- Email: [email protected]
Mount Everest telemedicine expedition tracked on the web
Mount Everest telemedicine expedition tracked on the web E3:The Everest Extreme Expedition 1999 http://everestextreme99.org/
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n April 23, a team of physicianclimbers embarked on a 6-week expedition to the top of Mount Everest, where they will use advanced telemedicine equipment to assess the health effects of remote, high-altitude living, and test the robustness of newly developed medical monitoring devices. They were scheduled to arrive in Katmandu on April 25 and, weather permitting, departed for Lukla village on April 27. From there, they are travelling on foot, using porters and yaks to transport their equipment up 5334 m. You can follow the team’s journey in near-real time, by downloading audiovideo clips of the climbing route, medical images, and progress reports in the online journal, says Richard Satava of the expedition’s USA medical support team at Yale University (New Haven, CT, USA). Other images will convey “how bad it really is up there—the sparseness and harshness of the environment and living conditions”. Crew members will wear sensors that transmit geographical location information and data on heart rate, oxygen
The Nobel Chronicles
I
n 1952, Selman Waksman received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for his discovery of streptomycin”. Born in Priluka near Kiev, Waksman emigrated to the USA in 1910 and studied soil bacteriology at the Agriculture College of the Rutgers University. After years of tedious research using soil samples from the campus there, he discovered and characterised numerous soil microbial flora. He proved that humus and pea t resulted from degradation of plant and animal waste products. By 1939, René Dubos, Waksman’s postdoctoral student, had extracted from Bacillus brevis “tyrocidine”and “gramicidin”, two germicides effective against bacterial infections in cattle, but too toxic for human beings. Pursuing this
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saturation, body temperature, performance, endurance, and visual acuity to their co-workers at the Everest base camp and to the Yale physicians, who will gather daily for “morning rounds”
to assess the crew’s condition. Devices such as colour-flow doppler ultrasonography, three-dimensional sonography, and a transmucosal microscope will document the body’s circulatory response and adaptation to living and working in extreme conditions. The findings will contribute to knowledge about high-altitude physiol ogy and assist in the development of home health-care delive ry devices, observes Satava. “If we can get these
devices to work on the mountain, the applications are nearly limitless. For example, skiers can wear them and if they get caught in an avalanche, we could instantly find them and know what their health is”. The equipment could also be adapted for home use, to monitor vital signs and medication adherence after patients with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes are discharged from hospital. Much of the climbing and scientific data gathering will take place in mid-May, the traditional “window” for successful Everest summit attempts, and the expedition team will return to the USA by the end of May. The website will remain live after May 31; however, additional data may be posted on the website of the Yale University/NASA Commercial Space Center for Medical Informatics and Technology Applications (http://yalesurgery.med.yale.edu/csc/mita. htm), which organised the expedition along with The Explorers Club, Millennium Healthcare Solutions, and the US National Institutes of Health. Marilynn Larkin [email protected]
concept, Waksman the UK and elsewhere began a search for established streptochemotherapeutic mycin’s efficacy against agents in soil microbes. tuberculosis. In 1944, his graduate Waksman persuaded students Albert Schatz the pharmaceutical and Elizabeth Bugie company, Merck, to isolated Actinomyces manufacture strepto(Streptomyces) griseus mycin. Merck reaped from the throat of an 1952: Selman Abraham huge profits from strepWaksman (1888–1973) infected chicken. From tomycin sales; 80% of this organism they royalties went to extracted a new anti-gram-negative Rutgers but only 20% to Waksman.In agent. Waksman showed that it also 1949, after litigation settled out of killed M y c o b a c t e ri u m court, Waksman shared the financial tuberculosis; he named gains with 28 of his students, includthe compound “streptoing Schatz. mycin” and called it an Waksman was the first director of “antibiotic”. the Rutgers’ new Institute of Waksman supplied 10 g Microbiology, which was built from streptomycin to William the profits of the streptomycin discovFeldman and H Corwin ery. Waksman remained active all his Hinshaw at the Mayo life, writing over 20 books, including Clinic, who confirmed its My Life with the Microbes in 1954 and antituberculous properThe Conquest of Tuberculosis in 1964. ties—the news electrified Tonse N K Raju the medical world. Soon, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, USA large clinical trials from
