The Gazette -- January 25, 2010 by The Johns Hopkins University

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TOD AY’ S WHEE LS

YE S TER DAY’S W HEE L S

Covering Homewood, East Baltimore, Peabody,

Car-sharing program based on

Student-curated exhibition

SAIS, APL and other campuses throughout the

the Homewood campus is go-to

takes a look at transportation

Baltimore-Washington area and abroad, since 1971.

source for 700 drivers, page 7

in early Maryland, page 7

January 25, 2010

The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University

Volume 39 No. 19

O U T R E A C H

To Haiti and back Humanitarian crisis spurs Johns Hopkins community into action By Greg Rienzi

The Gazette

AMURT TEAM/ J. ANDREWS, R. STUBBS-DAME, L. SURAPANENI AND A. TYAN

ore than a week after a devastating 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, the tiny Caribbean nation remains caught in a major medical crisis that only promises to worsen unless international aid groups and health professionals can meet the growing need for supplies and medical assistance for the countless injured and suffering there. Moments after the earthquake hit, many Johns Hopkins men and women went into action to help with the massive humanitarian effort. Volunteers—who include emergency physicians, pediatricians and a pulmonary specialist—are currently on the ground to provide care and relief to the people of Haiti. Some have already returned from short-term medical missions, and more are expected to depart soon. In addition, fund-raising efforts have been launched at a number of university divisions. Michael Millin, a disaster medicine

Laalitha Surapaneni, a master’s in public health student in the Bloomberg School, prepares a makeshift cast for an injured child. Surapaneni and three classmates were working in Haiti when the earthquake struck, and all were unharmed.

R E S E A R C H

Continued on page 5

,C O L L A B O R A T I O N

Combat injury not leading cause of medical evac from war zones

JH researchers awarded $8 mill to develop method to rid body of HIV

Musculoskeletal problems take more out of action; psychiatric illness on rise

By Audrey Huang

B y S t e p ha n i e D e s m o n

Johns Hopkins Medicine

he most common reasons for medical evacuation of military personnel from war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years have been fractures,

tendonitis and other musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders, not combat injuries, according to results of a Johns Hopkins study published Jan. 22 in The Lancet. “Most people think that in a war, getting shot is the leading cause of medical evacuation, but it almost never is,” said study leader Steven P. Cohen, an associate professor of anesthesiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. “As in the past, disease

In Brief

LAX tickets available; new Peabody Spotlight concerts in East Balto.; 2009 ‘SAISPHERE’

Continued on page 4

Johns Hopkins Medicine

multidisciplinary research team at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has been awarded $8 million in funding by the National Institute of Mental Health to develop methods to rid the body of HIV. “While highly active antiretroviral therapy has been effective in reducing morbidity and mortality by decreasing the incidence of AIDS, HIV-infected individuals on HAART [highly active antiretroviral therapy] do expe-

rience cognitive impairment, probably due to latent virus persisting in the nervous system,” said study leader Janice Clements, a professor of molecular and comparative pathobiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “We have developed a model that mimics what is observed in HIV-infected patients on HAART and plan to use it to better understand how HIV infection causes nervous system problems.” HAART can reduce HIV levels to below-detectable numbers. But, some small Continued on page 9

10 Job Opportunities SPH deans present and past; Google Maps; 10 Notices 11 Classifieds former Surgeon General David Satcher C A L E N D AR

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ickets for the Blue Jays 2010 men’s lacrosse season will be available beginning next Monday, Feb. 1. To receive two complimentary season passes, faculty and staff members should bring a valid university ID to the main office in Homewood’s Athletic Center between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. (To accommodate faculty and staff, the Athletics Department will stay open until 7 p.m. on Feb. 23 and 25, and March 1 and 3.) Each faculty/staff member is responsible for picking up his or her own tickets, meaning only one set of tickets will be given out per person. All full-time students get free admission and must present a valid university ID to pick up their ticket prior to each game. Tickets will be available in the Athletic Center main office from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. beginning the Monday before each home game, and on game day in the Athletic Center lobby, starting 90 minutes prior to face-off. There is no admission fee for the games on Friday, Feb. 19; Tuesday, Feb. 23; and Sunday, Feb. 28. Gates to Homewood Field will open one and a half hours prior to face-off.

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he JHMI Office of Cultural Affairs last week launched Peabody Spotlight, a series of noontime concerts to be performed on eight Wednesdays in Turner Auditorium on the East Baltimore campus and also broadcast within the hospital on channel 54. Performing this week, on Jan. 27, is the Vinca String Quartet, led by Jessica Tong, a student of Pamela Frank. Also scheduled are Michael Sheppard (Feb. 3); Anastasia Petanova, flute, Netanel Draiblate, volin, and Timothy Hoft, piano (Feb. 10); four singers and two pianists (TBA) performing Brahms’ “Liebeslieder” (March 3); Brass Roots Quintet (March 10); Duo Transatlantique—guitarists Benjamin Biers and Maud LaForest (April 21); and Luri Lee, violin, Laura Jekel, cello, and Eunkyung Yoon, piano (May 12). For more information, call 410-955-3363 or go to www.JHOCA.org.

‘SAISPHERE’ focuses on religion and world affairs

or the just-published 2009 issue of SAIS’ annual magazine, SAISPHERE, members of the SAIS faculty, scholar, alumni and student communities have explored the theme “Religion’s Grasp on World Affairs” to coincide with the school’s Year of Religion. Main feature articles include “Religion and International Affairs” by John Hamre; “Religion and War” by Eliot A. Cohen, “ ‘Moderate Islam’ in Turkey” by Svante E.

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 B u s i n e ss Dianne MacLeod C i r c u l at i o n Lynette Floyd W e b m as t e r Tim Windsor

Cornell, “Religion as Identity Politics” by Francis Fukuyama, “Groupthink: Religion, Identity and Violent Conflict” by P. Terrence Hopmann, “Politics and Religion in Africa” by Peter M. Lewis, “Europe: Liberty for All?” by Susanna Mancini and Michel Rosenfeld and “Islam’s Freedom Deficit” by Joshua Muravchik. Other features are “Shaping a Nation: Secular and Religious Intellectuals in Iran” by Azar Nafisi, “Religion Is Everything” by Camille Pecastaing, “The Changing Face of the Church in Latin America” by Riordan Roett, “China’s Religious Resurgence” by Anne F. Thurston, “The Long History of Islam in China” by Hua Tao, “Faith and Foreign Policy in America” by Ruth Wedgwood, “Pakistan: Between Secularism and Shariah” by Joshua T. White and “Indonesia: Beacon of Democracy for the Muslim World?” by Paul D. Wolfowitz. An online version of the issue is available at www.sais-jhu.edu/saisphere2009; to request a print copy, e-mail fklubes@jhu.edu or call 202-663-5626.

Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini to speak at SAIS

ranco Frattini, Italy’s minister of foreign affairs, will speak at SAIS at noon today, Jan. 25. His talk is titled “The Major International Security Challenge in 2010: Italy’s Role and Vision.” Kurt Volker, managing director and a senior fellow at the SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations, will be moderator. The event will be held in the Nitze Building’s Kenney Auditorium. Non-SAIS affiliates should RSVP to CTR at http:// transatlantic.sais-jhu.edu/events/2010/ frattini.htm. SAIS plans a streaming live webcast of this event; go to www.sais-jhu.edu.

Author to discuss book on nextgen women business leaders

eading business consultant (and JHU alum) Selena Rezvani will discuss and sign copies of her new book, The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won’t Learn in Business School, at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 29, at Barnes & Noble Johns Hopkins. Rezvani is president of NextGenWomen, a consulting firm dedicated to propelling more women into the top echelons of business. For her book, she interviewed women executives in various industries, roles and job functions to gather tools and information that young women can use to shape their own careers. Among those included are Jamie McCourt, president of the Los Angeles Dodgers; Denise Incandela, president of Saks Direct at Saks Fifth Avenue; Roxanne Spillett, president and CEO of Boys and Girls Clubs of America; and Naomi Earp, chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity

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

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

January 25, 2010 • THE GAZETTE

R E S E A R C H

Hopkins scientists discover a controller of brain circuitry By Maryalice Yakutchik

Johns Hopkins Medicine

y combining a research technique that dates back 136 years with modern molecular genetics, a Johns Hopkins neuroscientist has been able to see how a mammal’s brain shrewdly revisits and reuses the same molecular cues to control the complex design of its circuits. Details of the observation in lab mice, published Dec. 24 in Nature, reveal that semaphorin, a protein found in the developing nervous system that guides filamentlike processes called axons from nerve cells to their appropriate targets during embryonic life, apparently assumes an entirely different role later on, once axons reach their targets. In postnatal development and adulthood, semaphorins appear to be regulating the creation of synapses, those connections that chemically link nerve cells. “With this discovery we’re able to understand how semaphorins regulate the number of synapses and their distribution in the part of the brain involved in conscious thought,” said David Ginty, a professor in the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “It’s a major step forward, we believe, in our understanding of the assembly of neural circuits that underlie behavior.” Because the brain’s activity is determined by how and where these connections form, Ginty says that semaphorin’s newly defined role could have an impact on how scientists

A pyramidal neuron in the mouse cerebral cortex is labeled using the Golgi technique

think about the early origins of autism, schizophrenia, epilepsy and other neurological disorders. The discovery came as a surprise finding in studies by the Johns Hopkins team to figure out how nerve cells develop axons, which project information from the cells, as well as dendrites, which essentially bring information in. Because earlier work from the Johns Hopkins labs of Ginty and Alex Kolodkin showed that semaphorins affect axon trajectory and growth, the scientists

