Oversight of Cruise Lines at Issue After Disaster
PARIS — As the world was transfixed by the Titanic-like imagery of the partly submerged Costa Concordia and the frantic efforts to save the fuel-laden vessel in rough seas off the Tuscany coast, questions swirled on Monday about the enormous cruise line industry, which operates without much regulation.
The ship’s detained captain, Francesco Schettino, was accused by his bosses of deviating from a fixed, computerized course to show off his beautiful $450 million boat, carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew members, to the people of Giglio Island on a still Friday night, crashing it on a reef.
But as shares in the ship’s parent company — Carnival Corporation of Miami, the world’s biggest cruise line operator — slid by nearly a fifth and the owners and insurers tried to add up the cost of the disaster, there were more troubling issues raised about how the cruise industry is supervised and controlled.
Those issues included how much safety information and training are required for the crew and passengers, and how much discretion a captain has to alter routes, especially in an age when electronic radar, charts, GPS and other guidance systems are supposed to keep these large, sleek ships on course.
“There are legitimate questions as these vessels have substantially evolved in recent years,” said Helen Kearns, a spokeswoman for Siim Kallas, the European Union transportation commissioner. “The boats have gotten a lot bigger, as it’s economically advantageous to have more passengers,” she said. “But the way these vessels have grown in size does mean finding the right balance to make sure regulations are stringent enough to ensure there are procedures like safe evacuations.”
More than 72 hours after the accident killed at least six people, confusion still reigned over how many were missing. Italy’s coast guard abruptly raised the total to 29 late Monday after having said 16, including 2 Americans, remained unaccounted for. Worries also grew that the ship’s half-million gallons of fuel could leak into a marine wildlife sanctuary.
While airline pilots are directed and guided by controllers on the ground, sea captains are considered to be in complete control. “It’s not like the aircraft industry, where you file a flight plan,” said Peter Wild, a cruise industry consultant at G. P. Wild (International) Limited, a consultancy outside London. Rather, at most cruise lines, company directors determine the routes, which are then transmitted to the captain and a navigating officer, who scrutinize the charted course but are meant to follow it.
Captain Schettino’s boss, Pier Luigi Foschi, insisted that a safe route had been programmed into the navigating computers and that alarms would have sounded for any deviation. “This route was put in correctly,” said Mr. Foschi, who is chairman of Costa Crociere S.p.A.
“The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a maneuver by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorized and unknown to Costa,” he said at an emotional press conference in Genoa. “He wanted to show the ship, to go nearby this island of Giglio, so he decided to change the course of the ship,” Mr. Foschi said, admitting that the ship had done a similar but approved maneuver last summer for a festival.
The captain, who may face criminal charges of manslaughter, failure to offer assistance and abandonment of the ship, had said he struck an uncharted rock.
But an Italian prosecutor, Francesco Verusio, had harsh words on Monday. “We are struck by the unscrupulousness of the reckless maneuver that the commander of the Costa Concordia made near the island of Giglio,” he told reporters. “It was inexcusable.”
For many years, the global cruise line industry has operated under a loosely defined system that tends to escape scrutiny by courts and regulators. Cruise line instances of crime, pollution and safety and health violations have often gone unpoliced because no single authority is in charge.
A United Nations agency, the International Maritime Organization, oversees maritime safety through international conventions, including one for the Safety of Life at Sea, known as Solas, adopted in 1914, which grew out of the global anger that stemmed from the loss of the Titanic in 1912. But the agency has no policing powers.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Romney Is Opponents’ Main Target in G.O.P. Debate
Romney Is Opponents’ Main Target in G.O.P. Debate
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Mitt Romney withstood forceful attacks during a debate here on Monday evening, with his Republican rivals lining up to question his job-creation record, wealth and character, as they implored voters to scrutinize his candidacy more deeply before allowing him to sail to the party’s presidential nomination.
With five days remaining before the South Carolina primary, the four other remaining Republican candidates sought once again to raise questions about Mr. Romney’s credentials as an economic manager and his consistency as a conservative.
Yet they failed to goad him into losing his composure or making any major mistakes, and he devoted nearly as much attention to President Obama as he did to the candidates on stage with him.
A spirited crowd of nearly 3,000 Republicans inside the Myrtle Beach Convention Center loudly cheered — and occasionally jeered — throughout the two-hour debate. It was one of the most rollicking presidential debates of the season, with the candidates absorbing instant feedback from voters who will help decide their fate on Saturday.
“My record is out there — proud of it,” Mr. Romney said. “I think that if people want to have someone who understands how the economy works, having worked in the real economy, then I’m the guy that can best post up against Barack Obama.”
But from the moment the debate began, Mr. Romney was besieged by his opponents, all of whom are trying to survive the winnowing process of the early primaries and emerge as a singular challenger to him. They pointedly called on him to disclose his tax returns, explain whether his corporate buyout firm Bain Capital had created or killed jobs and account for his evolving views on social issues like abortion.
“Mitt, we need for you to release your income tax so that the people of this country can see how you made your money,” said Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. “As Republicans, we cannot fire our nominee in September. We need to know now.”
Mr. Romney, a multimillionaire who has declined to release returns that could shed new light on the tax rate that he pays, said he would consider reversing course. But he said he would not do so until April, by which point the Republican competition may well be over.
Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, defended the withering criticism he has helped lead of Mr. Romney’s business background. Mr. Gingrich said he was not attacking American capitalism and, if anything, was fulfilling a duty to the party so it knew its nominee’s vulnerabilities before making a final choice about who should face Mr. Obama in the general election.
“We need to satisfy the country,” Mr. Gingrich said, “that whoever we nominate has a record that can stand up to Barack Obama in a very effective way.”
Here in South Carolina, the third stop in the Republican nominating contest, the airwaves are filled with ads from candidates and groups known as “super PACS” that support the candidates without being directly tied to their campaigns. The advertisements provoked a series of lively exchanges between Mr. Romney and his rivals.
Mr. Gingrich sarcastically dismissed Mr. Romney’s protestations that he had nothing to do with a super PAC ad attacking Mr. Gingrich. He said Mr. Romney’s defense “makes you wonder how much influence he would have if he were president.”
In reply, Mr. Romney said the outside group supporting Mr. Gingrich was showing an anti-Romney documentary that has been widely criticized for its misleading claims about Mr. Romney’s work at Bain Capital. He called it “probably the biggest hoax since Bigfoot.”
