Six Researchers Who Gave All to Their Work, Part 2

17 May 2010 FAITH LAPIDUS:Matthew Lukwiya was the medical administrator of Saint Mary's Hospital in the Gulu District of northern Uganda. In two thousand, the hospital was the center of treatment for an outbreak of Ebola. The virus causes severe bleeding. No cure is known. Doctors can only hope that victims are strong enough to survive. Doctor Lukwiya acted quickly to control the spread of infection. He kept the people with Ebola separate from the other patients. He ordered hospital workers to wear protective clothing and follow other safety measures. One day he had to deal with a patient who was dying of Ebola. The man had been acting out of control. The doctor knew him well. The patient was a nurse who worked at the hospital. The man was coughing and bleeding. Doctor Lukwiya violated one of his own rules. He wore no protection over his eyes. Matthew Lukwiya died from the virus in December of two thousand. He was forty-two years old. Ugandans mourned his death. He was an important influence in the community. Experts say his work during the outbreak helped stop the Ebola virus from spreading out of control. BOB DOUGHTY:On February twenty-eighth, two thousand three, the Vietnam-France Hospital in Hanoi asked Carlo Urbani for help. The Italian doctor was an expert on communicable diseases. He was based in Vietnam for the World Health Organization. The hospital asked Doctor Urbani to help identify an unusual infection. He recognized it as a new threat. He made sure other hospitals increased their infection-control measures. On March eleventh, Doctor Urbani developed signs of severe acute respiratory syndrome. Four days later, the World Health Organization declared it a worldwide health threat. Carlo Urbani was the first doctor to warn the world of the disease that became known as SARS. He died of it on March twenty-ninth, two thousand three. He was forty-six years old. FAITH LAPIDUS:Our final medical hero is molecular biologist Anita Roberts. She was widely recognized by other researchers for her work with a protein called transforming growth factor-beta. TGF-beta can both heal wounds and make healthy cells cancerous. In nineteen seventy-six, Anita Roberts joined the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health in the United States. She worked for many years with another researcher, Michael Sporn. They found that TGF-beta helps to heal wounds and is important in the body's defense system against disease. At the same time, though, the two scientists found that the protein can also support the growth of cancer in some cells. BOB DOUGHTY:Between nineteen eighty-three and two thousand two, Anita Roberts published more than three hundred forty research papers. Many other scientists gave credit to her published work. In fact, the publication Science Watch listed her as the forty-ninth most-cited researcher in the world during that twenty-year period. She was the third most-cited female scientist. But in two thousand four, after years of studying cancer, Anita Roberts learned that she herself had the disease. She died of gastric cancer in May of two thousand six. She was sixty-four years old. FAITH LAPIDUS:Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and George Grow. Brianna Blake was our producer. I'm Faith Lapidus. BOB DOUGHTY:And I'm Bob Doughty. Internet users can download transcripts and audio archives of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. And we hope you join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America. Source: Voice of America