Cornell University Medical School Research Articles

Bacteriostatic cells instead of bacteriostatic antibiotics?

This year we commemorate the centennial of the birth of the mature concept of bacteriostasis by John W. Churchman at Cornell University Medical School. The term bacteriostasis has primarily been applied to antibiotics (bacteriostatic antibiotics). In this Opinion paper, we are revisiting this concept by suggesting that bacteriostasis essentially reflects a distinct cellular status (or "cell variant") characterized by the inability to be killed as a consequence of an antibiotic-induced stress impacting on bacterial physiology/metabolism (growth). Note that the term "bacteriostasis" should not be associated only with antimicrobials but with many stressful conditions. In that respect, the drug promotion of bacteriostasis might resemble other types of stress-induced cellular differentiation, such as sporulation, in which spores can be considered "bacteriostatic cells" or perhaps as persister bacteria, which can become "normal cells" again when the stressful conditions have abated.IMPORTANCEThis year we commemorate the centennial of the birth of the mature concept of bacteriostasis by John W. Churchman at Cornell University Medical School. The term bacteriostasis has primarily been applied to antibiotics (bacteriostatic antibiotics). In this Opinion paper, we are revisiting this concept by suggesting that some antibiotics are drugs that induce bacteria to become bacteriostatic. Cells that are unable to multiply, thereby preventing the antibiotic from exerting major lethal effects on them, are a variant ("different") type of cells, bacteriostatic cells. Note that the term "bacteriostasis" should not be associated only with antimicrobials but with many stressful conditions. In that respect, the drug promotion of bacteriostasis might resemble other types of stress-induced cellular differentiation, such as sporulation, in which spores can be considered "bacteriostatic cells" or perhaps as persister bacteria, which can become "normal cells" again when the stressful conditions have abated.

Editorial introductions.

Current Opinion in Neurology was launched in 1988. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The field of neurology is divided into 14 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Journal's Section Editors for this issue. SECTION EDITORS Bruce T. VolpeBruce T. VolpeBruce T. Volpe obtained his medical degree from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, and trained in medicine at the University of Chicago and Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, USA, and then trained in neurology at Cornell University Medical School, USA. He is an emeritus Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Cornell, and he is now a Professor of Molecular Medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine / Hofstra University / Northwell Health, USA. He has explored the cognition of patients with corpus callosum section for epilepsy control, developed behavioral analysis of animals exposed to stroke, and worked to develop the first interactive robotic devices to improve motor recovery after clinical stroke. He is now at the Feinstein Institute where he is exploring the quantitative histopathology of the brain after injury with autoantibodies. These projects with immunologists explore mechanisms of neurotoxicity of antibodies and other toxic molecules that are found in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder, autism, and survivors of overwhelming sepsis. The acute and chronic vulnerability of the hippocampal neurons and now other neurons in the hippocampal – entorhinal and amygdalar networks suggest new windows of therapeutic opportunity.

Gerhard Giebisch (1927–2020): A Leader in Kidney Physiology

Gerhard Giebisch (1927–2020): A Leader in Kidney Physiology

First Person: Paul Bunn, Jr, MD, FASCO

First Person: Paul Bunn, Jr, MD, FASCO

Lester Reed: A “complex” man who loved science

Lester J. Reed, a pioneer in the field of biochemistry, died peacefully in Austin, Texas on January 14, 2015 at the age of 90. Lester Reed was born in New Orleans on January 3, 1925. He showed an early interest in chemistry, having his own laboratory in a shed under his boyhood home. He received his Bachelors of Science from Tulane in 1943, where he worked with William Shive, and earned his doctorate from the University of Illinois in 1946, where he worked with Reynold Fuson. Lester was 21 when he earned his doctorate. He then moved to Cornell University Medical School for a two-year postdoctorate in the laboratory of Vincent du Vigneaud. Two momentous events occurred during this short period: Lester was introduced to the field of biochemistry, and he met and married the love of his life, Janet Gruschow. In 1948, at age 23, Lester was recruited to the Chemistry Department at the University of Texas at Austin by Shive, who had moved there from Tulane. He joined a team led by Roger Williams studying vitamins. Lester isolated and identified the “acetate-replacing factor,” first observed by Esmond Snell, as lipoic acid. Later, working in collaboration with Eli Lilly and Co., they were able to purify about 30 mg of lipoic acid from over 10 tons of liver tissue!

