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The
nation's first research university,
The Johns Hopkins University
opened in Baltimore in 1876.
Founding president Daniel Coit
Gilman laid out his vision for this new type of institution
in his inaugural address.
"What are we aiming at?" he asked. "The
encouragement of research ...and
the advancement of individual scholars, who by their
excellence will advance the sciences
they pursue, and the society where they dwell."
Today, his philosophy is widely accepted, but Gilman in his
day was a pioneer in
suggesting that research and teaching should occur in the
same institution, and that each
would strengthen the other. "The best teachers are
usually those who are free,
competent and willing to make original researches in the
library and the laboratory,"
Gilman said. "The best investigators are usually those
who have also the
responsibilities of instruction, gaining thus the incitement
of colleagues, the
encouragement of pupils, the observation of the
public."
The realization of Gilman's philosophy at Hopkins, and at
other institutions that later
attracted Hopkins-trained scholars, revolutionized higher
education in America, leading to
the research university system as it exists today.
Today,
Hopkins
remains a leader, in both teaching and research. The
School of Medicine is one of the
best anywhere, and the School of Public Health is
renowned for contributions
to health and preventive medicine worldwide. The other
divisions, though smaller -- by
design -- than similar schools in other institutions, include
eminent scholars and many
highly ranked departments.
From the introduction of surgical gloves to the
identification of the genetic basis of
cancers, from laying the groundwork for the science of
spectroscopy to the invention of
the all-plastic battery,
Johns
Hopkins research has contributed to the betterment of the
human condition for nearly a
century and a quarter.
Here is a sampling of
recent discoveries at Johns Hopkins:
The Color of the Universe is...
Turquoise!
Astronomers at Johns Hopkins have produced a unique new
insight into the nature of existence: They've determined
the color of the universe, or more
specifically, the average color of all the light of the
universe. The result of their calculations: a shade of pale
turquoise. Although the scientists joke about promoting
"color of the universe T-shirts and coffee mugs," their
findings comes from a serious attempt to use the light from
thousands of galaxies to assess scientists' theories of the
history of star formation and stellar population
dynamics.
Mini-Lasers and Synthetic Sapphire Can
Produce Speedier Computers
By using light beams in place of metal wires, engineers at
Johns Hopkins have devised a
cost-effective means to speed up the way
microchips "talk" to each other. In this method, a
signal that originates in a wire is transformed into light
and beamed through a transparent sapphire substrate via a
laser that is only slightly larger than a human hair.
Microlenses and other optical components collect the light
beam and guide it to another place on the microchip or,
using an optical fiber, move it to another chip."It really
promises to revolutionize how computer systems for homes and
businesses are put together," says Andreas G. Andreou, who
led the research team.
Low Blood Sugar May Affect Newborn's
Brain
Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, may have a significant effect
on activity patterns in a newborn's brain, say researchers at
Johns Hopkins Children's Center. The researchers, who worked with
scientists at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in
Philadelphia, studied piglet brains, which are metabolically and
structurally close to those of humans. "While some researchers
question whether hypoglycemia in infants has long-term
detrimental health effects on the brain, we believe it does,"
says Children's Center neonatologist Jane McGowan, M.D. "Both
learning and memory may be affected by any alteration of the
ability of the brain to make synapses."
Preparing to Probe a Comet's Icy
Heart
Capping nearly two years of detailed development and assembly,
engineers at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics
Laboratory are putting the last touches on
the CONTOUR spacecraft, which will provide the closest and most
detailed look ever into the icy heart of a comet. Slated to
launch in 2002, CONTOUR (Comet Nucleus Tour) will encounter
at least two diverse comets as they zip through the inner solar
system. From as close as 100 miles (160 kilometers) away, the
spacecraft will snap high-resolution photos of the comet nucleus,
map the types of rock and ice on the nucleus, and analyze the
composition of the surrounding gas and dust.
Contraceptive Gel Aims to Block "Sperm and
Germs"
Johns Hopkins scientists have teamed with private industry
researchers to develop
a new type of contraceptive gel that is also
designed to protect against sexually transmitted infections.
The gel, known by the brand name
BufferGelTM, will be the first of
its kind to begin clinical efficacy trials at the National
Institutes of Health's Contraceptive Clinical Trials Network. The
trial will test whether women using BufferGel and a diaphragm can
reduce the risk of pregnancy as effectively as women using a
conventional spermicidal detergent and a diaphragm. "BufferGel
simply reinforces the mild acidity that occurs in the vagina
naturally," says Richard Cone (pictured at right),
professor of biophysics in
Hopkins' Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. "The normal acidity
levels in the vagina can readily kill sperm and many of the germs
that cause sexually transmitted infections."
Ancient Eco-Catastophe: Blame it on a
Supernova?
An exploding star may have destroyed part of Earth's
protective ozone layer 2 million years ago, devastating some
forms of ancient marine life, according to a new theory
that brings together puzzling clues from several fields of
research, including paleontology, geology and astronomy.