Social service activities can improve brain for older adults By Tim Parsons

School of Public Health

olunteer service such as tutoring children can help older adults delay or reverse declining brain function, according to a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers found that seniors participating in a youth mentoring program made gains in key brain regions that support cognitive abilities important to planning and organizing one’s daily life. The study is the first of its kind to demonstrate that valuable social service programs—such as Experience Corps, a program designed to benefit both children and older adults—can have the added benefits of improving the cognitive abilities of older adults, enhancing their quality of life. The study is published in the December issue of the Journals of Gerontology: Medical Sciences. About 78 million Americans were born from 1946 to 1964. Individuals of retirement age are the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. population, so there is great interest in preserving their cognitive and physical abilities, especially given the societal cost of the alternative. “We found that participating in Experience Corps resulted in improvements in cognitive functioning, and this was associated with significant changes in brain activation patterns,” said lead investigator Michelle C. Carlson, associate professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Mental Health and Center on Aging and Health. “Essentially, the intervention improved brain and cognitive function in these older adults.” The study is the first of its kind to examine the effects of Experience Corps, a national volunteer service program that trains seniors

to help children in urban public schools with reading and academic success in other areas. The study followed 17 women aged 65 and older. Half participated in Experience Corps programs in Baltimore schools, while the other half were wait-listed to enroll the following year. Participants were evaluated with fMRI brain scans and cognitive function testing at enrollment and again six months later. “While the results of this study are preliminary, they hold promise for enhancing and maintaining brain reserve in later life, particularly among sedentary individuals who may benefit most urgently from behavioral interventions like Experience Corps,” said Carlson, who is now leading a broader fMRI trial as part of a large-scale randomized trial of the Baltimore Experience Corps Program. Senior author Linda P. Fried, dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, said, “As life expectancies increase, it’s important, from a public health standpoint, to delay the onset of diseases associated with aging. This study suggests that new kinds of roles for older adults in our aging society can be designed as a win-win for addressing important societal needs, such as our children’s success and, simultaneously, the health and well-being of the older volunteers themselves.” Additional authors of the study are Kirk I. Erickson, of the University of Pittsburgh; Arthur F. Kramer and Michelle W. Voss, both of the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign; Sylvia McGill, of the Greater Homewood Community Corp. in Baltimore; Teresa Seeman, of the University of California, Los Angeles; and Natalie Bolea, George W. Rebok and Michelle Mielke, all of Johns Hopkins. The research was co-funded by a Research and Career Development award to Carlson from the Johns Hopkins Claude D. Pepper Center and by a gift from S.D. Bechtel.

suspected that these guidance molecules might have some involvement with dendrites. Kolodkin, also a professor in the Neuroscience Department at Johns Hopkins and an HHMI investigator, discovered and cloned the first semaphorin gene in the grasshopper when he was a postdoctoral fellow. Over the past 15 years, numerous animal models, including strains of genetically engineered mice, have been created to study this family of molecules. Using two lines of mice—one missing semaphorin and another missing neuropilin, its receptor—postdoctoral fellow Tracy Tran used a classic staining method called the Golgi technique to look at the anatomy of nerve cells from mouse brains. (The Golgi technique involves soaking nerve tissue in silver chromate to make cells’ inner structures visible under the light microscope; it allowed neuroanatomists in 1891 to determine that the nervous system is interconnected by discrete cells called neurons.) Tran saw unusually pronounced “spines” sprouting willy-nilly in peculiar places and in greater numbers on the dendrites in the neurons of semaphorin-lacking and neuropilin-lacking mice compared to the normal wild-type animals. It’s at the tips of these specialized spines that a lot of synapses occur and neuron-to-neuron communication happens, so Tran suspected that there might be more synapses and more electrical activity in the neurons of the mutant mice. The researchers tested this hypothesis by examining even thinner brain slices under an electron microscope. The spines of both semaphorin-lacking and neuropilin-lacking mice were dramatically enlarged, compared to those of the smaller, spherical-looking spines in the wildtype mice. In wild types, Tran generally noted a single site of connection per spine. In the mutants, the site of connection between two neurons was often split. Next, the team recorded the electrical output of mutant and wild-type neurons and found that the mutants, with more and larger spines, also had about a 2.5 times increase in the frequency of electrical activity, suggesting that this abnormal synaptic transmission is due to an increase in the number of synapses. What causes synapses to form or not form in appropriate or inappropriate places is an extremely important and poorly understood process in the development of the nervous

system, Kolodkin said, explaining that the neurons his team studies can have up to 10,000 synaptic connections with other neurons. If connections between neurons are not being formed how and where they’re supposed to, miscommunication occurs and circuits malfunction; as a result, any number of diseases or disorders might develop. “Seizures can be interpreted as an uncontrolled rapid firing of certain neural circuits,” Kolodkin said. “Clearly there’s a deficit in these animals that has a human corollary with respect to epilepsy. It’s also thought that schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders have developmental origins of one sort or another. There likely are aspects to the formation of synapses—if they’re not in the correct location and in the correct number—that lead to certain types of defects. The spine deficits in these mice that are lacking semaphorin or its receptor appear very similar to those that are found in Fragile X, for instance.” This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Johns Hopkins authors of this paper are Tran, Kolodkin, Ginty, Richard L. Huganir, Roger L. Clem and Dontais Johnson. Other authors are Maria E. Rubio, of the University of Connecticut; and Lauren Case and Marc Tessier-Lavigne, both of Stanford University.

Related Web sites David Ginty:

http://neuroscience.jhu.edu/ DavidGinty.php Alex Kolodkin:

http://neuroscience.jhu.edu/ AlexKolodkin.php Image of Golgi technique by Tracy Tran, David Ginty and Alex Kolodkin:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ brainscience/about_us/ contact_us.html

Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins:

http://neuroscience.jhu.edu

Baltimore Interfaith Coalition sponsors Vigil Against Violence B y L i sa D e N i k e

Homewood

ohns Hopkins University chaplain the Rev. Albert Mosley and youth violence prevention expert Philip J. Leaf of the Bloomberg School of Public Health will be joined by faith leaders and members of Baltimore area churches, synagogues and mosques at a Vigil Against Violence set for 7 to 8:15 p.m. today, Jan. 25, at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, 5200 N. Charles St. The vigil, which will include prayer, sacred readings, reflections, a procession and a collection for victims of the Haitian earthquake, is sponsored by the Baltimore Interfaith Coalition, an organization of faith communities aimed at addressing urban problems ranging from violence and crime to unemployment, education and health care. Members include Johns Hopkins, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the Baltimore Board of Rabbis, the Muslim Community Cultural Center of Baltimore and the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence, among many others.

The Baltimore Interfaith Coalition has been working from the Bunting-Meyerhoff Interfaith and Community Service Center, located on Johns Hopkins’ Homewood campus, and several university staff members, students and alumni will be involved in the event, including Uma Saini, ESL director and a lecturer in the Krieger School’s Language Teaching Center; 2009 graduate Salman Harani; and Bishop Douglas I. Miles, a 1970 graduate who is pastor of Koinonia Baptist Church. “The Baltimore Interfaith Coalition represents an important opportunity to provide healing and hope commensurate with the losses that have been experienced in Baltimore over the last two decades, not only through murders but also through death due to drugs, HIV/AIDS and the incarceration of a significant segment of the population,” said Leaf, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence and one of the vigil’s organizers. “The coalition is re-imagining the role that we all need to play to create a successful Baltimore, and to identify and to support those in greatest need,” he said.

4 THE GAZETTE â&#x20AC;˘ January 25, 2010 S E R V I C E

Obama taps libraries dean Winston Tabb for national board By Brian Shields

Sheridan Libraries

inston Tabb, Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums at Johns Hopkins, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to the National Museum and Library Services Board. The nomination, announced last week by the White House, requires confirmation by the Senate. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am honored to serve and humbled by this recognition,â&#x20AC;? Tabb said. The National Museum and Library Services Board is the advisory body for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the primary source of federal support for

Evacuations Continued from page 1 and non-battle-related injuries continue to be the major sources of service-member attrition, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not likely to change. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s likely to get worse.â&#x20AC;? The Johns Hopkins researchers looked at the records of more than 34,000 members of the military who were sent to its medical center in Landstuhl, Germany, from 2004 through 2007. The top-three grounds for medical evacuation were musculoskeletal or connective tissue disorders (24 percent), combat injuries (14 percent) and neurological disorders (10 percent). There wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t much change in those percentages over the course of the four years analyzed, but the percentage of personnel leaving with psychiatric diagnoses continued to rise each year, an increase seen despite the introduction

the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The institute works to create strong libraries and museums through programming at the national level and in coordination with state and local organizations. Board members are presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed men and women who have demonstrated expertise in, or commitment to, library or museum services. As dean of libraries at Johns Hopkins, Tabb directs the integration of new information technologies throughout the universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s libraries and, as head of the University Libraries Council, leads and coordinates Johns Hopkinsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; entire system of libraries, which includes the Welch Medical Library and its satellites, the Mason Library at SAIS, the Friedheim Library at the Peabody

Institute, the library at the Downtown Center and information services at APL. He is also director of the Sheridan Libraries, which include the Milton S. Eisenhower Library and the Hutzler Reading Room in Gilman Hall, both on the Homewood campus; the George Peabody Library on Mount Vernon Place; the John Work Garrett Library at Evergreen Museum & Library; and the libraries at the universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regional campuses in Washington, D.C., and Rockville and Columbia, Md. Tabb also oversees Homewood Museum and Evergreen Museum & Library, both of which are integral to the academic life of the university and are open to the public for tours, arts exhibitions, concerts and other events.

