Research Interests
My research interests encompass interests in education, history of science and laboratory research. I am interested in research on pathogenic mechanisms, the possible use of bacteriophage as therapy, designing teaching materials, educational administration and designing individualized programs that will foster the abilities of students who will contribute significantly to the medical/scientific enterprise. These interests are detailed below.
Education: I am interested in how best to teach medical students and have developed a computer program to teach microbiology to medical students. This program is in use in over a dozen medical schools in the United States as well as several foreign countries. Information on this program can be seen at The Bugs Computer Program.
I am also interested in the training of scientific support personnel for the new bio-industrial complex. Increasingly, basic research is being done and supported by commercial concerns rather than by the government or charitable organizations. A fear engendered by this relatively new development has always been that if the enterprise of science is turned over to commercial interests that basic research – just finding out things for the fun of it -- will suffer and that this will lead to slowing of the progress of the whole enterprise. And it is certainly true that basic research is the foundation of all scientific development, witness, for example, restriction enzymes, discovered in a study of a rather obscure phenomenon of bacteriophage multiplication. To allay these fears, the enterprises of business and science need to define a new algorithm which would bring the vast resources of industry to bear on the process of basic science discovery and focus the expertise of active researchers on solutions to problems of commercial value and humanitarian import. This new algorithm needs to be supported by a legal base and rationally explained to the public. Thus I have aided in the development of and am director for a new MS degree focusing on biotechnology as well as two dual degrees, an MS/MBA and an MS/JD. Information on these degrees can be seen at Master's Degree Programs, College of Medicine.
History of Science: I am interested in how bacteriophage were discovered and how they have contributed to the development of molecular biology and biomedical and biotechnological engineering.
Laboratory Research: I am interested in the use of bacteriophage as antibacterial agents in disease. With the increasing incidence of bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics, a renewed interest in bacteriophage for the treatment of disease has developed. Dr. Paul Gulig and I have shown that bacteriophage can completely prevent skin infection and septicemia caused by Vibrio vulnificus in a mouse model of the disease. Vibrio vulnificus can cause a lethal septicemia in some people after the consumption of raw oysters.
We are now doing experiments to see if we can "depurate" oysters, so that raw oysters would be safe for human consumption, using these same bacteriophage. So far, we have shown that 99% of the bacteria in the oysters can be killed but that there is a resistant population that is not killed.
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