards events that CTY holds across the country to recognize top academic talent, and will honor the students who were the top scorers in the nation and world on the SAT or ACT that they tackled as part of CTY’s 2010 Talent Search.

“When President Obama asked us as a nation to celebrate academic talent, we felt true satisfaction that CTY and Johns Hopkins carry a long tradition of doing just that through our annual awards ceremonies,” Ybarra said.

Keynoting the celebration of top talent will be Adam Riess, a professor of physics and astronomy in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and co-recipient of the 2011 Einstein Medal, who led a team that discovered dark energy, which is theorized to be causing continued expansion of the universe.

Top-scoring students this year, some of whom will grace the Shriver stage and receive an academic medal from CTY, hail from as near as Timonium, Md., and as far as South Korea, Hong Kong and Bangladesh.

The question begs to be asked of some of the young awardees: What makes you smart?

Ask Jonathan Sington, a ninth-grader from Santa Monica, Calif. “Ever since my mother taught me to read when I was 2, I have been a voracious reader.”

Or ask Christabel Chan, an eighth-grader from Toronto, Ontario. “ I don’t like to think of myself as smart; I prefer to think of myself as hardworking. My parents frequently say, ‘The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.’

services for Kenyans, hosted Gates during a daylong visit.

As Gates talked with wives and mothers, they shared their challenges in getting adequate family-planning services, such as disapproving husbands, physical infirmities

CENTER FOR TALENTED YOUTH

Continued from page 1

Melinda Gates, in teal shirt, and Jhpiego’s Jane Otai, in beige jacket, visit a mothers group in the Korogocho slum, where women spoke with Gates about the challenges they face in accessing family planning: lack of support from their husbands, shortage of family-planning commodities in health facilities and the cultural beliefs surrounding family-planning use.

Then: Julian Stanley, founder of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, stands with some of his math prodigies in 1981. Second from left in the front row is Jason Eisner, now an associate professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins.

CENTER FOR TALENTED YOUTH

CTY

BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION

D

uring a visit to Jhpiego-supported programs in a slum outside Nairobi, Kenya, Melinda Gates kept hearing the same message: Women want to plan their families so they can provide for their children and give them opportunities they never had.

“I talked to more than 50 women about family planning when I was in Kenya, and all but one told me how desperately they wanted to plan their families and space their children,” said Gates, whose family’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently chose Jhpiego, a Johns Hopkins affiliate, to lead Tupange, its $23 million urban reproductive health program in Kenya.

Whether speaking through a Swahili translator or finding their voice in English, women who met Gates recognized that spacing their children in a healthy manner would enable them to better care for their families so all would thrive.

“I asked a group of women why they wanted to practice family planning. One woman summed it all up when she said, “I want to bring every good thing to one before I have another,” Gates said. “It just reinforced what I always come away from these conversations realizing—that mothers

and inadequately supplied health clinics.

But Gates also learned about new familyplanning methods that were being offered to Kenyan women.

“I visited a health clinic in Kariobangi, and I happened to be there on the day set aside for long-term family planning, including tubal ligation, IUCDs [intrauterine contraceptive devices] and implants,” she said.

“The women I talked to were really excited about the implants. They called them ‘batteries,’ because they work for four years. I got to see a woman having the procedure done, and it was just amazing to me how easy, quick and relatively painless the procedure is. It’s such a cost-effective and effective way to give women the ability to plan.”

Throughout her visit, Gates was heartened, she said, by women’s support for one another and the example set by a volunteer health worker named Maureen.

“She was an HIV-positive mother, and one of her five children also had HIV,” Gates said. “Now she is running a program where HIV-positive mothers counsel pregnant women with HIV about preventing motherto-child transmission. The most important thing, she said, was helping the women realize that others just like them had overcome the same obstacles. In her words, this was ‘living positively,’” Gates said. “Maureen told me that in her program, they haven’t had a baby born with HIV since August— and that’s more than 30 healthy children.”

Now: CTY students gather on the Homewood campus in 2009. In the early years of the SMPY study, boys scoring at the top levels on math ability tests outnumbered girls 13 to 1. The gap has narrowed in recent years to 4 to 1.

So, I always try to be the very best I can be, no matter what the circumstances are.”

For Ybarra, the annual Grand Ceremony is a highlight of the year. “Clearly, these are the young people who are setting the pace.

It’s been such an honor to lead an organization like CTY and see remarkable young people like these, and to know that CTY

and Johns Hopkins do so much to encourage new generations of students to think big and to pursue their limitless potentials.”

Bridging the two events is a CTY Family Academic Program on Saturday, March 26, in which CTY students and their families will spend the day immersed in the world of applied and theoretical mathematics. G

10 THE GAZETTE • March 21, 2011

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he Johns Hopkins University and Makerere University in Uganda recently completed a two-year collaborative learning initiative aimed at building educational, research and service capacity at the African university to improve health outcomes in the region. Analysis and review of the two-year project’s impact are documented in a special issue of BMC International Health and Human Rights. The articles include assessments of Makerere’s educational, research and health services approaches; policy and strategic analyses of how to develop the university as a transformational institution in society; and research that demonstrates the practical role of the university in the health sector.

“There are many research projects that focus on the so-called ‘grand challenges’ solved through lifesaving technologies.

We think of this initiative as tackling the ‘grander challenge’ to build the human resources and systems needed to improve and sustain health in Africa,” said David Peters, an associate professor and director of Health Systems Programs in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who led the collaboration for the Johns Hopkins team. “The project provided a unique opportunity to think strategically across the university and demonstrate how the university can make a positive impact on health.”

Nelson Sewankambo, principal of Makerere College of Health Sciences, said, “With support from Johns Hopkins, Makerere University moved farther along a critical path of self re-examination and planning for how she can better situate herself in the 21st century, and to have a greater impact in addressing Uganda’s health system needs through a in. social accountability lens. This 10.0

twinning arrangement played a crucial role in enhancing mutual learning of both institutions through a strategic and more equitable partnership.”

Funding for the collaboration was provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which awarded $4.97 million to the Johns Hopkins University and the Makerere University College of Health Sciences in 2008. As part of the initiative, the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health and the faculties of medicine, nursing and public health at both universities developed Project was an institution-building relationship to further designed extend the educational, research and service to improve capacity of Uganda’s health largest university.

“This project was a unique opportunity outcomes in which two leading health-oriented institutions could share both the successes and challenges in developing innovative interventions to solve the many health problems facing their own populations,” said Thomas Quinn, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health.