Appointed vice provost for the arts in 2005, Tabb undertook responsibility for implementation of the recommendations of the Homewood Arts Task Force, which he chaired, and for coordination of efforts to extend its work beyond the Homewood campus and across the university. Tabb has led in the development of funding for arts initiatives and in building relationships with arts organizations in the greater Baltimore community. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, Tabb served at the Library of Congress for more than 30 years, ultimately as associate librarian of Congress for library services. A graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University, he holds a degree in library science from Simmons College and a masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree from Harvard University.

of mental health teams devoted to treating combat stress on site. Cohen and his colleagues believe that these increases may partly be the result of the cumulative psychological effects of repeated deployments and the increasing manpower burden borne by Reserve and National Guard units. Those factors are unlikely to change as the wars continue, they say. Most of those evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan for medical and psychiatric reasons donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t return, the data show. In 2007, only one in five military personnel returned to duty in the country from which they were evacuated. Previous studies have shown that the farther away from the deployment area soldiers are treated, the less likely they are to return to duty in that war zone. A previous study by Cohen showed that when military personnel with back pain were taken to a pain clinic in Iraq, all patients returned to their units. When they were sent to pain clinics in Germany or in Washington, D.C., fewer than 2 percent did.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The planes go from east to west, not from west to east,â&#x20AC;? he said. The new study also found that patients who were senior officers were more likely to return to duty after evacuation, probably because they have chosen careers in the military, Cohen says. Service members of all ranks with combat injuries, psychiatric disorders, musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders, and spinal pain were less likely to return. One reason for so many non-battle-related injuries, Cohen says, is the changing nature of warfare. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have a lot of people in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their main job isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fighting,â&#x20AC;? he said. Cohen says it is important for the military to understand the reasons why its personnel are being evacuated and to work to better prevent injuries and illness. Wherever possible, he says, medical staff in Iraq and Afghanistan should be trained to aggressively treat problems early, before they snowball.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;For some of the musculoskeletal problems, you may not be able to prevent them,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Most people doing their jobs in heavy gear like Kevlar are going to get overuse injuries like knee pain, hip pain and bursitis. But you need to recognize and treat problems before they become severe.â&#x20AC;? Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study are Charlie Brown, Connie Kurihara and Anthony Plunkett. The research was funded by the John P. Murtha Neuroscience and Pain Institute in Johnstown, Pa., the U.S. Army and the Army Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine Initiative. G

Related Web site Steven Cohen:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/pain/ blaustein_pain_center/physicians/ cohen.html

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January 25, 2010 • THE GAZETTE

Haiti expert in the School of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine, has been deployed as part of the New Jersey Disaster Medical Assistance Team. He serves as medical officer for the team, which is trained and equipped to be self-sufficient in disaster zones. Millin was last reported preparing to deploy from the U.S. Embassy in Portau-Prince to a U.S. Coast Guard vessel offshore. The team will assist with trauma patients flown onboard by helicopter. E. Lee Daugherty, a critical care specialist in the School of Medicine’s Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, arrived in Haiti as a volunteer with a charitable organization. She is working at a hospital near the Port-au-Prince airport. Karen Schneider, a Catholic nun with the Sisters of Mercy and a pediatric emergency specialist at Johns Hopkins, made her way into Haiti from Baltimore last week and is now caring for earthquake victims in a U.N. medical tent at the Port-au-Prince airport. Traveling with Schneider, an assistant professor in the School of Medicine, were six residents from the Department of Pediatrics. One of those with Schneider was Delphine Robotham, who returned on Wednesday from a five-day mission. She and her colleagues had been scheduled for six months to leave for Haiti on Wednesday, the day after the earthquake hit, to provide medical care to children. Their flight was obviously canceled. Undeterred, the group found flights to Miami and there, through the University of Miami, found a group called Medishare that had a makeshift hospital set up in the U.N. compound next to the Port-au-Prince airport. At midnight the next day, they boarded a private Learjet with as many medical supplies and as much food and water as the plane could handle. Once on the ground, Robotham and three other doctors immediately staffed a tent where roughly 150 patients were lined up on cots. The majority of patients had multiple fractures and crush injuries. The doctors worked up and down the aisles changing dressings, placing IVs and administering antibiotics and pain medication. “When I got there, I was overwhelmed by the amount there was to do,” Robotham said in telephone interview with The Gazette on the morning after she returned. The volunteers spent the remainder of their time in these tents, as new patients arrived around the clock. Fifty to 60 children under the age of 16 were there each day, Robotham said. The doctors barely had time for sleep, and when they could find the time, had to rest on the ground as there were no beds for doctors or nurses. Robotham said that each day brought a pendulum swing of emotions. Moments of despair would be followed by triumphs. She recalls one girl who had a severe injury and could not speak or stand up. “But on the last day when I was rounding, she just stood up and went to her mom. Then she threw her arms around me,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if she would recover, so that was just amazing.” Robotham, who, when she returned, chronicled her time in Haiti on a blog, said that many of the children currently receiving care require immediate surgeries, which they cannot receive under current conditions. “We can only keep them alive for so long; they need to get to hospitals,” she said. “So I’m trying to get the word out.” She’s also helping raise money for supplies, such as crutches, and to transport patients to hospitals. A Johns Hopkins pediatric group started a PayPal account where people can donate. The account is now up to $16,000. Jean Ford, a native of Haiti and a faculty member at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, reached Port-au-Prince on Tuesday with a team from the University of Miami and immediately went to work with adult patients at the same field hospital where the Johns Hopkins Medicine pediatricians were treating children. Ford, an associate

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

Continued from page 1

The Johns Hopkins Go Team, a trained group of medical experts and support staff, gets briefed by director Christina Catlett, an emergency physician.

professor of epidemiology at the Bloomberg School and director of the Public Health Grant and Cancer Disparities Program at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, said in a message back to Baltimore that the psychological trauma “may be more profound” for his patients than their physical injuries. Four master’s degree students in the Bloomberg School were working on a UNICEF project in the villages of Anse Rouge and Pont Sonde when the earthquake hit. The students, who were unharmed, traveled to Port-au-Prince and volunteered at a school for 200 children, worked at a makeshift hospital and conducted a survey to try to determine death and injury rates in one of the hardest-hit sections of the city. They have since returned to Baltimore. Jhpiego, the Johns Hopkins–affiliated organization that works around the globe to build infrastructure for maternal and child health, sent a three-member team to augment its six-person Haiti staff, all of whom survived the earthquake. The team is headed to Port-au-Prince to work with the Haitian staff to ensure the health care needs of pregnant women and newborns. The team, all Creole and French speakers, is also charged with assisting the Jhpiego Haitian team of doctors and nurse midwives to review the long-term health needs of women and children and with using its experience working in low-resource settings to help rebuild the health care system in Haiti. The team will be working with other local health care experts, government agencies and nongovernmental agencies. The Jhpiego group—a doctor specializing in gynecology and obstetrics and two staff members experienced in working in Haiti— was bringing with it basic medical supplies and equipment, including antiseptic creams, sterile gloves, gauze and other items. Lucito Jeannis, Jhpiego’s country director in Haiti, has asked for such materials to help equip a fledgling medical clinic. As reported in a blog on Jhpiego’s Web site, team director Rich Lamporte, along with Willy Shasha and program manager Anne Pfitzer, arrived in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday afternoon, amid sweltering humidity and heat. The team was expected to cross into Haiti on Friday. Lamporte, in a telephone call from Santo Domingo to Jhpiego staff in Baltimore, said that his team is glad to be there and anxious to meet with its in-country colleagues. “We want to get down to work, get to the local team and make sure they are in good shape so we can all participate in the recovery,” he said. Ron Magarick, Jhpiego’s director of global programs, said that Lamporte and other team members will help meet the urgent health needs for pregnant women. “The hospitals and clinics where they would have gone to deliver are wiped out,” Magarick said. “We are helping to establish a referral center so that these women know where to go, and also looking to identify a core group of midwives and birth attendants. Jhpiego has been working with Haiti since the late 1970s; we have a network of more than 1,200 health professionals that we have trained.”

For his part, Jeannis has opened his property to neighbors in need. At last count, 17 people were sharing water and food in a makeshift compound outside his house. Back stateside, Johns Hopkins affiliates are looking to help with their time and money. A coalition of Homewood campus student organizations is forming to build awareness of Haiti’s needs and to help raise funds to meet them. More than a dozen and a half student groups are already involved, and more are expected to join. A meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 26, in the Glass Pavilion. Michael Rogers, a junior in the School of Arts and Sciences and co-chair of Students for Environmental Action, said that he hopes many students and other members of the university community will come out to offer ideas. “Above all, we’re looking to expand the coalition of student groups committed to relief efforts and to plan a larger collaborative campuswide relief effort for later in the semester,” Rogers said. “As students, we feel that one of the most effective ways that we can contribute to efforts on the ground in Haiti is to work together to raise funds for groups with the expertise, experience and skills to make use of them.” Rogers said that the groups hope to leverage all their connections and resources in order to support both acute-phase and longterm relief efforts. “While many of us would like to be lending a hand on the ground, we’re committed to doing what we can here while in Baltimore,” Rogers said. “We’re committed to pragmatic solidarity with the Haitian people, and there’s a lot we can do here.” As soon as the earthquake hit Haiti, a number of students at SAIS’ Bologna Center put together a plan for how the school could respond to the human suffering and structural devastation that has occurred in and surrounding Port-au-Prince. Students started an online donation campaign, the SAIS-BC Haiti Relief Fund, and two separate fund-raising events.

On Friday, the SAIS-BC Haiti Relief Fund had reached its final goal of 2,000 euros. “We’ve been very impressed and touched by the generosity of the SAIS-BC students, faculty and staff toward this cause and the Bologna community as a whole for standing in solidarity with the people of Haiti,” said Ian Warthin, a Bologna Center student and SAIS-BC Haiti Fund-Raising Committee member. “In my experience, after Haiti was struck by four hurricanes in 2008, it was the emergency relief received within this first week which was the most important.” University personnel preparing to go to Haiti in the near future include members of the Johns Hopkins Go Team, a trained group of disaster medical experts and support staff. Before sending a contingent to the country, Christina Catlett, an emergency physician and director of the team, and Gabe Kelen, director of the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response and chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the School of Medicine, are assessing how the team can best serve in the short and the long term. Team members have already been briefed and given necessary vaccinations. Catlett, who has cared for victims of hurricanes Katrina, Ivan and Rita, is familiar with Haiti’s public health infrastructure, having co-led three medical missions to the Central Plateau region of the island for Project Medishare for Haiti, a nonprofit dedicated to helping that country develop and improve public health services. Go Team member Beth Sloand, an assistant professor at the School of Nursing and coordinator of the pediatric nurse practioner track, estimates that she’s been to Haiti nearly 30 times in the past 10 years. Sloand, who was asked by Nursing Dean Martha Hill to coordinate the school’s Haiti efforts, said that she’s eager to depart on the mission. “I have a great love for the Haitian people,” said Sloand, who speaks Haitian Creole. “What has happened to that country is the most devastating thing that I can imagine. I feel a great urgency to get there and help any way I can.” Sloand said that the team is currently in a “holding pattern” and could leave as soon as this week or sometime next month. “The logistical challenges are huge,” she said. “This is not a short-term fix. We plan to be there for an extended period.” As for the School of Nursing’s efforts to date, Sloand said that she has received a tremendous number of calls, e-mails and knocks on the door from students and faculty who want to volunteer. “Nurses are action people,” she said. “Everyone wants to volunteer to go.” Sloand said fund raising is under way at the school and that she and SoN leadership have asked students, faculty and staff to make financial contributions to wellorganized agencies already working in the field. For a list of such organizations, and for up-to-date details on JHU’s efforts in and for Haiti, go to http://webapps.jhu.edu/ jhuniverse/featured/Haiti. G

