The Gazette

o ur 4 0 th ye ar

S un s eek er

NEIGHBORLY VIS IT

Covering Homewood, East Baltimore, Peabody,

APL tapped to build instrument

The new Johns Hopkins

SAIS, APL and other campuses throughout the

for Solar Probe Plus spacecraft,

Archaeological Museum opens

Baltimore-Washington area and abroad, since 1971.

set to launch by 2018, page 6

its doors to the public, page 6

January 31, 2011

The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University

I N I T I A T I V E

Volume 40 No. 20

P R E P A R E D N E S S

Simulating worst-case scenarios

More global health opps for students

By Greg Rienzi

The Gazette

Continued on page 7

2

KEITH WELLER

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ast March, President Ronald J. Daniels announced an initiative to let more Johns Hopkins students pursue international public health experiences. To jump-start the initiative, the President’s Office helped fund the creation of Johns Travel grants Hopkins global health awards, are now travel grants for students in all available for divisions and in all disciplines, nearly 53 projects in a quarter of them designated for 28 countries undergraduates.

This investment is about to pay dividends.

Through assistance from the President’s Office, the Center for Global Health developed the Global Health Established Field Placement program, which provides students the means to work with faculty on established projects overseas. The program was successfully piloted this past summer with seven projects in six countries. The projects, hosted by the Bloomberg School’s Center for Communication Programs, Jhpiego and faculty from the Bloomberg School, included malaria research in Ghana, sexually transmitted disease prevention in Ethiopia and maternal influenza research in Nepal.

Given the success of the pilot, the Center for Global Health called on faculty this past fall to join the program and create a wealth of new opportunities.

The response was overwhelming.

As part of the now fully established program, interested students will get to choose from 53 health-related projects in 28 countries around the globe, including sites in Africa, South America and Asia. Eleven of the projects are open to undergraduates.

Richard W. Dunning, program manager for the Center for Global Health, said that he was blown away by the faculty reaction.

Joshua Epstein, a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, is launching an advanced modeling center to develop simulations of chronic diseases, economic turmoil and sudden disasters, such as the toxic chemical cloud in Los Angeles model seen on the computer here.

New modeling center seen as mecca for global disaster experts

By Mark Guidera

Johns Hopkins Medicine

W

hat promises to be one of the nation’s most advanced computer simulation and modeling centers is taking shape on the university’s Mount Washington campus.

The Johns Hopkins University Center for Advanced Modeling in the Social, Behavioral and Health Sciences is being launched by

Joshua M. Epstein. A former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Epstein is an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of “agent-based” simulation modeling, which creates virtual worlds populated by “agents” that act like real people.

“With the launch of this center, Johns Continued on page 8

R E C O M M E N D A T I O N

Guidelines issued to counter rush to patent, proprietary restrictions on sharing stem cell data

By Michael Pena

Berman Institute of Bioethics

A

n international group of stem cell scientists, bioethicists and experts in law and public policy last week called urgently for specific measures designed to counter secrecy and self-interest. The recommended measures focus on the sharing of data and materials, and collective manage-

In Brief

Update after JHH shooting; Summer Day Sports Camp; spring Musicology Colloquium

12

ment of intellectual property related to stem cells.

In a consensus statement, the Hinxton Group—so named for the British city where members first met in 2006—lists five recommendations about data and materials sharing in a field in which patenting and other proprietary claims threaten to slow progress and steer the focus toward big profits rather than advancing public health.

“Progress in human pluripotent stem cell

science has been incredibly rapid over the last 12 to 13 years,” said Debra Mathews, assistant director for science programs at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and a member of the Hinxton Group’s steering committee.

“The science has moved so fast that there hasn’t been much opportunity for the field to develop or reflect on norms or standards

Calendar

Food documentaries; ‘Intro to Research’ at MSEL; ‘Future of the Arctic’ symposium

Continued on page 3

10 Job Opportunities 10 Notices 11 Classifieds

2 THE GAZETTE • January 31, 2011 I N B R I E F

Update on changes made after JHH shooter incident

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ast year’s shooting at The Johns Hopkins Hospital prompted the Joint Commission and other regulatory agencies to review Johns Hopkins’ preparedness and response to this event.

To explain the outcome of these reviews and what’s been done to prevent and respond to workplace violence, an emergency preparedness education session has been scheduled for noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 2, in Hurd Hall. Included will be an update on security changes and organizational decisions that the institution has made in the aftermath of the Sept.

16 incident. Also on the agenda will be a discussion on trends of workplace violence in health care organizations and a presentation on enhancements being made to the hospital command center’s emergency response procedures.

Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the session.

The seminar is being hosted by The Johns Hopkins Hospital, the School of Medicine’s Office of Emergency Management and the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response.

Summer Day Sports Camp announces 45th season

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Camp Open House Saturday, April 9 • 11am – 1pm

ParkCamps • Explorer and Pioneer Camps for Young Children • Arts and Science Camps • Young Filmmakers’ Workshop • Sports Camp • Beyond Park Day Trips • Leadership Camp • Project Boost

he Johns Hopkins University Summer Day Sports Camp will begin its 45th year of operation in June.

Designed to provide a service to the faculty, staff, alumni and neighbors of the university, the Homewood campus program accepts campers born on or before June 1, 2004, and through the age of 15.

The camp runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (with earlier drop-off and pickup available) from June 20 through July 29. All campers are guaranteed a spot if registered with a nonrefundable deposit by May 1; there is a 50 percent discount for a second child.

For an application and more information, go to www.hopkinssports.com/camps/ 10-campus.html. For questions, contact camp coordinator Robert Babb at 410-5167485 or rbabb@jhu.edu.

Leon Botstein launches spring Musicology Colloquium

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eon Botstein, president of Bard College, music director of the American Symphony Orchestra and editor of Musical Quarterly, will give the first spring talk of the Peabody Conservatory’s 2010– 2011 Doctor of Musical Arts Musicology Colloquium from 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 2. His topic is “Rethinking the Repertoire: Rescuing History, Criticism and Performance from Oblivion.”

The talk, supported by a gift from Laura Friedberg Burrows, will take place in Pea-

Editor Lois Perschetz Writer Greg Rienzi Production Lynna Bright

g, Plus swimmin ing, sports, canoe g, rock climbin . and more

Copy Editor Ann Stiller Photography Homewood Photography A d v e rt i s i n g The Gazelle Group

June 20 - August 19 for ages 31/2 to 17 (410) 339-4120 • www.parkcamps.com The Park School 2425 Old Court Road Baltimore, MD 21208

Business Dianne MacLeod C i r c u l at i o n Lynette Floyd W e bm a s t e r Tim Windsor

body’s Hilda and Douglas Goodwin Recital Hall, 17 E. Mount Vernon Place.

The other spring talks in the DMA Musicology Colloquium, all from 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesdays, are: Don Randel, president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, on “What’s Musicology Got to Do With It?” (Feb. 16); Inga Mai Groote, of Ludwig Maximilian University and the University of Zurich, on “Glarean, Poet/Professor/ Scholar” (March 2); Pamela Potter, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, on “From Wagner Revivals to War Crimes” (March 16); Wendy Heller, of Princeton University, on “Rescuing Ariadne” (March 30); and Joel Sachs, of The Juilliard School, on “Henry Cowell: Challenges to a Biographer” (May 4). The Feb. 16 talk is in Griswold Hall; all others are in Room 308 of the Conservatory Building.

Host offices needed for Johns Hopkins Summer Jobs Program

T

he Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Health System are again sponsoring a Summer Jobs Program, which gives Baltimore City students the opportunity to complete a six-week paid internship in one of various departments throughout the institutions. The interns will work six hours a day, Monday to Friday, with the exception of scheduled group educational sessions.

The program is designed to promote exposure to careers and workplace culture while providing an educational experience that promotes mentoring and fosters personal responsibility.

The first mentor information session will be held in mid-February, with details to be announced. Information about the program and applications for requesting a student for 2011 are available online at www .hopkinsmedicine.org/jhhr/Community/ youthprograms.html.

‘SAISPHERE’ issue looks at the impact of demography

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or the 2010–2011 issue of SAIS’ annual magazine, SAISPHERE, the editors asked members of the SAIS faculty, scholar, alumni and student communities to explore the theme “Foreshadowing the Future? The Impact of Demography” to coincide with the school’s “Year of Demography.”

Among the feature articles are “Demography and American Foreign Policy,” by Michael Mandelbaum; “Incredible Shrinking Japan,” by William L. Brooks; “The Costs of China’s Population Policy?”

by David M. Lampton; “The Changing Face of Latin America,” by Riordan Roett; and “Flight Risk: America Is Losing Its Talented Foreign-Born University Graduates,” by Neil K. Shenai.

The issue is available online at media.saisjhu.edu/saisphere.

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

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

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

January 31, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

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Survive ‘shockable’ cardiac arrest? Chances excellent in big venues

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study of more than 14,000 men and women whose hearts suddenly stopped suggests that the chances of survival are very high if such cardiac arrests are witnessed in large public venues, including airports, sports arenas or malls.

The reasons, researchers say, are that almost four out of five such cases appear to be due to a survivable type of heart rhythm disruption and that big places with lots of people are more likely to have an automated external defibrillator, or AED device, handy, along with those who can apply it as well as CPR. “Our research clearly shows that the chances of surviving a shockable cardiac arrest are best when someone publicly witnesses it happening, a bystander uses CPR to keep blood flowing to the brain and other key organs, and an AED can be applied to electrically restart the heart,” said Johns Hopkins cardiologist Myron “Mike” Weisfeldt. “The best outcomes have all been followed by prompt arrival of trained emergency medical personnel and a trip to the hospital,” said Weisfeldt, director of the Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and physician in chief at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Among the team’s key findings, reported in the Jan. 27 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, was that 79 percent of such victims had the kind of disrupted heart rhythm that could be corrected by an electrical shock from an AED device placed

on them in public by a bystander. Among those who actually were shocked, 34 percent survived, recovering well enough to be discharged from the hospital.

The frequency of such shockable rhythm disturbances—known by the acronym VT/ VF for ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation—was much less among those stricken at home, at 36 percent. If a relative or bystander witnessed the arrest there and used an AED, 11.6 percent survived to leave the hospital.

Weisfeldt, the study chair for a large network of emergency medical services systems, speculates that patient demographics and severity of their heart disease likely explain why VT/VF rates are different between those whose hearts stop pumping at home and those who suffer an event in public, with people at home being older and more likely to have underlying chronic disease than those who are active and attending major sports events. He points out that many who suffered a cardiac arrest at home had no remaining electrical activity in the heart.

Weisfeldt emphasizes that people at risk of sudden cardiac death and who have an AED at home may still benefit. “But the survival rate is really not that much different than with a bystander practicing CPR without an AED and quickly calling 911,” he said.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and other large medical institutions involved in the report say that their latest study is believed

to be the largest and most comprehensive VT/VF analysis to date in the United States and Canada. Conducted in 10 major cities from December 2005 through April 2007, the study helps explain the difference in survival rates between those who arrest in public and those who do so at home.

“The likely next best step to maximize people’s chances of surviving VT/VF is the placement of more AEDs in big, popular public venues, along with uniform and prominent AED location signs so that people can easily find one,” Weisfeldt said. He recommends that all public places and businesses that can accommodate more than 1,000 people at a time should have the laptop-size AEDs on site and in well-marked locations.

