The Bulletin - Summer 1997, Volume 82, No. 1

Hassan M.E. Azzazy, Ph.D., fellow in the department of pathology and clinical instructor in the department of medical and research technology, attended the Arab Union for Neurological Sciences 7th Annual Conference in Saudi Arabia. He presented a lecture on different methods for gene delivery and their potential applications to neurological disease.

Kay Dickersin, Ph.D., associate professor in the department of epidemiology and preventive medicine, received a $6.6 million grant from the U.S. Public Health Service to research the effectiveness of surgical treatments used to stop abnormal menstrual bleeding.

Howard M. Eisenberg, M.D., professor and chair of the department of neurosurgery, co-authored a paper, "Properties of Neuronal Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors: Pharmacological Characterization and Modulation of Synaptic Function," which won the 1996 Otto Krayer Award given by the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Steven Jacobs, M.D., John Flowers, M.D., and Stephen T. Bartlett, M.D., all of the department of surgery, recently reported results from a one-year study on kidney removal using a less invasive laparascopic technique. They presented their findings at a joint session of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the American Society of Transplant Physicians in Chicago.

Kenneth P. Johnson, M.D., professor and chairman of the department of neurology, participated in an international workshop on "The Role of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Techniques in Understanding and Managing Multiple Sclerosis" in Oxford in the United Kingdom. The workshop focused on the current and potential uses for MRI techniques in increasing understanding of the basic neuropathology and pathophysiology of MS, in following the disease’s signs and symptoms, and in evaluating efficacy of therapeutic agents. After attending the workshop, he traveled to Edinburgh, Plymouth and Nottingham to attend meetings on NeuroEducation, where he gave updates to neurologists about current drug therapies for multiple sclerosis.

James Kaper, M.D., chief of the Center for Vaccine Development’s (CVD) bacterial genetics section, Carol O. Tacket, M.D., chief of the CVD’s adult clinical studies section, and Myron M. Levine, M.D., director of the CVD, reported progress in the development of better vaccines against cholera, typhoid fever and E. coli at a recent Digestive Disease Week meeting in Washington.

James C. King, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics, has been recognized for his research involving the nasal spray flu vaccine. His findings were presented at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies and have generated articles in both the Baltimore Sun and The New York Times.

W. Jonathan Lederer, M.D., Ph.D., professor of physiology and head of the department of molecular biology at the Medical Biotechnology Center, led a team of researchers who found that when high blood pressure persists untreated, it enlarges the cells of the heart and produces a silent defect in the heart’s pumping mechanism. Their findings were published in the journal Science.

Kamela Littleton, M.D., a resident in the department of surgery, tied for first place for her presentation, "Insertion Force Measurement of Cervical Traction Tongs," at the Annual Maryland Orthopaedic Society Meeting. This research was conducted in the biomechanics lab with the collaboration of Aleksandar Curcin, M.D., assistant professor in the department of surgery, Stephen M. Belkoff, Ph.D., assistant professor and director of the orthopedic biomechanics laboratory, and Vince Novak, University of Maryland medical student.

Wanda Nicholson, M.D., assistant professor in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, has been selected as a fellow of the American Association of Medical Colleges Health Services Research Institute, funded by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.

S. Michael Plaut, Ph.D., assistant dean for student affairs and associate professor in the department of psychiatry, was named president-elect of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research (SSTAR). The two-year term as president begins in 1999 and he will serve on the executive board as past president for two years after that. SSTAR is an international, multidisciplinary organization which is open only to health professionals who are "actively involved in treatment or clinical investigation of sexual disorders, possess superior clinical competence and high ethical standards."

Walker Robinson, M.D., associate professor of neurosurgery, has earned certification by the American Board of Pediatric Neurological Surgery. Dr. Robinson is the first surgeon in Maryland to become board-certified in pediatric neurosurgery. He is a founding member of the American Board of Pediatric Neurological Surgery and has a three-year term as chair of the ethics and legal issues committee for the American Society of Pediatric Neurosurgeons.

Donald E. Wilson, M.D., M.A.C.P., dean of the School of Medicine and chair of the Maryland Health Care Access and Cost Commission; Lee Dixon, director of the Health Policy Tracking Service, National Conference of State Legislatures; Daniel H. Johnson Jr., M.D., president of American Medical Association and clinical professor of radiology and otolaryngology at Tulane University; and Charles C. Wilhelm, M.D., national medical director of Principal Health Care, Inc.; presented "Managed Care: Are We Headed in the Right Direction?" at the Medical Alumni Association’s Third Annual Ross Z. (’40) & Grace S. Pierpont Alumni Symposium.

Staff

Garvin S. Maffett, Ed.D., director of development in the School of Medicine, has assumed the role of chair of the leadership and development committee within the Association of American Medical Colleges Group on Institutional Advancement for a one-year term.

