May 11, 2004 NIH Record - National Institutes of Health (NIH)

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May 11, 2004
Vol. LVI, No. 10

Database Promotes Sharing, Cost-Saving at NIH

NIAID Explores the Many Faces of Transplantation

Day for Kids Brings Out Teacher in NIH'ers

Klein Wins Mathilde Solowey Award, To Lecture May 20 in Lipsett

NIGMS's Charland Finds Fulfillment on the Farm

NIH Observes Earth Day, Apr. 21

NIH Parenting Festival Set, May 26

NIH Asian/Pacific Islander Heritage Programs

Letters to the Editor

Study Subjects Sought

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Dilemmas of Dearly Departing
'Great Teacher' Payne Examines End-Of-Life Issues at Grand Rounds

By Carla Garnett

Dr. Richard Payne

It's not something most people want to think about, even though it's one of the two sure things in life. Not taxes...the other one. It's not surprising then that even seriously ill people, their family and loved ones — and perhaps especially their doctors and nurses — may all be reluctant to consider that the end may be near. Nevertheless, in recent times the medical community has increasingly focused on finding the best way to come to terms with terminal illness, grappling with what guest speaker Dr. Richard Payne calls the "the big questions or emerging problems" in palliative medicine.
MO R E . . .

MRC's Weissmann Discusses Prion Transmission

By Rich McManus

The name of the mysterious pathogen that causes the brain-rotting transmissable spongiform encephalopathies such as scrapie, "mad cow" disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease sounds like it came from a bad 1950's sci-fi film — prions. And according to Dr. Charles Weissmann, professor and senior research scientist at the Medical Research Council prion unit at University College, London — who lectured here Apr. 7 — prions have devilish characteristics that wouldn't put them beyond the pale of an old Outer Limits rerun: though mercifully rare — striking only one person in a million yearly — the buggers are wildly infectious, capable of surviving withering attempts at cleansing and able to stick stubbornly to such surfaces as plastic and stainless steel.
M O R E . . .