Every year, experts say, more than 300,000 Americans of all ages die from sudden cardiac death, many of them elderly.

For the study, researchers closely monitored the circumstances surrounding thousands of incidents of cardiac arrest reported to 911 emergency lines. The researchers checked for survival, discharge from hospitals and more than 200 “unique observations” about each cardiac arrest, its location and the use of CPR and AEDs. Emergency medical personnel in all 10 cities recorded the details, which were then sorted by study team members at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“Fortunately, the chances nowadays of getting bystanders to help with CPR and using an AED in public are pretty good,”

said Weisfeldt, a past president of the American Heart Association, who notes that more than 10 million Americans, many of them health care workers, are trained or retrained in CPR each year. “A lot of people are trained in basic lifesaving techniques, and now we have to give them the tools, including an AED, to make sure they can make the best use of their skills.”

The latest study is part of a landmark series of research projects known as the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium, designed to reveal the best lifesaving techniques for cardiac emergencies. The research, which is set to continue through 2017, was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

—David March

Related websites Johns Hopkins Department of Medicine:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ Medicine/admin/welcome.html

Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium:

roc.uwctc.org/tiki/tiki-index.php

‘New England Journal of Medicine’:

www.nejm.org

Breast cancer patients with diabetes more likely to die, study finds

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reast cancer patients are nearly 50 percent more likely to die of any cause if they also have diabetes, according to a comprehensive review of research conducted by Johns Hopkins physicians.

The findings, published in the January issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, suggest that future research could focus on whether high levels of insulin in patients with type 2 diabetes could play a role in promoting tumor growth.

The researchers who conducted the review also found that diabetics tend to be diagnosed with later-stage breast cancers and to receive altered and potentially lesseffective treatment regimens.

“When patients are faced with a diagnosis of breast cancer, which they see as an imminent threat to their lives, diabetes care often goes on the back burner,” said study leader Kimberly S. Peairs, an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “This research suggests

we may need to proactively treat the diabetes as well as the cancer,” she added, noting that diabetes is a systemic disease that has many different effects on the body.

Peairs and her team conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of previously published research on breast cancer and diabetes, ultimately looking in depth at eight studies. In six of seven studies of breast cancer patients, pre-existing diabetes was associated with significantly higher longterm all-cause mortality.

Diabetes and cancer are major causes of illness and death worldwide. In 2007 in the United States alone, roughly 24 million people had diabetes (about 8 percent of the population), and 2.5 million were survivors of breast cancer. Diabetics are known to have a higher risk of breast cancer, Peairs says.

Peairs says her research suggests that diabetics diagnosed with breast cancer may get less-effective treatment because practitioners may be concerned about these

patients suffering more side effects from chemotherapy or radiation treatments as a result of the metabolic condition. Patients also may be more likely to be hospitalized, get infections and/or become anemic, complicating their care. Peairs says that the higher death rate may also be linked to the fact that these patients come to breast cancer treatment less healthy than their counterparts without diabetes, which is associated with obesity, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

Women with diabetes may also be at greater risk of chemotherapy-related toxicity, which may explain—and even justify—some of the less-aggressive treatment, she says.

Peairs says that more research should reveal whether increased insulin production in type 2 (adult onset) diabetics contributes to worse outcomes among diabetic breast cancer patients. Small studies suggest that some diabetes drugs may be associated with worse outcomes for cancer patients, while

other medications may actually improve survival.

She notes that the popular drug metformin, which makes diabetes patients more insulin-sensitive, thereby lowering the amount of unused insulin in the body, may be associated with better survival outcomes.

The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and American Cancer Society.

Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study are Claire F. Snyder, Hsin-Chieh “Jessica” Yeh, Frederick L. Brancati and Antonio C. Wolff.

—Stephanie Desmon

Bioethicists

on all stem cell lines being used in research worldwide; the other would be a central hub for accessing information about stem cell intellectual property rights. Both resources would link to and build on similar registries already in existence.

• Encourage, support and coordinate an international network of stem cell banks and human tissue and cell repositories. The network would catalyze standardization, coordination and expansion of what is now a patchwork of inconsistent biobanking and sharing practices.

• Develop and institute incentives for data and materials sharing through publication, participation in information hubs and other mechanisms. Under this guideline, funders, research institutions and scientific journals would insist that researchers submit their data to these “hubs,” and that enough information—and materials, where appropriate—would be shared to allow other researchers to evaluate and replicate published work.

Funders and journals would also request that researchers share useful negative data generated in the course of a project, with scientists and clinicians advising journals and funders on appropriate standards for data completeness.

• Explore options for formal collaborative

networks and mechanisms such as patent pools and patent brokering. When collective management of intellectual property can move the field forward, such arrangements could ease growing fears of patent infringement and crippling lawsuits.

• Adopt licensing practices and patent policies that promote fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (equitable) access to knowledge and health care applications.

Licensing should follow recommendations endorsed by other professional societies, such as the recommendation to reserve research rights for nonprofit institutions and promote access to novel technologies that can help meet critical health needs in both developing and developed nations.

The statement calls on technology transfer offices at government-funded research institutions to make public their stem cell intellectual property rights. The group also urges patent offices and key policymakers to reassess whether current standards for granting stem cell patents are appropriate.

Members of the Hinxton Group met in Manchester last November to develop the recommendations, focusing primarily on human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells.

While acknowledging that intellectual property rights can help ensure financial

return on the much-needed private investments that fund much translational research, the Hinxton Group says its recommendations aim to uphold overriding societal goals at the same time. “We believe that licensing practices in the biological sciences should reflect the goal of global justice, borne out of a human dignity common to all and a universal commitment to reduce suffering,” the group states in the document.

The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics conducts advanced scholarship on the ethics of clinical practice, biomedical science and public health, both locally and globally. With more than 30 faculty members, most of whom are jointly appointed in the Johns Hopkins schools of Medicine, Public Health, Nursing, and Arts and Sciences, the Berman Institute is one of the largest centers of its kind in the world. G

Continued from page 1 for sharing data and materials,” Mathews said, “or to engage in the sorts of collective action now needed in the field to allow both basic and translational science to move forward, and for society to see benefits in the form of new therapies and treatments.”

The Hinxton Group, formed by the Berman Institute’s Stem Cell Policy and Ethics Program, issued its recommendations on Jan. 24 at a panel discussion about obstacles to openness in stem cell science. The event, held at the headquarters for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was co-hosted by the bioethics institute and AAAS. Mathews says that the “concrete and actionable” steps called for in the statement require the concerted effort of researchers and their institutions, funders, members of industry and government agencies.

The group’s recommendations are to: • Establish two central, publicly available databases that would ease the sharing of information vital to scientific progress.

One database would include information

Related website Kimberly Peairs:

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

Related websites The Hinxton Group:

www.hinxtongroup.org

Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics:

www.bioethicsinstitute.org

4 THE GAZETTE • January 31, 2011

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ohns Hopkins researchers have discovered how statins, the most commonly prescribed class of medication in the United States, appear to trigger a rare but serious autoimmune muscle disease in a small portion of the 30 million Americans who take the cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Taking statins, they found, can sometimes cause the body to produce antibodies against its own proteins, creating a condition that gets progressively worse, not better, even after the medication is discontinued. As the painful and debilitating disorder is uncommon and can be treated with steroids and other immune-suppressing drugs, the Johns Hopkins researchers caution that people who must be on statins to reduce serious risk of heart disease and stroke should not avoid the drugs.

“We have long known that there must be environmental triggers to the development of autoimmune disorders,” said Andrew L. Mammen, an assistant professor of neurology and medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Now we have evidence that this medication is just such a trigger and, under certain circumstances, provokes a sustained autoimmune disease.”

Beyond their “proof of principle,” Mammen’s findings, published online in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism, could lead to lab tests that identify early autoimmune muscle disease, guide treatment before symptoms escalate and, possibly, predict who is at risk before statins are prescribed.

Mammen cautions that the side effect described by the Johns Hopkins research

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is rare, noting that statins are a “fantastic medication” that have proven value.

“No one who needs statins should be afraid to take them because of the slim risk of developing this autoimmune disease,” he said. “Statins save a huge number of lives.

They dramatically reduce the risk of strokes and heart attacks. The ultimate goal of our research is to determine before patients start taking statins who might be sensitive to the medication and who might be susceptible to its potentially toxic effects on the muscle. We want to prevent this autoimmune disease.”

Although statins are tolerated by most patients, about 5 percent who take them experience muscle pain and/or weakness severe enough to warrant stopping the medication. Most of those people will make a full recovery once they are off the drug, but there appears to be a group who will develop this progressive autoimmune muscle disease.

They get weaker even after the medication is stopped, some end up in wheelchairs, and at least one has died. Immunosuppressive therapy with steroids or other drugs is effective in reversing the disease in most patients, Mammen says.

In his initial research, Mammen and his colleagues focused on 26 patients at the Johns Hopkins Myositis Center with necrotizing myopathy, a muscle-wasting disorder with no known cause. Sixteen were found to have a previously unknown antibody. Of the 16 patients with this novel antibody, 12 were over the age of 50 and, of those, more than 80 percent had taken statins before their muscle pain and weakness began. The frequency of statin use in patients with similar muscle diseases is significantly lower.

In his latest research, Mammen identified the target of the antibodies as HMG-CoA reductase, or HMGCR. HMGCR is the enzyme responsible for making cholesterol and is the one that statins target.

In the researchers’ collection of more than 750 patients with muscle symptoms, 45 patients with HMGCR antibodies were identified. Of those over 50 years of age, more than 90 percent had a prior statin exposure.

The younger patients, Mammen says, had not been on statins, and how the disease is triggered has not been determined. He suspects, however, that they may suffer from other cholesterol issues, a factor that could play a role in the development of the disease.

Antibodies are typically made by healthy people to recognize and destroy foreign invaders. But in patients with autoimmune

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Related website Andrew Mammen:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ myositis/doctors/mammen.html

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diseases, the body makes auto-antibodies: antibodies that attack the body’s own proteins. In the case of statin-associated autoimmune muscle disease, the body attacks its own HMGCR. When a patient takes statins, HMGCR levels rise as the body tries to compensate for the reduction in the enzyme caused by the medication. Mammen hypothesizes that the extra HMGCR in the body may sometimes stimulate the immune system to make auto-antibodies.

Compounding the problem is the finding that while normal muscle tissue makes low levels of HMGCR, regenerating muscle cells make very high levels of HMGCR. This suggests that once the autoimmune muscle disease process is initiated by statin use, high levels of HMGCR in regenerating muscle cells continue to fuel the aggressive and painful autoimmune response, even after statins are withdrawn.

Although doctors don’t yet know how many people have statin-associated autoimmune muscle disease, Mammen and his colleagues believe it is rare. Even in the Myositis Center, just 4 percent of patients have been diagnosed with it. Mammen says that the lab test he and his team have developed, which has not yet been approved by regulators, enables them to diagnose the disease with near certainty.

Some of his patients, however, continue to need the very medication that caused their pain.

“One of the questions that remain is, Can you safely restart statins? It’s important because some of our patients were put on statins for very good reasons, like they’ve had a heart attack,” Mammen said. “We would like to find out if there is a way for these patients to begin taking the medication again.”

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Passano Foundation, the Ira Fine Discovery Fund and the Dorothy and Donald Stabler Foundation.

Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study are Tae Chung, Lisa Christopher-Stine, Paul Rosen, Antony Rosen and Livia A. Casciola-Rosen.

unding from the John A. Hartford Foundation has allowed the Institute for Johns Hopkins Nursing to offer 270 scholarships for nurses to complete the online Guided Care Nursing course in 2011 and 2012. Registered nurses are eligible to apply if they are working for an organization in the United States that plans to use the Guided Care model in its patient-centered medical home or accountable care organization. Each scholarship covers the full tuition of the six-week course and the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s examination leading to the Certificate on Guided Care Nursing.

“Guided Care was developed to meet the growing challenge of caring for older adults with chronic conditions and complex health care needs,” said Jane Shivnan, executive director of the Institute for Johns Hopkins Nursing. “These scholarships will help us train more Guided Care nurses to work with patients and their families to improve their quality of life and make more efficient use of health services.”

The Guided Care model was developed in

2002 by a team of Johns Hopkins University researchers led by Chad Boult of the Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2009, funding from the John A. Hartford Foundation helped launch the online course, which became so popular that more courses were added throughout the year.

The evidence-based course gives nurses the knowledge and skills needed to assess patient needs, monitor chronic conditions, coordinate efforts of health care providers, smooth transitions between sites of care, and educate and empower patients and families to improve health and quality of life. Participants complete about 20 hours of core content and learning activities, including six live webinars, and have access to 20 hours of supplemental learning activities.

Upon completion of the course, participants are eligible to take the online examination leading to the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Certificate in Guided Care Nursing.

For more about the Guided Care model, go to www.GuidedCare.org. For more about the online Guided Care Course and the scholarship application process, go to www.ijhn.jhmi.edu.

The next online course begins March 7.

January 31, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

5

JHU scientists crack genetic code for form of pancreatic cancer B y V a n e s s a W a s ta

Johns Hopkins Medicine

S

cientists at Johns Hopkins have deciphered the genetic code for a type of pancreatic cancer called neuroendocrine or islet cell tumors. The work, described online in the Jan. 20 issue of Science Express, shows that patients whose tumors have certain coding “mistakes” live twice as long as those without them.

“One of the most significant things we learned is that each patient with this kind of rare cancer has a unique genetic code that predicts how aggressive the disease is and how sensitive it is to specific treatments,” said Nickolas Papadopoulos, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and director of translational genetics at Johns Hopkins’ Ludwig Center.

“What this tells us is that it may be more useful to classify cancers by gene type rather than only by organ or cell type.”

Pancreatic neuroendocrine cancers account for about 5 percent of all pancreatic cancers. Some of these tumors produce hormones that have noticeable effects on the body, including variations in blood sugar levels, weight gain and skin rashes, while others have no such hormone “signal.”

In contrast, hormone-free tumors grow silently in the pancreas, and “many are difficult to distinguish from other pancreatic cancer types,” according to Ralph Hruban, a professor of pathology and oncology and director of the Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center at Johns Hopkins.

For the new study, the team investi-

gated nonhormonal pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors in 68 men and women.

Patients whose tumors had mutations in three genes—MEN-1, DAXX and ATRX— lived at least 10 years after diagnosis, while more than 60 percent of patients whose tumors lacked these mutations died within five years of diagnosis.

The Johns Hopkins team, which previously mapped six other cancer types, used automated tools to create a genetic “map” that provides clues to how tumors develop, grow and spread.

Within the code are individual chemicals called nucleotides, which pair in a preprogrammed fashion to build DNA and, in turn, a genome. Combinations of these nucleotide letters form genes, which provide instructions that guide cell activity. Changes in the nucleotide pairs, called mutations, can create coding errors that transform a normal cell into a cancerous one.

In the first set of experiments, the Johns Hopkins scientists sequenced nearly all protein-encoding genes in 10 of the 68 samples of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and compared these sequences with normal DNA from each patient to identify tumorspecific changes or mutations.

In another set of experiments, the investigators searched through the remaining 58 pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors to determine how often these mutated genes appeared.

The most prevalent mutation, in the MEN-1 gene, occurred in more than 44 percent of all 68 tumors. MEN-1, which has been previously linked to many cancers, creates proteins that regulate how long strands

Race plays role in weight-related counseling among obese patients B y N ata l i e W o o d - W r i g h t

Bloomberg School of Public Health

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hen it comes to advising obese patients, blacks receive less weight reduction and exercise counseling from physicians than their white counterparts. This is according to a recent study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who examined the impact of patient and doctor race concordance on weight-related counseling. The results are featured in the January online issue of Obesity.

“Contrary to our expectations, we did not observe a positive association between patient-physician race concordance and weight-related counseling,” said Sara Bleich, lead author of the study and an assistant professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management.

“Rather, black obese patients seeing white doctors were less likely to receive exercise counseling than white obese patients seeing white doctors. We also found that black obese patients seeing black doctors were less likely to receive weight reduction counseling than white obese patients seeing black doctors.

This suggests that regardless of the physician’s race, black obese patients receive less weightrelated counseling than white obese patients.

Our findings could be due to a number of factors such as negative physician perspectives toward black patients or a lack of sensitivity to the underlying levels of obesity risk for black patients as compared to white patients.”

Obesity is defined as having a body mass index greater than or equal to 30 kg/m2 and is an important risk factor for mortality and morbidity. In the United States, blacks

are disproportionately affected by obesity and are at an increased risk for a number of chronic diseases associated with obesity, such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes.

Researchers analyzed 2005 to 2007 National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys, a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of physician office visits, among individuals 20 years and older. Using a sample size of 2,231 visits of black and white obese patients to their black and white physicians from the specialties of general/family practice and general internal medicine, Bleich and colleagues examined the relationship between doctor-patient race concordance and weight-related counseling (measured as weight reduction, diet/nutrition and exercise counseling). Logistic regression was used to model the outcome variables of interest.

In addition, tests were used to statistically compare whether physicians of each race provided counseling at different rates for obese patients of different races.

“Previous studies have shown disparities in the proportion of black obese adults informed by physicians that they were overweight compared to white obese adults,” said senior author Lisa Cooper, a professor in the School of Medicine’s Division of General Internal Medicine with joint appointments in the schools of Public Health and Nursing. “We now also see that black patients are receiving different medical counseling as well. Further research is needed to understand how to improve obese patient counseling, particularly among the black population.”

The study was written by Bleich, Alan E. Simon and Cooper.

The research was supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

HERE’S THE SNOWDOWN ...

Reach for your phone for up-to-minute information on the university’s weather-related decisions. In Baltimore, the number is 410-516-7781; from areas outside Baltimore City, call 800-548-9004.

Information is also available on the Web, at webapps.jhu.edu/emergencynotices.

of DNA are twisted and shaped into dense packets that open and close depending on when genes need to be activated. Such a process is regulated by proteins and chemicals that operate outside of genes, termed “epigenetic” by scientists.

Two other commonly mutated genes, DAXX and ATRX, which had not previously been linked to cancer, also have epigenetic effects on how DNA is read. Of the samples studied, mutations in DAXX and ATRX were found in 25 percent and 17.6 percent, respectively. The proteins made by these two genes interact with specific portions of DNA to alter how its chemical letters are read.

“To effectively detect and kill cancers, it may be important to develop new diagnostics and therapeutics that take aim at both epigenetic and genetic processes,” said Kenneth Kinzler, a professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and co-director of the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins.

The Johns Hopkins team also found that 14 percent of the samples studied contained mutations in a gene family called mTOR, which regulates cell-signaling processes.

Papadopoulos says that patients with tumors containing such alterations in the mTOR pathway could be candidates for treatment with mTOR inhibitor drugs.

“This is a great example of the potential for personalized cancer therapy,” Hruban said. “Patients who are most likely to benefit from a drug can be identified and treated, while patients whose tumors lack changes in the mTOR pathway could be spared the side effects of drugs that may not be effective in their tumors.”

Papadopoulos, Kinzler and co-authors Bert Vogelstein, Luis Diaz and Victor Velculescu are co-founders and members of the scientific advisory board of Inostics, a company developing technologies for the molecular diagnosis of cancer. They own Inostics stock, which is subject to certain restrictions under

The Johns Hopkins University’s conflict-ofinterest policy. Kinzler, Vogelstein and Velculescu are entitled to shares of any royalties received by the university on sales of products related to genes described in this manuscript.

Major funding for the study was provided by the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation, a nonprofit that funds research on carcinoid cancer, pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer and related neuroendocrine cancers. Additional funding was from the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center, Joseph Rabinowitz Fund for Pancreatic Cancer Research, Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Fund for Cancer Research, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Research Foundation, AACR Stand Up to Cancer’s Dream Team Translational Cancer Research Grant and National Institutes of Health.

Additional co-authors are Yuchen Jiao, Chanjuan Shi, Barish Edil, Roeland de Wilde, David Klimstra, Anirban Maitra, Richard Schulick, Laura Tang, Christopher Wolfgang and Michael Choti, all of Johns Hopkins.

Related websites Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center:

www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter .org

Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center:

pathology.jhu.edu/pancreas/index .php

www.sciencemag.org

www.caringforcarcinoid.org

‘Science’: Caring for Carcinoid Foundation:

Open House Saturday Noon to 4pm

6 THE GAZETTE • January 31, 2011 S P A C E

Applied Physics Lab tapped to provide solar probe instrument

By Michael Buckley

WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU

Applied Physics Laboratory

Residents of Roland Park Place were among the first visitors to the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, which reopened to the public in December.

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A neighborly visit

oland Park Place residents were among the first to explore the Homewood campus’s redesigned Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, which reopened to the public in December. Thirty-five members of the nearby continuing care retirement community visited last Tuesday, one of whom was Carl Christ, an emeritus professor of economics at Johns Hopkins.

The residents, photographed here viewing the museum’s ancient Greek pottery, were treated to discussions about some of the nearly 700 objects now on display.

“This was a fantastic opportunity to present our new museum and invite our neighboring community to enjoy it as well,” said Sanchita Balachandran, the

museum’s curator/conservator and a lecturer in the Krieger School’s Department of Near Eastern Studies. While explaining relics ranging from Etruscan metalwork to Egyptian burial artifacts to the group, Balachandran was reminded of the history of the very museum she curates. “I met one woman who said she remembers seeing the Goucher Mummy when she was in fifth grade, when it was still downtown,” Balachandran said. The mummy was previously on view at the Woman’s College of Baltimore (now Goucher College) and has been on long-term loan to Johns Hopkins since the 1980s.

—Ian Mathias For more on the museum, including a look at some of its holdings, go to archaeologicalmuseum .jhu.edu.

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lready on board to design and build NASA’s Solar Probe Plus spacecraft, APL has been tapped to provide an instrument for the sun-swooping probe that will measure key properties of the energetic particles blasted off the sun.

Set to launch by 2018, Solar Probe Plus will venture into the sun’s outer atmosphere—called the corona—and gather data to answer two of the biggest mysteries in heliophysics: why the sun’s corona is so much hotter than its inner regions, and how these particles, known as the solar wind, are accelerated.

Last month NASA selected five science instrument suites to fly on the probe. APL will contribute a detector to the Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun, or ISIS, a two-part energetic-particle instrument suite headed by Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

APL will build EPI-Lo, a time-of-flightbased spectrometer that will measure the makeup and intensities of protons and heavy elements, as well as energetic electrons at lower energies where this acceleration begins. “These measurements are important for exploring ‘shocks’ and other processes that blast material out of the corona, and for identifying seed populations for energetic particles,” said Ralph McNutt of APL’s Space Department, who is a co-investigator on the Solar Probe Plus science team.