“While the focus was primarily on addressing Uganda’s health problems, I believe that the faculty from Hopkins learned equally from our Ugandan colleagues on how to educate our future health leaders in the area of community health and policy implementation. From this perspective, the project was a success for both institutions.”

Johns Hopkins and Makerere universities have a long history of collaboration, including seminal HIV/AIDS research and training through the Rakai Health Sciences Program and the Makerere University– Johns Hopkins University Research Collaboration, innovations in health systems and policy translation through the Future Health Systems consortium and the establishment of the Infectious Disease Institute.

“It has been particularly satisfying, while working through this collaborative learning initiative, to see faculty members from Makerere University schools of Medicine, Public Health, Biomedical Science and Health Sciences all sitting down with faculty members from Johns Hopkins’ schools of Medicine, Nursing and Public Health to figure out how Makerere University could better be positioned to help improve health outcomes in Uganda,” said Makerere Professor David Serwadda, who, with George Pariyo, an associate professor with the Makerere School of Public Health, led the collaboration for the Makerere team. “The teams across schools in either university planned and executed several studies together, and they have written up their findings as a team. This collaboration across schools in either university is truly exciting,” Serwadda said.

“The rewarding—and unanticipated— bonus of the collaborative initiative was the increased visibility, participation, scholarly productivity and respect of the very small Makerere nursing faculty,” said Martha N. Hill, dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and professor of nursing, medicine and public health. “They are no longer invisible, and there is institutional commitment to develop this department into a school. We remain committed to helping achieve this vision.”

The Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health is a collaboration between the university’s schools of Public Health, Medicine and Nursing that harnesses the expertise of its health and medical professionals to address global health challenges that include HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, malnutrition and hepatitis, especially in developing countries.

The special issue of BMC International Health and Human Rights documenting the Johns Hopkins–Makerere University project is available online at www.biomedcentral.com/ 1472-698X/11?issue=S1.

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12 THE GAZETTE • March 21, 2011 F O R

Cheers

Cheers is a monthly listing of honors and awards received by faculty, staff and students plus recent appointments and promotions. Contributions must be submitted in writing and be accompanied by a phone number.

BAYVIEW MEDICAL CENTER C o l l e e n C h r i s t m a s , director of the

Internal Medicine Residency Program at Bayview, has been named a Health Care Heroes finalist by The Daily Record. The annual awards recognize organizations and individuals in the health care industry who embody the spirit of the word “hero.”

BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH David Holtgrave , professor and chair of

the Department of Health, Behavior and Society, was recognized with the Positive Leadership Award from the National Association of People with AIDS and AIDSWatch. The award recognizes AIDS advocates who have made major contributions in the past year to improving the lives of people living with HIV and AIDS. Holtgrave was honored for his ongoing research on the effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness, of HIV prevention and treatment and housing interventions, as well as for his work on the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. The award was presented at a ceremony held Feb. 16 in Washington, D.C. HOMEWOOD STUDENT AFFAIRS A film by Benedict Dorsey , associate

director of financial aid in Student Financial Services, was nominated as one of the “Big 8” films of the San Diego Black Film Festival. His first feature film, The Human Web, has been accepted in several film festivals across the country. Dorsey also serves as adviser for the Johns Hopkins Gospel Choir and as adviser/director for the university’s Dunbar-Baldwin-Hughes Theatre Company.

JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICINE INTERNATIONAL Arthur Burnett II , professor of urol-

ogy and director of the Brady Urological Institute’s Basic Science Laboratory in Neurourology and the Male Consultation Clinic; Ali Bydon , assistant professor of neurosurgery, clinical director of the Spine Surgery program at Johns Hopkins Bayview, and director of the Spinal Column Biomechanics and Surgical Outcomes Laboratory; and Jeff Geschwind , associate professor of radiology, surgery and oncology and director of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology and Interventional Radiology Research at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, addressed physicians attending continuing medical education conferences at the fourday Arab Health Exhibition and Congress in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The event drew more than 65,000 medical and health care professionals.

Saraf Saleh has been named director for Middle East/North Africa, Global Services. Saleh most recently served as assistant director of global services for the Middle East/North African Division.

KRIEGER SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES K a t e P i p k i n will become director of

Communications and Marketing on April 1. She most recently served as vice president for communications at Goucher College, and before that was director of Communications for the Maryland Province Jesuits. She also held positions in communications and public affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY University President Ronald J. Daniels and Peter Searson , the Joseph R. and

Lynn C. Reynolds Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in the Whiting School of Engineering and director of the

T H E

Institute for NanoBioTechnology, have been named by The Daily Record to its list of 2011 Influential Marylanders. Daniels was recognized in the field of education and Searson in technology. Winners are individuals who have an impact on Maryland’s business community and who bring services and success to the region. An awards ceremony will be held April 27 at the Grand Lodge in Cockeysville.

Four women from Johns Hopkins have been selected by The Daily Record as among Maryland’s Top 100 Women for 2011. They are Mariale Hardiman , assistant dean for Urban Schools Partnerships and chair of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education in the School of Education; Martha N. Hill , dean of the School of Nursing and a professor of nursing, medicine and public health; Elizabeth Jordan , assistant professor in the Department of Community–Public Health Nursing and co-

R E C O R D

Peggy and Yale Gordon Concerto Competition. He will play Brahms’ Piano Concerto in B-flat major, Op. 83, with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra next season, and will give a Shriver Hall Concert Series Discovery Series recital at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Sejoon Park received the second prize and Michael Delfin , the third. Both are students of Boris Slutsky .

Larr y Williams , faculty artist, was the featured horn clinician at the 2011 Music for All National Festival, held March 18 to 20 in Indianapolis. The festival, presented

by Yamaha, celebrates outstanding music making by the nation’s finest concert bands, orchestras and percussion ensembles. As a Yamaha Performing Artist/Clinician, Williams presented three master classes for horn players from across the U.S. Moritz M. Winkelmann , a Graduate Performance Diploma candidate and a student of Leon Fleisher , debuted with

K U D O S

Russell Taylor named inaugural John C. Malone Professor

T

he John C. Malone Professorship has been created in recognition of the recent $30 million gift to the Whiting School of Engineering from alumnus John C. Malone that will support the construction of Malone Hall, a facility dedicated to research in the areas of individualized health, systems engineering, and computing and information sciences.

In keeping with Malone’s belief in the importance of research that crosses disciplines, the Malone professorship will be awarded to an outstanding member of the WSE faculty whose work crosses the borders of multiple disciplines.