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6 THE GAZETTE • January 25, 2010

January 25, 2010 • THE GAZETTE

E V E N T

‘On the Road’ takes a look at early Maryland transportation Student-curated focus exhibition opens at Homewood Museum B y H e at h e r E g a n S ta l f o rt

Johns Hopkins University Museums

HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU FOR HOMEWOOD MUSEUM

ohns Hopkins’ Homewood Museum will open its fourth annual studentcurated focus show, On the Road: Travel and Transportation in Early Maryland, with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 28 (snow date: Feb. 4). On view through Wednesday, March 31, the exhibition explores how Marylanders traveled from 1775 through to the laying of the cornerstone of the B&O Railroad in 1828. An accompanying display on the main level of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library features 15 objects drawn from the Sheridan Libraries’ rare books and manuscripts collection, and related events have been planned during the show’s run (see sidebar). The Carroll family who lived in what is now Homewood Museum witnessed the rise of Baltimore as a leading center of mercantile and cultural activity during a time that saw major technological advances in transportation, from the first U.S. balloon launch in June 1784 to the first highway financed by federal funds—the National Road, begun in 1806—both in Maryland. From foot, horse and sail power to the introduction of steamboats, canals and railways, this student-curated focus show explores how people and goods traveled at the turn of the 19th century, highlighting the development of the network of roads, bridges, steamships, railroads and public transportation facilities linking Baltimore to Washington, Philadelphia, New York and more distant points north, west and south. On the Road is the culmination of the undergraduate seminar Introduction to Material Culture, taught during the fall 2009 semester by Homewood director and curator Catherine Rogers Arthur. The 10 students in the class met weekly in the museum’s wine cellar to discuss their research findings and exhibition planning, in addition to assisting museum staff with exhibition marketing and working closely with the Sheridan Libraries’ curator of early books and manuscripts, Earle Havens. Acting as curators, the students spent the term researching period sources such as newspaper ads, maps and probate inventories, and examining surviving objects, including a traveling liquor cabinet ca. 1815 marked by Baltimore pewterer Sam-

Though imported carriages in 1800s Baltimore were more likely to have come from England than France, their styles and fine appointments were undoubtedly similar to designs by French publisher Pierre de La Mésangère, which circulated in early America. This 1892 colored engraving of a stagecoach design will be on display.

papers and gathering primary source evidence has been fascinating.” “Our research revealed a number of interesting finds about travel and transportation at the turn of the 19th century, including tales of highway robberies and drunken wagon riding,” said senior history/ history of art double major Max Spiegel, also a well-published numismatist. “This

uel Kilbourn, a portable desk ca. 1800 with a Carroll family provenance, a gentleman’s pocketbook ca. 1802 made for Baltimore merchant Elisha Rogers and hand-colored engravings of carriage designs ca. 1802 published by Pierre de La Mésangère. “I never imagined I’d be so involved in a class,” said senior economics major Andrew Kase. “Reading through 200-year-old news-

exhibition shows how, even after so many years, we can relate to the experiences of early travelers.” The accompanying display in the MSE Library features objects selected by the students from the Sheridan Libraries’ rare books and manuscript collections, including a recently acquired manuscript travel diary of 1818 detailing the trip of a young man from Wilmington, Del., to Baltimore, an extremely rare broadside illustrating a new method of constructing wagon wheels and various early American guidebooks and travelogues. The material culture seminar is part of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences’ Museums and Society Program, an interdisciplinary course minor that helps undergraduates establish meaningful connections with local and regional museums. The exhibition was funded through a contribution to Homewood by the late Anne Merrick Pinkard that also makes it possible for the seminar in material culture to be repeated in successive years, with different topics contributing to an ongoing understanding of early-19th-century life at Homewood. On the Road is on view to visitors during regular guided tours of Homewood Museum, offered every half hour from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and from noon to 3:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The exhibition is free with museum admission: $6 adults; $5 seniors; $3 students, Johns Hopkins alumni and retirees, and children over 5; free for museum members and Johns Hopkins faculty, staff and students with ID. The related MSE Library display is on view 24/7 during the academic year.

‘On the Road: Travel and Transportation in Early Maryland’ Tavern Life

Take your family, friends or Valentine’s Day sweetheart on a trip back in time with a horse-drawn carriage tour on the Homewood campus. Group ride: $10 adults, $5 children (ages 2 to 11). Private ride: $50 for a six-person carriage. Price includes museum admission. Timed reservations requested: 410-516-5589 or homewoodmuseum@jhu .edu.

Sunday, Feb. 7, 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. Imagine yourself on the road in the 1800s, in need of refreshment, conversation and entertainment. Join early American music performer David Hildebrand in Homewood Museum’s wine cellar to sing spirited tunes, play tavern games, read historical newspapers and maps, and sample traditional beverages and snacks. Free with museum admission. Reservations requested: 410-5165589 or homewoodmuseum@jhu.edu.

On the Road Speaker Series

Thursdays, Feb. 18 and 25, March 4 and 11, 4:30 to 6 p.m. Talks are held in the museum’s entry hall, followed by a reception in the wine cellar. Individual talks: $10, $7 members, free for full-time students with valid ID. Due to limited seating, advance registration is required:

Horse-Drawn Carriage Rides

Sunday, Feb. 14. Rides leave every 20 minutes from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m.

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

Brenda Armour and her favorite Zipcar: a Prius named Parlett

410-516-5589 or homewoodmuseum@ jhu.edu. Feb. 18: David Shackelford, Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum, “Sails and Trails: Getting Around Maryland in the Federal Period.” Feb. 25: Abby Burch, Ohio State University, “The Grand Old Ditch: The C&O in American Transportation History.” March 4: Earle Havens, Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries, “Phaetons, Chaises, Ferries and Sloops: Print Culture and the Curiosities of American Travel and Transport.” March 11: David Schley, Johns Hopkins University, “Changing the Means and Meanings of Travel: The Early Railroad in Maryland.”

Got wheels?

hen Johns Hopkins announced in 2007 that it was bringing a car-sharing program to Baltimore, Brenda Armour was ready. “I think I was the third or fourth to sign up,” says Armour, who lives in Charles Village and is assistant to the dean of student life on the Homewood campus. A former resident of New York and Chicago, she had not only sold her car but was already a proponent of the concept. “It’s an excellent opportunity for urban life,” she says. “I recommend it all the time—to grad students in particular and to my neighbors, many of whom are grad students. It’s much easier than renting a car, and it’s not as expensive as using taxis. It makes perfect sense in a city as dense as Baltimore.” Johns Hopkins now has 16 Zipcars available in various spots on the Homewood campus, and Armour readily admits that she has

a favorite: a blue Prius named Parlett. When that car’s not available, her go-to “stepcar,” she says, is a Scion xB named Blind. One of approximately 700 drivers now signed up for the Johns Hopkins Flexcar program, Armour says that she loves the ability to hop in a car for “mundane reasons” like shopping, going to the dentist or taking her cat to the vet, or for the flexibility it gives her for meeting friends outside the neighborhood. “It gives you the opportunity to expand your social network,” she says. Cars are available around the clock, by the hour or the day, and rates include gas and insurance. The university’s car-sharing program is open to all Johns Hopkins students over the age of 18, faculty and staff; and to community members. To learn about Zipcar, the largest service of its kind in the world, or to sign up, go to www.zipcar.com/jhu.

8 THE GAZETTE • January 25, 2010

Who gets expensive cancer drugs? A tale of two nations Drugs more available in U.S. than U.K., but more unaffordable, too B y S t e p ha n i e D e s m o n

Johns Hopkins Medicine

he well-worn notion that patients in the United States have unfettered access to the most expensive cancer drugs while the United Kingdom’s nationalized health care system regularly denies access to some high-cost treatments needs rethinking, a team of bioethicists and health policy experts says in a report out Dec. 14. Delving into the question of expensive cancer drugs and who gets them, the team, led by Ruth R. Faden, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute for Bioethics, found both systems are far from perfect. And both drew the authors into a hot-button issue of the current U.S. health care reform debate: rationing. Critics of the U.K. system say that care there is rationed—that patients are denied some expensive therapies so that better health care can be provided to the nation as a whole. Critics of the U.S. system say that care is rationed here, too—and that only those with the very best insurance and those who can afford sky-high out-of-pocket expenses have meaningful access to any and all high-priced therapies, especially at the end of life.

The authors found that with regard to very expensive cancer drugs, both characterizations are largely correct. “The issue is not whether rationing is a good thing or a bad thing,” Faden said. “The issue is what we should do about extraordinarily expensive treatments, some of which do very little to improve how well or how long people live.” At the same time, she added, “there is no ethically defensible reason why some Americans have access to expensive cancer drugs and some do not. “Policy-makers and our society now need to do the hard work of developing a reasoned, evidence-based system of using health care resources wisely, and the first step is to engage in an honest and transparent conversation about the values that should guide these decisions, a conversation that is informed by facts not politics,” she said. Faden and her colleagues, writing in the December issue of Milbank Quarterly, compared the costs of 11 high-priced cancer drugs. Seven of the medications are free to all British patients, who pay no out-ofpocket costs. The other four are not covered in the National Health Service because policy-makers have determined that the costs are not worth the limited benefits they provide; patients who want these drugs have to pay all the costs on their own. By comparison, most patients in the United States who have health insurance have some coverage for all 11 drugs; the question is how much they must pay out of pocket, even with insurance. For example,

the out-of-pocket costs for people on Medicare range from $1,200 to $24,000, and because many cancer patients on Medicare are on more than one drug, their out-ofpocket costs are often much higher. Access to expensive cancer drugs for patients with no insurance or very limited insurance may be completely out of reach, with costs exceeding $100,000 annually in some cases. Even more telling, an American cancer patient faces the same financial obstacles regardless of how much benefit the cancer drug provides. For example, drugs such as Herceptin, which can mean the difference between life and death for some breast cancer patients, can be no easier for American cancer patients to access than drugs such as Avastin, which studies suggest has little or no impact on patient survival. In comparing the two health care systems, the researchers said that though they wish they had more data to work with, they found that the British system is in many ways fairer than the American system, and that it is better structured to deal with difficult decisions about expensive end-of-life cancer drugs. Faden said that the notion that every patient should have unrestrained access to every drug available, no matter how unlikely the drug is to help and no matter how modest the benefit, is just not feasible. The problem is figuring out access strategies that work best for most people and that respect the range of values that patients facing serious illness and death hold. “Neither system

is well-equipped to think through the kind of challenges that all systems confront,” she said. For many people, certain drugs will extend life for only a few weeks or months, and that time can be marked by severe side effects from the drugs themselves, Faden noted. Still, choosing which path to pursue at the end of life is an agonizing decision. “We’re managing health care costs by not allowing some people to be treated at all, or forcing them to face financial ruin by getting treatment,” she said. “Who has an extra $100,000? That’s why people sell their homes. That’s why people’s kids don’t go to college. There’s probably no more anguishing kind of decision than what a patient and her family face at the end of life.” The research was funded in part by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Grant in support of the Bioethics Rapid Response Initiative. Other authors on the paper are Hugh R. Waters and Jonathon P. Leider, both of Johns Hopkins; Kalipso Chalkidou, of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in London; and John Appleby, a health economist in London.