ISIS’ other half, a high-energy detector from a team that includes the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, will provide similar data on protons, heavy elements and electrons at higher energies.

McNutt said that the mission’s direct measurements of activity near the sun will add data that are critical to understanding the relationship between sun and Earth, as well as the impact of solar activity on humans and technologies in space and on the ground.

NASA’s selection of the science instrument payload to compile this information— looking at the structure and dynamics of the sun’s magnetic field, investigating how the solar atmosphere is heated and accelerated to produce the solar wind, and exploring mechanisms that accelerate and transport high-energy solar particles all the way to the edge of the solar system—is a significant mission development step, added Andy Dantzler, Space Department programs manager.

After launch, Solar Probe Plus will use seven gravity assists at Venus to shape its approach to the sun. The compact solarpowered spacecraft will weigh about 1,350 pounds; designs include an 8-foot-diameter, 4.5-inch-thick, carbon foam–filled solar shield atop the spacecraft body. At its closest passes, the spacecraft must survive solar intensity 500 times stronger than spacecraft experience while orbiting Earth.

Work at APL is well under way on the solar shield designs and other systems to deliver this payload to the sun.

Solar Probe Plus, which will weigh about 1,350 pounds, will carry five science instrument suites. APL will build a time-of-flight-based spectrometer for the ISIS suite headed by Southwest Research Institute.

JHU epidemiologist named to new government committee

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teven Goodman, a professor at The Johns Hopkins University, has been appointed to a new government institute committee designed to guide standards for accurately comparing medical treatments.

Goodman, a core faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, is one of 15 individuals appointed by the head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office to serve on the Methodology Committee for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Goodman is also a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a professor of oncology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Kimmel Cancer Center.

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute was established under the federal health reform act to better inform health decisions with research projects that provide reliable and relevant evidence on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Such outcomes research specifically includes comparisons of various treatments.

Goodman currently co-chairs a committee at the Institute of Medicine on drug safety and serves on the board of directors of the Society for Clinical Trials. He is the editor of Clinical Trials: Journal of the Society for Clinical Trials and senior statistical editor for Annals of Internal Medicine. Goodman has taught at Johns Hopkins since 1988 and has served on a wide variety of national panels.

January 31, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

MERVYN CHRISTIAN

a lot of what it’s like to live in a developing country.”

Dunning said that he hoped these grants could provide transformational experiences.

He said that such projects, particularly in the developing world, provide students with a global perspective that serves them well in their life and career.

“Students who have an overseas experience seem to return more appreciative of public health and are more likely to work in a setting where they take care of underserved people,” he said. “That is a pretty good outcome. Even if they don’t go work overseas again, they’ll do some good work here.”

The grants are supported financially by the President’s Office and commitments

Nancy Glass, seen here interviewing a family in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will be one of the faculty mentors in the new travel grant program.

Global Continued from page 1 “I was anxious when we first sent out the request. I thought, nobody is going to want to do this. Maybe 16 to 20, tops,” Dunning said. “We were extremely pleased with how the faculty embraced this program. I know the faculty and students who participated in the pilot just loved the experience.”

The application period for the program began last week and placements will begin in the summer.

Students selected to participate will be required to assist at the overseas site for the posted period, which can vary in duration from four weeks to six months. Their $3,500 grant will help cover the cost of transportation and costs of living in-country. The host faculty and/or site will be responsible for finding adequate and safe housing for the students, developing an academically appropriate set of tasks and experiences, and providing supervision of the work.

The program is open to students at all divisions except Master of Public Health

students, first-year medical students and those who would be completing their studies prior to their projected travel date.

The program is designed primarily for the student who wishes to obtain a global health experience in research or practice in a developing country but does not require an independent research experience.

The project list includes diabetes research in Trinidad and Tobago, newborn child health in Tanzania, reduced tobacco use in Indonesia, malaria prevention in Uganda, an osteoporosis survey in Peru, road safety in China and many others.

Students will conduct interviews, provide data collection, develop forms and perform a host of duties.

“It’s real-life stuff that needs to be done,” Dunning said. “We did not want faculty to just make busywork for the students. They get something out of it, and the student gets something out of it.”

Jackie Sofia, a program associate with the Center for Global Health, said that the faculty put a lot of effort into creating these positions.

“The students who go overseas will learn valuable skills and learn a bit more about themselves,” Sofia said. “They will also learn

7

from the deans of the schools of Medicine, Nursing and Public Health.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health was launched in 2006 to coordinate and focus the university’s efforts against HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, hepatitis, flu and other worldwide health threats, especially in developing countries.

The center bridges the international work of the schools of Public Health, Medicine and Nursing.

To apply for the grants and to see a full list of the project sites, go to www .hopkinsglobalhealth.org/our_work/travel_ grants. Applications are due by Feb. 21. The announcement of selections will take place on or around April 4. G

Global Health Day 2011

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he Center for Global Health will host the second annual JHU Global Health Day from noon to 5 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 24, in the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Sheldon and Feinstone halls.

The event, co-sponsored by the Bloomberg School’s Master of Public Health program, brings together students and faculty from across the university to present and share their experiences conducting research and fieldwork in developing countries.

The event kicks off at noon in Sheldon Hall with opening remarks by university President Ronald J. Daniels, who will discuss the rapidly expanding profile of global health. Students will then share their personal experiences in developing nations.

Awards will be presented to exceptional faculty advisers and/or mentors in order to recognize outstanding service to their student advisees who traveled overseas.

The presentations will be followed by the Global Health Student Experience Fair, held from 1 to 4 p.m in Feinstone Hall. The fair is a venue for students to showcase their overseas research, practice work and/or clinical experiences for the

rest of the Johns Hopkins community. A panel of faculty and student judges will review the student posters and award cash prizes to a select number of participants.

The event concludes with a talk by guest speaker Stephen Lewis, board chair of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which supports community-based organizations turning the tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa, and co-founder and co-director of AIDS-Free World, an international advocacy group.

Lewis is a member of the board of directors of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. He also serves as a commissioner on the newly formed Global Commission on HIV and the Law, created by the United Nations Development Programme with the support of the Joint United Nations Programme of HIV/AIDS. Following Lewis’ talk, the prize recipients of the Experience Fair will be announced.

This year’s event will also feature a photography competition, limited to Johns Hopkins students, with cash prizes awarded to the best photographs. A gallery of photographs for public display will be chosen from those submitted.

Gene protects African-Americans from coronary artery disease B y D av i d M a r c h

Johns Hopkins Medicine

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team of scientists at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere has discovered that a single alteration in the genetic code of about a fourth of African-Americans helps protect them from coronary artery disease, the leading cause of death in Americans of all races.

Researchers found that a single DNA variation—having at least one so-called guanine nucleotide in a base pair instead of a combination without any guanine—on a gene already linked to higher risk of coronary disease in other races is linked in blacks to decreased risk. Specifically, the study showed that otherwise healthy African-American men and women with the alternative genetic code had a fivefold reduction in the likelihood that their arteries would narrow or clog.

For African-Americans who inherited two copies of the guanine gene variant, one from each parent, the risk reduction was even more dramatic: They were 10 times less likely to have coronary heart disease, which disproportionately afflicts a greater number of African-Americans than whites or any other ethnic group. Nearly 17 million Americans have an arterial problem plaguing the heart, causing a half-million deaths annually.

“What we think we have here is the first confirmed hereditary link to cardiovascular disease among African-Americans, and it is a protective one,” said senior study investigator and health epidemiologist Diane Becker. “This newly found link in AfricanAmericans was not only protective instead of harmful but was also found at a precise

location on gene CDKN2B, a gene close to the single base pair modification tied to other increased risk of coronary artery disease in other races.”

Becker emphasizes that only an estimated quarter of blacks have the protective CDKN2B code, and only 6 percent have two copies, so “while a lot of African-Americans have this protective genetic modification, most do not.” Advance testing for the genetic marker, she says, could ultimately, in the future, assist physicians in risk-stratifying those without inherited protection so they could be monitored more closely for early signs and symptoms of disease.

The findings appear in the Journal of Human Genetics online Jan. 27.

Becker, a professor at both the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a team that included researchers at Duke and Emory universities also say their results, based on blood analysis from 548 black men and women in the Baltimore region and confirmed in several hundred more in the Durham, N.C., and Atlanta regions, help explain why earlier studies found potentially dangerous genetic connections to this type of heart disease in Caucasians, Hispanics and Asians but failed to find a negative tie-in to the disease in blacks.

Earlier studies, Becker says, had involved genomewide reviews in multiracial populations and had taken “a needle in the haystack approach” to finding that one change in a string of some 58,000 base pairs in a chromosomal region known as 9p21. That region, which includes CDKN2B, is associated with higher rates of coronary disease in nonblacks.

The team’s latest analysis was success-

ful, she believes, because it had a large and sufficiently broadly based black volunteer population. The study group comprised men and women between the ages of 26 and 60.

Investigators also focused on the 9p21 region and a subsection of genetic material within called ANRIL, which overlaps and is closely held to CDKN2B but is away from the deleterious genetic variant found earlier.

Johns Hopkins cardiologist Brian Kral says that the abundance of activity in this particular region of the genome, including CDKN2B and ANRIL, suggests that everyday replication of this zone could play a more fundamental, underlying role in the progression of coronary artery disease in all races.

Kral, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and its Heart and Vascular Institute, was co–lead investigator of the latest study, along with Johns Hopkins genetic epidemiologist Rasika Mathias. The team plans to further investigate the ANRIL subregion of 9p21 to see if any single genetic changes speed up or slow down progression of coronary diseases.

Blood samples for the genetic analysis came from a larger study being led by Becker of some 4,000 people from white and African-American ethnic backgrounds. Called the Genetic Study of Atherosclerosis Risk, or GeneSTAR, and under way at Johns Hopkins since 1983, it involves participants who were all healthy upon enrollment, with no existing symptoms of heart disease. All were monitored for at least five years with periodic checkups to see who developed heart disease and who did not. Each had a sibling or a parent who had a history of coronary artery disease or some other symptom of blocked arteries, such as chest pain or shortness of

breath. The latest study was based on results collected through 2007, by which time 35 black study participants had suffered some form of heart attack or needed an angioplasty or X-ray scan of the heart’s blood vessels to confirm or rule out arterial blockages.

Study funding was provided by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the Johns Hopkins Clinical Research Center.

In addition to Becker, Kral and Mathias, Johns Hopkins researchers involved in this report are Bhoom Suktitipar, Ingo Ruczinski, Dhananjay “Jay” Vaidya, Lisa Yanek and Lewis Becker. Arshed Quyyumi, Riyaz Patel, A Maziar Zafari and Viola Vaccarino, all of Emory University, also contributed to the research. Further study assistance and support was provided by Elizabeth Hauser and William Kraus, both of Duke University Medical Center.

Related websites Diane Becker:

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

Brian Kral:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ heart_vascular_institute/experts/ physician_profile/ E93942E4C5F10EE062540 A26266F29CE/Brian_Kral,%20 MD,%20MPH

www.nature.com/jhg

‘Journal of Human Genetics’:

8 THE GAZETTE • January 31, 2011

Living near busy roadways ups chances of allergic asthma B y D av i d M a r c h

Johns Hopkins Medicine

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n international team of lung experts has new evidence from a study in shantytowns near Lima, Peru, that teens living immediately next to a busy roadway have increased risk of allergies and asthma. The odds can go up by 30 percent for developing allergies to dust mites, pet hairs and mold, and can double for having actual asthma symptoms, such as wheezing and using medications to help breathe.