Narciso Benítez, an associate research scientist in
astronomy at Johns Hopkins, says the "missing smoking gun"
that brought the clues together was the revelation that a
stellar cluster with many large, short-lived stars prone to
producing supernovae had passed near Earth's solar system
several million years ago.
Understanding a Mouse's Appetite Could
Help Fight Obesity in Humans
Johns Hopkins scientists recently reported
success in figuring out how an
experimental compound prevents mice from recognizing that
it's time to eat, profoundly suppressing appetite and
causing weight loss. The compound, called C75, alters
the natural balance of brain messengers that normally send
signals of hunger during fasting and of satiety when full.
In both lean and obese mice, C75 affects those signals, the
scientists found. The research is important because obesity
in humans is a major public health problem. While mice are
not men, there are common pathways in fundamental
activities.
Boating and Alcohol Make for an Unsafe
Mix
Alcohol consumption increases the risk of death for both
passengers and operators on recreational boats, regardless of
whether the boat is underway or stationary, according to a new
study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health. Because the
risk of boating and alcohol has never really
been documented, an easy assumption is that boating fatalities
involving alcohol are a result of a drunken operator crashing the
boat. But the truth is that most deaths are due to drowning, and
the majority involve falling overboard. Only about half of the
fatalities involve operator error, and about half of all deaths
occur when the boat is not even moving, the researchers
found.
"Smart Bombs" of Bacteria May Help Combat
Cancer
Scientists at Johns Hopkins's Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer
Center have begun recruiting an unlikely ally in the war against
cancer: a genetically modified soil bacterium, Clostridium novyi
(C. novyi). Clinicians one day may be able to use it as a kind of
biological smart bomb against tumors.
Oncology professors Bert Vogelstein (pictured at right)
and Kenneth Kinzler are
developing the new approach to take advantage of the oxygen-poor
environment inside some cancers. Tests in mice showed the
bacteria worked almost exactly as they'd hoped, wiping out cells
within cancerous tissue, but dying out as they approached the
oxygen-rich healthy tissue on the perimeters of the
tumor.
Daily Dose of Iron Helps Rural African
Children Learn to Walk and Talk
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, working with the Ministry of Health of Zanzibar, found
that
iron supplements improved motor and language
development in rural African preschoolers. Iron deficiency
anemia is associated with developmental delays that lead to poor
performance on scales of mental and motor development among
infants and toddlers, as well as on tests of intelligence and
cognitive function among preschool and school-age children. "Our
results highlight the presence of severely anemic children in
malaria-endemic African communities who are not detected by the
current health care system, and who appear to be at significant
developmental risk," says lead researcher Rebecca Stoltzfus.
"Before intervention, children with severe anemia showed distinct
delays in both gross motor and language milestones for their age,
and daily oral iron syrup helped to correct those
deficits."
Preparing for a Flight to Pluto... and
Beyond
NASA has selected a team led by The Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory and Southwest Research Institute in
San Antonio, Tex., to develop the first mission
to explore Pluto and the Kuiper Belt region beyond the distant
planet. APL will manage the mission for NASA and design,
build and operate the New Horizons spacecraft. The goal is a 2006
launch and arrival at Pluto before 2020. Pluto is the most remote
planet in the solar system; its elliptical orbit has an average
distance of 3.66 billion miles (5.91 billion kilometers) from the
sun -- nearly 40 times the distance between Earth and the sun.
The
Kuiper Belt is a source of comets and believed to be the source
of much of Earth's water and the simple chemical precursors of
life.
Tissue Engineers Hope Tiny Scaffolds Will
Someday Anchor Artificial Body Parts
Two new researchers from Hopkins's recently launched Whitaker
Biomedical Engineering Institute are tackling a relatively new
field of science:
tissue engineering. In particular,
Jennifer Elisseeff and Kevin Yarema (pictured at right)
are looking at the
interaction between the body's cells and the scaffold surfaces
required for complex tissue to grow. The idea is to create a tiny
scaffold of biodegradable polymers or other materials upon which
researchers hope to build knee cartilage, liver tissue, a heart
valve, or, someday, an entire beating human heart. Elisseeff is
working on new biomaterials for scaffolds. Yarema considers
himself a cell engineer whose goal is "to make the scaffolding
more friendly to the cell or the cell more friendly to the
scaffolding."
Mysterious Aquaporin Opens a Window to
Treatments for a Host of Diseases
Because 70 percent of the human body is composed of water,
physiologists had long been obsessed with the mysterious
mechanism of how cells regulate the liquid. Then, in 1992, Johns
Hopkins biological chemist Peter Agre stumbled upon the solution:
an unknown protein, lodged in the
plasma membrane, that acted as a pore or water channel through
which fluids flow in and out of the membrane. He named the
protein Aquaporin-1. Defects of Aquaporin in the eye lead to
cataracts; in the salivary and lacrimal glands they result in
Sjogrens syndrome, or dry mouth. But no one had tested a human
with a missing or defective Aquaporin protein, because
identification of patients like these would be extremely
difficult. Until recently.