Yet Mr. Gingrich, who is trailing Mr. Romney narrowly in some polls here, was in top debate form and often seemed to overshadow Rick Santorum, who is battling Mr. Gingrich to emerge as a more conservative alternative to Mr. Romney.
In fact, Mr. Gingrich won some of his loudest and most sustained applause when the liberal Fox News analyst Juan Williams pressed him on his call for schoolchildren to work as janitors, for his description of Mr. Obama as a “food stamp president” and remarks that Mr. Williams said, to loud boos, seemed “intended to belittle the poor.”
At one point rolling his eyes, cocking his head to the side and saying with mock impatience, “Well, first of all, Juan,” Mr. Gingrich seemed to revel in using Mr. Williams as a foil.
“The fact is more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history,” Mr. Gingrich said, a claim that is numerically true but ignored the depth of the recession that Mr. Obama inherited when he took office. “I know that among the politically correct, you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.”
The field of Republican candidates had been narrowed to five as they gathered for their 16th debate of the primary campaign. Former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah bowed out of the race on Monday morning and offered an endorsement of Mr. Romney.
The departure of Mr. Huntsman underscored the rising urgency facing Mr. Romney’s rivals, who are trying to change the race’s trajectory. But that did not appear to happen during the debate, which was sponsored by Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and the South Carolina Republican Party. While many voters say they are open to changing their minds, Mr. Romney holds considerable advantages in South Carolina and in Florida, the next primary state.
The discussion often seemed to be directed at a Southern audience, with questions devoted to what Mr. Perry termed a “war on religion,” as well as race and labor relations.
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Mitt Romney withstood forceful attacks during a debate here on Monday evening, with his Republican rivals lining up to question his job-creation record, wealth and character, as they implored voters to scrutinize his candidacy more deeply before allowing him to sail to the party’s presidential nomination.
With five days remaining before the South Carolina primary, the four other remaining Republican candidates sought once again to raise questions about Mr. Romney’s credentials as an economic manager and his consistency as a conservative.
Yet they failed to goad him into losing his composure or making any major mistakes, and he devoted nearly as much attention to President Obama as he did to the candidates on stage with him.
A spirited crowd of nearly 3,000 Republicans inside the Myrtle Beach Convention Center loudly cheered — and occasionally jeered — throughout the two-hour debate. It was one of the most rollicking presidential debates of the season, with the candidates absorbing instant feedback from voters who will help decide their fate on Saturday.
“My record is out there — proud of it,” Mr. Romney said. “I think that if people want to have someone who understands how the economy works, having worked in the real economy, then I’m the guy that can best post up against Barack Obama.”
But from the moment the debate began, Mr. Romney was besieged by his opponents, all of whom are trying to survive the winnowing process of the early primaries and emerge as a singular challenger to him. They pointedly called on him to disclose his tax returns, explain whether his corporate buyout firm Bain Capital had created or killed jobs and account for his evolving views on social issues like abortion.
“Mitt, we need for you to release your income tax so that the people of this country can see how you made your money,” said Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. “As Republicans, we cannot fire our nominee in September. We need to know now.”
Mr. Romney, a multimillionaire who has declined to release returns that could shed new light on the tax rate that he pays, said he would consider reversing course. But he said he would not do so until April, by which point the Republican competition may well be over.
Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, defended the withering criticism he has helped lead of Mr. Romney’s business background. Mr. Gingrich said he was not attacking American capitalism and, if anything, was fulfilling a duty to the party so it knew its nominee’s vulnerabilities before making a final choice about who should face Mr. Obama in the general election.
“We need to satisfy the country,” Mr. Gingrich said, “that whoever we nominate has a record that can stand up to Barack Obama in a very effective way.”
Here in South Carolina, the third stop in the Republican nominating contest, the airwaves are filled with ads from candidates and groups known as “super PACS” that support the candidates without being directly tied to their campaigns. The advertisements provoked a series of lively exchanges between Mr. Romney and his rivals.
Mr. Gingrich sarcastically dismissed Mr. Romney’s protestations that he had nothing to do with a super PAC ad attacking Mr. Gingrich. He said Mr. Romney’s defense “makes you wonder how much influence he would have if he were president.”
In reply, Mr. Romney said the outside group supporting Mr. Gingrich was showing an anti-Romney documentary that has been widely criticized for its misleading claims about Mr. Romney’s work at Bain Capital. He called it “probably the biggest hoax since Bigfoot.”
Yet Mr. Gingrich, who is trailing Mr. Romney narrowly in some polls here, was in top debate form and often seemed to overshadow Rick Santorum, who is battling Mr. Gingrich to emerge as a more conservative alternative to Mr. Romney.
In fact, Mr. Gingrich won some of his loudest and most sustained applause when the liberal Fox News analyst Juan Williams pressed him on his call for schoolchildren to work as janitors, for his description of Mr. Obama as a “food stamp president” and remarks that Mr. Williams said, to loud boos, seemed “intended to belittle the poor.”
At one point rolling his eyes, cocking his head to the side and saying with mock impatience, “Well, first of all, Juan,” Mr. Gingrich seemed to revel in using Mr. Williams as a foil.
“The fact is more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history,” Mr. Gingrich said, a claim that is numerically true but ignored the depth of the recession that Mr. Obama inherited when he took office. “I know that among the politically correct, you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.”
The field of Republican candidates had been narrowed to five as they gathered for their 16th debate of the primary campaign. Former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah bowed out of the race on Monday morning and offered an endorsement of Mr. Romney.
The departure of Mr. Huntsman underscored the rising urgency facing Mr. Romney’s rivals, who are trying to change the race’s trajectory. But that did not appear to happen during the debate, which was sponsored by Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and the South Carolina Republican Party. While many voters say they are open to changing their minds, Mr. Romney holds considerable advantages in South Carolina and in Florida, the next primary state.
The discussion often seemed to be directed at a Southern audience, with questions devoted to what Mr. Perry termed a “war on religion,” as well as race and labor relations.
Noodle and Apple Kugel
Noodle and Apple Kugel
This comforting kugel tastes much richer than it is, and it is certainly lighter than a traditional kugel (though it is not a low-calorie dessert). I’ve made this with Golden Delicious apples and with tarter varieties like Pink Lady; I liked it both ways.
