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In
the Footsteps of Darwin...
 “Why
did I start a taskforce on genetics in the workplace? Some asbestos
workers with mesothelioma live fewer than six months, a few live for
years after diagnosis. Why? What is unique about the workers who
live longer, and is there something different about them that we can
use to prolong the lives of all mesothelioma patients? Sometimes the
answers to tough questions take root very early in our lives. I was
browsing in the public library after class when I was in high
school, and was struck by a glimmer of sunshine that may help us
understand how to answer the question today. It was Ward’s book on
Charles Darwin. When I studied at Columbia, I learned a lot more
about him. In Edinburgh I didn’t hear anything about Darwin’s
days in the medical school there. But when I retired I read Ward’s
book again. Then I re-read much of what Darwin wrote, began reading
again the work of scientists I admire: Jim Watson, Stephan Jay
Gould, Rene’ Dubos, Ernst Mayr, Robert Shapiro, Hoagland, and the
very important papers by Joe Fraumeni and Alfred Knudson. Beginning
with what I had read as a kid, yes, I believe that it all began with
Darwin. The path provided by Darwin and the new genetics of the
biologists who follow him is clearly marked: we can learn from
nature how changes are produced by inherited differences and the
environment acting together, how the environment damages what we
inherit within our cells, and use that information to repair the
damaged cell and maybe prevent disease! That’s why I convened the
taskforce: to carefully plan the years of work ahead of us for the
application of genetics in the workplace. But we have to do it
ethically, or we will do more harm than good! ”
…from
a 1990 interview with Irving J. Selikoff, MD [January
15, 1915 – May 20, 1992], Founding President of The
Ramazzini Institute,
successor to his taskforce on genetics in the workplace.
Cover of Charles Darwin
by Henshaw Ward
[Bobbs-Merill:
Indianapolis 1927]
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Arthur
Frank
The Scientific Contributions
of Irving J. Selikoff, MD
Dr. Irving J. Selikoff was a remarkable physician
and scientist who contributed to knowledge in several
areas of medicine, and who helped train a generation of
occupational physicians who now work around the world.
He spent most of his career at the Mount Sinai
Hospital, and subsequently the Mount Sinai School of
Medicine after it opened, and clearly left his mark at
that institution, among many others.
Irving Selikoff attended medical school during
World War II in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his educational
program there interrupted by war activities which required
one of his years of training to occur in Australia. Upon completing his studies in Scotland, he returned to New
York City where he began work at the Sea View Sanatorium
on Staten Island.
Read More
Antonio Giordano
In
the picture above, Antonio Giordano, M.D., Ph.D. (right),
Professor of Biology and Medicine and director of the
Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular
Medicine in the College of Science and Technology at
Temple University, and post doctoral fellow Marcella
Macaluso perform electrophoresis on DNA samples extracted
from human tissue that have been placed in agarose gel. Agarose
gel electrophoresis of DNA is the first step in doing
Rb2/p130 diagnostic tests for breast, lung and other
cancer. Giordano discovered Rb2/p130, a tumor
suppressor gene, while a researcher at Temple's Fels
Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Biology in the
early 1990s. Read
More |
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William N. Rom
William
N. Rom, MD, MPH, pictured above at the National Press Club
in 2000 receiving the Selikoff Award for Cancer
Research, is President of The
Ramazzini Institute and Director of the Pulmonary
Division of New York University School of Medicine. He was
a post-graduate student of Dr. Selikoff and a member of
Selikoff’s Taskforce on Genetics in the Workplace.
Dr. Rom has established an
Institute-facilitated Lung
Cancer Biomarker Center
as part of the National Cancer Institute’s Early
Detection Research Network. Co-Principal Investigator is
Dr. Arthur Frank.
The mission of the Center
is to develop new and more effective methods of
identifying pre-cancerous cell changes and lesions and to
detect lung cancer at a very early stage. The Center is able to closely monitor those who show any signs of having
pre-cancerous cells and refer workers to treatment
programs earlier to increase their chance of survival.
Now
in its second year of operation, the Center
is focused on those at highest risk of lung cancer, namely
those with a history of smoking and workplace exposures to
known causes of cancer, such as asbestos, solvents, and
ionizing radiation.
Read
More
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In
This Issue!
Human
Ecology of Dust
Frank
Mirer, health and safety director for the
United Auto Workers international union in
Detroit, Michigan, explores the implications for
the environment of the workplace of recent
research on the health of effects of suspended
dust in the community environment. And Ryszard
Szozda, an occupational physician in Gliwice,
Poland, discusses hazardous dust found in the
carbon black industry. Read
More
Next
Update…Socrates in the White House? The
President’s advisors report on stem cell
research. |
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