Karen L. Mitchell, assistant dean for finance in the School of Medicine, planned and significantly contributed to the Annual Workshop Committee for the Eastern Association of College and University Business Officers. This workshop focused on and produced a professional development program. She is actively involved in planning a similar program in Baltimore.

Nataro Receives National Award

In May, Dr. James P. Nataro ’87, assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases and tropical pediatrics and chief of the molecular diagnostic microbiology section of the Center for Vaccine Development (CVD), received the Young Investigator Award from the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. This national award was presented at the society’s national meeting in Washington, D.C., by Dr. Myron M. Levine, professor and director of the CVD. Following are Dr. Levine’s comments.

"One of the satisfactions of academic medicine derives from witnessing the achievements of associates as they advance in their career. It is thus with delight that, on behalf of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, I present the Young Investigator Award to Dr. James P. Nataro, a colleague whom I have known since he entered the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1981 as an M.D./Ph.D. student. Jim has rightfully earned an international reputation as one of the world’s experts on Escherichia coli diarrheal pathogens. Jim’s extraordinary scientific productivity commenced early in his career. While in Dr. James Kaper’s laboratory in the CVD, where he carried out his thesis research on enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC), Jim Nataro developed a new diagnostic test that revolutionized the study of EPEC. Jim Nataro utilized a 1.0 Kb fragment of the 60 MD EPEC virulence plasmid as a DNA hybridization probe to identify EPEC colonies. The probe was highly specific and sensitive and was particularly amenable to epidemiologic studies. In a now classic publication in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal that he wrote during his last months in medical school, Jim described three phenotypic patterns by which E. coli associated with diarrheal illness adhere to HEp-2 cells. Jim’s recognition of the aggregative adherence pattern, in which the attaching E. coli look like stacked bricks, led to the discovery of an important new diarrheal pathogen, enteroaggregative E. coli (EAggEC).

After Jim went to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to pursue his pediatric residency, M.K. Bhan of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, in collaboration with investigators at the CVD, made the observation that EAggEC was particularly associated with the syndrome of persistent diarrhea. Among infants in developing countries who present with acute diarrhea, approximately 5 percent experience unrelenting illness that continues for more than 14 days, at which point they fulfill the World Health Organization definition of persistent diarrhea. This syndrome often leads to malnutrition and death.

In 1991, after completing clinical pediatric infectious diseases fellowship training at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Jim Nataro returned to the University of Maryland School of Medicine as assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases and tropical pediatrics and as chief of the molecular diagnostic microbiology section of the CVD. Jim immediately launched research on the molecular pathogenesis of EAggEC diarrhea, initially focusing on the virulence factors responsible for the aggregative pattern of attachment. He rapidly demonstrated his prowess as an innovative and productive investigator. With funding from a Young Investigator (R29) Award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he described a novel fimbrial structure, aggregative adherence fimbria I (AAF/I), which mediated aggregative adherence of a prototype strain, and he cloned the genes encoding it; he subsequently elucidated the organization of the plasmid genes involved in fimbrial morphogenesis and their regulation. Thereafter, Jim described AAF/II in strains that lacked AAF/I.

Under an RO1 grant, Jim and his collaborators have discovered additional plasmid-encoded virulence genes including an enterotoxin and a vacuolating cytotoxin. Preliminary epidemiolgic studies in Mexico, in collaboration with Drs. Carlos Eslava and Alejandro Cravioto, suggest that only EAggEC strains which express one or the other toxin are associated with diarrheal illness.

At every phase of his career, Jim Nataro has stood out from the crowd. He is the third generation of the Nataro family to graduate from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (following in the footsteps of his grandfather and father), and he did so in memorable style. Jim was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha as a third-year medical student, graduated magna cum laude and received the Prize for Excellence in Pediatrics, the Award for Excellence in Preventive Medicine and the Award for Excellence in Research. Similarly, at CHOP, Jim was presented with the Senior Resident Teacher of the Year Award.

As a young faculty member, the accolades have continued. In 1991, Jim received the Norwich-Eaton Young Investigator Award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, given to a faculty member working on pathogenesis of bacterial infections and bacterial vaccines. In 1995, Jim received the State of Maryland Distinguished Young Scientist Award.

Jim Nataro is an enthusiastic teacher who is as adept at lecturing to 200 medical students as he is in bedside teaching. In 1993, the pediatric house officers at Maryland presented him with the Alexander J. Shaffer Teaching Award. Finally, in the true tradition of the physician/scientist, Jim retains his love for clinical pediatrics and is an outstanding pediatric infectious disease consultant.

Friends and colleagues, I brim with pleasure and pride as I present to James P. Nataro, M.D., Ph.D., the Young Investigator Award of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society."