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 apples, cored and cut in small (1/4- to 1/2-inch) dice
6 ounces flat egg noodles, preferably whole-grain
Salt to taste
1/4 cup raisins, plumped for 5 minutes in warm water and drained (optional)
4 eggs
1/4 cup raw brown sugar or dark brown sugar
1 cup drained yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons rum
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 2-quart baking dish. Begin heating a large pot of water.
2. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over medium-high heat in a large, heavy skillet and add the apples. Cook, stirring or tossing in the pan, until they begin to color and are slightly tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.
3. When the water comes to a boil, add salt to taste and the noodles. Cook al dente, a little firmer than you would want them if you were eating them right away. Drain through a colander and add to the pan with the apples (if using long flat noodles, cut them first with a scissors into shorter lengths). Add the remaining tablespoon of butter and toss together until the butter melts. Stir in the optional raisins. Set aside.
4. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add the sugar and beat together until the mixture is thick. Beat in the yogurt, vanilla, rum, nutmeg and about 1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste. Add the noodles and apples and fold everything together. Scrape into the prepared baking dish. Push the pasta down into the egg and yogurt mixture (it will not be completely submerged, but try to cover as much as you can). Place in the oven and bake 40 to 45 minutes, until the kugel is set and the sides are browned. There will always be some noodles on top that brown and become quite hard. You can remove these from the baked dish if you wish. Allow to sit for at least 10 minutes before serving. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.
Yield: 6 servings.
Advance preparation: I love this for breakfast. It keeps for a few days in the refrigerator. Reheat in a low oven or in the microwave.
Nutritional information per serving: 347 calories; 4 grams saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 164 milligram cholesterol; 17 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams dietary fiber; 71 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 12 grams protein
This comforting kugel tastes much richer than it is, and it is certainly lighter than a traditional kugel (though it is not a low-calorie dessert). I’ve made this with Golden Delicious apples and with tarter varieties like Pink Lady; I liked it both ways.
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 apples, cored and cut in small (1/4- to 1/2-inch) dice
6 ounces flat egg noodles, preferably whole-grain
Salt to taste
1/4 cup raisins, plumped for 5 minutes in warm water and drained (optional)
4 eggs
1/4 cup raw brown sugar or dark brown sugar
1 cup drained yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons rum
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 2-quart baking dish. Begin heating a large pot of water.
2. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over medium-high heat in a large, heavy skillet and add the apples. Cook, stirring or tossing in the pan, until they begin to color and are slightly tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.
3. When the water comes to a boil, add salt to taste and the noodles. Cook al dente, a little firmer than you would want them if you were eating them right away. Drain through a colander and add to the pan with the apples (if using long flat noodles, cut them first with a scissors into shorter lengths). Add the remaining tablespoon of butter and toss together until the butter melts. Stir in the optional raisins. Set aside.
4. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add the sugar and beat together until the mixture is thick. Beat in the yogurt, vanilla, rum, nutmeg and about 1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste. Add the noodles and apples and fold everything together. Scrape into the prepared baking dish. Push the pasta down into the egg and yogurt mixture (it will not be completely submerged, but try to cover as much as you can). Place in the oven and bake 40 to 45 minutes, until the kugel is set and the sides are browned. There will always be some noodles on top that brown and become quite hard. You can remove these from the baked dish if you wish. Allow to sit for at least 10 minutes before serving. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.
Yield: 6 servings.
Advance preparation: I love this for breakfast. It keeps for a few days in the refrigerator. Reheat in a low oven or in the microwave.
Nutritional information per serving: 347 calories; 4 grams saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 164 milligram cholesterol; 17 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams dietary fiber; 71 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 12 grams protein
Exercise Hormone May Fight Obesity and Diabetes
Exercise Hormone May Fight Obesity and Diabetes
A newly discovered hormone produced in response to exercise may be turning people’s white fat brown, a groundbreaking new study suggests, and in the process lessening their susceptibility to obesity, diabetes and other health problems. The study, published on Wednesday in Nature and led by researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, provides remarkable new insights into how exercise affects the body at a cellular level.
For the study, the researchers studied mouse and human muscle cells. Scientists have believed for some time that muscle cells influence biological processes elsewhere in the body, beyond the muscles themselves. In particular, they have suspected that muscle cells communicate biochemically with body fat.
But how muscle cells “talk” to fat, what they tell the fat and what role exercise has in sparking or sustaining that conversation have been mysteries — until, in the new study, scientists closely examined the operations of a substance called PGC1-alpha, which is produced in abundance in muscles during and after exercise.
“It seems clear that PGC1a stimulates many of the recognized health benefits of exercise,” said Bruce Spiegelman, the Stanley J. Korsmeyer professor of cell biology and medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, who led the study. Mice bred to produce preternaturally large amounts of PGC1a in their muscles are typically resistant to age-related obesity and diabetes, much as people who regularly exercise are.
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Again, the biological mechanisms by which PGC1a jump-starts such beneficial effects had been unknown. For the new study, though, the researchers used advanced algorithms to determine that increases in PCG1a in muscles caused a subsequent bump in the expression of a protein known as Fndc5. That protein had long interested biologists, but they hadn’t been able to pinpoint what it did.
The Harvard researchers realized that one thing the protein did was break apart into different pieces, one of which was a hormone that had never before been identified. With uncharacteristic whimsy, the scientists dubbed it “irisin,” after Iris, the messenger goddess of Greek mythology. (I’m sure she was on a quiz once.)
Unlike most substances birthed in the muscles, irisin does not completely remain there, the scientists noted. It apparently enters the bloodstream and surfs to fat cells, where, by providing various biochemical signals or messages, it begins turning regular fat — especially deep, visceral fat clustered around organs — into brown fat.
If that last statement didn’t make your eyebrows rise in surprise, you are not an adipocyte biologist. For them, the finding that irisin might contribute to the browning of visceral body fat is “an extraordinary discovery,” says Sven Enerback, a professor of metabolic research at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, who has written extensively about the biology of fat and obesity.
Brown fat, as many of us have heard, is physiologically desirable. While white fat cells are essentially inert storehouses for fat, brown fat cells are metabolically active. They use oxygen and require energy. They burn calories.
Until recently, it was thought that human adults did not have brown fat, that we lost our stores after babyhood. But beginning in 2009, a number of studies showed that grown-ups do harbor brown fat. Some people just have more than others.