The study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology online Jan. 18, is believed to be the first to link heightened rates of allergic disease and exposure to traffic-related pollution as a possible reason for increased rates of asthma along major transit routes. Previous studies in Europe and North America relied on self-reports of asthma symptoms or produced conflicting results on possible tie-ins with high levels of airborne pollution. Until now, experts say, no study has looked at how busy roadways affect the allergic origins of asthma, a respiratory disease that afflicts some 17 million Americans, including some 5 million children.

Experts at Johns Hopkins who participated in the study also found that the risk of aller-

Modeling Continued from page 1 Hopkins is firmly planting its flag in the ground and saying we are going to be a mecca for groundbreaking research and applied work in the field of agent-based modeling,” said Epstein, who joined the Johns Hopkins faculty July 1 as a professor in the School of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine. He also holds joint appointments in the School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Economics and the School of Public Health’s departments of Biostatistics and Environmental Health Sciences.

Epstein, who brings with him multiple federal and other research grants, is the director of the new center.

The Center for Advanced Modeling, or CAM, will bring together some of the nation’s top experts in emergency medicine, disaster health, social behavior, supercomputing and economics—including two Nobel laureates—to move agent-based modeling in new directions, Epstein said.

Agent-based models, or ABMs as they are called by scientists, construct artificial worlds populated by virtual people, or “agents.”

These software agents are programmed to respond as people would to real or imagined threats, such as a novel infectious disease outbreak or toxic chemical spill. The simulation models are “highly visual and spatially realistic,” Epstein said, with agents moving between virtual places such as work, school, home and even places far away.

By simulating individual actions and multiple interactions—often driven by fear, poor judgment and imperfect information— Epstein’s simulation models can help predict how complex societies and health systems might respond to a given event and what the ripple effects might be as the scenario unfolds.

If this all sounds like the stuff of war games, that is exactly the point, Epstein said. Given credible modeling of how large numbers of people and complex social systems may react to a disaster or other event, smart planning and response measures can be identified.

Indeed, the center’s primary goal “will be to develop practical, novel scientific solutions” to the many complex medical, social and institutional problems that society faces today, Epstein said.

Gabor Kelen, professor and chair of the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine, said that he recruited Epstein to

gic disease, or atopy, and of having asthma among 725 teenagers, ages 13 through 15, was worst for those living immediately next to the busy road, where a steady stream of traffic across multiple lanes flowed unimpeded all day long. Atopy rates went up by 7 percent for every city block (approximately 300 feet) closer they lived to the road. For teens who lived next to the road, the odds of having asthma were twice those of teens who lived a quarter-mile (about four city blocks) away.

“Our study clearly shows why we need to protect respiratory health and plan future major roadways here or abroad away from residential areas and schools,” said senior study investigator and pulmonologist William Checkley. “We can also now try preventive strategies aimed at reducing allergic exposure near roadways to see if this lowers rates of asthma,” added Checkley, an assistant professor in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Checkley and lead study investigator Lauren Baumann chose a poor district of Lima, called Pampas de San Juan de Miraflores, for their study because Peru has the highest rates of asthma symptoms among children in Latin America, at 26 percent.

In addition, large numbers of shantytowns

such as San Juan de Miraflores have sprung up around the nation’s largest city within the last few decades, many of them with a single, congested and slow-moving main thoroughfare.

Baumann, a former Johns Hopkins graduate student in public health, says that only the most-at-risk children were included in the study, pointing out that people who do not outgrow their asthma by their early teens are twice as likely to remain asthmatic through adulthood. The yearlong study, begun in 2008, included home visits to measure lung function and environmental air pollutants.

“Family physicians and public health workers now know they need to more closely monitor children who live near major roadways for allergies and for the earliest signs of asthma,” said Checkley, who notes that his team plans further studies on the underlying genetic profile of those at greater risk of atopy and asthma. “Our ultimate goal is to identify other key environmental stimuli or traffic-related pollutants that help trigger allergic disease, and then use our knowledge of how they work biologically to stop them before asthma sets in,” he said.

Funding support for the study was provided by the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health; the National Heart, Lung

and Blood Institute; the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences; and the National Institutes of Health–affiliated John E. Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences.

In addition to Checkley and Baumann, researchers involved in the study were Colin Robinson, Robert Gilman, Nadia Hansel, Robert Wise, Patrick Breysse and Kathleen Barnes, all of Johns Hopkins; Juan Combe, Alfonso Gomez, Karina Romero and Lilia Cabrera, all of A.B. PRISMA in Lima; and Juan Hernandez, of the Instituto Nacional Salud Publica in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

the department because he is a pre-eminent leader in the field of agent-based computational modeling.

Kelen said Epstein also will provide the Johns Hopkins community with a rich new source of advanced learning and research opportunities in a field that holds great potential for developing creative solutions to some of the most challenging social, medical and economic issues faced today by hospitals, government agencies and other large organizations.

In addition, Kelen said, Epstein and the new center will help Johns Hopkins continue to expand its leadership position in the new discipline of disaster health.

The Center for Advanced Modeling will integrate the latest research findings in emergency medicine, disaster health and the behavioral and social sciences to develop sophisticated agent-based models for pandemics, chronic diseases, natural and manmade disasters, civil unrest, economic turbulence and other social challenges that could potentially affect large numbers of people and crucial segments of the economy.

Epstein, whose early studies at Amherst College included music and mathematics, envisions a lively academic environment that draws the brightest minds from around the nation, if not the globe.

“I see this as a place where the top professors and researchers from around the country, indeed the world, will want to come and work on collaborative projects, participate in symposia or develop entirely novel lines of research,” Epstein said. “I want it to be an intensely collaborative environment … which welcomes students and faculty to come and brainstorm, collaborate on papers, attend seminars, come up with brilliant new ideas. I see all kinds of innovative, exciting work coming out of this center, work that pushes important interdisciplinary research forward in a really dynamic way.”

To accommodate the bustle of the center, new space has been designed to foster open, creative campuswide interaction and is now under construction at the Mount Washington campus.

Epstein and Kelen said that an early focus for the Center for Advanced Modeling will involve bringing together a wide range of scholars from across The Johns Hopkins University—including the Bloomberg School of Public Health, School of Medicine, Whiting School of Engineering and Krieger School of Arts and Sciences to work on projects that could lead to key advances in the science of disaster medicine, disaster response, public health preparedness, chronic disease and more.

Epstein, who is widely published on com-

putational modeling and social dynamics, including authoring several books, also envisions CAM developing unified agent-based models combining epidemiology and economics.

There’s no reason, he said, that agentbased models can’t be used to forecast how major health phenomena, such as a new pandemic, would affect the national or even global economy. For that matter, he said that he and colleagues in Economics look forward to models that show how financial contagions and panics can spiral into recessions of the sort faced recently in the U.S. One of the center’s most famous capabilities is the first-of-its-kind planetary-scale agent model, led by Jon Parker, the center’s senior software engineer. This model simulates literally 6.5 billion distinct individuals on a planetary map. You might think of it as Google Earth with an overlay of disease transmission. Epstein and Parker’s planetary model was used by the National Institutes of Health to plan for emerging pathogens, including last year’s swine flu pandemic, and has been featured in Nature.

While Epstein is based in Emergency Medicine, his multiple appointments are intended to “solidify linkages” across the schools and “encourage the engagement of faculty and students at all levels,” CAM’s statement of purpose notes.

Beyond being a focal point for campuswide collaborations, the center has formal affiliations with other cutting-edge modeling and supercomputing centers in the U.S. and abroad. The affiliated centers include the Santa Fe Institute (where Epstein is an external professor), Pittsburgh National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech, National Center for Computational Engineering at Tennessee and Eidgenossische Technishe Hochschule, or ETH, in Zurich, often referred to as Switzerland’s MIT. Individual researchers who have signed on as nonresident CAM members include two Nobel laureates: Thomas Schelling, a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland, and George Akerlof, the Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Schelling received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2005, and Akerlof received it in 2001. Others who have agreed to collaborate with CAM include top researchers at Princeton University, Oxford University, University of Chicago and Cornell University, to name a few.

Epstein, who holds a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is widely considered among a handful of sci-

entific pioneers in the field of agent-based modeling, a distinction for which he was awarded the prestigious NIH Director’s Pioneer Award in 2008 and an honorary doctorate of science from Amherst College in 2010. Along with Robert Axtell, an economist now at George Mason University, Epstein developed the first full agent-based modeling program, dubbed Sugarscape, which simulated social phenomena including social conflict and disease transmission.

In recent years Epstein’s models have expanded dramatically. For example, backed in part by a grant from the National Center for the Study of Preparedness and Catastrophic Event Response, or PACER, at The Johns Hopkins University, Epstein and his team developed the Large-Scale Agent Model for local and national crisis modeling and the Global Agent Model for a world crisis. The programs can execute a scenario in war-game fashion with full U.S. simulations taking but 10 minutes.

Before the H1N1 virus showed up in the United States last year, Epstein used his modeling to show in a short video clip how a new infectious virus would spread rapidly across the U.S. and the entire planet, and how international travel restrictions would mitigate the spread, avoiding morbidity and mortality.

He’s also used his modeling approach to develop gamelike 3-D video simulations that show how virtual agents in crowded urban centers, such as New Orleans and Los Angeles, might react to the sudden threat of a toxic chemical cloud. These include the only models combining fluid dynamics (airborne chemical dispersion) and agent behavior.

In the Los Angeles model, for example, Epstein’s simulation movie shows how agents would react to a slow-moving toxic cloud from an airborne chemical release given known wind patterns and other factors. Epstein’s movie shows that as more and more people get into cars to evacuate the city, traffic throughout the metro area becomes gridlocked, increasing exposures.

Better protective strategies—hardening of buildings, shelter in place, adaptive traffic-aware routing, car pooling—can then be optimized using this unique tool. It can be applied to floods, fires, radiologic events and natural disasters, where Epstein’s home department, Emergency Medicine, has already played a crucial humanitarian role. Applications to what department chair Kelen has dubbed “the science of surge” are central to Epstein’s research agenda.

Agent-based models developed at the new center, Epstein says with confidence, will have the potential to revolutionize the social, behavioral and health sciences. G

Related websites Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins:

www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ pulmonary

William Checkley:

faculty.jhsph.edu/default .cfm?faculty_id=1109

‘Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology’:

www.jacionline.org

January 31, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

9

Fewer pediatricians, higher risk for kids’ appendix ruptures B y E k at e r i n a P e s h e va

Johns Hopkins Medicine

C

hildren who live in areas with fewer pediatricians are more likely to suffer life-threatening ruptures of the appendix than those in areas with more pediatricians, even when accounting for other factors such as the number of hospitals, imaging technology, insurance coverage and the number of surgeons in an area, according to a study from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.

The study’s findings, based on an analysis of nearly 250,000 hospital records of children with appendicitis, are published online in the December issue of JAMA–Archives of Surgery.