Russell H. Taylor, professor of computer science and the director of the Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology has been named the inaugural John C. Malone Professor. A dedication ceremony is being planned.

In making the announcement, Nicholas P. Jones, the Benjamin T. Rome Dean of the Whiting School, said, “There could be no more fitting recipient of this honor than Russ Taylor. Russ’ work in computer-integrated interventional medicine exemplifies the cutting-edge research approach supported by Dr. Malone.”

Broadly, Taylor’s research includes medical robotics, medical imaging and modeling, complete systems for surgical assistance, image-guided surgery and what he refers to as “surgical CAD/ CAM.” An underlying theme of Taylor’s

work has been the idea that informationbased technologies can have as profound an impact on computer-integrated medicine as they have had on computerintegrated manufacturing. To that end, he has pioneered development of surgical systems that integrate novel computer and human/machine interface technologies and that extend surgeons’ abilities to achieve better outcomes at lower costs.

After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins in 1970, Taylor earned his doctorate in computer science from Stanford in 1976. That year, he joined IBM Research, where he developed the AML robot language and managed the Automation Technology Department and, later, the ComputerAssisted Surgery Group. In 1995, Taylor returned to Johns Hopkins to join the Whiting School’s Computer Science faculty (while holding joint appointments in Mechanical Engineering, Radiology and Surgery) and in 1998 became the founding director of the NSF-funded Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology.

Taylor has authored numerous refereed publications, is a fellow of the IEEE, AIMBE and Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention Society, and holds 65 patents. He is also a recipient of the IEEE Robotics Pioneer Award, the Maurice Muller Award for Excellence in Computer-Assisted Orthopedic Surgery and the MICCAI Society’s 2010 Enduring Impact Award.

director of the Birth Companions Program in the School of Nursing; and Janet Siddiqui of Johns Hopkins Community Physicians and an instructor of medicine at the School of Medicine. They will be honored at a May 12 reception at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

the Mannheim (Germany) Philharmonic Orchestra on Feb. 18. He performed the Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54, by Robert Schumann. German National TV recorded the performance.

PEABODY INSTITUTE Kisma Jordan , a Graduate Performance

Merrill Center for Strategic Studies and a professorial lecturer in the Strategic Studies Program, became a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor during a Jan. 18 ceremony in Paris. Edelman received this prestigious award from France in recognition of his work while holding senior leadership positions in the U.S. government. Edelman served as undersecretary of defense for policy, U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Finland, and in senior positions at the White House and with the U.S. State Department.

T. Christian Miller , a master of public policy student, has received a George Polk Award, one of America’s most coveted journalism honors, for his reporting efforts.

Diploma candidate, was the soprano soloist in Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Omaha Symphony in Nebraska in January. In February, Jordan sang arias in a program presented by the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in New Orleans.

Sungpil Kim , piano, a senior studying with Yong Hi Moon , received the first prize in the Jefferson Symphony International Young Artists Competition in Golden, Colo. He will perform Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, with the orchestra on March 27.

Yu r y S h a d r i n , a student of L e o n Fleisher , was awarded the first prize in the

SAIS Eric Edelman , a fellow at the Philip

Miller, of ProPublica, was honored along with Daniel Zwerdling and Susanne Reber of National Public Radio for a collaborative effort called “Brain Wars,” which found that the U.S. military was falling woefully short in treating soldiers for traumatic brain injuries.

The 2009 religion-themed issue of SAISPHERE took the Gold award for Best Internal Publication by a Graduate School in the Educational Advertising Awards sponsored by Higher Education Marketing Report. The school’s Summer Programs 2 0 1 0 promotional materials took the Bronze award for Best Direct Mail Advertising Campaign by a Graduate School.

SCHOOL OF MEDICINE Frederick Brancati , professor and direc-

tor of the Division of General Internal Medicine, director of the Hopkins-UMB Diabetes Prevention & Control Core and a core faculty member of the Welch Center, has won the 2011 Kelly West Award for Outstanding Achievement in Epidemiology from the American Diabetes Association.

E. Gene Deune , associate professor of orthopedic surgery, co-director of the Hand Surgery Division at JHH and director of the Hand Surgery Microsurgery Section, has been elected secretary of the American Society of Reconstructive Mircrosurgery for 2011–2012.

Robert Ferguson , associate professor of geriatric medicine and gerontology at Bayview, and Mar y Newman , an assistant professor of medicine at the School of Medicine, have received two of the top awards for distinguished service from the American College of Physicians’ Maryland Chapter. Ferguson, chief of medicine at Union Memorial Hospital and a member of the Johns Hopkins faculty since 1993, received the Theodore E. Woodward Award for Medical Education and Research. Newman, president of Park Medical Group at Green Spring Station and a member of the faculty since 1984, received the Samuel P. Asper Award for Excellence in Internal Medicine.

Richard Huganir , professor and director of the Department of Neuroscience and co-director of the Brain Science Institute, will head a new Synapses, Circuits and Disorders program for the institute, funded with BSi grants totaling $5 million over the next two years. The grants advance BSi’s goal of addressing the fundamental role of synapses in brain function at the molecular, cellular or systems level, as well as exploring the mechanisms underlying cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia and autism.

D a v i d K a s s , professor of cardiology, medicine and biomedical engineering; Thien Nguyen , assistant professor of neurology; Shanthini Sockanathan , associate professor of neuroscience; and Jiou Wang , assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, have received grants totaling $1,356,618 from the Muscular Dystrophy Association to study three different neuromuscular diseases. Kass will continue his work on Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies, and Nguyen will continue his inquiries into Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a breakdown of peripheral nerves. Sockanathan and Wang will use the funds to maintain their research on ALS. Stephen Meltzer , the Harry and Betty Myerberg/Thomas R. Hendrix Professor of Gastroenterology and an internationally renowned leader in the molecular pathobiology of gastrointestinal malignancy and premalignancy, has been elected to the Association of American Physicians. Meltzer, GI divisional director of basic research, invented molecular methods that have triggered an avalanche of research on precancerous lesions and also conducted a comprehensive study that led to the identification of several important tumor suppressor genes.

Nathan Neufeld , a resident in the Department of Physical Medicine and Continued on page 13

March 21, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

Milestones The following staff members are retiring or celebrating an anniversary with the university in March 2011. The information is compiled by the Office of Work, Life and Engagement, 443-997-7000.

