Report of The 93rd Annual Meeting of The United States and
Canadian Academy of Pathology
March 6-12, 2004 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
|
A group of Awardees
Rear L-R: David Hardwick (President’s Award); Mark Rubin (Young
Investigator Award); Donald Antonioli (FK Mostofi Award); Kalman Kovacs
(Distinguished Pathologist Award);
Front L-R: Aidan Carney (Maude Abbott Lecturer); KY Oh (Surgical Pathology
Award); Daria Haust (Distinguished Pathologist Award); Virginia Li Volsi
(President of USCAP)
This meeting was attended by 3091
delegates. Six hundred and seventeen (617) of them came from 54 countries
outside the United States and Canada .
Dr. Virginia LiVolsi (University of Pennsylvania) was President from the
time of the last meeting. She handed over the Presidency to Dr. Ricardo
Lloyd (Mayo Clinic, Rochester).
Virtually all of the 2207 scientific abstracts were submitted electronically.
The review panel selected 70% of them for presentation. The cost of the
electronic submissions was partly borne by contributors who were charged
$25 per abstract. All the abstracts are now on line at http://www.uscap.org
The Stowell-Orbison Award attracted 407 entries (an increase of 35% above
the previous year) 212 of these were accepted. Four co-equal Awards and
4 Certificates of Merit were presented.
Below: Stowell-Orbison Awards: Schuter Sanderson (Mayo
Clinic); David Geho (NIH); David Hwang (University of Toronto); Lucien
Chirieac (MD Anderson).
The ADASP/USCAP Autopsy Award winning abstract was:
Pulmonary Pathology of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Toronto. DM
Hwang, DW Chamberlain, SM Poutanen, SL Asa, JW Butany. University Health
Network, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
This was a topical report on the deaths from the SARS outbreak that occurred
in Toronto last year.
Above: Mary Sidawy, Henry Azar and Sana Tabbara.
Above: Joyce-Rachel John, David Bagshaw and Erica Renzo.
All from Nature Publishing. This prestigious company has just taken over
the publication of all the USCAP sponsored journals.
The Long Course directed by Drs. Robert H. Young (Mass General/ Harvard
) and Thomas M. Ulbright (Indiana University) was attended by 861 registrants.
It received very good reviews from the registrants. The course came with
an extensive “handout” and a CD that contained microscopic
images. It is on the web site and it will be published in Modern Pathology
next year.
The Short Courses were again popular and well attended, with an average
attendance of 80. Over half of them were accompanied by a CD.
Two all-day Special Courses on Molecular Pathology were conducted.
Twenty-two Companion Societies met on Saturday night and Sunday. The International
Society of Bone and Soft Tissue Pathology was represented for the first
time this year, and the American Society for Clinical Pathology was approved
as a Companion Society to start meeting next year in San Antonio, when
there will be 23 Companion Societies.
Greg Fuller, David Walker (Timely Topics Lecturer)
wearing a silver, Texas Star Ranger badge presented to him by Greg Fuller,
and Virginia Li Volsi, President of the USCAP.
Richard Zarbo and Celeste Powers.
Rachel Sargent and Raja Seethala.
The Nathan Kaufman Timely Topic Lecture was given by Dr. David Walker
(University of Texas Medical Branch/Galveston) entitled: “Diagnosis
of Infectious Diseases: A Critical Opportunity for Pathology in the Era
of Bioterrorism and Emerging Infections”.
Dr. J. Aidan Carney (Mayo Clinic, Rochester), presented the Maude Abbott
Lecture entitled “The Complex of Spotty Pigmentation, Myxomas, Endocrine
Over activity and Schwannomas (Carney complex): Discover to Gene”.
Distinguished Pathologists Awards were presented to Drs. M. Daria Haust
and Kalman T. Kovacs both from Canada.
The President’s Award was presented this year to Dr. David Hardwick,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
The F.K.Mostofi Distinguished Service Award went to Dr. Donald Antonioli,
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA
The Young Investigator Award was presented to Dr. Mark A. Rubin, Brigham
and Women’s Hospital, Boston.