Related Web site Ruth Faden:

www.bioethicsinstitute .org/mshome/?id=64

Illegal ‘club drug’ may lead to sleep apnea, scientists find

epeated use of the drug popularly known as “ecstasy” significantly raises the risk of developing sleep apnea in otherwise healthy young adults with no other known risk factors for the sleep disturbance, a new study by Johns Hopkins scientists suggests. The finding is the latest highlighting the potential dangers of the amphetamine-style chemical, currently used illegally by millions of people in the United States. The Johns Hopkins scientists note that sleep apnea itself can lead to an assortment of health problems, including a decline in cognitive function, an increased risk of diabetes and an increased risk of death from heart disease. “We know that abusing drugs can have numerous harmful effects. Our findings show yet another reason not to use ecstasy,” said lead researcher Una D. McCann. Users claim that the drug enhances intimacy, diminishes anxiety and facilitates some forms of psychotherapy. The team led by McCann, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, previously linked ecstasy, whose scientific name is methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or

MDMA, to a variety of neurological problems, including subtle cognitive deficits, impulsive behavior and altered brain wave patterns during sleep. These problems are thought to arise from the drug’s targeted toxic effects on neurons that produce the hormone serotonin. Studies in animals and

Related Web site Una McCann:

www.jhsph.edu/mindbodyresearch/ faculty/unamccann.html

people have shown that MDMA use shortens the filament-like ends of these nerve cells, preventing them from making normal connections with other neurons. Because these cells regulate multiple aspects of sleep, McCann’s team recruited 71 MDMA-using sleep study volunteers by advertising for “club drug users” in newspapers and fliers; all had typically used other recreational drugs as well. The researchers also recruited 62 participants who had similar patterns of illegal drug use but had never taken MDMA. The MDMA users had

taken the drug at least 25 times, a number previously shown to have lasting effects on serotonin neurons. All the volunteers were otherwise physically and mentally healthy and had abstained from drug use for at least two weeks prior to the study. To evaluate breathing patterns during sleep, each study volunteer spent a few nights at a sleep research center. From “lights out” at 11 p.m. to “lights on” at 7 a.m., participants slept while hooked up to a variety of devices to measure breathing, among them airflow monitors at their noses and mouths, and bands around their chests and abdomens to measure expansion. The researchers diagnosed sleep apnea by counting the subject’s rate of incidences of shallow or suppressed breathing, with mild apnea requiring five to 14 of these incidences; moderate apnea, 15 to 29; and severe apnea, 30 or more. Results published in the Dec. 2 issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, showed that rates of mild apnea were similar between the two groups, with 15 MDMA users and 13 other volunteers affected. However, while eight MDMA users had the moderate form of apnea and one had the severe form, none of

the other volunteers had either of these more serious forms. Results showed that the more participants had used MDMA in the past, the more severe their apnea was likely to be. Known risk factors for sleep apnea include older age, obesity and other medical conditions. However, McCann said, of the 24 ecstasy users who had sleep apnea, 22 were age 31 or younger, and none had any known serious medical problems. “Our subjects were otherwise healthy young adults, so this is a very surprising finding,” she said. Though the researchers said they suspect that the cause for the MDMA users’ sleep apnea centers on affected serotonin neurons, the exact mechanism remains a mystery. McCann said that these neurons appear to help sense blood oxygen levels, control airway opening and generate breathing rhythms. Any of these pathways could be separately influenced by ecstasy use, she said. The researchers are currently working to tease apart which pathway is at play in MDMA users. Other researchers who participated in this study are Francis P. Sgambati, Alan R. Schwartz and George A. Ricaurte, all of Johns Hopkins. —Christen Brownlee

H1N1 more risky than seasonal flu in children with sickle cell

nfection with the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, causes more life-threatening complications than seasonal flu in children with sickle cell disease, according to research from Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. The findings, presented Dec. 7 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, warn parents and caregivers that such children are more likely to need emergency treatment and stays in an intensive care unit. The researchers analyzed the records of 118 children with sickle cell disease treated for any kind of flu at Hopkins Children’s between September 1993 and November 2009. Of those children, 28 were infected with the H1N1 virus, a new strain that emerged in April 2009.

While both the seasonal flu and the H1N1 virus caused similar general symptoms such as fever, cough and a runny nose in most of the children, sickle cell patients infected with H1N1 were three times more likely to develop acute chest syndrome, a leading cause of death among these patients, marked by inflammation of the lungs, reduced oxygen capacity and shortness of breath. H1N1-infected children were five times more likely to end up in the intensive care unit and were overall more likely to end up on a ventilator and more likely to need a blood transfusion than those with seasonal flu. Another Hopkins Children’s study, released earlier this year, found that children with sickle cell disease are hospitalized with

seasonal flu nearly 80 times more often than other children. The researchers say that their findings point to the need to include children with sickle cell disease in the list of those who must be immunized against all flu strains. That group already includes children with asthma, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic conditions. “Children with sickle cell disease are hospitalized about once a year for pain crises and other complications, so we should do everything we can to prevent hospitalization from the flu by using safe and effective vaccines,” said lead investigator John J. Strouse, a pediatric hematologist at Hopkins Children’s. Named for the unusually shaped red blood

cells caused by a genetic abnormality, sickle cell anemia affects nearly 100,000 Americans. The cells’ abnormal structure reduces their oxygen delivery to vital organs and causes them to get stuck in the blood vessels, leading to severe pain and so-called “sickling crises,” which require hospitalization. The CDC recommends that seasonal and H1N1 flu shots be given to all children over 6 months of age except those who are allergic to eggs or have had a severe reaction to a flu vaccine in the past. Co-investigators in the study are Martha Amoako, Megan Reller and James Casella, all of Johns Hopkins. The research was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. —Katerina Pesheva

January 25, 2010 • THE GAZETTE

Dynamic chamber puts chemical weapons sensors to the test By Paulette Campbell

Applied Physics Laboratory

pplied Physics Laboratory engineers have constructed a first-of-its-kind chamber to test the viability of sensors designed to detect chemical warfare agents under realistic battlefield conditions. While the use of chemical weapons was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, terrorists have increasingly deployed chemical armaments against civilian and military populations over the past decade. “Our military operates over a wide range of battlefield conditions, whether it be in the high mountains of Afghanistan, the deserts of Iraq or off ships at sea,” notes Thomas Buckley, of APL’s National Security Technology Department and the Laboratory’s project manager for this effort. “All of these are potential venues for adversary use of chemical warfare agents.” In 2006, the Defense Department’s Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense—the focal point for research, development, acquisition, fielding and life-cycle support for chemical and

The Dynamic Test Chamber, pictured here at the Applied Physics Laboratory, is due to ship from APL to Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, this month.

biological defense equipment and medical countermeasures—asked APL to design and build a chamber to evaluate technologies and systems to detect, protect against and

decontaminate hazards from chemical warfare agents. By November 2007, Lab engineers had come up with the framework for the techniques and methods that would be employed in the Dynamic Test Chamber, or DTC. Now, two years later, the complete chamber is mounted in an APL high bay. Once engineers are certain that it works as intended, it will be disassembled and moved to its permanent home at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. “It represents quite an aerosol science, modeling, design and engineering feat for APL and is the state of-the-art facility for chemical sensor testing, delivering quantified challenges with realistic backgrounds in a controlled manner under a defined temperature, humidity and air pressure, all of which affect sensor performance,” says Pam Smith, the APL deputy business area executive for homeland protection. The chamber provides realistic test conditions for evaluating how quickly military detectors pick up trace level amounts of chemical warfare agents, Buckley says. “It operates over a wide range of temperature, humidity and simulated altitude while exposing the chemical agent detectors to interferents such as dust, smoke and diesel exhaust,” he says. “Its control systems

will allow the monitoring, displaying and recording of data from the systems under test [SUTs] in conjunction with the DTC challenge conditions to allow analysis of the response of the SUT in real time.” Smith says that APL has given the government a unique facility capable of delivering dynamic challenges to systems under test. “The chamber will be the first of its kind to provide agent characterization in real time for all test scenarios,” she says. “Feedback of additional system parameters will also be available and managed by state-of-the-art software that will control the chamber. All this is done while maintaining a high standard of safety and chemical warfare agent containment.” Buckley says that the chamber is scheduled to be shipped to Dugway in January, then installed and integrated with a contractor-built secondary containment system. APL staff will operate it during verification tests with chemical agent simulants this spring, before Dugway Proving Ground staff take over the system for final verification testing and subsequently begin testing with actual chemical warfare agents. This article appeared previously in The APL News.