Twinning and Branch Campuses: The Professorial Obstacle

Branch campuses, twinning arrangements, and other manifestations of cross-border higher education are booming. Universities in Europe, Australasia, and North America see a huge market by offering their degrees in other countries. At the same time, Singapore and several of the states in the Arabian Gulf have identified themselves as educational centers and are attracting international higher education providers. In the Gulf, there is even competition for attracting overseas universities. China has opened its doors to foreign institutions, and India is moving in this direction. While there are no accurate numbers, more than 500 branch campuses exist worldwide—plus thousands of “twinned” programs. In addition, the phenomenon of the “American University of . . .” manifests another trend in crossborder higher education. There are a dozen or more such universities, some of which have a direct link with a US university while many simply use the name “American” and offer a US-style curriculum in English in a non-US setting. If the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) becomes part of the structure of international academic arrangements, the numbers of all kinds of cross-border institutions will increase even faster. One significant problem exists with these arrangements. Who is teaching the students at these branch campuses? What does a degree from a university signify if the teaching staff are not from the university offering the degree? To use the McDonald's analogy—is the meal (degree) a true McDonald's hamburger if only the recipe (the curriculum) comes from McDonalds. The rest of the process—the ingredients (facilities) and the cooks (professors)—are local, rather than from the sponsoring institution. Should a university in the United Kingdom (or another country) claim to offer a degree overseas if only the curriculum is from the sponsoring school, perhaps along with an element of quality control? With little data indicating the proportion of faculty members from the home universities teaching at branch or twinning campuses, anecdotal evidence shows that the numbers are small and most of the teaching is carried out by professors who are not faculty from the sponsoring institution. Even when they do come from the home university, faculty teaching at branch or twinned campuses are generally not the “star” research-active professors. It is not known if some of the recent high-prestige universities that have entered the branch campus business—the University of Chicago, the Cornell University Medical School, the University of Nottingham, and others—have a different profile than the many more average institutions thus far engaged.

Christopher Dyer Saudek, MD: Diabetes Expert and Implantable Insulin Pump Pioneer

Christopher Dyer Saudek, MD Christopher Dyer Saudek, MD, was a pioneer in the development of implantable insulin pumps, which brought freedom and flexibility to the field of diabetes. Saudek was born to Robert and Elizabeth Saudek in 1942. (Robert Saudek was the creator of the 1950s critically acclaimed television series Omnibus .) The young Saudek grew up in Bronxville, New York, and, along with his siblings, would often accompany his father on Sunday mornings to New York City. Standing just off camera, the youngsters would watch dress rehearsals of performances for Omnibus , which in turn kindled Christopher’s lifelong interest in theater and music. (It is a surprising twist that he chose medicine as his career, but it is no surprise that he was highly successful in his choice.) Throughout his public school years, Saudek excelled in academics, sports, orchestra, and student government. After graduating from Bronxville High School in 1959, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in 1963 and his medical degree from Cornell University Medical School in 1966. He subsequently trained in internal medicine at Chicago’s Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Hospital and in endocrinology and metabolism at Harvard Medical School and Boston City Hospital. Dr. Saudek was a fellow at the National Institutes of Health and was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow (1979–1980). He taught at Cornell Medical School for 8 years before arriving at Johns Hopkins University in 1980. He was part of a group of researchers that described the early use of hemoglobin A1c as a measure of glycemia in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1976 (1). The academic experiences from his early years as a young faculty member provided the physiological, health policy, and teaching expertise that would be the foundation for a stellar career as a diabetes …

Craig Donald Burrell

Craig Donald Burrell, physician, Sandoz executive, and past president of the New York Academy of Sciences, died on 20 November 2009 at the Lutheran Medical Centre, Brooklyn, from a massive...

A Gender Transformation in Urology

A Gender Transformation in Urology

Congenital elevation of the scapula : Robert D. Schrock MD (1884-1960) . The 9th president of the AAOS 1940.