And it may be that irisin, and exercise, partially determine how much brown fat each of us contains, the new study suggests. In perhaps the most compelling of the many separate experiments detailed in the Nature paper, the scientists injected irisin into white fat cells removed from mice. Afterward, genetic changes in the cells signified that they were browning. The fat cells also increased their respiratory rate, an indication that they were burning more energy.
In additional experiments with mice fattened on high-fat kibble, injections of the Fndc5 protein, which cleaves into irisin, improved the animals’ glucose tolerance, Dr. Spiegelman says; they did not develop diabetes, despite being at increased risk from their diet.
Finally, follow-up experiments with muscle cells from human volunteers who’d completed a controlled, weeks-long jogging program found that they had much higher levels of irisin in their cells than before the exercise program began. Intriguingly, the hormone was exactly the same, structurally, in both mice and people – a finding suggesting that it is biologically vital, Dr. Spiegelman points out, since otherwise it would not have been preserved nearly unchanged through eons of mammalian evolution.
In essence, irisin appears to be one of the more important missing links in our understanding of how exercise improves health.
But while irisin appears to have a critical impact on metabolism, it does not appear to play any discernible role in the effects that exercise has on the heart or the brain. And various issues remain unresolved. Why, for instance, if exercise increases levels of irisin and irisin increases the body’s stores of energy-burning brown fat, does exercise so rarely produce significant weight loss? The mice injected with irisin lost little weight. On the other hand, Dr. Spiegelman notes, they resisted weight gain, even on a high-fat diet, and their blood sugar levels remained stable. So it would seem that exercise, through the actions of irisin, can render you healthy, if not svelte.
In upcoming experiments, Dr. Spiegelman plans to study whether injections of irisin imitate some of the metabolic benefits of exercise in people who, because of disease or disability, cannot work out. He also hopes to elucidate just how much and what types of exercise produce the greatest natural irisin increases in healthy people.
These studies may take years. But already, he says, it’s safe to say that “physical activity increases irisin levels in healthy people,” altering the hue of their fat cells and the tenor of their health, a message worth remembering.
A newly discovered hormone produced in response to exercise may be turning people’s white fat brown, a groundbreaking new study suggests, and in the process lessening their susceptibility to obesity, diabetes and other health problems. The study, published on Wednesday in Nature and led by researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, provides remarkable new insights into how exercise affects the body at a cellular level.
For the study, the researchers studied mouse and human muscle cells. Scientists have believed for some time that muscle cells influence biological processes elsewhere in the body, beyond the muscles themselves. In particular, they have suspected that muscle cells communicate biochemically with body fat.
But how muscle cells “talk” to fat, what they tell the fat and what role exercise has in sparking or sustaining that conversation have been mysteries — until, in the new study, scientists closely examined the operations of a substance called PGC1-alpha, which is produced in abundance in muscles during and after exercise.
“It seems clear that PGC1a stimulates many of the recognized health benefits of exercise,” said Bruce Spiegelman, the Stanley J. Korsmeyer professor of cell biology and medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, who led the study. Mice bred to produce preternaturally large amounts of PGC1a in their muscles are typically resistant to age-related obesity and diabetes, much as people who regularly exercise are.
RELATED
More Phys Ed columns
Faster, Higher, Stronger
Fitness and Nutrition News
Again, the biological mechanisms by which PGC1a jump-starts such beneficial effects had been unknown. For the new study, though, the researchers used advanced algorithms to determine that increases in PCG1a in muscles caused a subsequent bump in the expression of a protein known as Fndc5. That protein had long interested biologists, but they hadn’t been able to pinpoint what it did.
The Harvard researchers realized that one thing the protein did was break apart into different pieces, one of which was a hormone that had never before been identified. With uncharacteristic whimsy, the scientists dubbed it “irisin,” after Iris, the messenger goddess of Greek mythology. (I’m sure she was on a quiz once.)
Unlike most substances birthed in the muscles, irisin does not completely remain there, the scientists noted. It apparently enters the bloodstream and surfs to fat cells, where, by providing various biochemical signals or messages, it begins turning regular fat — especially deep, visceral fat clustered around organs — into brown fat.
If that last statement didn’t make your eyebrows rise in surprise, you are not an adipocyte biologist. For them, the finding that irisin might contribute to the browning of visceral body fat is “an extraordinary discovery,” says Sven Enerback, a professor of metabolic research at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, who has written extensively about the biology of fat and obesity.
Brown fat, as many of us have heard, is physiologically desirable. While white fat cells are essentially inert storehouses for fat, brown fat cells are metabolically active. They use oxygen and require energy. They burn calories.
Until recently, it was thought that human adults did not have brown fat, that we lost our stores after babyhood. But beginning in 2009, a number of studies showed that grown-ups do harbor brown fat. Some people just have more than others.
And it may be that irisin, and exercise, partially determine how much brown fat each of us contains, the new study suggests. In perhaps the most compelling of the many separate experiments detailed in the Nature paper, the scientists injected irisin into white fat cells removed from mice. Afterward, genetic changes in the cells signified that they were browning. The fat cells also increased their respiratory rate, an indication that they were burning more energy.
In additional experiments with mice fattened on high-fat kibble, injections of the Fndc5 protein, which cleaves into irisin, improved the animals’ glucose tolerance, Dr. Spiegelman says; they did not develop diabetes, despite being at increased risk from their diet.
Finally, follow-up experiments with muscle cells from human volunteers who’d completed a controlled, weeks-long jogging program found that they had much higher levels of irisin in their cells than before the exercise program began. Intriguingly, the hormone was exactly the same, structurally, in both mice and people – a finding suggesting that it is biologically vital, Dr. Spiegelman points out, since otherwise it would not have been preserved nearly unchanged through eons of mammalian evolution.
In essence, irisin appears to be one of the more important missing links in our understanding of how exercise improves health.
But while irisin appears to have a critical impact on metabolism, it does not appear to play any discernible role in the effects that exercise has on the heart or the brain. And various issues remain unresolved. Why, for instance, if exercise increases levels of irisin and irisin increases the body’s stores of energy-burning brown fat, does exercise so rarely produce significant weight loss? The mice injected with irisin lost little weight. On the other hand, Dr. Spiegelman notes, they resisted weight gain, even on a high-fat diet, and their blood sugar levels remained stable. So it would seem that exercise, through the actions of irisin, can render you healthy, if not svelte.
In upcoming experiments, Dr. Spiegelman plans to study whether injections of irisin imitate some of the metabolic benefits of exercise in people who, because of disease or disability, cannot work out. He also hopes to elucidate just how much and what types of exercise produce the greatest natural irisin increases in healthy people.