Goal: Improve cardio health in Baltimore substance abusers By Hillel Kutler

School of Nursing

ohns Hopkins School of Nursing researcher Benita Walton-Moss is partnering with Baltimore’s community leaders in reaching out to substance abusers with hypertension, with the goal of improving cardiovascular health. The associate professor is launching a twoand-a-half-year study in a Baltimore neighborhood with the aim of decreasing the high rate of hypertension among African-Americans, particularly those who are substance abusers. “Those who abuse alcohol—and, to a lesser extent, cocaine—are more likely to have high blood pressure,” said WaltonMoss. “But substance abusers tend to be excluded from health studies in which substance abuse is not the focus of the study.” In advance of the study, which begins in June, Walton-Moss is forming a neighborhood-based advisory group of pastors, owners of barbershops and other small stores, and residents of transitional housing units. They, Walton-Moss and community health care workers selected by the advisory group will develop a program to reach and educate area residents about high blood pressure. The program will be presented over a period of six weeks. In each week’s two-hour session, participants will be instructed on

proper diet, nutrition and exercise; how best to communicate with medical professionals; and how to monitor their blood pressure. Participants will transmit their blood pressure readings by telephone so that the intervention’s effectiveness can be measured over time. Key to the study, Walton-Moss said, is testing whether strengthening participants’ health literacy results in habits that lead to better health. The study is facilitated by a $90,000 grant that is part of a larger National Institute of

Nursing Research grant to the School of Nursing’s Center for Excellence for Cardiovascular Health in Vulnerable Populations. In reaching out to African-Americans, Walton-Moss plans to adapt some of the materials developed under the NINR grant by the research center’s director, Miyong Kim, in a project to reduce hypertension among Baltimore-area Korean-American immigrants. African-Americans have the world’s highest prevalence of hypertension, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. One

in three African-Americans is affected by high blood pressure, but approximately 30 percent of them are unaware that they have this condition. Substance abuse, particularly of alcohol, is a frequent contributor to high blood pressure, she said. “Ideally, the program would be sustainable after this research is over,” WaltonMoss said. “Even after we leave, community health workers can share information with others. Hopefully, the education can be ongoing.”

HIV

the body of infection and clear the reservoirs of virus from the deepest recesses of the body, including the brain.” Because viral reservoirs are difficult to study in people, the team already has developed an SIV model of HAART therapy in HIV-infected people that combines four drugs and reduces viral load in the bloodstream and spinal fluid to undetectable levels. Using this model, the researchers plan to pinpoint the best time to start HAART treatment to protect the immune system and central nervous system from virus-induced damage, and the degree to which the virus or HAART therapy causes damage to the peripheral nervous system. They also plan to figure out if it’s possible to rid tissues of residual virus using new drug therapies.

“This is a real first for us, bringing together from all over Hopkins immunologists, virologists, pathologists and molecular biologists, with expertise in HIV research and treatment, SIV pathogenesis and viral immune response,” Clements said. “We are thrilled and incredibly grateful to have such support from the NIH to pursue this critical research.” G

Continued from page 1 amounts of virus evade drug therapy and stay inactive, in a so-called latent form, in immune-system cells. Previous research by this team has shown that primates infected with their version of the virus, SIV, and treated with HAART also harbor residual virus in the central nervous system. “HAART is not a solution to the AIDS epidemic; it is only a step toward eradication,” said Robert Siliciano, a professor of medicine whose lab also is part of this effort. “Our next challenge is to find a way to purge

Related Web site Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology at Johns Hopkins:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ mcp/index.html

Master’s in Human Behavior

A new degree program for careers in business, government advocacy, and public service This is an accelerated program designed especially for those who have received their bachelor’s degree in a social science field. An MHB degree trains for careers in: advertising, public relations, human resources, corporate communication, lobbying, marketing, and numerous others where knowledge of human behavior is essential for effective job performance.

Application deadline: March 1 http://college.usc.edu/MHB

University of Southern California

10 THE GAZETTE • January 25, 2010 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

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

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

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

POSITION

41848 41562 41151 42499 42453 41473 41388 42206 40189 42479 41398 42309 42453 42299 40927 42428

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

School of Medicine

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

POSITION

38035 35677 30501 22150 38064

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

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

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

42220 42011 42434 42400 39308 42392 39306 42377 42247 41785 41724 40770 42099 42351 38840 41877 41995 41652 38886 42347 41463 40769 39063 41451

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

37442 37260 38008 36886 37890

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

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

Short & Long Term Rentals

Studio Apartments available from $750 and includes gas, water, heat and optional furniture! 2905 N. Charles Street, Baltimore 21218

Notices

B O A R D

volunteers are needed to support both Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and the annual Mix 106.5 Radiothon, scheduled for Feb. 25–28. For details or to register, go to www .hopkinschildrens.org/crabbing-for-cash .aspx. For more information, contact Marisa Jaffe at mjaffe5@jhmi.edu.

‘Crabbing for Cash’ Fund Raiser —

Johns Hopkins Children’s Center is back with its second annual Crabbing for Cash online fund-raising campaign. Cash Crab

U.S. doctors prescribing more psychiatric medications By Tim Parsons

harmful drug interactions while the gains from better outcomes are uncertain.” For the study, the researchers reviewed data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys. The cross-sectional study was a nationally representative sample of more than 13,000 office-based psychiatry visits from 1996 to 2006. In addition to finding a general increase in the number of medications prescribed, the study determined that the number of office visits with two or more medications prescribed increased from 42.6 percent in 1996–1997 to 59.8 percent in 2005–2006; visits in which patients received three or more medication prescriptions increased from 16.9 percent to 33.2 percent. The median number of medications prescribed per patient also increased, from one to two, over the survey period. “A wide and ever-growing gap exists between the simple medication regimens that dominate clinical research trials and the complex regimens that increasingly characterize community psychiatric practice,” said Mark Olfson, co-author of the study and a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center.

School of Public Health

sychiatrists in the United States prescribed more psychotropic drugs to their patients in 2006 than they did a decade ago, according to an analysis by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Columbia University. The researchers also found that individual patients were prescribed medications in greater combination to treat their mental illnesses than in previous years. The study is published in the January edition of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry. “Our analysis shows that there has been a recent and significant increase in the number of medications prescribed by psychiatrists in the U.S.,” said Ramin Mojtabai, lead author of the study and an associate professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Mental Health. “While some [combinations] of medications are supported by clinical trials, many are of unproven efficacy. These trends put patients at increased risk for potentially J A N .

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Calendar Continued from page 12 Fri., Jan. 29, 10 a.m. “A Flourishing Life: The Quest for Work and WellBeing Through Sectoral Job Training Programs,” a Health, Behavior and Society thesis defense seminar with Emma Tsui. W2030 SPH. EB

“Analysis of Patterns of Use of the Johns Hopkins ABX Guide July 2002 to June 2007: Key Factors Which Drive the Use of Electronic Decision Support Tools in Clinical Practice,” a Health Policy and Management thesis defense seminar with Peter Smit. 461 Hampton House. EB

Fri., Jan. 29, noon.

Mon., Feb. 1, noon. “The Role of RanGTP Gradient in Mitotic Spindle Assembly and Nuclear Envelope Formation,” a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology seminar with Petr Kalab, NCI/ NIH. W1020 SPH. EB Mon., Feb. 1, 12:15 p.m. “Juvenile Hormone and the Timing of Drosophila Metamorphosis,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Lynn Riddiford, Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW

SPECIAL EVENTS

Opening reception for the exhibition On the Road: Travel and Transportation in Early Mary-

Thurs., Jan. 28, 6 to 8 p.m.

land, a focus show, organized by Hopkins undergraduates, featuring period travelrelated objects. (See story, p. 7.) Free for JHU faculty, staff and students with valid ID; also free with museum admission (and on view as part of regular guided tours); $6 general admission, $5 for senior citizens, $3 for students, youth and Hopkins alumni and retirees. Homewood Museum. HW SYMPOSIA

“Addressing and Overcoming Health Disparities: The Challenge in Urban America,” an Urban Health Institute quarterly symposium with an address by former Surgeon General David Satcher, Satcher Health Leadership Institute, Morehouse School of Medicine, and a panel discussion with Diane Bell McKoy, president/CEO, Associated Black Charities; Frances Draper, pastor, Freedom Temple A.M.E. Zion Church; and Michael Klag, dean, Bloomberg School of Public Health. E2014 SPH (Sommer Hall). EB

Wed., Jan. 27, 3 p.m.

W OR K S HO P S Thurs., Jan. 28, 1 p.m. “Google Maps and Google Earth,” a Center for Educational Resources workshop, designed for faculty and TAs (staff are also welcome to attend). To register or for more information, go to www.cer.jhu.edu. Garrett Room, MSE Library. HW

January 25, 2010 • THE GAZETTE

Classifieds APARTMENTS/HOUSES FOR RENT

Bayview, 3BR, 2BA house, W/D, CAC, fin’d bsmt, sec dep and refs req’d, must see. 410-905-5511. Bayview area, 2BR house w/fin’d bsmt, W/D, backyd prkng pad, no pets; sec dep and credit check req’d. Elaine, 410-633-4750. Belvedere Ave, 2BR, 1.5BA apt, powder rm, lg living and dining areas, kitchen, fp, W/D in bsmt, balcony, walk to Belvedere Square, avail February. $900/mo + utils. 410-4356417 or ankumar1120@yahoo.com. Bolton Hill, elegant 2BR apt, 1,500 sq ft, W/D, marble BA w/whirlpool, living rm, kitchen, skylight, 10.5-ft ceilings, balcony, nr light rail/subway. $1,175/mo incl water, gas. 410-905-3564. Bolton Hill, fully furn’d 1BR apt, avail January to August, quiet house, access to transportation. $1,075/mo + utils. maryhartney @gmail.com. Bolton Hill, two nice, clean 1BR, 1BA apts, one has deck, one has fp, walk to JH shuttle/ subway. gbaranoski@covad.net. Butchers Hill, 2BR, 2.5A RH, steps to medical campus, hdwd flrs, W/D, CAC, rear yd, off-street prkng incl’d. $1,200/mo + utils. 443-838-5575. Butchers Hill, 1BR, 1BA condo in historic mansion, W/D, quiet, safe neighborhood nr JHMI shuttle. $800/mo + utils. 443-3706869 or ianosaur@hotmail.com. Charles Village, 2BR, 2BA corner condo w/ balcony, 24-hr front desk, clean, 1,200 sq ft, nr JHMI shuttle, CAC/heat, all utils incl’d. 410-466-1698. Charles Village, 1BR apt in secure bldg, 3 blks to Homewood campus/shopping, hdwd flrs, great kitchen, great for grad student/ medical prof’l. 410-383-2876. Charles Village/University One, bright, spacious 1BR, 1BA condo, CAC/heat; also avail to buy. $1,200/mo + sec dep. 540-7858231 or tom333@comcast.net. Charles Village (2907 St Paul St), 1BR apt, 1st flr, in safe, quiet neighborhood, off-street prkng avail for additional fee. $850/mo incl heat, water. murilo_silvia@hotmail.com. Cockeysville (Briarcliff Apts), 2BR + den, 2BA apt in TH, W/D, CAC/heat, walk to Dulaney High, lg living and dining areas, kitchen. $1,050/mo ($500 cash back). 410336-0762 or johnjxw@yahoo.com. East Baltimore, 3BR, 1BA TH, partly furn’d. $950/mo + utils + sec dep. Anita, 410-6755951, Nancy, 410-679-0347 or amt2813@ gmail.com. Fells Point (Wolfe at Gough), newly renov’d 3BR RH w/master suite, 1,800 sq ft, back patio, garden. $1,900/mo. 410-245-1343 or jmwinicki@gmail.com. Hampden, 3BR, 1BA TH, dw, W/D, AC, hdwd flrs, fenced yd, nr shuttle to JHH, walking distance to JHU, pets OK. $1,395/ mo. 443-604-4207. Johns Hopkins / Hampden WYMAN COURT APTS. (BEECH AVE.) Effic from $570, 1 BD Apt. from $675, 2 BD from $775 HICKORY HEIGHTS APTS. (HICKORY AVE.) 2 BD units from $750 Shown by Appointment 410-764-7776

www.brooksmanagementcompany.com

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

M A R K E T P L A C E

M wanted for 2BR apt in Key Landing (Dundalk), gated community on the water, laundry facilities in same bldg, closet space, prkng, fitness center, pool. $510/mo. vigneshm@ gmail.com or www.southernmanagement .com/communities/index.cfm?id=kL.

