From the editor

SECOND OPINION
BY SIDNEY HARRIS

Ecoepidemiology an important area of study

I found the article on EcoEpidemiology [“When Animals Sound a Warning,” Spring 2006] very interesting. I am a D.V.M. and received an M.P.H. in the section of epidemiology of infectious diseases. My field study on arboviral zoonosis was submitted under the late Professor Robert Shope in 1976. I have since worked in the Cameroon civil service as a specialist in the eradication of tse-tse flies, the trypanosomiasis vector, and as the director of veterinary research. I wish you success in your undertakings in this field, which is of great importance: especially to the developing world, where there is very close habitation between man and animal.

John Tanlaka Banser, D.V.M., M.P.H. ’76
Yaounde, Cameroon

Duran-Reynals and the viral etiology of cancer

Jennifer Kaylin’s article, “The Virus Behind the Cancer” [Spring 2006], unfortunately omits mention of Francisco Duran-Reynals, whose pioneering work on viruses as a cause of cancer was undertaken for the most part in the Department of Microbiology at the School of Medicine for a period of 20 years until his untimely death in 1958. In those years there were very few scientists who worked on viruses as a cause of cancer—Oberling in France and Duran-Reynals, Shope, Bittner, Lucké, Burmeister and Nigrelli in the United States.

A classmate, David J. Nelligan, M.D. ’55, and I had the great privilege of spending some time in Duran-Reynal’s laboratory during our third and fourth years of medical school. We were witness to his many extraordinary personal qualities and his passionate efforts, despite material difficulties, to persuade a disbelieving scientific community of the importance of viruses in the genesis of some cancers. Unfortunately he did not live to see the general acceptance of many of his theories.

Ion Gresser, M.D. ’55
Paris, France


In the Spring 2006 issue there is a lovely article by Jennifer Kaylin called “The Virus Behind the Cancer.” It is not the aim of the article to be complete, however, and for future endeavors it could be fine to refresh the Yale memory about cancer and viruses.

In fact the “virus theory of cancer” came to life at Yale with Francisco Duran-Reynals, (1899–1958), who wrote more than 50 original papers on the subject.

C. Soler-Durall, M.D., M.P.H. ’56, Dr.P.H. ’57
Barcelona, Spain

New deans at the medical school

This spring Richard Belitsky, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry, was named deputy dean for education, effective July 1. Belitsky, the deputy chair for education in his department, has had a major impact on the teaching of both medical students and residents. He succeeds Herbert S. Chase Jr., M.D., who stepped down at the end of the academic year.

Belitsky has received three top teaching awards from Yale since 1998, as well as several from his colleagues in psychiatry at the national level. He was inducted into the School of Medicine’s Society of Distinguished Teachers in 2002. He has a reputation for a high level of skill in resolving complex clinical problems and is one of the persons most frequently consulted by colleagues when making a referral. He is also a highly effective administrator, adept at framing and working through issues with colleagues in many departments, conceiving and launching new programs and sorting and extracting the data required for good decision making.

Also this spring, Laura R. Ment, M.D., professor of pediatrics and neurology, was appointed associate dean for admissions and chair of the admissions committee, effective July 1. Ment succeeds Thomas L. Lentz, M.D. ’64, who retired on June 30 after 38 years in admissions at the School of Medicine. She has received numerous awards for excellence in teaching since 1979.

Ment is a leading authority on injury and recovery in the developing brain of preterm infants and on stroke in children. She is the author of more than 150 scholarly articles and a member of the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council, the major advisory panel of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

From the editor:

Fertility, drug discovery and a good-bye

In our cover story for this issue, Contributing Editor Marc Wortman reports on the time he spent with pharmacology Chair Joseph Schlessinger, offering a profile of the pioneer in drug development who was born under siege in the former Yugoslavia during World War II.

Also in this issue, Contributing Editor Jennifer Kaylin examines new methods of preserving fertility in women undergoing cancer treatment. These new techniques are offering hope to women who might otherwise be unable to have children.

Finally in this issue we say farewell to Herbert S. Chase Jr., M.D., deputy dean for education. We first met Herb in 1999, between the announcement of his appointment and the date of his assuming his new job at Yale. Earlier this year he announced his return to Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Over the years we’ve been struck by Herb’s eloquence in advocating improvements in medical education. He’s been a pleasure to work with and he will be missed.

This spring brought us good news in the form of accolades. First we learned that one of our contributors, David M. Oshinsky, Ph.D., the George Littlefield Professor of American History at the University of Texas at Austin, had been awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in History for “a distinguished book upon the history of the United States” on April 17. Polio: An American Story was featured by Time magazine in June as one of five recent books that readers should not miss. Oshinsky wrote “Breaking the Back of Polio” for the Autumn 2005 issue of Yale Medicine about the late Dorothy Millicent Horstmann, M.D., FW ’43. Horstmann, the first female professor of medicine at Yale, conducted research that led to a breakthrough in the development of polio vaccines. Oshinsky repeated his tribute to Horstmann in a talk that he gave to the New York Academy of Medicine in January.

Then we learned that Yale Medicine had received two Circle of Excellence Awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). We won a silver medal in the category of Special Interest Magazines. And Contributing Editor Cathy Shufro won a bronze medal from case in the category of Best Articles of the Year for “The Unseen Wounds of War,” which appeared in the Autumn 2005 issue of Yale Medicine. Shufro wrote about post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans returning from Iraq and the role of Vietnam veterans in providing an informal support network for the younger men.

Congratulations to all.

John Curtis
Managing Editor
john.curtis@yale.edu