These studies may take years. But already, he says, it’s safe to say that “physical activity increases irisin levels in healthy people,” altering the hue of their fat cells and the tenor of their health, a message worth remembering.
Digitizing Health Records, Before It Was Cool
Digitizing Health Records, Before It Was Cool
THE push to move the nation from paper to electronic health records is serious business. That’s why a first look at the campus of Epic Systems comes as something of a jolt.
A treehouse for meetings? A two-story spiral slide just for fun? What’s that big statue of the Cat in the Hat doing here?
Don’t let these elements of whimsy fool you. Operating on 800 acres of former farmland near Madison, Wis., Epic Systems supplies electronic records for large health care providers like the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, the Cleveland Clinic, and Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, as well as health plans like Kaiser Permanente and medical groups like the Weill Cornell Physicians Organization in New York. In fact, Epic’s reputation as a fun-filled, creative place to work helps draw programmers who might otherwise take jobs at Google, Microsoft or Facebook.
Epic supplies software, systems, training and support so its customers can manage their data. As far as the general public is concerned, it operates far under the radar. Yet it helps keep track of 40 million patients, alongside a handful of large software companies and hundreds of smaller firms that have emerged to digitize health records.
Unlike some of those firms, Epic is no newcomer. Judith Faulkner, the chief executive, started the company more than 30 years ago, when, in all but a very few places, patient records were kept on paper. As such, she has a long-term view of the nation’s struggle to digitize medical records.
Ms. Faulkner understands why it’s taken much longer for the health care industry than, say, banks and airlines to move to electronic data. In banking, the types of data are much more limited and known, she says. In health care, by contrast, data is constantly changing based on information from doctors, nurses, patients and others. New discoveries, protocols and government requirements add even more complexity.
The way this data is stored and used can literally be a matter of life and death — which is why the transition to electronic health records is so sensitive. And why it’s so important, Ms. Faulkner says. Computerized record systems can actively search for and analyze information in ways that paper files never can, thereby improving patients’ health, she says.
Digital records are an invaluable tool for doing research and improving care, says Philip Fasano, executive vice president and chief information officer of Kaiser Permanente. “For example, we are able to follow decades of data on diabetes patients,” he says. “We can see which medicines are absolutely the best and personalize the doses. We can truly change the medical outcomes.”
Ms. Faulkner started digitizing patient records when she was just out of graduate school in computer science at the University of Wisconsin. That’s when a research group in the psychiatry department asked her to create a system to help keep track of patient data over time.
Her program, built on ideas from a few other pioneers, was a success. Other medical researchers began requesting their own versions, and eventually a business was born.
At first, Epic consisted of three part-time employees working at $10 used desks in the basement of an apartment house near the university. They bought a bulky computer from a company called Data General; it had two 50-megabyte disk drives that sounded like a noisy washing machine, Ms. Faulkner recalls. “You couldn’t touch it, or the data got messed up,” she says.
There may have been a learning curve, but “to the best of our knowledge, in the 32 years we’ve been in business, there has never been a breach of Epic’s data by a hacker,” Ms. Faulkner says — speaking to a concern that has some people nervous about the conversion to electronic health records.
Concerns about security are hardly groundless. A government Web site known as the “Wall of Shame” has documented hundreds of breaches that threatened patients’ privacy.
At Epic, “We have all sorts of firewalls and security systems in effect to prevent data breaches,” Ms. Faulkner says. On laptops used by doctors, files can be viewed but not stored. The same is true for smartphones and tablets. “We do not store patient data on them,” she says, so it cannot be misused if these devices are stolen.
Ms. Faulkner is an industry representative on a government panel charged with examining privacy and security issues regarding health data. She says she wants to strike a balance between ensuring privacy and making sure that information can be shared for better patient care.
“I’m worried if we put up too many barriers in order to make things private, and if that makes the flow of information slow and hard to share, in effect more people will be harmed,” she says. So far the committee has maintained that balance well, she says.
THE push to move the nation from paper to electronic health records is serious business. That’s why a first look at the campus of Epic Systems comes as something of a jolt.
A treehouse for meetings? A two-story spiral slide just for fun? What’s that big statue of the Cat in the Hat doing here?
Don’t let these elements of whimsy fool you. Operating on 800 acres of former farmland near Madison, Wis., Epic Systems supplies electronic records for large health care providers like the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, the Cleveland Clinic, and Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, as well as health plans like Kaiser Permanente and medical groups like the Weill Cornell Physicians Organization in New York. In fact, Epic’s reputation as a fun-filled, creative place to work helps draw programmers who might otherwise take jobs at Google, Microsoft or Facebook.
Epic supplies software, systems, training and support so its customers can manage their data. As far as the general public is concerned, it operates far under the radar. Yet it helps keep track of 40 million patients, alongside a handful of large software companies and hundreds of smaller firms that have emerged to digitize health records.
Unlike some of those firms, Epic is no newcomer. Judith Faulkner, the chief executive, started the company more than 30 years ago, when, in all but a very few places, patient records were kept on paper. As such, she has a long-term view of the nation’s struggle to digitize medical records.
Ms. Faulkner understands why it’s taken much longer for the health care industry than, say, banks and airlines to move to electronic data. In banking, the types of data are much more limited and known, she says. In health care, by contrast, data is constantly changing based on information from doctors, nurses, patients and others. New discoveries, protocols and government requirements add even more complexity.
The way this data is stored and used can literally be a matter of life and death — which is why the transition to electronic health records is so sensitive. And why it’s so important, Ms. Faulkner says. Computerized record systems can actively search for and analyze information in ways that paper files never can, thereby improving patients’ health, she says.
Digital records are an invaluable tool for doing research and improving care, says Philip Fasano, executive vice president and chief information officer of Kaiser Permanente. “For example, we are able to follow decades of data on diabetes patients,” he says. “We can see which medicines are absolutely the best and personalize the doses. We can truly change the medical outcomes.”
Ms. Faulkner started digitizing patient records when she was just out of graduate school in computer science at the University of Wisconsin. That’s when a research group in the psychiatry department asked her to create a system to help keep track of patient data over time.
Her program, built on ideas from a few other pioneers, was a success. Other medical researchers began requesting their own versions, and eventually a business was born.