The Castleman Award (for the best published paper in the field of human
pathology) went to Dr. Anirban Maitra, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
MD, for his paper entitled “Widespread Requirement for Hedgehog
Ligand Stimulation in Growth of Digestive Tract Tumours” published
in Nature in 2003 (425:846-51, 2003
Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. The Spring bulbs,
flowering trees and shrubs are just beginning to flower.
Whistler Ski resort. The end of the ski run in the
central square of the village.
Whistler Ski resort. The beginning of the ski run.
Whistler Village, near Vancouver, Canada, with ski runs
on the surrounding hills. This will be the venue for the Winter Olympics
in 2010.
Robert T. Pu (F. Stephen Vogel Award)
The F. Stephen Vogel Award (for the
most outstanding paper published in an Academy journal by a pathologist-in-training)
went to Dr. Robert T. Pu, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, for his
paper “Methylation Profiling of Benign and Malignant Breast Lesions
and Its Application to Cytopathology” in Modern Pathology (16(11):1095-1101,
2003).
Paulo Cardoso de Almeida: Secretary of the Brazilian
Division
The 16 evening Specialty Conferences, which are organ-based, were held
from 7:30-9:30 pm, which was a testimony to the continuing endurance of
the meeting’s registrants. The handouts at these meetings continue
to be highly sought-after.
Nature Publishing Group, one of the most outstanding medical and science
publishing groups in the world has just contracted to publish both of
the Academy’s journals. We look forward to a happy and fruitful
partnership with them.
Diagnostic Pathology, the USCAP’s annual summer pathology review
course will be held in Banff, Alberta, Canada from July 25-30, 2004. It
is Directed by Drs. Sylvia Asa and Greg Fuller. (Go to http://www.uscap.org
for complete schedule).
Next year’s annual USCAP meeting will be held in San Antonio, Texas
from February 26-March 4, 2005. Register via the USCAP Website at http://www.uscap.org
Thanks for all your support for all those we serve--our patients, our
physicians and our students.
See you in Banff and San Antonio.
Fred Silva,
Secretary-Treasurer/Executive Director, USCAP.
Back
to Contents List
|
Congress tour to Australia Zoo
|
One
of two Giant Land Tortoises collected from the Galapagos Islands by Charles
Darwin during his voyage on the Beagle 1831 – 1836, is alive and
well and living at Australia Zoo, one of the tour destinations at this
year’s IAP Congress.
Australia Zoo, Brisbane.
Australia Zoo, Brisbane. Crocodile being fed a
squid by an attendant.
Galapagos Island land tortoise (Harriett).
Galapagos Island land tortoise (Tom) at the Queensland
Museum.
The tortoise, named Harriet, lives in the Australia Zoo, which is owned
and operated by “The crocodile hunter” Steve Irwin. The other
one is preserved in the Queensland Museum. It has been there since it
died in January, 1943. Its shell is inscribed with the words, “‘Tom’
Galapagos Is. Tortoise. He does not swim. Food is grass”.
He was collected in 1860. Tom is about 2/3 the size of Harriet.
It is certain that both tortoises were kept in the grounds of the Brisbane
Botanical Gardens for many years. The Gardens were established in 1855.
There seems no reason to doubt that they both arrived at the Gardens in
1860, as it says on the shell of Tom. The records from the Gardens are
incomplete for many reasons, not the least of which is that all the records
were lost in a big flood in 1893.
How did the tortoises come to be in Brisbane? This question does not have
a proven answer. A popular theory is that they were brought from England
by John Wickham, the first Police Magistrate who arrived in the colony
in 1842. He left shortly after the first Governor, George Bowen arrived
on December 10, 1859. This time sequence would agree with the date of
acquisition scratched on the back of Tom.
It is not inconceivable that Wickham, an officer on the Beagle during
its epic journey, could have brought the Tortoises with him. He was well
known to Darwin, and there were quite close ties among those who had sailed
on the Beagle. Darwin’s faithful assistant on the Beagle expedition,
Syms Covington went to live in Sydney, and Darwin is recorded in the biography
by Desmond and Moore as having been quite interested in Australia.
Be that as it may, the two tortoises appear to have similar markings on
their shells, and therefore they would have come from the same island.