Dr. Robert D. Schrock was born in 1884 in Delaware, Ohio [3]. His father, William A., was a physician, as was his son, Robert D., Jr. The family subsequently moved to Decatur, Indiana. Dr. Robert Schrock obtained his undergraduate work at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 1908 [2] and his medical degree at Cornell University Medical School in 1912 [2]. He completed postgraduate work at the New York Hospital in New York City. He briefly practiced in Omaha with Dr. John Lord, then served as a surgeon in WW I, working under Lt. Col. Joel Goldthwait in France. After the war he returned to Omaha to again practice with Lord. In 1921 he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Nebraska School of Medicine and became Professor and Chair in 1932, a post he held until 1949, when he became Professor Emeritus.Dr. Schrock became active in many medical organizations and in 1928 was elected President of the Clinical Orthopaedic Society, one of the two major groups that founded the AAOS, and was also active in the other, the American Orthopaedic Association. He was, as a result, involved in the early foundations of the AAOS, and became its President in 1940. He served as a civilian consultant to the Secretary of War from 1943 to 1945. With great prescience he commented in his Presidential Address to the AAOS in 1941 about Board certification, “This is not a hallmark of excellence in perpetuity. Products are frequently certified for a definite period of time if maintained under certain optimum conditions. Some people, like products, improve with advancing years, others deteriorate and some in cold storage remain frigidly good but no better. Orthopaedic surgeons, like human beings, are influenced by environment, necessity, ambition, health and avocational interest in other pursuits of happiness…If the measure of continued merit is to be maintained through our oncoming years, there need be an awareness of change, open mindedness to new concepts, elasticity in viewpoint, with a ready reception and stimulating encouragement to the newer generation whose future is in the making” [3].The article we reprint describes a seemingly radical approach to a difficult problem: congenital elevation of the scapula (Sprengel’s deformity) [4]. Shrock noted the few previous attempts to address this problem were “…rather indefinite and in too many the results seemed discouraging. Most of the reports indicated considerable conservatism in the operative attack” [4]. He advocated “a far more radical procedure, but based upon the suggestions obtained from previous reports” [4]. As in earlier reports, he recommended sectioning the chondroosseous scapulothoracic bridge, but he then described a radical subperiosteal dissection of the scapula leaving the rhomboids, serratus magnus, and subscapularis muscles with the periosteal sleeve, then distally transplanting the entire scapula within that sleeve. (Interested readers can also see Campbell’s description in 1939 [1]). If this did not allow adequate drop of the scapula, he then performed an osteotomy at the base of the acromion. A postoperative dressing which maintained downward and backward pressure on the scapula was, he insisted, a critical detail. He reported two cases with good results in followup at 15 and 16 months postoperatively [4]. Dr. Robert D. Schrock is shown. Photograph is reproduced with permission and ©American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Fifty Years of Progress, 1983. ReferencesCampbell WC. Operative Orthopedics. Saint Louis, MO: CV Mosby Co; 1939.Cornell Alumni News. 1912. Cornell College Web site. Available at: http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/3529/5/014_36.pdf. Accessed August 17, 2007.Robert D. Schrock, M.D. 1884–1960. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 1961;43:155–157.Schrock RD. Congenital elevation of the scapula. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 1926;8:207–215.

King Kennard Holmes—Chair of the Department of Global Health of the University of Washington

In 2006, King Kennard Holmes became the Chair of the Department of Global Health of the University of Washington, where he has held faculty, hospital, and administrative positions since 1969. He has been the Director of the university's Centre for AIDS and STD since 1989, and from 1995 has led the Section of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the Harborview Medical Center, Seattle. Holmes earned a BA Cum Laude at Harvard in 1959 and an MD at the Cornell University Medical School in 1963. In 1967, he received his PhD in microbiology at the University of Hawaii.

25th Princeton Conference on Cerebrovascular Disease

The 25th Princeton Conference on Cerebrovascular Disease was held in Portland, Oregon, from May 19th to the 20th, 2006. This was the 50th year of this biannual meeting first held from January 24th to the 26th, 1954, in Princeton, New Jersey. Jim Toole recalled that the location and month of the Conference were selected to be remote enough and the weather inhospitable enough to insure maximum, continuous involvement by the participants in the meeting. The first 11 meetings were held in Princeton. Irving Wright, Professor of Clinical Medicine at Cornell University Medical School, was the Chairman of the first Conference. He had introduced the use of coumadin into medicine and directed the first major trial on oral anticoagulation (in acute myocardial infarction). Wright noted that with “considerable difficulty” he was able to find 38 physicians and scientists with a …