ACADEMIC AND CULTURAL CENTERS

HOMEWOOD STUDENT AFFAIRS

Stevens,

25 years of service B o s w e l l , Susan, Office of Dean of Students

Te u f e r ,

10 years of service R o c h e , William, Homewood Arts Program

Alban,

KRIEGER SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

20 years of service D o a n e , Susan, Office of the Dean

Retirees H a r r i s , Wendy, 33 years of service, Johns Hopkins University Press

15 years of service O r m o n d , Susanna, Office of the Dean

30 years of service W h i t m o r e , Anne, Johns Hopkins University Press

Gubernatis,

15 years of service Astrid, Center for Talented Youth

Bon,

10 years of service A g b o d j a v o u , Kodjovi, Jhpiego H a m l e t t , Nikia, Center for Talented Youth L o g a n , Tanisha, Center for Talented Youth M a l l o y , Mark, Johns Hopkins University Press 5 years of service B o w d e n , Matthew, Center for Talented Youth J o h n s o n , Peter, Jhpiego R a j b h a n d a r i , Presha, Jhpiego S t e n d e r , Stacie, Jhpiego Ta t e s , Tyra, Jhpiego BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

30 years of service D o d g e , John, Epidemiology 25 years of service F i n e , Rachel, External Affairs 20 years of service Denise, Center for Communication Programs

Smith,

10 years of service A m b r o s e , Lance, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology 5 years of service P a u l , Ella, International Health S m i t , Constantin, Facilities W e h r l i n , Robin, Health Policy and Management CAREY BUSINESS SCHOOL

10 years of service L a n c a s t e r , Louise, Professional Programs

Cheers Continued from page 12 Rehabilitation, is one of only three residents nationwide to be named an American College of Medical Quality 2011 Quality Scholar. The honor recognizes his work on improving the accuracy of discharge summaries.

SCHOOL OF NURSING Jason Farley , an assistant professor in the

Department of Community–Public Health, has been appointed a national co-chair of the 100-member Global Health Committee within the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care. The three-year position will involve setting the global agenda of the organization.

Mar yann Fralic , a professor in the Department of Health Systems and Outcomes, was in Dallas recently to address the chief nursing officers from the 15-hospital Baylor Health System. The topic, “Tomorrow’s Agile Nurse Executive,” focused on

5 years of service Elizabeth, Center for Social Organization of Schools Te a y s , Terry, Physics and Astronomy PEABODY INSTITUTE

10 years of service R i c h a r d s o n , Jonathan, Peabody Institute 5 years of service B e l l , Margaret, External Relations SAIS

5 years of service C r e s p o , Noemi, Admissions and Joint Degree Programs SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

15 years of service H o u c k , Michael, Administrative Services 10 years of service Jacob, Administrative Services

Aierstock,

5 years of service W h i t e h e a d , John, Administrative Services SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

30 years of service B i l l e t t , Carol, Anesthesiology and Critical Care C o o l e y , Karen, Ophthalmology G r o s s m a n , Harriet, Neurology 25 years of service Lori, Surgery L e p p o , Michelle, Cardiology Garrison,

20 years of service B l u n t , Sandra, Pediatrics B u i s t , Patricia, Infectious Diseases B u r t n i c k , John, Neurology E v a n s , Antoinette, Otolaryngology G e r s t m y e r , Andrew, Bayview K a u d e r s , Anne, Clinical Practice Association M u l l e n , Bernadette, Infectious Diseases S c a l e s , Wanda, Radiology

preparing chief nurses to meet the serious leadership challenges of a rapidly evolving health care system.

Seven researchers from the school will attend the International Orem Society’s Conference on Prevention and Management of Chronic Conditions and the World Congress of Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory, to be held March 23–25 in Bangkok, Thailand. Miyong Kim , chair of the Department of Health Systems and Outcomes, will lead the delegation comprising faculty members and doctoral and postdoctoral students. The Johns Hopkins team will conduct a symposium titled Innovations in Self-Care Research Targeting Underserved Populations and present four topics: “Theoretical Innovations in SelfCare Research,” “Methodological Innovations in Self-Care Research,” “Technological Innovations in Self-Care Research” and “Health Literacy as an Emerging Concept in Self-Care.”

SHERIDAN LIBRARIES/JHU MUSEUMS Earle Havens , the William Kurrelmeyer

Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Sheridan Libraries, has been awarded

Linda, Neurosurgery Linda, Pediatrics W i l e y , Kathleen, Urology 15 years of service Theodore, Neurology G u r g a n u s , Robin, Urology L u s c o , Teresa, Pediatrics 10 years of service G r e m p l e r , John, Information Technology H a m m o n d , Jeryl, Radiology H e a d , Lora, Oncology H e b e r t , Jillyn, Radiology H o l d e n , Jeffrey, Infectious Diseases K e m p , Carol, Bayview K o l o t o s , Maria, General Internal Medicine L e e , David, Oncology M a r t i n , Kim, Pediatrics M c I n t y r e , Keith, Oncology O l i v e r , Marcus, Oncology R a g i n , Belinda, Neurology Tr a c e y , Mary, Marketing and Communication W e h n e r , Catherine, Gynecology and Obstetrics 5 years of service B a c h a n i , Muznabanu, Neurology B a l d w i n , Marcia, Cardiology C o r n w e l l , Deborah, Billing D a n i e l s , Lanaya, Pediatrics D e g u z m a n , Armin, Facilities Management D h a n j a n i , Kamal, Bayview E h e h a l t , Emily, Fund for Johns Hopkins Medicine G r i f f i n , Y’Ammie, Radiology H a l l , Dwight, Facilities Management H a w k i n s , James, III, Pathology H i l t o n , David, III, Facilities Management K i m , Eun, General Internal Medicine L e c l e r c , Leah, Cardiology M a n z o n , Sherwin, Facilities Management M c K o y , Naomi, General Internal Medicine M c N e i l l , Sheila, Facilities Management M i c h n i e w i c z , Barbara, Neurosurgery N i z e r , Tina, Psychiatry P a k i e l a , Adam, Neurology P e a r s o n , Jeneen, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation R e e d , Tiffany, Psychiatry R o b e r t s o n , Cynnell, Facilities Management S l o o t s k y , Irene, Pediatrics S m i t h , David, Facilities Management Tr a p p , Audrey, Medical Education SHERIDAN LIBRARIES/JHU MUSEUMS

30 years of service C h r i s t e n s e n , Martha, Sheridan Libraries 25 years of service R o u s h , Kathy, Sheridan Libraries

the 2011 Katharine F. Pantzer Senior Fellowship in Bibliography and the British Book Trades by the Bibliographical Society of America in support of his project “Illicit Printing, Book Smuggling and Scribal Publication by the Elizabethan Catholic Underground, 1558–1603.”

UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION Trent Stroup , director of Information

Systems for Development and Alumni Relations, has been elected to a three-year term on the board of Baltimore Reads, a nonprofit organization that offers instruction to adults in basic reading, writing, mathematics, English language, GED prep and employment readiness skills; engages in community outreach; and raises awareness of the adult literacy crisis in the Baltimore region. In addition, its book bank provides thousands of children’s books free of charge to schools, teachers, Head Start centers, social services agencies, community organizations and families who don’t have home libraries.

WHITING SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING Bob Cammarata , a professor in Mate-

13

20 years of service K o m m e r s , Cynthia, Sheridan Libraries 15 years of service P h i l l i p s , James, Sheridan Libraries P r o f f i t t , Judith, Historic Houses 5 years of service Glenn, Sheridan Libraries I s a a c s o n , Jesse, Sheridan Libraries S t a l f o r t , Heather, Historic Houses Gonzales,

UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION

30 years of service A d a m s - D o y l e , Sandra, Development and Alumni Relations B e n n e t t , Joan, Controller 25 years of service Dorothy, Design and Construction M i c h e l , Carol, Technical Support Services Albright,

20 years of service Svetlana, Office of the Assistant Provost Research Administration

May,

15 years of service John, Facilities Management H i n d m a n , Margaret, Development and Alumni Relations Deisroth,

10 years of service Altalou, Development and Alumni Relations G l e n n o n , Michelle, Development and Alumni Relations H e a g g a n s , Vanessa, Controller O s s m u s , Steven, Office of the President Delong,

5 years of service B o o k h a r t , Davis, Facilities Management H e a r n , Kenya, Talent Management and Organization Development K h a l e g h z a d e g a n , Hassan, Facilities Management P a r k e r , Noah, Development and Alumni Relations R o s s , Clarence, Development and Alumni Relations R o s t , Katherine, Controller S i m o n , Erin, Vice President and General Counsel Administration WHITING SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

10 years of service L o u r e n c o , Lionel, Engineering for Professionals 5 years of service O h , Naya, Engineering for Professionals Va g v o l g y i , Balazs, Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics Yo u n g , Stephen, Chemical Propulsion Information Analysis Center

rials Science and Engineering, has been elected a fellow of the Materials Research Society. The title of MRS Fellow honors outstanding members whose sustained and distinguished contributions to the advancement of materials research are internationally recognized and who exemplify the highest ideals of accomplishment and service embodied in the organization’s mission.

Sri Sarma , an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is the recipient of a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation. The CAREER award, given to faculty members at the beginning of their academic careers, is one of NSF’s most competitive awards and emphasizes highquality research and novel education initiatives. Sarma’s CAREER research involves the modeling and control of neuronal networks in the brain with applications to the treatment of Parkinson’s disease using deep brain stimulation. This work has the potential to impact the interface between control systems and neuroscience and create new opportunities for medical treatment of neurological disorders.

14 THE GAZETTE • March 21, 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 Baseball Outings — Two evenings of baseball with group seating have been planned for Johns Hopkins employees, students, retirees and their families and friends. The Baltimore Orioles welcome the Washington Nationals to Camden Yards at 4:05 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, and at 7:05 p.m. on Saturday, July 23, the Aberdeen Ironbirds take on the Batavia Muckdogs at Ripken Stadium.

Tickets are $13 for the Orioles game and $11 for the Ironbirds game. Everyone purchasing Hopkins Night at Camden Yards tickets

B O A R D

by April 25 will be entered into a drawing for the chance to be called onto the field to receive a gift from the team. Purchasers buying tickets for Hopkins Night at Ripken Stadium by July 12 will be entered into a drawing for the chance to throw out the first pitch on game day.

To purchase tickets, send a check or money order made payable to “JHU Orioles” or “JHU Ironbirds” for the full amount of the cost of the desired number of tickets to Office of Work, Life and Engagement, Johns Hopkins at Eastern, 1101 E. 33rd St., Suite C100, Baltimore, MD 21218. Include your name, Johns Hopkins affiliation, mailing address, where you would like your tickets to be sent and an e-mail address.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins discover insulin-releasing switch

By Vanessa McMains

Johns Hopkins Medicine

J

ohns Hopkins researchers believe that they have uncovered the molecular switch for the secretion of insulin—the hormone that regulates blood sugar—providing for the first time an explanation of this process. In a report published online March 1 in Cell Metabolism, the researchers say that the work solves a longtime mystery and may lead to better treatments for type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease.

“Before our discovery, the mechanism behind how exactly the insulin-producing beta cells in the islet of Langerhans of the pancreas fail in type 2 diabetes was incompletely understood, making it difficult to design new and better therapies, said Mehboob Hussain, an associate professor of pediatrics, medicine and biological chemistry in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “Our research cracks open a decades-long mystery.”

After a meal, the pancreas produces insulin to move glucose from the blood into cells for fuel. People with type 2 diabetes either don’t secrete enough insulin or their cells are resistant to its effects.

In a study designed to figure out more precisely how the pancreas releases insulin, Hussain’s group looked at how other cells in the body release chemicals. One particular protein, Snapin, caught the team’s eye because it’s used by nerve cells to release chemicals necessary for cell communication.

Snapin also is found in the insulin-secreting pancreatic beta cells.

To test the role of Snapin, researchers engineered a change to the Snapin gene in mice to keep Snapin permanently “on” in the pancreas. Researchers removed the pancreas cells and grew them in a dish for a day, then added glucose to the cells and took samples to measure how much insulin was released. When the scientists compared that measurement to what was released by pancreas cells in normal mice, they found that normal mice released about 2.8 billionths of a gram of insulin per cell, whereas the cells from “Snapin-on” mice released 7.3 billionths of a gram of insulin per cell—about three times the normal amount.

“We were surprised to find that the Snapin-on mice didn’t have more or bigger pancreas cells; they just made more insulin naturally,” Hussain said. “This means all our insulin-secreting cells have this amazing reserve of insulin that we didn’t really know existed and a switch that controls it.”

To see if permanently turning off Snapin would reduce insulin release and further demonstrate that Snapin controls the process, the researchers first grew normal mouse pancreas cells in a dish and treated them with a chemical that stopped them from making the Snapin protein. They again bathed the cells in glucose and measured how much insulin was released by the cells.

Normal cells released 5.8 billionths of a gram of insulin, whereas cells with no Snapin

released only 1.1 billionths of a gram of insulin—about 80 percent less.

