Because
AIDS is a syndrome of opportunistic infections and other diseases
brought about by a failing immune system, researchers have been
drawn to AIDS from many disciplines. Dr. Henry Masur became
interested in AIDS as an expert in Pneumocystis carinii, a rare
cause of bacterial pneumonia usually seen only in patients with
severe immune disorders. He was on the faculty at Cornell University
in 1979 when a patient with Pneumocystis pneumonia came into
the emergency room. It was clear to me, because I knew
the literature very well, that it was very unusual for someone
to walk in, previously healthy, with Pneumocystis. As
several more cases, including men and women, appeared in the
New York area, it became increasingly evident that a new disease
was occurring.
Dr. Masur did not know it at the time, but he was among the
first physicians to see a patient with AIDS. As the strange
increase in P. carinii pneumonia began to appear in multiple
parts of the country, Dr. Masur moved to the NIH where he remembers
an environment ideally suited for tackling a complex emerging
disease like AIDS. We could get a lot of people who were
free to choose their own interests, he recalls, adding,
One of the real virtues of the NIH community is that theres
an expert on almost everything here.
As Dr. Masur describes his involvement in AIDS research, he
stresses the key contributions made by physician-investigators,
individuals on the front lines who care for patients while drawing
from basic research, links that often lead to new treatments.
Without these scientists, Dr. Masur believes, AIDS might not
have received such early research attention. It looked
like it was going to be a problem for them to take care of patients
clinically, he says, so they went to the laboratory
and came up with some of the initial answers.
Dr. Masur is currently chief of the critical care medicine department
at the NIH Clinical Center. He is a leading clinical researcher
who continues to study better ways to treat HIV disease and
its associated opportunistic infections. |