Genuine mink jacket by Saga, size small, color black, contemporary styling, in beautiful cond. $595. Lauren, 410-243-5719.

Hampden, 3BR, 2BA TH, dw, W/D, fenced yd, nr light rail. $1,100/mo + utils. 410-3782393.

Prof’l or grad student wanted for rms in 2BR, 2BA Canton house, pref M, late 20searly 30s. Jim, 443-745-3591.

Need a nanny? Experienced babysitter looking for family to sit for part-time, references on request. Lfraser134@gmail.com.

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

Share sunny EOG house in Patterson Park/ Canton area w/dental student, priv BA w/ jacuzzi tub, rooftop deck, easy prkng, treelined street, steps to park, no smokers/no pets, furn’d if needed. $800/mo incl utils. 410-979-4902 or ked_hd@hotmail.com.

I need help understanding molecular biology techniques; will be happy to learn from a happy-to-teach grad student. 410-299-6870.

Mt Washington, 5BR, 3.5BA house, 2-car garage. $2,200/mo + utils. 443-939-6027 or qzzhao@gmail.com. Patterson Park (145 N Lakewood), 3BR, 1BA house, appls, hdwd flrs, w/w crpt, gas heat, yd, 1 blk to park, nr water/square. $1,100/mo + utils. okomgmt@hotmail.com. Patterson Park, 2BR, 1.5BA house, hdwd flrs, crpt upstairs, stainless steel appls, skylight, expos’d brick, 1.25 mi to JHMI. $1,100/mo. 443-286-4883. Pikesville, 3BR, 3.5BA EOG TH w/updated appliances, replacement windows, fp. $1,500/ mo + utils. 443-629-6795 or 212-991-8173. Roland Park, 2BR + den condo, all new inside, gorgeous view, 4 mi to the Homewood campus. 410-747-5037, nhh@comcast .net or go to http://sites.google.com/site/ devonhillrental. Roland Park, lg 2BR apt w/dining rm, fp, balcony, less than 1 mi to Homewood campus. $1,000/mo (1st month free). 443-386-1879. Furn’d rm/studio nr the JHMI campus. happyhut4u@yahoo.com. Spacious 2BR, 2BA condo, 2 blks to Homewood campus, 24-hr front desk security. $1,550/mo incl utils. 443-500-5074 or dani .amzel@gmail.com. Lg 2BR, 2BA condo w/balcony, 10th flr, new bamboo flrs, new appls, pool, sauna, gym, indoor prkng, half-mile to campus/shuttle, start date negotiable. $1,850/mo incl all utils. janstrat@verizon.net. Office space avail nr 795/Owings Mills/Hunt Valley and more, 800 sq ft, storage, BA, kitchenette, prkng; WiFi avail. $700/mo. 443-471-6121.

HOUSES FOR SALE

Gardenville, 3BR, 1.5BA RH, new kitchen and BA, CAC, hdwd flrs, club bsmt w/cedar closet, fenced maintenance-free yd, carport, quiet neighborhood, 15 mins to JHH. $139,999. 443-610-0236 or tziporachai@ juno.com.

Share spacious 2BR apt nr Homewood campus w/3 grad students, apt has wellequipped kitchen. $375/mo. 410-340-9604 or krithika25594@gmail.com.

Share renov’d Washington Hill house, elevated deck, safe neighborhood nr JHMI. $700/mo + utils. jonchanghouse@gmail.com.

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

F wanted for furn’d, spacious (700 sq ft) BR in 3BR Gardenville house, vaulted ceilings, built-in shelving, mod kitchen w/convection oven, granite counters, landscaped yd, deck, sign 1-yr contract and get one month free. $550/mo + utils. aprede1@yahoo.com. Sunny upstairs apt in historic Lauraville neighborhood, private entrance, shared kitchen, nr JHH/JHU. $600/mo incl utils. 443-844-4094.

CARS FOR SALE

’05 Toyota Camry LE, new tires, insp’d, blue tooth, in good cond, 80K mi. $9,950. 410428-5947 or gayle.erdman@gmail.com. ’98 BMW 740iL, 99K mi. $6,500/best offer. 410-530-6892. ’01 Toyota Corolla CE, clean Carfax report, looks and runs great, Md insp’d, 140K mi. $3,500. nagee786@yahoo.com.

ITEMS FOR SALE

Conn alto saxophone, in mint condition. $650/best offer. 410-488-1886. 4G Zune Black, new and unopened. $100. 410-206-2830 or nlheyls@yahoo.com. Queen-size bed, floor lamps, bookshelves, computer desk w/chair, sofa chairs (2), boombox. 410-980-1319 or pvijayp@gmail.com.

Timonium (8 Tyburn Ct), updated (newer house in area), spacious 4BR, 3BA singlefamily house, walk to Dulaney High, 2 mi to I-83 and light rail station. $375,500 (rentto-own option). Debbie, 410-241-4724.

Ladies coats (2), size 5X, excel cond: black leather, 1 season old, $150; gray corduroy, warm, worn twice, $80. bawlmerhon@ yahoo.com.

First floor of Charles Village house, lg, sunny, fully furn’d, share kitchen, dining, living rm, W/D, deck w/lg hot tub, backyd, porch. $450/mo + utils. 410-963-8741. Pristine! 4-BD 4.5 BA THS across from JHMI LNYW and/or lease bedrooms

w/ private BA’s to other medical professionals; rental income now $3600K monthly. Asking $232K with $15K closing funds available. tbpreston@aol.com or leave message at 410-675-5464.

Need filing cabinets? Free 4- and 5-drawer filing cabinets, some like new, pick up in Charles Village. 410-261-5557. After-school child care needed for 2 easygoing, fun kids, grades 2 and K, North Baltimore, Mon and Tues, 3:30-5:30pm, other days possible, must have car, references. $25/day. 410-377-6842.

Roland Park, 2BR co-op apt next to Homewood campus, overlooks Wyman Park, walk to JHMI shuttle. $134,900. 443-615-5190.

1BR, priv BA in beautifully renov’d, spacious TH in Upper Fells Point, 1 blk to Patterson Park, share w/2 grad students, sec sys, wireless, W/D, prkng, walk/bike to school, views from rooftop deck. $700/mo. Sharon, 443-695-9073.

Looking for furn’d BR w/BA, on temporary basis, 1-4 wks (flexible) in March/April, nr 501 St Paul St. 415-931-1338.

Rm w/lake view avail in beautiful Homeland neighborhood, furn’d, walk-in closet, modern kitchen, prkng pad, perf for F prof’ls. $600/mo incl utils, local phone, high-speed wireless. tLwang21212@yahoo.com.

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

ROOMMATES WANTED

SERVICES/ITEMS OFFERED OR WANTED

Hoover Wind Tunnel 2 vacuum cleaner, rated #1 by Consumer Reports. 410-4675636 or chazmeyers47@hotmail.com. Ikea bed base for twin bed, wood, used but like new, cash only, all sales final. $20. 410292-4137 (to arrange pick-up).

Piano lessons w/experienced teacher, Peabody doctorate, all levels/ages welcome. 410-662-7951. Tai chi beginner’s classes start Wed, Jan 27, in Charles Village, 6:30-7:30pm or Thurs, Jan 28, in Towson, 6:45-7:45pm. 410-2964944 or www.baltimoretaichi.com. Need help with your JHU retirement plan investments portfolio? Free consultations. 410-435-5939 or treilly1@aol.com. Friday Night Swing Dance Club, open to public, no partners necessary. 410-583-7337 or www.fridaynightswing.com. Interior/exterior painting, home/deck power washing, general maintenance; licensed, insured, free estimates, affordable. 410-3351284 or randy6505vfw@yahoo.com. Landscaper/certified horticulturist avail to maintain existing gardens, also planting, designing, masonry; free consultations. 410683-7373 or grogan.family@hotmail.com. Licensed landscaper available for leaf and snow removal, trash hauling, lawn maintenance, Taylor Landscaping LLC. 410-8126090 or romilacapers@comcast.net. Horse boarding/lessons in Bel Air, Md, bring your horse or ride one of our showquality school horses. $325 (full care) or $250 (partial care). 410-458-1517 or www .baymeadowfarm.net. Horse boarding, 20 mins from JHU, beautiful trails from farm. $500/mo (stall board) or $250/mo (field board). 410-812-6716 or argye.hillis@gmail.com. Karaoke avail for special events, parties, birthdays, children’s parties a specialty; reasonable rates. Angie, 410-340-3488. College writing teacher avail to edit your graduate thesis, proposal, research writing, APA and Chicago formats experience. Elizabeth, 443-794-2100. Thinning out my library: various used Spanish, Latin American lit and lit criticism; also feminist criticism. $1-$2/ea. alexnones@ gmail.com.

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

• We cannot use Johns Hopkins business phone numbers or e-mail addresses. • 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.