'Audio Search Engine' Will Search Holocaust
Archives
Johns Hopkins engineers are developing a
speech recognition system to help
historians sift through thousands of hours of interviews
collected from Holocaust survivors and witnesses in languages
other than English. The system is intended to be a key component
of an "audio search engine" that would allow historians and
educators to easily comb through a vast collection of videotaped
interviews to find personal accounts of specific Holocaust
experiences. "Some of the technology for doing this with English
language recordings already exists," says researcher Bill
Byrne (pictured at right) .
"Our goal is to develop new techniques to streamline the process
and lower the cost of developing systems in new
languages."
Droplets in Salt Crystals Confirm Ocean
Changes
Microscopic water droplets trapped inside
ancient salt crystals have provided evidence supporting a
radical theory that the chemical composition of Earth's oceans
has changed over the past 500 million years. "We're not talking
about gigantic changes," says Lawrence Hardie, professor of earth
and planetary sciences and the originator of the theory. "It's
not going to suddenly change from what it is today, for example,
into something that is very alkaline, but we do see changes in
the levels of some of the major chemical components dissolved in
ocean water, and these changes may be significant enough to
affect marine life forms." Hardie's theory may help scientists
understand the origins of Britain's White Cliffs of Dover and
other mammoth chalk deposits.
Mistrust, Religious Beliefs Hinder Blood and
Organ Donation
Persistent mistrust of doctors and hospitals, and religious
misconceptions may explain why more people, especially
minorities, do not become blood and organ donors. In a study
evaluating donor interest, researchers from The Johns Hopkins
School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health found
that African-American women were least willing to donate blood,
with only 41 percent reporting they would. African-American men
were least willing to become organ donors upon their deaths.
Mistrust of hospitals and concerns about
discrimination in hospitals explained most of the differences in
willingness to donate blood, while religious beliefs
explained most of the differences observed in willingness to
donate organs among the four race and gender groups, says L.
Ebony Boulware, M.D., M.P.H., lead author of the
study.
Single Cell in the Eye Seems to Control
Internal Clock
Using genetically engineered mice, Johns Hopkins researchers and
other scientists have shown for the first time that
a single kind of cell in the retina seems to
detect light for the body's internal clock and for the pupil.
The research represents an important step in understanding how
light resets the internal clock, or circadian rhythm, and how the
pupil opens and closes in response to light. The researchers
focused on the role of a protein called melanopsin. "The
melanopsin-containing cells create a light-detecting network
across the retina in the mice," says King-Wai Yau, Ph.D. "The
cells seem sensitive to how much light there is and how long it
lasts, unlike the cells involved in vision, which detect borders
between light and dark."
Lifting Device Helps Handicapped Kids Enjoy
the Playground
For children who use walkers or wheelchairs, the elevated
activity platforms on many playgrounds remain sadly out of reach.
To remedy this, three Johns Hopkins undergraduate engineering
students have invented a portable device that can lift a disabled
child and his or her caretaker more than 3 feet above the ground,
giving them
easy access to play structures. The
students came up with an safe and clean power source for their
device: a scuba tank.
New Test Detects Early Breast
Cancer
Even with advances in mammography, breast cancer in young women
is difficult to detect because their breast tissue tends to be
very dense. But because most breast cancers begin in the lining
of the milk ducts,
a new test developed at Hopkins may do
what mammography often can't do--pick up very early forms of
breast cancer in these younger patients. In the test, saline
is injected into the ducts through a tiny catheter inserted into
the nipple and then flushed out-along with duct cells. Then, like
cervical cells from a Pap smear, these cells are analyzed under a
microscope. Researcher Saraswati Sukumar, who developed the test,
looks specifically for signs of methylation, a process that
silences genes that normally suppress tumors.
Keeping an Electronic Eye on
Truckers
Using an innovative electronic screening process developed by The
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, state and federal
transportation agencies recently began testing
a high-tech
program designed to improve motor-carrier safety enforcement on
the state's highways. The system uses a pocket-size
transponder attached to a truck's windshield and sensors embedded
in and alongside the road to automatically check a moving
vehicle's weight, height, safety history and tax and registration
status. The sensors detect height and weight; the transponder
identifies the truck and allows the system to quickly check the
carrier's safety and credentialing information in state and
federal databases. Cleared vehicles are signaled to bypass the
weigh station without stopping, while those flagged "at risk" are
directed into the station for closer
inspection.
Special Reports:
The Threat of Bioterror
For years, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian
Biodefense Strategies had warned about the prospect of a deadly
attack involving biological agents, and they urged public
officials to prepare for such an event. Then, last fall, this
scary idea suddenly burst from the realm of the purely
hypothetical. Johns Hopkins Public Health magazine prepared a
special edition filled
with articles focusing on "The Terror
Epidemic."
Trials and Tribulations
The death of a healthy volunteer during a medical experiment last
year forced Johns Hopkins to confront tough questions about its
program for
ensuring patient safety in clinical research trials. Johns
Hopkins Magazine produced an in-depth report on the tragic event
and the changes adopted by the university in its
aftermath.
Learn more about
what Johns Hopkins researchers are working on
at the following selected sites:
Health and Medicine
Social Sciences, Humanities and the
Arts
Natural Sciences, Engineering and
Technology
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