Obituary: Lorraine A. Flaherty (1946–2006)

On February 22, 2006, Lorraine (Lori) A. Flaherty, Ph.D., lost her long battle with cancer. As was her wish, she died at home with her family (husband Joe and children Joey and Amy) and close friends by her side. Born in Rochester, NY, on January 8, 1946, Lori received her B.S. in Biology from Tufts University in 1967 and her Ph.D. in Genetics from Cornell University Medical School in 1973. After completing her doctorate, she joined the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health as a research scientist and worked there until illness forced her to retire in January 2006. Throughout her career, Lori focused on the mouse as a model system for human disease and played a key role in the continued success of mouse genetics research at Wadsworth Center. In addition to her NIH-funded research programs, Lori served in a number of administrative positions during the course of over 30 years at Wadsworth Center, including Chief of the Laboratory of Mammalian Genomics, Director of the Histocompatibility and Paternity Testing Laboratory, Director of the Molecular Genetics Program, Director of the Kidney Disease Institute and Chief of the Laboratory of Immunology. Most recently, she was instrumental in developing the Genomics Institute at Wadsworth Center and served as its Director from 1999 until her retirement. In addition to her Wadsworth-related duties, she was Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the University at Albany; she also held adjunct faculty positions at Albany Medical College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, mentoring over two dozen postdoctoral fellows and graduate students during her career. She published over 140 scientific papers, held editorial posts with several peer-reviewed journals, served on advisory boards of a number of scientific organizations (e.g., Center for Rodent Genetics at NIEHS, Mouse Genome Informatics at The Jackson Laboratory) and served on NIH study sections for most of her career. Lori was well known for both her inquisitive mind and her love for cutting-edge technology. She continually searched for high-tech “toys” and made every attempt to bring all the latest technology in her field to the Wadsworth Center. She could easily be described as having multiple research careers. She first worked in immunogenetics, with particular emphasis on the major histocompatability complex, maintaining NIH grants for this research for over 20 years. In the next phase of her career, she examined the role of genetics, through mutagenesis studies, in other biological processes (e.g., development, differentiation). Finally, 10 years ago, she began to apply her expertise to the genetic dissection of mouse behavior. It is during this latter phase of her career that most IBANGS members came to know her. Active in our society for a number of years, she served as Secretary from 2002 to 2005 and recently received our first Lifetime Achievement Award (2005). She was also a regular participant in the Behavior Genetics Summer Schools and always enjoyed those sessions. She was never happier than when poring over data and discussing sometimes heatedly the results of a particular experiment. Even in the last few years, as her health deteriorated, her love of science and research kept her working at full capacity. Lori was sometimes “bigger than life” for those of us who knew her well, and her infectious laugh and scientific curiosity will be sorely missed.

