From left to right, David Scadden, Claude Benedict, Wolfgang Klietmann, MaryJo DelVecchio Good, and Amy Farber
The weekend was kicked off with a dinner on June 9 that included the presentation of awards of merit by HSPH Dean Barry Bloom and Alumni Award of Merit Committee chair Royce Moser, Jr., AB 57, MD 61, MPH 65. For a list of winners, see below.
The following day, June 10, featured a panel on biomedicine and its integration of public health, innovative research, international health care, and ethics.
David Scadden, MD, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), sees the possibility for great strides toward unraveling degenerative conditions-such as Parkinson's disease, heart disease, and cancer-through stem cell research.
The HSCI focuses on stem cell science and on all areas of basic biology underlying both normal development and disease progression. HSCI brings together principal investigators and other scientists at Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals.
Claude Benedict, MD, PhD, a cardiologist specializing in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, and senior vice president and head of development for Archemix Corporation of Cambridge, stressed the need for patient compliance in the development of any public health model.
"What good is it to have innovative therapies if patients don't or can't use them?" he asked. Benedict predicts that patient compliance will be the Achilles' heel of 21st century medicine and, presumably, public health practice. Referring to the tuberculosis treatment model, he said that compliance is not rewarded in our society, but is very important for the public health community if it is to contain and control infectious disease.
Wolfgang Klietmann, MD, OPM 87, said that the 1970s euphoria over the "end" of most serious infectious disease was short lived. In 2006, "contagion is a major threat to worldwide health and security."
U.S. health and global health are inextricably linked, Klietmann said. He urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to use its resources to help other countries stop the spread of infection before disease travels here.
"Safeguarding U.S. health requires international and national action; the two are linked," he said.
MaryJo DelVecchio Good, AM 69, PhD 77, worries that the U.S. health care system has lost its way. Speaking of the political economy of hope, she said biomedical innovations have offered many patients hope. However, that hope may be false, because it springs from what she termed "the biotech embrace," or "an affective and imaginative dimension of medicine enveloping bioscientists, physicians, and patients."
Both Good and fellow panelist Amy Farber, AM 99, PhD 03, discussed the disparity of funding for research into orphan diseases. How many patients does it take to make it worthwhile for pharmaceutical companies to develop a drug, and how can they manage clinical trials for those drugs when there are few patients to test?
Farber, who is in her last year of law school, was a recent Fellow in Medical Ethics at HMS. Her research had followed her interest in health disparities among the poor and treatment for those with HIV/AIDS. In April 2005, she was diagnosed with lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM), a rare, fatal metastatic disease affecting women, mostly of childbearing age. There is no treatment or cure.
"It kills women from all races, classes, and countries, through cystic proliferation and the destruction of healthy lung tissue," Farber explained.
Despite their intelligence and caring, it took months for physicians to arrive at her diagnosis. There was little literature on LAM, and much to her surprise, there was no organization exclusively dedicated to accelerating translational science.
Farber has worked feverishly over the past year to organize the LAM Treatment Alliance (LAMTA) for which she serves as executive director. Advised against bearing children due to the possible estrogen link in LAM, she sees herself as a "midwife" in the birth of an aggressively funded research strategy-an alliance of patients, physicians, philanthropists, and researchers.
Farber said that she is applying business and political campaign models to forward the mission of the Alliance. The organization now funds a research agenda through grants, runs seminars, organizes research summits, recruits new scientists to work on LAM, and provides educational resources to patients and to the public.
Howard Koh, Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health and director of the Division of Public Health Practice at HSPH, moderated the three-hour-long discussion. Alumni Council President J. Jacques Carter and Council Secretary Elsbeth Kalenderian, DDS, MPH 89, who chaired the Alumni Weekend Committee, welcomed members and guests. Alumni Weekend was organized by the Alumni Programs Office.
AWARDS OF MERIT
Three HSPH alumni received awards of merit on June 9. Jonathan Fielding, MD 68, AM 69, MPH 71, MBA, is Director of Public Health and the Health Officer for Los Angeles County, California. He is responsible for all public health functions for the county's 10 million residents. Walter Willett, MD, MPH 73, DPH 80, is chair of the HSPH Department of Nutrition and is a renowned nutrition expert. Catherine DeAngelis, MD, MPH 73, who was unable to come to the dinner, is Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of the American Medical Association. Introducing the winners was J. Jacques Carter, MD, MPH 83, president of the Alumni Council. A total of 30 nominations had been received.
Former Massachusetts governor and former Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, LLB 60, delivered the evening's keynote address. He focused on the need for better access to quality, affordable health insurance, suggesting that the field should be treated like a public utility and not as just another marketplace commodity.
John Reardon, Jr., AB 60, Executive Director of the Harvard Alumni Association and Associate Vice President for University Relations, also offered greetings to more than 150 alumni at the dinner.
—PHC
Copyright, 2009, President and Fellows of Harvard College