The tortoises from different islands have different shell appearances,
and this was one of the crucial observations from the Galapagos Islands
that led Darwin to his conclusions about the “Origin of Species.”
Robin Cooke
Published with permission from the Queensland Museum and Australia
Zoo
Back to
Contents List
|
DOWN HOUSE
The Home of Charles Darwin
|
Down House, now owned and maintained by an organization called English
Heritage, stands on a hill top in the gently rolling English countryside
5 miles from the village of Orpington in Kent. To get to Down House, take
a Southern Rail Train from the main line stations - Victoria, Charing
Cross or London Bridge. The trains run approximately every 30 minutes
and the journey takes approximately 30 minutes. From the station take
a taxi to Down House, a pleasant 10 minute drive.
The house is built on approximately 25 acres of farm land. It was purchased
by Charles Darwin and his wife, Emma, in September 1842. They lived there
until Charles died on April 19th, 1882. Darwin chose the solitude of the
English countryside in which to conduct his investigations and experiments
that led to his proposal of the Theory of Evolution, and the writing of
the “The Origin of species” that gave him a place amongst
the world’s greatest scientists. Darwin’s study/laboratory
and many other rooms are furnished with the original furnishings, books,
specimen jars etc.
There is an extensive display that features the voyage of the Beagle and
the development of the Theory of Evolution.
Darwin was born into an affluent middle class family in the midlands of
England on February 12, 1809. His father and grandfather with medical
practitioners, philosophers and men of letters. His mother was a daughter
of Josiah Wedgwood who founded the now famous Wedgwood porcelain company.
Charles married his first cousin Emma Wedgwood, and they had 10 children.
This background allowed him to be a self funded student and researcher.
In later life he and Emma proved themselves to be competent business people
and investors. At Down House they employed and housed 9 personal household
staff, and they contracted work to tradesmen in the nearby village of
Downe.
Charles was not interested in studying the subjects offered in the “classical”curriculum
of the school to which his father sent him. He was more interested in
collecting beetles, plants, birds and rocks, and in game shooting. He
dabbled in experiments in Chemistry, something that was popular and important
in the midlands of England at the height of the Industrial Revolution.
In disgust at his lack of success at school, Dr. Darwin terminated his
schooling and sent him to study medicine at Edinburgh University. This
did not suit Charles either, so his father sent him to Cambridge University
with a view to his becoming a clergyman in the Church of England.
At Cambridge, Charles was admitted to Christ’s College. He did not
take well to the orthodox subjects considered to be essential for students
aspiring to be clergymen. By the end of his first term, he found himself
being a regular attendee at discussion evenings at the home of the 32
year old John Henslow, officially Professor of Botany, but in reality
an enthusiastic expert in all aspects of natural history.
Darwin became an avid disciple and lifelong friend of Henslow. At the
evening discussions, Charles met many experts in natural history who became
important colleagues and contacts throughout the rest of his life. Darwin’s
Cambridge education and subsequent thinking was particularly influenced
by two European naturalists. The first of these was Alexander von Humboldt,
a naturalist from Berlin, who, like Darwin, had sufficient inherited wealth
to fund his own travel and research. Darwin was fascinated by Humboldt’s
account of his travels along the Amazon River in South America 1794-1804.
This gave him a desire to visit places Humboldt had seen, and to learn
about geology. He was ably introduced to geology by another Cambridge
Professor, Adam Sedgwick. The book “The Principles of Geology”
by Charles Lyell helped him to interpret the geological features and the
fossils he observed in South America.
The second European naturalist who influenced his thinking was the Frenchman,
J.B. Lamarck who proposed that animals were undergoing progressive change.
It was Lamarck who suggested that over a very long period of time the
chimpanzee developed into man.
Darwin postponed the publication of “Origin of Species” for
many years because he knew that it would cause a furore amongst the religious
hierarchy of nineteenth century England. He was finally “pushed”
into publishing it by a younger man, Alfred Wallace. Wallace was a self
trained naturalist and taxidermist who made a living by catching and preserving
exotic birds, animals and reptiles. He sold these to “collectors”
in England. It was fashionable at that time for members of the aristocracy
and newly rich business people of the Industrial Revolution, to embellish
the drawing rooms of their houses with such exotic exhibits.