“These results convinced us that Snapin is indeed the switch that releases insulin from the pancreas,” Hussain said.

Normally, when we ingest glucose, the pancreatic beta cells release an initial burst of insulin almost immediately, then gradually release more insulin about 15 minutes later.

However, people with type 2 diabetes, and mice engineered to react metabolically like people with type 2 diabetes, don’t release this initial spurt of insulin when fed glucose but still have the later gradual insulin release.

“We knew how important the first burst of insulin is for controlling our blood sugar, but we did not know what really went wrong in our beta cells in people with type 2 diabetes,” Hussain said. “We have drugs that restore the first burst of insulin and yet we did not completely understand how they work.”

Hussain then questioned whether Snapin could be used to fix the defects in cells from a diabetic animal. Since the cells with Snapin on made too much insulin, researchers wanted to see if they could use this finding to restore the ability of these mice to secrete the initial burst of insulin.

After growing in a dish pancreatic beta cells from type 2 diabetes mice and engineering them to make the Snapin-on protein, the researchers fed the cells glucose and found that they did indeed regain the ability to release that initial insulin burst.

“While keeping Snapin on in these mouse cells corrects the problem in this animal model of type 2 diabetes, we’re still a long way from knowing if the same mechanism will work in people, but this gives us an encouraging start,” Hussain said.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Other authors on the paper are WooJin Song, Madhav Seshadri, Uzair Ashraf, Thembi Mdluli and Prosenjit Mondal, all of Johns Hopkins; Meg Keil, Monalisa Azevedo and Constantine Stratakis, all of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH; and Lawrence Kirschner, of Ohio State University.

Related websites ‘Cell Metabolism’:

www.cell.com/cell-metabolism

www.hopkinschildrens.org/ Mehboob-Ali-Hussain-MD.aspx

Mehboob Hussain:

Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins:

www.hopkinschildrens.org/index .aspx

biolchem.bs.jhmi.edu/pages/index .html

Biological Chemistry at Johns Hopkins:

March 21, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

Classifieds APARTMENTS/HOUSES FOR RENT

Bayview, 3BR, 2BA house across from campus, newly rehabbed, fin’d bsmt, dedicated prkng. $1,500/mo. George, 410-529-9644.

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

Charles Village, spacious, bright apts available. $700/mo (1BR) and $1,350/mo (3BR).

443-253-2113 or pulimood@aol.com.

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

East Monument St, 2BR, 2.5BA apt, stainless steel appls. $1,050/mo. erasmocha@ yahoo.com.

Fells Point, 2BR house w/2 full BAs, eat-in kitchen, living rm, dw, W/D, rooftop deck, deck off BR, available April 1, utils and cable incl’d in rent. 410-802-9918.

Guilford, condo in walking distance to Hopkins, wonderful sm efficiency in elevator bldg, 24-hr security, CAC, hdwd flrs, swimming pool, walk to JHU or BMA. $800/mo incl all utils. 443-604-1912.

Hampden, 3BR, 2BA TH, dw, W/D, nr lt rail. $1,100/mo + utils. 410-378-2393.

Oakenshawe, 5BR, 2.5BA house in familyfriendly neighborhood, 3 stories, hdwd flrs, bsmt, CAC/heat, back BR w/balcony, front porch, garden, great for kids, pets OK, walk to Homewood campus/JHU shuttle, shops, dining, pref long-term, avail June. $2,300/ mo. 202-294-7571 or ccenzmann@web.de.

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

Patterson Park, newly rehabbed 2BR, 1BA TH, CAC, W/D, fenced yd, 1 blk to bus lines, great neighborhood and neighbors. $995/mo. Gene, 410-975-5761.

Pikesville, 3- or 4BR house w/full kitchen, bsmt, alarm system, in quiet area nr shopping center/Summit Park Elementary, ideal for family at Hopkins. 410-236-1503.

Rodgers Forge, 3BR TH w/new kitchen, AC, W/D, deck, no pets/no smoking, available July 1. $1,650/mo. mtrblsd@gmail.com.

Roland Park, furn’d 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.

Rosedale, 3BR, 1BA EOG RH in quiet neighborhood, CAC, deck, above-ground pool. $1,200/mo. 410-236-3596.

Towson/Rodgers Forge, 3BR, 1.5BA TH, W/D, renov’d kitchen, CAC, deck, prkng pad, no smoking/no pets, avail April 1. $1,650/mo. wwang1268@yahoo.com.

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

Wyman Park, lg, furn’d 2BR apt avail from April to May while occupants travel. $900/ mo. 443-691-4516.

Beautiful 3BR, 2BA condo w/garage, spacious, great location, walk to Homewood

M A R K E T P L A C E

campus. $1,800/mo. 443-848-6392 or sue .rzep2@verizon.net.

Storage and car garages, less than 1 mi from JHH. Jon, 410-294-2793.

4BR, 3.5BA house w/deck, lg backyd, 2-car garage, nr Hopkins/light rail/shopping, avail from July 1, ideal for family at Hopkins. $2,600/mo + utils. Archna, 443-466-6487 or archnatuli@yahoo.com (for pics).

HOUSES FOR SALE

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

Gardenville, 3BR, 1.5BA RH in quiet neighborhood, new kitchen and BA, CAC, hdwd flrs, club bsmt w/cedar closet, maintenancefree yd, carport, mins to JHH. $139,500.

443-610-0236 or tziporachai@juno.com.

Locust Point, 1BR Silo Point condo, game rm, fitness center, Sky Lounge, right off I-95. $269,900. 410-377-7489 or silopointcondo420@gmail.com.

Mt Washington, affordable 3BR, 2.5BA house, CAC, sunrm, fin’d bsmt, yd, nr blue-ribbon Mt Washington Elementary. $265,000. 410-979-3833 or aLb457@gmail .com.

Rodgers Forge, 3BR, 1.5BA EOG RH, walk to great schools. $289,900. 410-339-5373 or lorijordan53@hotmail.com.

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

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 + utils. cjouny@gmail.com.

F looking for 1 or 2 people to share a 2BR apt (#1003) at University One, 5-min walk to Homewood campus. 650-867-1278.

Rm available in 3BR, 1.5BA Nottingham house, W/D, swimming pool on same street, 20-min drive to JHU, owner of home is 32-yr-old F prof’l. $500/mo. kwojo2@yahoo .com.

Fully furn’d rm in new TH, walk to JHMI/ JHH, pref nonsmoker/no pets. $500/mo + 1/3 utils ($50 reduction to the end of October). 301-717-4217 or 646-420-5985.