Psychosomatic Medicine Brings Psychiatry Back to Its Roots

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Association NewsFull AccessPsychosomatic Medicine Brings Psychiatry Back to Its RootsEve BenderEve BenderSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:15 Oct 2004https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.39.20.0390018Much has changed since the 1800s, when psychiatrists were referred to as“ alienists” and their primary job was to remove people with mental illness from society. In those days, psychiatry was practiced outside the medical setting.Since that time, not only have psychiatry and the rest of medicine become integrated, but also a subspecialty has sprung out of the need to deal with the psychiatric aspects of diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other health problems, according to Jimmie Holland, M.D.As the Wayne E. Chapman Chair in psychiatric oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Holland has developed groundbreaking methods of diagnosing and treating psychiatric problems in people with cancer.Holland spoke to attendees at the plenary session of APA's fall component meetings in Washington, D.C., last month about the history of consultation-liaison psychiatry or psychosomatic medicine, as the field is increasingly becoming known.“This subspecialty is an important model for the survival of psychiatry in 21st-century medicine,” she said.Holland noted that physician Benjamin Rush made one of the first efforts to unite psychiatry with the rest of medicine. While working at Pennsylvania Hospital in 1811, Rush said “Man is said to be a compound of soul and body...[They] are so intimately united that one cannot be moved without the other.”Early in the 20th century, a historic educational initiative in psychiatry in North America took place at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, where Swiss-born psychiatrist Adolf Meyer, M.D., taught a course on psychobiology.Meyer coined the term “psychobiology” to emphasize his belief that mind and body were integrated, and that each influences the other. He also directed the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at the university, which opened in 1913.Through his teaching, Meyer “helped to break down the dualism of mind and body,” Holland said. He influenced the child-guidance movement of the 1920s and contributed to teachings on dynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.Holland said that George Henry, M.D., a senior physician at Bloomingdale Hospital at Cornell University Medical School, wrote the first paper about consultation-liaison psychiatry in a 1929 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.In his paper, Henry described the stigma that pervaded the general medical setting when it came to patients with mental illness. “When psychiatry is first introduced into a general hospital,” he wrote, “there is likely to be indifference or even resistance on the part of the hospital staff... .In one hospital, the superintendent said, `insanity is hopeless, and there are no insane patients in my hospital.'”From about 1930 to 1960, Holland said, the psychosomatic movement“ focused on finding a psychological basis for several major chronic diseases” such as peptic ulcer, asthma, hypertension, and cancer.During that era, she noted, “Patients were studied to determine the events or emotions that purportedly caused their cancer.”Proponents of the psychosomatic movement believed that childhood conflicts led to abnormal cell growth or that grief and stress could cause cancer, she added, and not only were these beliefs false, they may have “served to alienate the psychiatrist even further from his or her medical brethren,” Holland said, quoting Thomas Hackett, M.D., a leader in the field of psychosomatic medicine.Groundbreaking advances in psychiatry and general medicine provided the backdrop for a number of positive events that occurred after the 1970s: consultation-liaison psychiatry achieving subspecialty status and the development of disease-specific areas in consultation-liaison psychiatry, such as oncology, nephrology, and cardiology.Holland noted that consultation-liaison psychiatrists are seen by patients as “another white coat on the medical team who asks questions that are a little different,” and patients are less frightened in dealing with them because they don't have to walk down a hall to a psychiatry unit to get help for mental health problems. “The stigma is reduced,” she stated.As consultation-liaison psychiatrists, Holland said, “we have the ability to bring psychiatry closer to the field of medicine, where it has roots.”Holland is the recipient of APA's 2005 Adolf Meyer Award, which requires the presentation of a lecture at an APA meeting. APA established the award lecture in 1957 to advance psychiatric research by enabling psychiatrists to hear from leading scientists and to exchange new research information with outstanding colleagues.The next Adolf Meyer award lecture is scheduled to be presented at the 2005 Institute on Psychiatric Services in San Diego. ▪ ISSUES NewArchived

Lucian Leape and Healthcare Errors

Lucian L. Leape, MD, is a health policy analyst whose research has focused on error prevention and appropriateness of care. He is currently adjunct professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard, he was professor of surgery at Tufts University School of Medicine and chief of pediatric surgery at the New England Medical Center. He has been a leading advocate of the nonpunitive systems approach to the prevention of medical error and has led several studies of adverse drug events and their underlying systems failures. In addition, he has directed research into overuse and underuse of cardiovascular procedures. Dr. Leape was a founding director of the National Patient Safety Foundation, the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Error, and the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Session. He led the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's first Breakthrough Collaborative on Prevention of Adverse Drug Events. He was a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Quality of Health Care in America Committee, which recently released its reports, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. Recent awards include the Distinguished Service Award of the American Pediatric Surgical Association (1997), the Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award (1998), the Donabedian Award from the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association (1999), the Cheers Award from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (1999), and the Pinnacle Award from the American Pharmaceutical Association (2001). Dr. Leape is a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Medical School and trained in surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and at Boston Children's Hospital.

Arthur I. Holleb, M.D.

Arthur I. Holleb, M.D.

