Glimcher Elected to NAS

Laurie Glimcher, Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). She joins 71 other new members who were announced on April 30 and are being recognized for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

	Laurie Glimcher

Glimcher oversees a lab that studies gene regulation in immune cells called lymphocytes and the control of cytokine gene expression. The experiments have delineated the steps leading to the development of T helper cell subsets, which play a role in immune responses.

Her research has also provided the conceptual and technical foundation for new therapeutic approaches to manipulating immune responses when dealing with autoimmune, allergic and malignant diseases.

Election to membership in the NAS is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a US scientist or engineer. Harvard and the University of California system had the most new members elected this year, with eight each.

The NAS is a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to furthering science and its use for the general welfare. It was established in 1863 by a congressional act of incorporation, signed by Abraham Lincoln, that calls on the NAS to act as an official adviser to the federal government, upon request, in any matter of science or technology.

Bok Wins Literary Award

Sissela Bok, senior visiting fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, has received the St. Botolph Club Foundation 2002 Award for Distinction in Literature in the field of non-fiction.

Sissela Bok

Bok is an author and philosopher who has written extensively in the fields of bioethics, applied ethics, public affairs, biography and autobiography. The third edition of her book Lying: Moral Choice in Private and Public Life (1978) was reissued in 1999 with a new Preface. Other books include Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation (1982, 1989); A Strategy for Peace: Human Values and the Threat of War (1989); Alva Myrdal: A Daughter’s Memoir (1991); Common Values (1995, reissued in 2002 with a new Preface); and Mayhem: Violence as Public Entertainment (1998). She is a former member of the Pulitzer Prize Board.

The St. Botolph Club Foundation Award was established in 1963 to recognize and support artists working in or associated with New England. The award is intended to honor a body of work by an artist who has demonstrated outstanding talent and an exceptional diversity of accomplishments. Other winners in the past include Conrad Aiken and Annie Dillard.

‘Take Our Sons to Work’ Day

The first-ever ‘Take our Sons to Work Day’ at HSPH will be on Thursday, May 23 from 8:45 a.m. to 4 p.m., hosted by Human Resources.

Activities will be geared to an audience aged seven and up and will include lab tours, IT demonstrations, hands-on lessons on the skeletal system, a presentation on youth violence prevention and a visit to the Warren Museum.

Male chaperones who have time to contribute are needed to represent the many careers at the school.

Volunteers and people interested in participating should e-mail Renée DeBlois at deblois@hsph.harvard.edu.

Retreat for Radiobiology and Toxicology Training Programs Draws Dozens of Researchers

Nearly four dozen researchers and trainees working in two programs about cancer cell biology at HSPH attended a special retreat to exchange information and ideas on April 12 and 13 in Newport, RI.

The programs–the NCI Radiation Biology Training Program (Radiobiology) and the NIEHS Training Program in Environmental Health Sciences (Toxicology)–have been funded by the National Institutes of Health at HSPH continuously since 1975 and 1985, respectively. They involve researchers from the Departments of Cancer Cell Biology, Nutrition, and Environmental Health at HSPH, as well as from several HMS departments, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the Massachusetts General Hospital.

The intensive, two-day event covered themes that included cellular responses to DNA damage and oxidative stress; cell biology approaches to understanding growth control; molecular approaches to dissecting mechanisms of radiation damage and basic cellular processes that respond to such damage; and interests related to inflammatory damage and cancer risk genetics.

Doctoral Students Win Fellowships

HSPH doctoral students Cari Jo Clark and Cristina de la Torre have been awarded the Mortimer Spiegelman Fellowships in Demography and Population Studies by the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.

Clark’s research project will examine the prevalence and correlates of gender-based violence in Jordan. She will include a qualitative approach to provide the context in which violence is experienced and perpetrated.

De la Torre’s research project will explore how gender and social support affect pregnancies and abortion decisions in a rural Mexican population. She will use qualitative and quantitative methods to interview men and women about their experiences and perceptions of pregnancies.

The fellowship is new and is based on a gift from the family of Dr. Mortimer Spiegelman, who died in 1969. He was a distinguished biostatistician, actuary and demographer whose early work with Alfred Lotka and Louis Dublin laid much of the groundwork for understanding the links between fertility, mortality and stable age distributions. His Introduction to Demography remains an established reference in the field.