Wallace spent many years “collecting” in the eastern islands
of Indonesia and in West New Guinea. He was very interested in the Birds
of Paradise. He found one new species, the so-called Standard wing. It
was named after him – Semioptera wallacei.
Just as Darwin had done, he noticed that distinctly different, but related
species of birds, animals, and reptiles lived on adjoining islands. His
explanation for this was the same as Darwin’s, but Darwin backed
up his conclusions with rigorous scientific research. Their two papers
were read at the same meeting of the Linnean Society in London on July
1st. 1858. One of the 30 scientists who attended the meeting recorded
“nothing of significance was discussed to-night.”
Robin Cooke
Reference: Desmond A. and Moore J. Darwin, Penguin Books, 1991
Back
to Contents List
|
Vale:
Kamal G. Ishak, MD, PhD
|
Kamal G. Ishak, MD, PhD, Chairman of the Department
of Hepatic and Gastrointestinal Pathology at the Armed Forces Institute
of Pathology in Washington, DC, since 1965 and one of the leading liver
pathologists in the world, died of a heart attack at his home on April
5, 2004.
He was 76 and lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland. For almost 40 years Dr.
Ishak conducted a weekly, world-renowned hepatic staff conference at the
Institute and since 1979 planned and directed an annual course on liver
diseases. His professional interests included clinicopathologic studies
of drug-induced hepatic injury, viral and other infections of the liver,
benign and malignant tumors, and inherited metabolic diseases of the liver.
Born in Sudan in 1928, Kamal spent most of his childhood and early adulthood
in Cairo, Egypt. He graduated from Cairo University in 1951, and completed
internship and residency training at associated Cairo hospitals. In 1954
he served as a Fulbright Scholar at the U.S. Naval Medical Research Institute,
also in Cairo, where he studied Schistosomiasis and Brucellosis.
He immigrated to the United States in 1957 and received pathology training
at the Baptist Memorial Hospital in San Antonio, and Baylor University
Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He later earned a PhD in microbiology
from Baylor, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1965.
In 1963 Dr. Ishak joined the staff of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
During his career he authored or co-authored over 300 scientific publications,
including the AFIP Fascicle, Tumors of the Liver and Intrahepatic Bile
Ducts. In 2001 he co-edited the authoritative textbook Pathology of the
Liver. He served as a faculty member for over 30 years at annual meetings
of the U.S. and Canadian Academy of Pathology, where he taught dozens
of courses on hepatic pathology. He received the Academy’s President’s
Award, a distinguished service award from the American Association for
the Study of Liver Diseases, and a lifetime achievement award from the
Institute. He held the Presidential Rank Award, Meritorious Executive,
Senior Executive Service, as well as several other prestigious awards.
He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists,
United Kingdom.
He is survived by two daughters, Leila Boulton, of Littleton, Colorado,
and Magenta M.R. Ishak, of Silver Spring, Md, a sister, Salwa Abu Fadil,
of Zamalek, Egypt, and a brother, Alfred Alby of Springfield, Va.
Florabel Mullick
Back
to Contents List
|
MEETINGS |
XXV
Congress of the International Academy of Pathology
Sunday 10 - Friday 15 October 2004. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Secretariat: Intermedia Convention & Event Management
Email: iap04@im.com.au
Website: www.iap04.im.com.au
Australian Society of Cytology Inc. 34th Annual
Scientific and Business Meeting
Rydges Hotel & Convention Centre, Brisbane, Qld, Australia
16-18 October 2004For further information, please contact Ms Beverley
James, National Office, Australian Society of Cytology Inc.
Telephone: (08) 8361 7233 / Fax: (08) 8361 7357
International: 61 8 8361 7233 / Fax: 61 8 8361 7357
20th European Congress of Pathology at Parlais
des Congres, Paris, France.
September 3-8, 2005.
Contact: MCC, 29 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Paris, France.
Tel: +33 1 40 21 16 00 Fax: +33 1 40 21 30 35
Email: mail@m-centonze-conseil.com
For scientific information, please contact: pierre.bedossa@bct.ap-hop-paris.fr
Back
to Contents List
|