At first, Epic consisted of three part-time employees working at $10 used desks in the basement of an apartment house near the university. They bought a bulky computer from a company called Data General; it had two 50-megabyte disk drives that sounded like a noisy washing machine, Ms. Faulkner recalls. “You couldn’t touch it, or the data got messed up,” she says.
There may have been a learning curve, but “to the best of our knowledge, in the 32 years we’ve been in business, there has never been a breach of Epic’s data by a hacker,” Ms. Faulkner says — speaking to a concern that has some people nervous about the conversion to electronic health records.
Concerns about security are hardly groundless. A government Web site known as the “Wall of Shame” has documented hundreds of breaches that threatened patients’ privacy.
At Epic, “We have all sorts of firewalls and security systems in effect to prevent data breaches,” Ms. Faulkner says. On laptops used by doctors, files can be viewed but not stored. The same is true for smartphones and tablets. “We do not store patient data on them,” she says, so it cannot be misused if these devices are stolen.
Ms. Faulkner is an industry representative on a government panel charged with examining privacy and security issues regarding health data. She says she wants to strike a balance between ensuring privacy and making sure that information can be shared for better patient care.
“I’m worried if we put up too many barriers in order to make things private, and if that makes the flow of information slow and hard to share, in effect more people will be harmed,” she says. So far the committee has maintained that balance well, she says.
What Happened to Baby Annie?
THE lives of Li Hangbin and Li Ying were intertwined nearly from the start.
Although unrelated by blood, they shared a common Chinese surname, and as third-grade classmates, they shared the same double desk in their hometown, Changle, in the Fujian province of China.
After the two left school, in 2004, each of their families paid Chinese “snakehead” immigrant smugglers upward of $60,000 to sneak them into the United States through separate but similarly arduous and circuitous journeys, they said.
Once in New York, they both took low-paying jobs, became a couple and moved into a boarding house in Flushing, Queens. In August 2007, they became parents of a baby girl they called Annie.
For almost four years, they have both been inmates on Rikers Island, charged with the shaken baby death of 70-day-old Annie, for which they will be tried — together — in a Queens courtroom, most likely this spring.
According to the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, the father, Li Hangbin, 27, inflicted horrific injuries on Annie on Oct. 22, 2007, and then, along with Ms. Li, 26, neglected to call 911 until after midnight, which might have cost the baby her life.
Five days after Annie was taken to the emergency room, she died. After investigating for nearly five months, the police arrested the couple, who at the time spoke almost no English, and charged them with second-degree manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child. Mr. Li also faces second-degree murder, and if convicted, could serve 25 years to life. Ms. Li’s charges carry a maximum sentence of 15 years.
Despite the disturbing charges, a group of supporters has sprung up over the past year in the Chinese community in Flushing, arguing that the Lis, far from being the monsters portrayed by the district attorney’s office, are themselves victims, whose poverty, lack of connections and unfamiliarity with the American justice system made them vulnerable targets for prosecutors.
They cite the fact that the couple have no criminal records, and no history of domestic problems.
“The couple has been swallowed up by the system,” said Michael Chu, a Flushing travel agent and local advocate who had never heard of the Lis until a client mentioned the case two years ago.
Mr. Chu’s third-floor travel office, just off Main Street in a neighborhood that teems with Chinese immigrants, has become headquarters for what a banner on the wall proclaims in Chinese as the “Li Ying, Li Hangbin Rescue Committee.”
On the walls, listings of resort bargains and flight deals have been replaced by petitions and clippings from Chinese-language newspapers about the Li case. There is even an elaborate diagram of a family tree that outlines both parents’ family history — including births, deaths and medical records — going back four generations. Mr. Chu said he had gathered “substantial evidence to suggest that there are genetic defects that run in the family line” that might have led to the early deaths of six direct relatives, including three newborns who died at roughly 2 months old.
The family tree was suggested by Mr. Chu’s wife. A local practitioner of Chinese medicine was buying a plane ticket in Mr. Chu’s office last year when he noticed that the diagram suggested that a condition called osteogenesis imperfecta, which can cause weak bones, might run in the family and could have contributed to Annie’s death. Mr. Chu has recruited other clients to help him research medical and legal defense strategies, not to mention raise money to pay for the couple’s defense.
The portraits of the Lis drawn by the two opposing sides could not be more different. Legal authorities say they are abusive parents who callously let their daughter languish near death for hours rather than call 911. Supporters say the Lis are struggling immigrants who loved their child and have gotten caught up in legal machinery that they don’t understand and are ill prepared to confront.
The stark disagreement extends even to what happened to Annie’s body after her death. The Lis say the police at the 109th Precinct station ignored their repeated requests to retake custody of the body. Officials from the Queens district attorney’s office say Annie was never claimed by the Lis from the morgue, despite repeated notices from the authorities. Whichever is true, Annie’s body lingered in the morgue for six months before she was buried, without a funeral, in a small pine box in a mass grave on Hart Island.
Although unrelated by blood, they shared a common Chinese surname, and as third-grade classmates, they shared the same double desk in their hometown, Changle, in the Fujian province of China.
After the two left school, in 2004, each of their families paid Chinese “snakehead” immigrant smugglers upward of $60,000 to sneak them into the United States through separate but similarly arduous and circuitous journeys, they said.
Once in New York, they both took low-paying jobs, became a couple and moved into a boarding house in Flushing, Queens. In August 2007, they became parents of a baby girl they called Annie.
For almost four years, they have both been inmates on Rikers Island, charged with the shaken baby death of 70-day-old Annie, for which they will be tried — together — in a Queens courtroom, most likely this spring.
According to the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, the father, Li Hangbin, 27, inflicted horrific injuries on Annie on Oct. 22, 2007, and then, along with Ms. Li, 26, neglected to call 911 until after midnight, which might have cost the baby her life.
Five days after Annie was taken to the emergency room, she died. After investigating for nearly five months, the police arrested the couple, who at the time spoke almost no English, and charged them with second-degree manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child. Mr. Li also faces second-degree murder, and if convicted, could serve 25 years to life. Ms. Li’s charges carry a maximum sentence of 15 years.
Despite the disturbing charges, a group of supporters has sprung up over the past year in the Chinese community in Flushing, arguing that the Lis, far from being the monsters portrayed by the district attorney’s office, are themselves victims, whose poverty, lack of connections and unfamiliarity with the American justice system made them vulnerable targets for prosecutors.
They cite the fact that the couple have no criminal records, and no history of domestic problems.