12 THE GAZETTE • January 25, 2010 J A N .

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Calendar COLLOQUIA

Mon.,

“U.S. Navy Task Force on Climate Change and Arctic Impact,” an Applied Physics Laboratory colloquium with Rear Admiral David Titley, oceanographer of the Navy. Parsons Auditorium. APL D I S C U S S I O N / TA L K S

Screening of the documentary The Deadliest Disease in America, directed by Crystal Emery and produced by URU, The Right to Be Inc. (See story below.) The film will be followed by four workshops— “What Racism Looks Like in Health Care Delivery and Why You Should Report It,” “Doctor/Patient Communication,” “Empowering Community Organizations to Work With Legislators for Change” and “Prostate Cancer: Access Denied”—and a Q&A session. To RSVP, go to www.urutherighttobe.org or call 443-287-5569. Sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Medicine Office of Diversity and Cultural Competence, the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, SPH and SoN. Turner Auditorium. EB

G RA N D ROU N D S Fri., Jan. 29, 12:15 p.m. “Measuring Clinician Satisfaction and Evaluating EHR at ‘PACE’ Geriatric Site,” Health Sciences Infor-

Jan.

25,

12:15

In a rare solo performance, piano virtuoso Emanual Ax returns to the Shriver Hall Concert Series after 30 years. See Music.

matics grand rounds with Paulina Sockolow, Drexel University. W1214 SPH (Sheldon Hall). EB

Smoker Center for Jewish Life (Hillel). HW

Mon.,

MUSIC L E C TURE S

Dean’s Lecture I—“Capitalizing on Tumor Genotyping: Toward the Design of Mutation-Specific Drugs” by L. Mario Amzel, SoM. Sponsored by the Dean’s Office, School of Medicine. Hurd Hall. EB

Mon., Jan. 25, 4 p.m.

Mon., Jan. 25, 5:15 p.m. “Hatching the Supernatural: E.T.A. Hoffman’s Enlightenment Sources,” a German and Romance Languages and Literatures lecture by Arnd Wedemeyer, Princeton University. 101A Dell House. HW

The “We Three Deans” Lecture—“The Next Big Thing in Public Health” by Michael Klag, Alfred Sommer and D.A. Henderson. Part of the Bloomberg Leadership Series. E2014 SPH (Sommer Hall). EB Wed., Jan. 27, noon.

“Figures of the Mean: Kleist’s Poetology of Statistical Reason,” a German and Romance Languages and Literatures lecture by David Martyn, Macalester College. 101A Dell House. HW

Thurs., Jan. 28, 5:15 p.m.

“The New Geopolitics of the Middle East,” a Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Jewish Studies Program lecture by Efraim Inbar, BESA Center.

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

Mon., Jan. 25, 12:15 p.m. “Personal Responsibility for Health: Time for a New Approach,” a Berman Institute of Bioethics seminar with Harald Schmidt, Harvard School of Public Health. Cosponsored by Health Policy and Management and Health, Behavior and Society. W3008 SPH. EB

Peabody Spotlight presents the Vinca String Quartet. Part of a series of midday concerts sponsored by the JHMI Office of Cultural Affairs. (See “In Brief,” p. 2.) Concerts will be broadcast on channel 54 (within the hospital). Turner Auditorium. EB Wed., Jan. 27, noon.

The Peabody Trio performs music by Mendelssohn and Messiaen. $15 general admission, $10 for senior citizens and $5 for students with ID. Friedberg Hall. Peabody

Wed., Jan. 27, 8 p.m.

Sun., Jan. 31, 3 p.m. Peabody Preparatory Winter Honors Recital, featuring winners of the Peabody Winter Honors competition. Griswold Hall. Peabody

The Shriver Hall Concert Series presents Emanuel Ax performing works by Chopin and Schumann. (See photo, this page.) $33 general admission, $17 for students; free for JHU students with ID. Shriver Hall Auditorium. HW Sun., Jan. 31, 5:30 p.m.

REA D I N G S / B OO K TA L K S

JHU alumni and leading business consultant Selena Rezvani will discuss and Fri., Jan. 29, 7 p.m.

Jan.

25,

1:30

roducer/director Crystal Emery’s film The Deadliest Disease in America will be screened at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 27, in Turner Auditorium on the East Baltimore campus. The 55-minute film will be followed by four workshops: “What Racism Looks Like in Health Care Delivery and Why You Should Report It,” “Doctor/Patient Communication,” “Empowering Community Organizations to Work With Legislators for Change” and “Prostate Cancer: Access Denied.” This event is designed to bring together medical students, faculty and East Baltimore residents to conduct robust dialogues about the topic. The screening will initiate the Annual

Health Equity, Access and Diversity (Moving A.H.E.A.D.) Film and Lecture Series at Johns Hopkins Medicine and is sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Cultural Competence, Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions and the schools of Public Health and Nursing. The documentary follows four individuals, including the filmmaker, whose personal stories add to the national debate on our country’s health care crisis. Emery, whose arms and legs are paralyzed as a result of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a form of muscular dystrophy, shares her own experience as an African-American encountering racism while navigating the health care

p.m.

“Time Varying Graphical Models: Reverse Engineering and Analyzing Genetic and Social Networks,” a Biomedical Engineering seminar with Eric Xing, Carnegie Mellon University. 110 Clark. HW

ronmental Engineering seminar with Alan Rabideau, University at Buffalo/SUNY. 234 Ames. HW Tues.,

Jan.

26,

4:30

Wed.,

Jan.

27,

12:15

Thurs.,

Jan.

28,

“Role of Membrane Microdomains in Assembly of Enveloped Viruses” a Molecular Microbiology and Immunology/Infectious Diseases seminar with Douglas Lyles, Wake Forest University School of Medicine. W1020 SPH. EB

Thurs., Jan. 28, noon.

Thurs., Jan. 28, noon. “Belief, Equipoise, Evidence + Policy,” a Center for Clinical Trials seminar with Janet Hiller, University of Adelaide, Australia. Sponsored by Epidemiology. W2030 SPH. EB

“Retrograde Signaling at the Synapse,” a Neuroscience seminar with Haig Keshishian, Yale University. West Lecture Hall, WBSB. EB

Thurs., Jan. 28, 4 p.m.

12:10

p.m.

“Street Outreach to Prevent Youth Violence,” a Graduate Seminar in Injury Research and Policy with Keshia Pollack and Shannon Frattaroli, SPH; and Gregg Croteau and Juan Rivera, United Teen Equality Center, Lowell, Mass. Co-sponsored by the Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence. B14B Hampton House. EB Tues.,

Jan.

26,

12:15

p.m.

“Endocrine and Metabolic Signaling in Promoting Healthy Aging,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Meng Wang, Massachusetts General Hospital. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW Tues., Jan. 26, 3 p.m. “Use of Natural Zeolite Materials to Restore Groundwater at Nuclear Facilities,” a Geography and Envi-

system. She says she hopes that sharing these stories will stimulate conversations that move individuals to action. Thomas LaVeist, director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, says, “Racial and ethnic disparities in health care quality have been well documented, and as minorities eventually become the majority of the U.S. population, the health status of our nation will be a reflection of the health status of racial and ethnic minorities. The implications for raising health care costs are clear,” he says. “The Deadliest Disease in America is an important step in bringing that awareness into the mainstream of our training programs.” “Racism is indeed a deadly disease that

noon.

“Microvillar Membrane Shedding: A Novel Aspect of Enterocyte Biology With Implications for Gut Host Defense,” a Cell Biology seminar with Matthew Tyska, Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Suite 2-200, 1830 Bldg. EB

Tues.,

26,

p.m.

“Suicide in Older Adults With Schizophrenia,” a Mental Health seminar with Annette Erlangsen, SPH. B14B Hampton House. EB

Thurs., Jan. 28, 1 p.m.

Jan.

p.m.

“Exploiting Latent Semantic Mapping for Generic Feature Extraction,” a Center for Language and Speech Processing seminar with Jerome Bellegarda, Apple Inc. B17 CSEB. HW

“Solar Energy Conversion by Photosystem II,” a Biophysics seminar with Gary Brudvig, Yale University. 111 Mergenthaler. HW

Mon., Jan. 25, 4 p.m.

Film, workshops to address racism in health care

p.m.

“Understanding the Other Big Bang: How Transposable Elements Amplify Throughout Genomes,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Susan Wessler, University of Georgia. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW

Fri., Jan. 29, 2 p.m.

Wed., Jan. 27, 4:30 p.m.

S E M I N AR S

“A Model of How Mammalian Spermatogenic Cells Regulate the Environment in Which They Develop,” a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology seminar with William Wright, SPH. W1020 SPH. EB

“Spaceship Earth: A History of Ecological Designs,” a History of Science and Technology colloquium with Peder Anker, New York University. Room 102, 3505 N. Charles St. HW

F I L M / V I D EO

sign copies of her new book, The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won’t Learn in Business School. (See “In Brief,” p. 2.) Barnes & Noble Johns Hopkins. HW

Mon., Jan. 25, noon.

Thurs., Jan. 28, 3 p.m.

Mon., Jan. 25, 11:30 a.m. “The Major International Security Challenges in 2010: Italy’s Role and Vision,” a SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations discussion with Franco Frattini, Italy’s minister of foreign affairs, and Kurt Volker (moderator), managing director, CTR. Part of the Transatlantic Leaders Forum series. Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Building. SAIS

“Geometric Control of Cell Division in Fission Yeast,” a Biology special seminar with James Moseley, Rockefeller University. Mudd Hall Auditorium. HW Continued on page 10

Calendar

Key

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

APL Applied Physics Laboratory BRB Broadway Research Building CSEB Computational Science and

Engineering Building

EB East Baltimore HW Homewood KSAS Krieger School of Arts and

Sciences

International Studies

PCTB Preclinical Teaching Building SAIS School of Advanced SoM School of Medicine SoN School of Nursing SPH School of Public Health WBSB Wood Basic Science Building WSE Whiting School of Engineering

can affect all of us regardless of race, color or ethnicity,” says David G. Nichols, vice dean for education and professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine in the School of Medicine. “Like any disease, the first step toward healing is to acknowledge that the disease exists and to begin talking about it openly. Crystal Emery’s film bravely opens that door for a fearless conversation.” The Deadliest Disease in America is produced by URU, The Right to Be, a nonprofit, community-based organization that focuses on reducing disparities and achieving greater health equity in the United States. The evening will end with a Question & Answer session. For more information about the film and to view a trailer, go to www.urutherighttobe.org. To RSVP for the event, go to www.urutherighttobe.org/ register or call 443-287-5569.