Share spacious Owings Mills condo w/ owner, private, furn’d BR and BA, full use of shared space, easy commute. $700/mo.

410-356-4605.

1BR in lovely Locust Point, have your own flr; pics upon request. $675/mo + 1/2 utils.

443-677-4889.

F wanted for brand new 2BR, 2.5BA house in Patterson Park. $800/mo incl all utils.

908-347-7404 or s.delia.1@gmail.com.

HICKORY HEIGHTS WYMAN COURT Open House - Rodgers Forge - 60 Dunkirk Rd Just Renovated! A lovely hilltop setting on 3 BD brick THS in great neighborhood, close to

Beech Ave. adj. to JHU!

Studios - $595 - $630 1 BD Apts. - $710-740 2 BD from $795

Hickory Avenue in Hampden!

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

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

15

TU, tot lot & county schools, updated kitchen, finished LL, landscaped yard , deck, front porch.+ garage. Visit March 20th 12-2pm; March 27th 1-3 pm. $279,000. Call Pat 3381684 or Nick 382-7218 or pbpcfr@aol.com

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.

for my infant son in Fells Point area, must be smoke-free, loving, energetic, familiar w/area child-friendly activities.jrbowman@ hotmail.com.

1BR (unfurn’d) and priv BA avail in 2BR apt in Waterloo Place gated community, W/D in unit, CAC, dw, walk-in closet, fp, patio, sec sys, share w/quiet, clean F JHU grad student, cable and Internet-equipped. $650/mo + utils (usually $40). 585-413-7351.

Masterpiece Landscaping: knowledgeable, experienced individual, on-site consultation, transplanting, bed preparation, installation, sm tree and shrub shaping; licensed.

Terry, 410-652-3446.

Furn’d rm nr Patterson Park, walking distance to JHH. 951-941-0384 or arcroshani@ hotmail.com.

Learn Chinese. 717-623-3512 or yingyuanyy@ gmail.com.

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

’98 Honda Accord LX coupe, 6-cyl, 2-dr, green, excel shape, 115K mi. $4,500/best offer. 240-755-4954 or 443-942-0857.

Looking for subjects for research paper interviews on cybersecurity, copyright, pref subjects from Russia, Ukraine, mainland China, Arabic-speaking countries. $20 per interview. 443-471-6121 or jchris1@umbc.edu.

’02 VW GTI, gray 2-dr hatchback, 5-spd manual, leather seats, sunroof, new tires, Md insp’d, 109K mi. $6,500. pico.niner@ gmail.com (info/pics).

Unified Voices concert at First Charity Baptist Church, 611 N Aisquith St, 3:30pm on April 3; $10 over 13, $5 under. 410-7320076.

’99 Volvo V70 wagon, white, leather interior, moonroof, recent new tires and oil change, new ABS controller, runs really well, no issues at all. $4,900 (uninspected) or $4,000 (inspected). 410-499-0331.

Resident assistants needed, July 22-29, to supervise 100 high school students for 1-wk camp at Homewood campus. Shanna, skh9701@gmail.com.

CARS FOR SALE

ITEMS FOR SALE

Gorgeous, like-new furniture and furnishings incl futon, dining rm set, buffet, bed, recliner, stereo, artwork. 410-235-2190 or csokolom1989@yahoo.com.

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.

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

Stylish women’s suits, dresses, beaver fur coat, hats, pocketbooks, boy’s clothes sizes 12-18 months. Best offers. 410-866-2348 or ralpvon@verizon.net.

Need photographer or videographer for headshots, weddings, other events? Edward S Davis photography/videography. 443-6959988 or esdavisimaging@gmail.com.

Reciprocating saw, printer, dresser w/shelves, sand beach chairs (2), digital piano, amplifier. 410-455-5858 or iricse.its@verizon.net.

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.

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

410-488-1886.

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.

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

Sleeper chair and matching storage ottoman. $300. 443-604-2787.

Sofa, $100; new leather living rm chair, $450; 4-poster single bed, refin’d mahogany, $100; also free computer desk and bedside table. 83slinwood@gmail.com.

Pianos: 1 upright and 1 baby grand; best offer. 443-710-2320 (fruit line).

SERVICES/ITEMS OFFERED OR WANTED

Hopkins retiree provides fast and accurate transcription services. 410-323-0899.

Looking for stay-at-home mom to care

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

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

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

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

Friday Night Swing Dance Club, open to public, great bands, no partners needed. 410663-0010 or www.fridaynightswing.com.

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.

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

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

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

• Ads are limited to 20 words, including phone, fax and e-mail.

• We cannot use Johns Hopkins business phone numbers or

e-mail addresses.

• Submissions will be condensed at the editor’s discretion.

• Deadline is at noon Monday, one week prior to the edition in which the ad is to be run.

• Real estate listings may be offered only by a Hopkins-affiliated seller not by Realtors or Agents.

(Boxed ads in this section are paid advertisements.)

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

16 THE GAZETTE • March 21, 2011 M A R C H

2 1

–

2 8

Calendar

The Monroe Martin Lecture— “Topology of Particle Collisions”

by Satyan Devadoss, Williams College. (Second lecture in the series takes place March 29.)

Sponsored by Mathematics. 304 Krieger. HW MUSIC Thurs., March 24, 5:30 p.m.

The Psychiatry and Arts Series presents singer/songwriter Meg Hutchinson performing songs from her new album, interspersed with conversation. (See photo, this page.) Opening remarks by Kay Jamison, SoM. Sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center. Hurd Hall. HW Sun., March 27, 2 p.m. The Preparatory Young People’s String Program performs folk songs and music by Bach, Dvorak, Handel, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and others. Friedberg Hall. Peabody

S E M I N AR S

Singer/songwriter Meg Hutchinson, known for artfully documenting the human condition, performs this week in the Psychiatry and Arts Series. Among her muses, she says, are songwriters Shawn Colvin and Joni Mitchell and poets Mary Oliver, T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost. See Music.

C OLLO Q U I A

D I S C U S S I O N / TAL K S

Tues., March 22, 4:15 p.m.

Fri., March 25, 1:30 p.m.

“Exploring New Ligand Designs for Asymmetric Catalysis,” a Chemistry colloquium with Sukwon Hong, University of Florida.