“The couple has been swallowed up by the system,” said Michael Chu, a Flushing travel agent and local advocate who had never heard of the Lis until a client mentioned the case two years ago.
Mr. Chu’s third-floor travel office, just off Main Street in a neighborhood that teems with Chinese immigrants, has become headquarters for what a banner on the wall proclaims in Chinese as the “Li Ying, Li Hangbin Rescue Committee.”
On the walls, listings of resort bargains and flight deals have been replaced by petitions and clippings from Chinese-language newspapers about the Li case. There is even an elaborate diagram of a family tree that outlines both parents’ family history — including births, deaths and medical records — going back four generations. Mr. Chu said he had gathered “substantial evidence to suggest that there are genetic defects that run in the family line” that might have led to the early deaths of six direct relatives, including three newborns who died at roughly 2 months old.
The family tree was suggested by Mr. Chu’s wife. A local practitioner of Chinese medicine was buying a plane ticket in Mr. Chu’s office last year when he noticed that the diagram suggested that a condition called osteogenesis imperfecta, which can cause weak bones, might run in the family and could have contributed to Annie’s death. Mr. Chu has recruited other clients to help him research medical and legal defense strategies, not to mention raise money to pay for the couple’s defense.
The portraits of the Lis drawn by the two opposing sides could not be more different. Legal authorities say they are abusive parents who callously let their daughter languish near death for hours rather than call 911. Supporters say the Lis are struggling immigrants who loved their child and have gotten caught up in legal machinery that they don’t understand and are ill prepared to confront.
The stark disagreement extends even to what happened to Annie’s body after her death. The Lis say the police at the 109th Precinct station ignored their repeated requests to retake custody of the body. Officials from the Queens district attorney’s office say Annie was never claimed by the Lis from the morgue, despite repeated notices from the authorities. Whichever is true, Annie’s body lingered in the morgue for six months before she was buried, without a funeral, in a small pine box in a mass grave on Hart Island.
Wylie Vale Jr., Groundbreaking Endocrinologist, Dies at 70
Wylie Vale Jr., Groundbreaking Endocrinologist, Dies at 70
Wylie W. Vale Jr., an eminent endocrinologist who helped identify the hormones through which the brain governs basic bodily functions and who was involved in a combative race for the Nobel Prize, died on Jan. 3 at his vacation home in Hana, Hawaii. He was 70.
The cause was not yet known, his wife, Mary Elizabeth, said.
Dr. Vale spent most of his career at the Salk Institute in San Diego, where he led efforts to identify the group of hormones involved in bodily functions like growth, reproduction and temperature. Their discovery was a landmark in the history of endocrinology, coming after more than 30 years of bitter competition.
The Nobel Prize went to others, but Dr. Vale “really, in the long run, had the biggest impact in the field,” said Bert O’Malley, an endocrinologist at the Baylor College of Medicine.
The first part of Dr. Vale’s career was spent as the principal scientist in the laboratory run by Roger Guillemin, who was locked in a 20-year race with a rival, Andrew Schally, to identify the hormones first.
The Guillemin-Schally war, described by Dr. Schally as “many years of vicious attacks and bitter retaliation,” ended in a draw in 1977 when the Nobel medicine committee gave each man a quarter share of a prize, the other half going to Dr. Rosalyn Yalow.
But the race was not over. An unexpected second phase erupted when Dr. Vale split from Dr. Guillemin and started competing against his former mentor to find the remaining hormones.
The serene campus of the Salk Institute, a plaza that overlooks the Pacific Ocean, then became the home to two laboratories locked in a race for scientific glory, as Dr. Vale and Dr. Guillemin sought to prove that each could succeed without the other’s help.
“They sharpened their swords and went at it full bore,” said Ronald Evans, a hormone expert at the Salk Institute.
Dr. Vale’s first target was the master hormone known as CRF, or corticotrophin releasing factor, which integrates and controls the body’s response to stress. Dr. Guillemin and Dr. Schally had spent seven years trying to isolate CRF before giving up and moving on to easier targets. Dr. Vale discovered CRF in 1981 and the next year found a second hormone, called the growth hormone releasing factor, or GRF, which had also eluded the older scientists. GRF controls the body’s growth.
Endocrinologists watched in amazement as the battle over the hormones raged. But they let the fight continue, mostly because of the importance of finding the hormones, but also because the dueling labs had acquired expertise in processing hundreds of thousands of sheep, pig and beef brains obtained from slaughterhouses for the research. It was a semi-industrial operation in which few others cared to join.
Despite the pressure of the competition, first with Dr. Schally and then with his own mentor, Dr. Vale maintained his easygoing Texan style and sense of humor. By contrast, Dr. Guillemin, born in Dijon, France, in 1924, brought an immigrant’s intensity to his work. He was also, like his rival Dr. Schally, loath to share credit for his lab’s achievements with his younger colleagues.
Toward the end of the fight with Dr. Schally, Dr. Vale became disenchanted with his mentor’s single-minded quest for scientific renown. During his search for GRF, Dr. Vale wrote the chemical formula for the hormone — it had not yet been published — on a large blackboard, which the members of Dr. Guillemin’s lab could see through the window every morning as they left the Salk parking lot. The formula was a decoy, intended to mislead the rival team. Dr. Vale kept the correct version on a piece of paper in his wallet.
Dr. Guillemin was aghast at the challenge from his scientific “son,” a man whom he had trained for his doctorate. Though he succeeded in finding the CRF and GRF hormones independently, in both cases Dr. Vale’s lab beat him to the punch.
Wylie Walker Vale Jr. was born in Houston on July 3, 1941. He attended Rice University and, after hearing Dr. Guillemin lecture on the releasing factors, as the brain’s hormones are known, joined Dr. Guillemin’s lab at the Baylor College of Medicine, earning his Ph.D. in 1964.
Dr. Vale’s principal task was to detect the releasing factors’ whereabouts in the large volumes of tissue from the sheep hypothalamus, a region at the base of the mammalian brain. He helped Dr. Guillemin to his first success, the identification of TRF, or thyrotropin releasing factor. Like the other releasing factor hormones, TRF is produced in the hypothalamus and reaches its target cells in the pituitary gland, just below the base of the brain. A second hormone, which is released by the pituitary in response to TRF, controls the thyroid gland and the body’s temperature control system.