“Our analysis shows that the most potent predictor of outcome in children with appendicitis was the number of pediatricians available in an area, emphasizing the pivotal

role they play as the point of first contact in the care of a sick child,” said lead investigator Fizan Abdullah, a pediatric surgeon at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

The appendix is a small tube extending from the large intestine, and infections and inflammation of the organ can be dangerous. Each year, 77,000 children develop appendicitis, and an estimated one-third of them suffer a ruptured appendix, a serious complication that often results from delays in diagnosis and surgery to remove the inflamed or infected organ.

The analysis showed that children with appendicitis living in counties with the most pediatricians per capita were the least likely to develop complications, and the more pediatricians in a geographic area, the fewer the instances of ruptured appendix.

For every 100 children with appendicitis, 12

more children (12 percent more) would end up with ruptured appendix in the area with the fewest pediatricians than in the area with the most pediatricians.

Factors such as the number of hospitals in the area, the number of hospitals with emergency rooms, the availability of a CT scanner and the number of surgeries performed in a county each year did not affect the risk for an appendix rupture, the study found. Neither did factors such as the number of emergency room physicians, surgeons or radiologists in the area. In their statistical analysis, the investigators also accounted for age, gender, household income, insurance coverage and race to ensure that the discrepancy in outcomes did not stem from such factors.

Of the 241,301 children in the study with appendicitis, 77,097 ended up with a ruptured appendix. The death rate was seven times higher among children with a ruptured appendix than in children with uncompli-

cated appendicitis (0.01 percent vs. 0.07 percent). The Johns Hopkins study also found that children with perforated appendix were hospitalized more than twice as long—five days instead of two—as children with uncomplicated appendicitis, doubling the cost of care, from $10,385 to $20,581, on average.

The investigators said that health officials and policymakers should pay special attention to geographic areas with severe shortages of pediatricians and high rates of appendicitis complications and should take steps to address the shortages as a lifesaving and cost-cutting measure.

Co-investigators on the study included Melissa Camp, David Chang, Yiyi Zhang, Meghan Arnold, Leilani Sharpe, Alodia Gabre-Kidan and Melinda Bathurst, all of Johns Hopkins.

The research was funded by the Robert Garrett Fund for the Surgical Treatment of Children.

Combo therapy: A better way to treat deadly brain tumors?

B y V a n e s s a W a s ta

Johns Hopkins Medicine

L

ab studies show that combining drugs that target a variety of developmental cell signaling pathways may do a better job of killing deadly brain tumors than single drugs that target one pathway at a time, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers. The combined therapy approach apparently reduces tumor resistance to chemotherapy, they say.

The new research, described in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research, found that simultaneously blocking the socalled Notch and Hedgehog pathways, both critical in cell development, did more to decrease growth of human glioblastoma cells and tumor cell clusters compared with drugs aimed at just the Notch pathway. Most standard clinical treatments for glioblastoma currently target just one pathway.

“Our study indicates it may be necessary to simultaneously target multiple development signaling pathways to prevent cancers from becoming resistant to therapy,” said Charles Eberhart, the study’s senior author and an associate professor of pathology, ophthalmology and oncology. “A single agent is not likely to work for prolonged periods.”

Glioblastoma is one of the most aggressive brain tumors, killing nearly every patient within two years. Even when the tumors initially seem to respond to medication, they generally develop resistance. This outcome led researchers to speculate that tumors might compensate for therapy directed against one cancer cell development pathway by turning on a different one.

Eberhart and colleagues studied glioblas-

toma cell lines to investigate the effects of a gamma-secretase inhibitor, a medication that blocks the Notch receptor, on tumor growth.

They also studied how Notch affects other pathways and evaluated the effects of combined therapy with a Hedgehog inhibitor.

They found that blocking just the Notch pathway in glioblastoma cells using the gamma-secretase inhibitor led to increased activity in both the Hedgehog and Wnt pathways, both important in cell development. Further study showed that certain proteins involved in the Notch pathway interacted directly with proteins in the

Related websites ‘Clinical Cancer Research’:

www.clincancerres.aacrjournals.org

decreased the average size of cell clusters.

Clinical trials evaluating inhibitors of Hedgehog or Notch in a number of cancer types are currently under way at Johns Hopkins and several other sites across the country, Eberhart says. Further studies will examine the relationship among the Notch, Hedgehog and Wnt pathways in glioblastoma and look for other signaling processes that help tumors become resistant to therapy, he says.

Johns Hopkins Nursing welcomes first cohort of BS to MSN students B y J o n at h a n E i c h b e r g e r

Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center:

School of Nursing

www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter .org Hedgehog pathway, suggesting that Notchtargeted therapies can disrupt other cell signaling pathways that fuel tumors.

They next treated a group of glioblastoma cell lines with the gamma-secretase inhibitor, a Hedgehog inhibitor or both, finding that cell growth decreased slightly with either therapy alone but by about 90 percent with dual therapy. The combined treatment also increased natural “programmed” cell death and decreased the ability of cells to form clusters, or colonies. In a group of glioblastoma samples taken during surgical removal of the human cancers, the combination therapy decreased by 50 percent to 80 percent the number of colonies formed and

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Brain Tumor Funders Collaborative, the American Cancer Society and a Brain Tumor Spore grant.

Co-authors were Karisa C. Shreck, Luigi Marchionni, Eli E. Bar and Nicholas Gaiano, all of Johns Hopkins; and Pete Taylor and Vidya Gopalakrishnan, both of the University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

S

even students are marking a new chapter in Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing academic program history this month. The seven comprise the first cohort of the Accelerated BS to MSN with Paid Clinical Residency program.

“This unique and rewarding opportunity allows students to not only earn their baccalaureate degree but also gain the valuable experience of a paid residency, and then advance to pursue a master’s degree in nursing,” said Sandra Angell, associate dean for student affairs.

The new Accelerated BS to MSN with Paid Clinical Residency offers students a streamlined course of study to prepare as a clinical nurse specialist. The program requires a commitment of 34 months.

Students will first enroll in a one-year

Accelerated Baccalaureate Program, during which they will take up to 12 graduate-level credits along with their baccalaureate-level course work. Upon receiving their Bachelor of Science degree with a major in nursing as well as their RN license, students will complete a one-year residency—a full-time paid position as an inpatient nurse—at a Johns Hopkins–affiliated hospital in the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan area.

Following the residency, students will continue to work in the full-time position while undertaking a part-time master’s course of study. After 36 graduate credit hours and more than 500 clinical hours, graduates will be positioned to improve care through bedside practice, evidence-based specialty practice and quality improvement initiatives. As clinical nurse specialists, they also will be qualified to serve as clinical faculty for future nursing students.

For more information about the program, go to the School of Nursing website, nursing.jhu.edu.

Visit our website to view the beautiful landscaped grounds, amenities, and house-sized apartments.

Call our friendly staff and ask out about our fantastic special leasing offers for Johns Hopkins Faculty and Staff! Hear what your colleagues are saying about us: “Located at the end of Roland Avenue in a picturesque location, nested between a school, playground and a golf course . . swimming pool, fitness club and ample jog space makes it ideal for people who love physical activity . . . an ideal home.”

Venkat P. Gunareddy, MD JHU School of Medicine

www.elkridgeestates.net 6025 Roland Avenue Baltimore, Md. 21210

“Our family is in our 4th year living at Elkridge Estates and couldn’t be happier. We feel a part of a large family. The location is perfect for going downtown or traveling in the greater Baltimore area, convenient to I-83 and I- 695. The facilities are top-notch, well-maintained, and all service requests are promptly and courteously handled by the competent and friendly office staff and service team. They really do spoil you here.”

Henry Perry JHU School of Public Health

410-377-9555 Fax: 410-377-6846

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

10 THE GAZETTE • January 31, 2011 P O S T I N G S

B U L L E T I N

Job Opportunities The Johns Hopkins University does not discriminate on the basis of gender, marital status, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or other legally protected characteristic in any student program or activity administered by the university or with regard to admission or employment.

Homewood

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

POSITION

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

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

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

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

B O A R D

Notices No notices were submitted for publication this week.

J A N .

3 1

–

F E B .

7

Calendar Continued from page 12 to Buy Derivatives,” an Applied Mathematics and Statistics seminar with Tim S.T. Leung, WSE. 304 Whitehead. HW Thurs., Feb. 3, 3 p.m. “Methods for and Applications of Improved SinglePhoton Emission Computed Tomography Imaging,” an Electrical and Computer Engineering seminar with Eric Frey, SoM. 311 Hodson. HW

“The Building Strong Families Evaluation,” a Social Policy seminar with Sheena McConnell, Mathematica Policy Research.

Sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies. 526 Wyman Park Bldg. HW

student-curated focus show, Privileged Pursuits: Cultural Refinement in Early Maryland. (See story, p. 12.) Remarks by the student curators at 6 p.m., and light refreshments. Reservations required; e-mail homewoodmuseum@jhu.edu or call 410-516-6710. $8 general admission, free for Homewood Museum members and JHU faculty, staff and students with appropriate ID. Exhibition continues through April 17. Homewood Museum.

HW

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

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

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

POSITION

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

44684 42973 43847 45106 45024 42939 43754 42669 44802 44242 44661 45002 44008

44005 41877 44583 44715 44065 44112 44989 44740 39063 44603

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

Thurs., Feb. 3, 4 p.m. “MicroRNAs and RNA Surveillance Converge to Regulate Neural Development,” a Biology seminar with Miles Wilkinson, University of California, San Diego. 100 Mudd. HW

“Can Dynamic Multi-Phase Flow Models Describe Saturation Overshoot and Preferential Flow?” a CEAFM seminar with David DiCarlo, University of Texas, Austin. 110 Maryland. HW

SYMPOSIA

sponsored

by SAIS’ Canadian Studies and International Relations programs. SAIS

The Future of the Arctic,

•

Tues., Feb. 1, 6 to 8 p.m.

•

Wed., Feb. 2, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Fri., Feb. 4, 11 a.m.

Fri., Feb. 4, 12:15 p.m. “Lipoprotein Composition and Transport Are Altered

by Hibernation in Ground Squirrels,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Jessica Otis, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW

“Odor-Induced Responses of Olfactory Sensory Neurons Are Amplified by Anoctamin-2 and Terminated by NCKX4,” a Biology thesis defense seminar with Aaron Stephan.

100 Mudd. HW

Fri., Feb. 4, 1 p.m.

School of Medicine

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

38035 35677 30501 22150 38064

37442 37260 38008 36886 37890

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

POSITION

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

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

Woodcliffe Manor Apartments

S PA C I O U S

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

R O L A N D PA R K

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

410-243-1216

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

The Washington Consortium Latin American Theory Seminar discussing Terry Eagleton’s book On Evil (Yale University Press). Sponsored by the Program in Latin American Studies. 113 Greenhouse. HW

Reception. To RSVP, e-mail v.starr.lee@ jhu.edu or call 202-663-5714. 806 Rome Bldg.

Speakers include David Vanderswaag, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Capt. J.J. Fisher, U.S. Coast Guard; Whitney Lackenbauer, St. Jerome’s University, Ontario; Heather Conley, SAIS; Ruth Wedgwood, SAIS; Andrew Holland, International Institute for Strategic Studies; author Willie Hensley; Julie Gourley, U.S. State Department; Caitlyn Antrim, Rule of Law Committee for the Oceans; Marlene Laruelle, SAIS; Anne Mette Vestergaard, deputy chief of mission, Danish Embassy. The full agenda is available at www.sais-jhu .edu/bin/q/t/arctic.pdf. To RSVP, e-mail starr.lee@jhu.edu or call 202-663-5714. Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Bldg.