The Epithelial Sodium-Hydrogen Antiporter Na+/H+ Exchanger 3 Accumulates and Is Functional in Recycling Endosomes

Na+/H+ exchangers (NHEs) mediate electroneutral exchange of Na+ for H+ and thereby play a central role in pH regulation and Na+ homeostasis. NHE3, the predominant epithelial isoform, is found in apical membranes of renal and intestinal epithelial cells, where it contributes to NaCl (re)absorption. NHE activity has been detected in endomembrane vesicles of epithelial cells, but the precise compartment involved and its functional role have not been defined. Many aspects of the targeting machinery that defines the compartmentation and polarity of epithelia are also functional in nonepithelial cells. We therefore compared the targeting of NHE1, the basolateral isoform, with that of NHE3 in Chinese hamster ovary cells. To circumvent the confounding effects of endogenous exchangers, epitope-tagged constructs of NHE1 and NHE3 were stably expressed in antiport-deficient (AP-1) cells. While NHE1 was found almost exclusively in the surface membrane, NHE3 was also found intracellularly, accumulating in a juxtanuclear compartment. Confocal microscopy showed this compartment to be distinct from the Golgi, trans-Golgi network, and lysosomes. Instead, NHE3 colocalized with transferrin receptors and with cellubrevin, markers of recycling endosomes. The activity of NHE3 in endomembranes was assessed by targeting pH-sensitive probes to the recycling endosomes using a chimeric cellubrevin construct with an accessible extracellular epitope. Fluorescence ratio imaging indicated that cellubrevin resides intracellularly in an acidic compartment. In AP-1 cells, endosomal acidification was unaffected by omission of Na+ but was dissipated entirely by concanamycin, a blocker of H(+)-ATPases. In contrast, the cellubrevin compartment was more acidic in NHE3 transfectants, and the acidification was only partially reduced by concanamycin. Moreover, removal of extracellular Na+ resulted in a significant alkalization of the endocytic compartment. These results indicate that NHE3 is present and active in recycling endosomes. By recruiting NHE3 to the plasma membrane, modulation of vesicular traffic could contribute to the regulation of Na+ reabsorption across epithelia.

THE MOLECULAR ROOTS OF PAIN

There's an enormous need for us to know more about how to treat pain, said Kathleen M. Foley, a professor of neurology, neuroscience, and clinical pharmacology at Cornell University Medical School, New York City. Patients that I see with neuropathic pain, patients that I see with inflammatory pain—we don't have the best treatments. We have good treatments, but they are not enough. Foley, who is director of the World Health Organization's Collaborating Center for Cancer Pain Research & Education, addressed a symposium on new directions in pain research held late last month at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. Organized by a consortium of institutes and offices at NIH, the symposium brought together clinicians and scientists to share their knowledge in the interest of advancing pain research. In all, 350 people attended. Neuropathic pain, which is characterized by a spontaneous, burning pain, is caused by injury to a nerve, but it ...

Bone-Graft Surgery

Bone-Graft Surgery

The Use of Radionuclides in Orthopaedics

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 25, 1923 and graduated from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, with a doctor of medicine in 1948 and a doctor of philosophy from Lund University in 1954, G. C. H. Bauer (Fig. 1) was destined to become one of the leaders in orthopedic surgery in Sweden. After five years of experimental work at Lund and at the University of Washington Medical School in Seattle, he was appointed Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Lund University in 1962. His investigations received international recognition in the field of radioisotopes in bone. He demonstrated increased bone turnover in the bone above and below a healing fracture and in the contralateral limbs, introduced the term “osteopenia,’ and developed the mathematics of quantitation of formation and resorption of bone. Bauer was recalled to the United States as Professor of Surgery (orthopedics) at Cornell University Medical School in New York, where he served as Director of Research and Attending Orthopedic Surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery from 1962 to 1969. He pioneered application of bone scintigraphy to orthopedics. In 1969, he was appointed to the Professorship and Chairman of the Department of Orthopedics at Lund University in Sweden, a post he held for 20 years. Dr. Bauer received many honors. He was consultant to the International Atomic Energy Commission, National Institutes of Health, Rockefeller University, Swedish Research Council, and Swedish National Medical Board. He served as President of the Scandinavian Orthopedic Association, the Orthopedic Research Society, the Society of Nuclear Medicine, the Society of International Chirurgie Orthopedie a Traumatologie, and the International Society of Orthopedic Research (SIROT). Presently, he is a Fellow in the American College of Surgeons, corresponding member of the Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research Editorial Board, and an Honorary Member of the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons and The Hip Society (USA); he is an honorary member of many of the orthopedic societies of the world. In 1992, he was elected President of the Swedish Medical Society. In 1983, he assumed the Editorship-in-Chief of Acta Orthopedica Scandinavica, a premier publication among the periodicals of medical science.