In 1970, Dr. Guillemin moved his team to the Salk Institute. Over the next three years, Dr. Vale played a central role in the lab’s discovery of LRF, the releasing factor that controls the whole reproductive system, and somatostatin, a releasing factor hormone that inhibits the body’s growth.
Dr. Vale founded two companies to exploit his discoveries. One, Neurocrine Biosciences, is testing drugs that block the action of CRF that may help manage clinical depression. The other, AcceleronPharma, is testing drugs for treating anemia.
He also served as president of the American Endocrine Society and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Besides his wife, who is known as Betty and whom he met in high school in Houston, Dr. Vale is survived by two daughters, Elizabeth Gandhi and Susannah Howieson; his father, Wylie; a brother, Shannon; and a granddaughter.
After Dr. Vale’s competition with Dr. Guillemin ended and the two men had reconciled, Dr. Guillemin recalled how a psychiatrist friend had advised him at the time to reread the Oedipus myth.
At a tribute on Dr. Vale’s 65th birthday, Dr. Guillemin quoted Freud’s analysis of the myth: “Part of any son worth his salt is planning the killing of the father he loves and taking his kingdom.”
Wylie W. Vale Jr., an eminent endocrinologist who helped identify the hormones through which the brain governs basic bodily functions and who was involved in a combative race for the Nobel Prize, died on Jan. 3 at his vacation home in Hana, Hawaii. He was 70.
The cause was not yet known, his wife, Mary Elizabeth, said.
Dr. Vale spent most of his career at the Salk Institute in San Diego, where he led efforts to identify the group of hormones involved in bodily functions like growth, reproduction and temperature. Their discovery was a landmark in the history of endocrinology, coming after more than 30 years of bitter competition.
The Nobel Prize went to others, but Dr. Vale “really, in the long run, had the biggest impact in the field,” said Bert O’Malley, an endocrinologist at the Baylor College of Medicine.
The first part of Dr. Vale’s career was spent as the principal scientist in the laboratory run by Roger Guillemin, who was locked in a 20-year race with a rival, Andrew Schally, to identify the hormones first.
The Guillemin-Schally war, described by Dr. Schally as “many years of vicious attacks and bitter retaliation,” ended in a draw in 1977 when the Nobel medicine committee gave each man a quarter share of a prize, the other half going to Dr. Rosalyn Yalow.
But the race was not over. An unexpected second phase erupted when Dr. Vale split from Dr. Guillemin and started competing against his former mentor to find the remaining hormones.
The serene campus of the Salk Institute, a plaza that overlooks the Pacific Ocean, then became the home to two laboratories locked in a race for scientific glory, as Dr. Vale and Dr. Guillemin sought to prove that each could succeed without the other’s help.
“They sharpened their swords and went at it full bore,” said Ronald Evans, a hormone expert at the Salk Institute.
Dr. Vale’s first target was the master hormone known as CRF, or corticotrophin releasing factor, which integrates and controls the body’s response to stress. Dr. Guillemin and Dr. Schally had spent seven years trying to isolate CRF before giving up and moving on to easier targets. Dr. Vale discovered CRF in 1981 and the next year found a second hormone, called the growth hormone releasing factor, or GRF, which had also eluded the older scientists. GRF controls the body’s growth.
Endocrinologists watched in amazement as the battle over the hormones raged. But they let the fight continue, mostly because of the importance of finding the hormones, but also because the dueling labs had acquired expertise in processing hundreds of thousands of sheep, pig and beef brains obtained from slaughterhouses for the research. It was a semi-industrial operation in which few others cared to join.
Despite the pressure of the competition, first with Dr. Schally and then with his own mentor, Dr. Vale maintained his easygoing Texan style and sense of humor. By contrast, Dr. Guillemin, born in Dijon, France, in 1924, brought an immigrant’s intensity to his work. He was also, like his rival Dr. Schally, loath to share credit for his lab’s achievements with his younger colleagues.
Toward the end of the fight with Dr. Schally, Dr. Vale became disenchanted with his mentor’s single-minded quest for scientific renown. During his search for GRF, Dr. Vale wrote the chemical formula for the hormone — it had not yet been published — on a large blackboard, which the members of Dr. Guillemin’s lab could see through the window every morning as they left the Salk parking lot. The formula was a decoy, intended to mislead the rival team. Dr. Vale kept the correct version on a piece of paper in his wallet.
Dr. Guillemin was aghast at the challenge from his scientific “son,” a man whom he had trained for his doctorate. Though he succeeded in finding the CRF and GRF hormones independently, in both cases Dr. Vale’s lab beat him to the punch.
Wylie Walker Vale Jr. was born in Houston on July 3, 1941. He attended Rice University and, after hearing Dr. Guillemin lecture on the releasing factors, as the brain’s hormones are known, joined Dr. Guillemin’s lab at the Baylor College of Medicine, earning his Ph.D. in 1964.
Dr. Vale’s principal task was to detect the releasing factors’ whereabouts in the large volumes of tissue from the sheep hypothalamus, a region at the base of the mammalian brain. He helped Dr. Guillemin to his first success, the identification of TRF, or thyrotropin releasing factor. Like the other releasing factor hormones, TRF is produced in the hypothalamus and reaches its target cells in the pituitary gland, just below the base of the brain. A second hormone, which is released by the pituitary in response to TRF, controls the thyroid gland and the body’s temperature control system.
In 1970, Dr. Guillemin moved his team to the Salk Institute. Over the next three years, Dr. Vale played a central role in the lab’s discovery of LRF, the releasing factor that controls the whole reproductive system, and somatostatin, a releasing factor hormone that inhibits the body’s growth.
Dr. Vale founded two companies to exploit his discoveries. One, Neurocrine Biosciences, is testing drugs that block the action of CRF that may help manage clinical depression. The other, AcceleronPharma, is testing drugs for treating anemia.
He also served as president of the American Endocrine Society and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Besides his wife, who is known as Betty and whom he met in high school in Houston, Dr. Vale is survived by two daughters, Elizabeth Gandhi and Susannah Howieson; his father, Wylie; a brother, Shannon; and a granddaughter.
After Dr. Vale’s competition with Dr. Guillemin ended and the two men had reconciled, Dr. Guillemin recalled how a psychiatrist friend had advised him at the time to reread the Oedipus myth.
At a tribute on Dr. Vale’s 65th birthday, Dr. Guillemin quoted Freud’s analysis of the myth: “Part of any son worth his salt is planning the killing of the father he loves and taking his kingdom.”
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