233 Remsen. HW Wed., March 23, 3:30 p.m.

“Quasar Outflows and Feedback to Galaxy Evolution,” an STSci colloquium with Fred Hamann, University of Florida. Bahcall Auditorium, Muller Bldg. HW “Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of the K-129,” an Applied Physics Laboratory colloquium with analyst, consultant and author Norman Polmar. Parsons Auditorium. APL

“An Evolving Climate Regime: Cancun and Beyond,” a SAIS Energy, Resources and Environment Program discussion with Daniel Bodansky, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University; and Eliot Diringer, Pew Center on Global Climate Change. For information, e-mail anorris@jhu.edu or call 202-6635786. Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Bldg. SAIS

Fri., March 25, 2 p.m.

C O N FERE N C E S Wed., March 23 through Fri., March 25. The 45th Annual

Conference on Information Sciences and Systems with plenary speakers Simon Haykin, McMaster University, and Alan Willner, USC. For registration and program information, go to http://ciss.jhu .edu. Co-sponsored by Electrical and Computer Engineering and the IEE Information Theory Society. Hodson Hall. HW

DA N C E Sun., March 27, 7 p.m. Peabody Preparatory presents its spring dance showcase. $14 general admission, $7 for senior citizens and students with ID. Friedberg Hall. Peabody

I N FOR M AT I O N SESSIONS Mon.,

March

21,

7

p.m.

Online information session for the Master of Arts in Communication degree program, a chance to participate in a Q&A session with the program coordinator. RSVP online at http:// advanced.jhu.edu/rsvp/index. cfm?ContentID=2870.

Wed.,

March

23,

6:30

p.m.

Information session for the Master of Arts in Applied Economics degree program, an opportunity to meet program director Frank Weiss, discuss the curriculum, submit an application. Refreshments provided. For more information or to RSVP, go to http:// advanced.jhu.edu/calendar/index .html?ContentID=2849. Washington D.C. Center.

Thurs., March 24, 7 p.m. Online

information session for the Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Policy online degree program, a chance to learn about the program’s admission require-

ments, curriculum design, course structure and degree requirements; also participate in a discussion and chat about the program faculty. RSVP online at http://advanced.jhu.edu/rsvp/ index.cfm?ContentID=2932.

LE C TURE S Thurs., March 24, 7:30 a.m.

The William F. Rienhoff Jr. Lecture—“The Changing Face of Surgical Education: At the Crossroads of the Patients, the Trainees and the Public Needs”

by Carlos Pellegrini, University of Washington. Sponsored by the School of Medicine. Tilghman Auditorium. EB Mon., March 28, 12:15 p.m.

“The Hatam Sofer on Jacob and Esau: Brotherhood and Jewish Emancipation,” a Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Program in Jewish Studies lecture by Malachi Hacohen, Duke University.

Smokler Center for Jewish Life (Hillel). HW The Fourth Billig-Croft Lecture— “Electrochemistry and the Future of the Automobile” by Frederick Wagner, General Motors. Reception follows. Sponsored by the Whiting School of Engineering.

Mason Hall Auditorium. HW Mon., March 28, 4 p.m.

Mon., March 28, 4 p.m. The Dean’s Lecture IV— “Epigenetic Marks as Detectors, Targets and Predictors in Breast Cancer” by Saraswati Sukumar, SoM. Hurd Hall. EB Mon., March 28, 4:30 p.m.

Mon., March 21, noon. “TRPV Ion Channels: Skin Deep and a Mile Wide,” a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology seminar with Michael Caterina, SoM. W1020 SPH. EB

macology and Molecular Sciences seminar with Barry Cooperman, University of Pennsylvania.

West Lecture Hall (ground floor), WBSB. EB Thurs., March 24, 10:45 a.m.

“Colloidal Nanostructures: A Curiosity-Driven Investigation,” a Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering seminar with Ludovico Cadematiri, Harvard University. 301 Shaffer. HW Thurs.,

“Embryology in Tissue Culture: Studying Eye Development With ES Cells,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Thomas Reh, University of Washington.

Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW “Tumor Type-Specific Effect of Down Syndrome and ETS2 Dosage in Tumorigenesis,” a Physiology thesis defense seminar with Annan Yang.

202 Physiology (Library). EB

Mon., March 21, 2 p.m.

Mon.,

March

21,

4

p.m.

The David Bodian Seminar— “Dissecting Neuroaesthetics” with Edward Vessel, New York University. Sponsored by the Krieger Mind/Brain Institute. 338 Krieger.

HW

“Regulation of p-53-Mediated Apoptosis by Inositol Hexakisphosphate Kinase-2,” a Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences thesis defense seminar with Michael Koldobskiy.

303 WBSB. EB

Tues., March 22, 10 a.m.

Tues., March 22, 10:45 a.m.

“Systematic Order Parameter Identification in Biomolecular Simulation,” a Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering seminar with Andrew Ferguson, MIT. 301 Shaffer. HW Tues., March 22, 2 p.m. “Smoking Cessation at the Intersection of the Injection Drug Use, HIV and Tobacco Use Epidemics in Baltimore (1988–2010),” an Epidemiology thesis defense seminar with Bridget Ambrose. W2030 SPH. EB Wed., March 23, 4 p.m. “Mechanisms and Dynamics of the Ribosome Elongation Cycle,” a Phar-

Use ‘The Gazette’ Calendar online submission form—go to www.jhu.edu/gazette/calform.html

24,

1

p.m.

Mon., March 28, 12:15 p.m.

“Quality Control on the Ribosome During Translation,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Rachel Green, SoM. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW Mon., March 28, 3 p.m. “Eigenvalues of Collapsing Domains and Drift Laplacian,” an Analysis/ PDE seminar with Zhiqin Lu, University of California, Irvine.

Sponsored by Mathematics. 304 Krieger. HW Mon.,

Mon., March 21, 12:15 p.m.

March

“Mechanosensory Mechanisms in a Mammalian Touch Receptor,” a Neuroscience research seminar with Ellen Lumpkin, Columbia University. West Lecture Hall (ground floor), WBSB. EB

March

28,

4

p.m.

The David Bodian Seminar— “Representing Information in Neuronal Cell Assemblies: Persistent Activity in the Dentate Gyrus Mediated by Semilunar Granule Cells” with Ben Strowbridge, Case Western Reserve University. Sponsored by the Krieger Mind/Brain Institute. 338 Krieger. HW W OR K S HO P S Thurs., March 24, and Fri., March 25, 8:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. “Statistical Analysis With

Latent Variables Using Mplus,” two one-day workshops on latent variable modeling. No need for a computer. Registration fee is $100 per day, payable by check or money order; register at https://commprojects.jhsph.edu/ communications/event_signup .cfm?event_id=1458. For more information about the workshop, go to www.jhsph.edu/prevention/ conferences/muthen2006. W1214 SPH. EB

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