Fri., Feb. 4, 4 p.m.

Mon., Feb. 7, noon. “Molecular Mechanisms of Synapse Restriction: Insights Into Development and Disease,” a Biological Chemistry seminar with Seth Margolis, Harvard Medical School. 612 Physiology. EB

“Social Regulation of the Brain: Cellular Consequences of Social Status,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Russell Fernald, Stanford University. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW

Mon., Feb. 7, 12:15 p.m.

“The Evolution of Critical Wave-Maps,” an Analysis/PDE seminar with Jacob Sterbenz, University of California, San Diego. Sponsored by Mathematics. 304 Krieger. HW

Mon., Feb. 7, 4 p.m.

SPECIAL EVENTS Thurs., Feb. 3, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Opening reception for the sixth annual

W ORK S HO P S The Center for Educational Resources sponsors a series of workshops on the

Blackboard 9.1 interface. The training is open to all faculty, staff and students in full-time KSAS or WSE programs who will serve as administrators to a Blackboard course. To register, go to www. bb.cer.jhu.edu. Garrett Room, MSE Library. HW •

Mon., Jan. 31, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.

•

Tues., Feb. 1, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

•

Wed., Feb. 2, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.

“Getting Started With Blackboard.”

“Blackboard Communication and Collaboration.”

“Assessing Student Knowledge and Managing Grades in Blackboard.”

“Introduction to Blackboard,” a Bits & Bytes workshop, providing an introduction and an overview of the capabilities of Blackboard 9.1. The training is open to Homewood faculty, lecturers and TAs; staff are also welcome to attend. Sponsored by the Center for Educational Resources. Garrett Room, MSE Library. HW

Thurs., Feb. 3, 1 p.m.

January 31, 2011 • THE GAZETTE

Classifieds APARTMENTS/HOUSES FOR RENT

Belvedere area, beautifully renov’d 3BR, 2BA TH, available June. $1,600/mo (furn’d) or $1,450/mo (unfurn’d). 410-929-6008 or belvedererental@gmail.com.

Bolton Hill, 2 big BRs and 2.5BAs in immaculate TH, hdwd flrs, recent apps, AC, new roof/windows, porch, bsmt, 2 prkng spaces, 4-min walk to metro, avail July. $1,850/mo.

410-383-7055 or viLca11@gmail.com.

Canton, stunning 2BR, 2BA RH w/prkng pad, spa BAs, gourmet kitchen, fin’d bsmt, hdwd flrs, must see. $1,800/mo. 725slakewoodave@ gmail.com.

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

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

Elrino St (nr Bayview campus), spacious, bright 2BR, 1.5BA EOG TH, living rm, kitchen, hdwd flrs, fin’d bsmt. $1,000/mo + utils. 443-386-8471, 443-386-9146 or fanauh2o@yahoo.com.

Fells Point, 1BR waterfront condo in secure bldg, garage prkng. $1,750/mo. 443-6902208.

Hampden, 2BR EOG w/fin’d bsmt, prkng pad, 5 mins to JHU, 10 mins to downtown. $1,150/mo. 410-227-7110.

Harborview (23 Pier Side Drive), 1BR unit, great views of water and swimming pool, 2 health clubs, garage prkng, 24-hr security incl’d, safe area; applicant must have good credit. $1,600/mo. 443-471-2000.

Mayfield, charming 3BR, 2BA house in historic neighborhood, hdwd flrs, fp, garage, yd and patio, nr Homewood/JHH/Bayview. $1,800/mo. 410-852-1865 or miriam .mintzer@gmail.com.

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

Parkville, 2BR, 2BA condo, W/D, dw, microwave, fp, patio, walk-in closets. $1,100/mo.

917-553-6461.

Pikesville/Owings Mills, newer 3BR, 2BA contemporary condo, metro accessibility to JHH, great affluent area, rent-to-own option available. $1,650/mo. 443-743-4429.

Reisterstown, 3BR, 2.5BA TH, lg, spacious rms, new appls, deck, backyd, 10 mins to Owings Mills metro. $1,500/mo. www.21136rent.com (for pics and details).

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

Rosedale, 1BR divided rancher, lg living rm and dining rm, complete kitchen, new refrigerator/windows/crpt, washer, garage, lg backyd, quiet. $925/mo. 410-598-2819 or carlostaylorart@verizon.net.

Immaculately maintained condo, huge master BR, balcony, full W/D, ample unreserved prkng, storage galore. jadcarter@gmail.com.

Beautiful 3BR, 2BA condo w/garage, spacious, great location, walk to Homewood WYMAN COURT HICKORY HEIGHTS Beech Ave. adj. to JHU!

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

Hickory Ave. in Hampden, lovely Hilltop setting!

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

Shown by appointment - 410-764-7776

www.BrooksManagementCompany.com

11

M A R K E T P L A C E

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

Share nice 3BR, 2.5BA TH in White Marsh. $550/mo + 1/2 utils. 443-621-4519 or ctillett@gmail.com.

1BR in 2BR Mt Vernon apt, safe, 5 mins to shuttle, share w/friendly F and sm cat. 951603-9743 or sarah.kalia@gmail.com.

Moving sale: TV, lamps, bedroom mirror, side table, etc; e-mail for photos. midge105@ yahoo.com.

HOUSES FOR SALE

Broadway Overlook, 3BR condo unit, 2 full BAs, contemporary layout, 10-min walk to JHH. $140,000. Retzer, 443-739-6269 or retzcare@yahoo.com.

CARS FOR SALE

Canton, 2BR, 2.5BA RH w/3 fin’d levels, brick front, hdwd flrs, rooftop deck, Hopkins resident relocating. $298,000. 410-3277424.

’04 Honda Pilot EX, 4WD, seats 8, garagekept, looks and runs great, Md insp’d, 152K mi. $8,495. 410-365-6782.

Federal Hill, TH w/numerous updates, bamboo hdwd flrs in living and dining rm, updated kitchen and BA. $179,900. 410-808-4869 or jodiemack@gmail.com.

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

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

Mt Washington (5905 Pimlico Rd, enter through gate of Falls Village), 1865 farmhouse on private rd, acre of open and wooded land, 3BRs, orig wide fir plank flrs, lg updated kitchen, stunning 1,600 sq ft deck; call for appointment. 443-562-1634.

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

ROOMMATES WANTED

Sublet partly furn’d BR in shared TH 1 blk from Patterson Park, Feb 15-May 31, shared BA, W/D, dw, high-speed Internet, hdwd flrs, no smoking, prkng, dogs considered, no cats. $650/mo + utils ($50/mo), 1st month rent and sec dep ($325) due at signing. 292375-4609 or carmodymce@yahoo.com.

Share 3BR, 2BA at 29th and Cresmont, W/D, short walk to Homewood campus and JHMI shuttle. $480/mo + utils. 484-4317082.

Furn’d BR and own BA in 3BR, 2BA apt in Fells Point, W/D, free Internet access, quiet street, best neighborhood, close to everything, 15-min walk to SoM. $350/mo to $400/mo + utils. xzhan45@gmail.com.

Lg, partly furn’d bsmt BR w/priv BA in beautifully renov’d 3BR Mayfield RH, across from Herring Run Park, mins to Lake Montebello, 10 mins to JHMI, perfect for temporary visiting medical prof’ls. $600/mo incl utils and wireless. mayfieldroom@gmail.com.

Huge BR w/window bay avail in 2BR, 2nd flr apt in Charles Village (30th St between Guilford and Abell), hdwd flrs, shared BA, patio, big windows in common spaces, great neighbors, avail March 1. lwsusskind@yahoo. com.

Rm in new TH, walking distance to JHMI, pref nonsmoker/no pets. 301-717-4217 or jiez@jayzhang.com.

Own BR/BA and entire flr in lovely Locust Point; pics avail. $675/mo + 1/2 utils. 410502-5329. Shannon, 443-677-4889.

Accommodation nr JHH. $475/mo incl everything. 951-941-0384 or arcroshani@ hotmail.com.

Lg, bright rm w/full private BA in upscale apt, DISH, high-speed Internet, full-size W/D in apt, conv to 695/I-83/Charles St. $800/ mo incl utils. 443-465-7011 or jdamero@ gmail.com.

’04 VW Golf, silver w/black interior, good mileage, 45K mi. $8,100. annenatk@yahoo .com.

’05 RV, 27 ft, sleeps 8, used 5 times, awesome fun for the family; call for pics. 443-6904442 or susanb1985@gmail.com. ’01 Nissan Altima GLE, automatic, power windows/locks, rear multi-CD player, auto sunroof, 4 new tires, in good cond, 205K mi, great car for first-time driver. $2,750/best offer. 410-804-9703.

ITEMS FOR SALE

Sm Yorkshire terrier, tan and silver, loves attention, house-trained, shots up-to-date. $300. Wanda, 443-831-2020.

Dining rm set, table w/leaf, 4 chairs, china cabinet and sideboard, in excel cond. $225.

410-633-2064.

Set of 4 original wheel covers from a 2001 Toyota Camry, in very good cond, fits 15" wheels. $50/best offer. hopkinsbob@yahoo .com.

Antique oak fireplace mantle, carved wood parlor chair, spindle leg side table; all cheap and in great cond. 410-889-1213 or judybyen@hotmail.com.

HP 94 Inkjet print cartridges (4). $40/all. frandlk@gmail.com.

Pack’n Play w/mobile, music box, 2 quilted covers for bottom, in excel cond. $75. Chris, 443-326-7717.

Mountain bike (adult size) w/pump and padlock, 2 keys. $75. odufor@gmail.com.

Printer, dresser w/shelves, three-step ladders (2), sand beach chairs (2), reciprocating saw, digital piano. 410-455-5858 or iricse.its@ verizon.net.

Ski equipment for a 7- to 12-yr-old child: boots, $35; helmet, $35; poles, $5; $60/all.

410-580-9479 or bgramat@boris-gramatikov .net.

Yamaha outdoor 2-way spkrs, black, model# NS-AW1, $50; Thule Set-to-Go kayak saddles (2 pairs, 4 total), can sell separately, $125/both pairs; Thule rooftop ski carrier, holds 2 pairs of skis, great cond, $75; best offers accepted, e-mail for photos. grogan .family@hotmail.com.

SERVICES/ITEMS OFFERED OR WANTED

Visiting professor looking for apt/house to sublet, approx May 25-June 25, pref familyfriendly neighborhood safe for walking w/

access to JHU shuttle (Roland Park, Homewood, etc.). info@tobiasfreund.de.

Lab has 2 jugs of new Ultima-Flo-M (Perkin Elmer) for scintillation counters to give away. 410-614-7277.

Looking for JAVA and Net prof’ls w/BS, 1-2 yrs experience (full project development, relational databases, SQL, revision control software, writing codes). elenafrenkeL00@ gmail.com.

Responsible, loving pet-, baby- or housesitter, avail, JHU employee has experience w/special needs children and cats/dogs, refs available. 202-288-1311 or janyelle.marie@ hotmail.com.

New home wanted for 1.5-yr-old M cat, due to allergies, gray/white, neutered, all shots up-to-date, in good health. mrbungles01@ gmail.com.

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

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

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

410-662-7951.

Flea market, Saturday, Feb 19, 9am-1pm, 37th and Roland Ave (in Hampden nr Homewood campus). 410-366-4488 (to reserve tables).

Piano/clarinet lessons by current Peabody clarinet master’s student, competitive rates.

240-994-6489 or hughsonjennifer@gmail .com.

Database programmer/volunteer needed for ambitious ecology project. Mark, 410-4649274.

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

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

Free: piano, old Betsy Ross spinet, works but needs tuning and hauling from 2nd flr, no bench. chunkyrice@gmail.com.

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

Medical faculty couple looking for FT nanny to care for infant in Fells Point, starting March or April, refs req’d. 443-759-6105.

Friday Night Swing Dance Club, open to the general public, no partners necessary. 410663-0010 or www.fridaynightswing.com.

Tutor for all subjects/levels; remedial and gifted; also help w/college counseling, speech and essay writing, editing, proofreading, database design and programming. 410-3379877 (after 8pm) or i1__@hotmail.com.

Need help with your JHU retirement plan investments portfolio? Free, confidential consultation. 410-435-5939 or treilly1@aol .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 31, 2011 J A N .

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F E B .

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Calendar COLLOQUIA

“An Ensemble View of Biology,” a Biology colloquium with Vincent Hilser, KSAS. Mudd Hall Auditorium. HW

and St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. 217 Pinkard Bldg. EB Jewish Studies Noon Lecture—“How Rabbis and Priests Created the Frankist Movement: The Conversion of Jacob Frank and His Followers” by Pawel Maciejko, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Smokler Center for Jewish Life (Hillel). HW

Mon., Feb. 7, noon.

Wed., Feb. 2, 4:30 p.m.

MUSIC Mon., Jan. 31, 7:30 p.m. The Peabody Computer Music Consort performs a concert of contemporary music dedicated to Jean Eichelberger Ivey (1923–2010), founder of the Peabody Electronic Music Studio. Griswold Hall. Peabody

“Rethinking the Repertoire: Rescuing History, Criticism and Performance From Oblivion,” a Peabody Musicology colloquium with Leon Botstein, president of Bard College.

(See In Brief, p. 2.) Goodwin Recital Hall. Peabody

Wed., Feb. 2, 5 p.m.

Tues., Feb. 1, 8 p.m. The Peabody Symphony Orchestra performs music by Hersch and Mahler. $15 general admission, $10 for senior citizens and $5 for students with ID. Friedberg Hall. Peabody

D I S C U S S I O N / TA L K S Mon., Jan. 31, 12:30 p.m. “The Kyrgyz Republic: Stabilization Through Civilian Expertise,” a SAIS Conflict Management Program discussion with Robert Loftis, U.S. State Department. (A live webcast of the event will be available at www.sais-jhu.edu.)

To RSVP, e-mail itlong@jhu.edu.

Rome Auditorium. SAIS Tues., Feb. 1, 11 a.m. “Kosovo: Reaching for Europe,” a SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations discussion with Ahmet Shala, Kosovo economy and finance minister. To RSVP, e-mail transatlanticrsvp@jhu .edu or call 202-663-5883. 806 Rome Bldg. SAIS Tues., Feb. 1, 5:30 p.m. “Careers in Latino Health,” an Access to Experts panel discussion with Miryam Gerdine, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Catalina Rodriguez, Office of the Mayor; Maureen Monroy, Esperanza Center; and Fannie Fonseca-Becker, SPH. Co-sponsored by the Anna Baetjer Society for Public Health Practice, Bienestar, JHSPH Career Services and the JHSPH Student Assembly.

W1030 SPH. EB Wed.,

Feb.

2,

12:30

p.m.

“Looking Beyond Gbagbo: Can the Ivory Coast Recover Its Political and Economic Status?” a SAIS African Studies Program discussion with Dwayne Woods, Purdue University; and Paul Melly, Chatham House. To RSVP, e-mail itolber1@jhu.edu or call 202-6635676. 736 Bernstein-Offit Bldg.

SAIS Thurs.,

Feb.

3,

12:30

p.m.

“Report From Cancun: The Future of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” a SAIS Energy, Resources and Environment Program discussion with Jonathan Pershing, U.S. State Department. To RSVP, e-mail eregloballeadersforum@jhu .edu or call 202-663-5786. 500 Bernstein-Offit Bldg. SAIS Mon., Feb. 7, 2 p.m. Discussion of the book Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error with author and freelance journalist Kathryn Schulz. Sponsored by the International Reporting Project at SAIS. To RSVP, e-mail irp@jhu .edu or call 202-663-7726. Rome Auditorium. SAIS

S E M I N AR S

“The Role of Growth Factor Signaling and Aging Pathways in Neurodegenerative Diseases,” a Biochemistry and Molecular Biology seminar with Robert Kalb, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

W1020 SPH. EB

Mon., Jan. 31, noon.

Mon.,

An engraving from ‘The Gamut and Time-table, in Verse: For the Instruction of Children,’ London, ca. 1820. George Peabody Library Rare Book Collection.

‘Privileged Pursuits: Cultural Refinement in Early Baltimore’

I

n the early 1800s, music, dance, literature, fine art and civility were considered part of a complete education. Homewood Museum’s fifth annual student-curated focus show explores how young Baltimoreans were introduced to these and other cultural refinements through parental instruction, printed materials, tutors and specialized schools.

Evidence has been drawn from Carroll family correspondence, rare books and other period items on display. An accompanying display on the main level of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library features objects from the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries.

Privileged Pursuits: Cultural Refinement in Early Baltimore is organized

by Catherine Rogers Arthur, Homewood Museum director and curator, and students enrolled in her fall 2010 Introduction to Material Culture course in the Krieger School’s Museums and Society Program. A series of related events, which run through April, begin with this week’s opening reception. See Special Events.

“Skating on Stilts: Thinking Seriously About Cyberwar,” a SAIS International Law and Organizations Program discussion with Stewart Baker, Steptoe & Johnson LLP. (The speaker’s comments will be off the record.) To RSVP, e-mail tbascia1@jhu.edu or call 202-6635982. Rome Auditorium. SAIS

Mon., Feb. 7, 4:30 p.m.

F I L M / V I DEO

Screening of two documentaries produced by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and the Maryland Institute College of Art about how food is produced and how it reaches our plates: The Baltimore Food Ecology Documentary, and Out to Pasture: The Future of Farming. Sponsored by the Center for a Livable Future. W1214 SPH. EB

I N FOR M AT I O N SESSIONS Wed., Feb. 2, and Thurs., Feb. 3, 4:30 p.m. Tour of the Mil-

ton S. Eisenhower Library and Intro to Research, a chance to become familiar with the library and learn some tips and tricks for getting research projects started.

Sponsored by Research Services.

Electronic Resource Center, MLevel, MSE Library. HW

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

L E C TURE S Wed.,

Feb.

2,

12:30

p.m.

“Integrating Policy, Practice and Research to Improve End-of-Life Care,” a School of Nursing talk with Patricia Davidson, director, Centre for Cardiovascular and Chronic Care, a collaborative venture of the University of Technology, Curtin University

Jan.

31,

12:15

p.m.

“Telomeres and Age-Related Disease,” a Carnegie Institution Embryology seminar with Mary Armanios, SoM. Rose Auditorium, 3520 San Martin Drive. HW “Selective Motor Control and Focal Dystonia,” a Biomedical Engineering seminar with Mark Hallet, NIHNINDS. 709 Traylor. EB (Videoconferenced to 110 Clark. HW ) Mon., Jan. 31, 1:30 p.m.

Mon., Jan. 31, 4 p.m. “Empire Without Colonies,” a History seminar with Ed Gray, Florida State University. 308 Gilman. HW

The David Bodian Seminar—“Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning” with Matthew Botvinick, Princeton University. Sponsored by the Krieger Mind/Brain Institute. 338 Krieger. HW

Mon., Jan. 31, 4 p.m.

“Characteristic Points on the Blow-up Surface for Semilinear Wave Equation in Dimension One,” an Analysis/ PDE seminar with Frank Merle, Universite de Cergy-Pontoise.

Sponsored by Mathematics. 304 Krieger. HW Mon., Jan. 31, 4 p.m.

Tues.,

Feb.

1,

12:10

p.m.

“Hospital-Based Interventions to Reduce the Recurrence of Youth Violence,” a Graduate Seminar in Injury Research and Policy with Kimberly Goodman, SPH. Cosponsored by the Center for Injury Research and Policy, the Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence and the Center for Gun Policy and Research. 250 Hampton House. EB Tues., Feb. 1, 3 p.m. M. Gordon Wolman Seminar—“Science and Technology Advances for Safe Global Water” with Benito Marinas, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Sponsored

by Geography and Environmental Engineering. 234 Ames. HW

Tues., Feb. 1, 4:30 p.m. “Compactifying the Space of Relative Stable Maps Using Logarithmic Structures,” an Algebraic Complex Geometry/Number Theory seminar with Qile Chen, Brown University. Sponsored by Mathematics. 302 Krieger. HW Wed., Feb. 2, 8:30 a.m. “When Experiments Travel: Clinical Trials and the Global Search for Human Subjects,” a Center for Clinical Trials seminar with Adriana Petryna, University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences/University Museum.

W2008 SPH. EB Wed.,

Feb.

2,

12:15

p.m.

Wednesday Noon Seminar—“An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding Alcohol Problems and Related Disorders: From Twin Studies to GWAS and Back” with Danielle Dick, Virginia Commonwealth University. Sponsored by Mental Health. B14B Hampton House. EB Wed., Feb. 2, 4 p.m. “Latent Space Models for Networks Using Aggregated Relational Data,” a Biostatistics seminar with Tyler McCormick, Columbia University. W2030 SPH. EB

“Language Processing in the Web Era,” a Center for Language and Speech Processing seminar with Kuansan Wang, Microsoft. B17 Hackerman. HW

Wed., Feb. 2, 4:30 p.m.

Thurs., Feb. 3, 10 a.m. “Rewiring of Carbon Metabolism in the Development of Cancer,” a Biological Chemistry seminar with Jason Locasale, Harvard Medical School. Mountcastle Auditorium, PCTB. EB

“Role of PI3K/PTEN and mTOR Signaling in Epithelial Morphogenesis,” a Cell Biology seminar with Tamara Lotan, SoM. Suite 2-200, 1830 Bldg. EB

Thurs., Feb. 3, noon.

The Bromery Seminar—“Precambrian Paradoxes: Using Atmospheric Models to Interpret the Early Earth’s Rock Record” with Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA. Sponsored by Earth and Planetary Sciences. 305 Olin. HW

Thurs., Feb. 3, noon.

Thurs., Feb. 3, noon. “The National Health and Aging Trends Study: A New Resource for Studying Disability Trends and Dynamics,” a Gerontology Interest Group seminar with Judy Kasper, SPH. W3031 SPH. EB

“Price Discrepancy and Optimal Timing

Thurs., Feb. 3, 1:30 p.m.

Continued on page 10

Calendar

Key

APL BRB CRB EB HW KSAS

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

Applied Physics Laboratory Broadway Research Building Cancer Research Building East Baltimore Homewood Krieger School of Arts

and Sciences PCTB Preclinical Teaching Building SAIS School of Advanced

International Studies SoM School of Medicine SoN School of Nursing SPH School of Public Health WBSB Wood Basic Science Building WSE Whiting School of

Engineering