THE LANCET • Vol 353 • May 1, 1999
O
n April 23, a team of physicianclimbers embarked on a 6-week expedition to the top of Mount Everest, where they will use advanced telemedicine equipment to assess the health effects of remote, high-altitude living, and test the robustness of newly developed medical monitoring devices. They were scheduled to arrive in Katmandu on April 25 and, weather permitting, departed for Lukla village on April 27. From there, they are travelling on foot, using porters and yaks to transport their equipment up 5334 m. You can follow the team’s journey in near-real time, by downloading audiovideo clips of the climbing route, medical images, and progress reports in the online journal, says Richard Satava of the expedition’s USA medical support team at Yale University (New Haven, CT, USA). Other images will convey “how bad it really is up there—the sparseness and harshness of the environment and living conditions”. Crew members will wear sensors that transmit geographical location information and data on heart rate, oxygen
The Nobel Chronicles
I
n 1952, Selman Waksman received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for his discovery of streptomycin”. Born in Priluka near Kiev, Waksman emigrated to the USA in 1910 and studied soil bacteriology at the Agriculture College of the Rutgers University. After years of tedious research using soil samples from the campus there, he discovered and characterised numerous soil microbial flora. He proved that humus and pea t resulted from degradation of plant and animal waste products. By 1939, René Dubos, Waksman’s postdoctoral student, had extracted from Bacillus brevis “tyrocidine”and “gramicidin”, two germicides effective against bacterial infections in cattle, but too toxic for human beings. Pursuing this
1536
saturation, body temperature, performance, endurance, and visual acuity to their co-workers at the Everest base camp and to the Yale physicians, who will gather daily for “morning rounds”
to assess the crew’s condition. Devices such as colour-flow doppler ultrasonography, three-dimensional sonography, and a transmucosal microscope will document the body’s circulatory response and adaptation to living and working in extreme conditions. The findings will contribute to knowledge about high-altitude physiol ogy and assist in the development of home health-care delive ry devices, observes Satava. “If we can get these
devices to work on the mountain, the applications are nearly limitless. For example, skiers can wear them and if they get caught in an avalanche, we could instantly find them and know what their health is”. The equipment could also be adapted for home use, to monitor vital signs and medication adherence after patients with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes are discharged from hospital. Much of the climbing and scientific data gathering will take place in mid-May, the traditional “window” for successful Everest summit attempts, and the expedition team will return to the USA by the end of May. The website will remain live after May 31; however, additional data may be posted on the website of the Yale University/NASA Commercial Space Center for Medical Informatics and Technology Applications (http://yalesurgery.med.yale.edu/csc/mita. htm), which organised the expedition along with The Explorers Club, Millennium Healthcare Solutions, and the US National Institutes of Health. Marilynn Larkin [email protected]
concept, Waksman the UK and elsewhere began a search for established streptochemotherapeutic mycin’s efficacy against agents in soil microbes. tuberculosis. In 1944, his graduate Waksman persuaded students Albert Schatz the pharmaceutical and Elizabeth Bugie company, Merck, to isolated Actinomyces manufacture strepto(Streptomyces) griseus mycin. Merck reaped from the throat of an 1952: Selman Abraham huge profits from strepWaksman (1888–1973) infected chicken. From tomycin sales; 80% of this organism they royalties went to extracted a new anti-gram-negative Rutgers but only 20% to Waksman.In agent. Waksman showed that it also 1949, after litigation settled out of killed M y c o b a c t e ri u m court, Waksman shared the financial tuberculosis; he named gains with 28 of his students, includthe compound “streptoing Schatz. mycin” and called it an Waksman was the first director of “antibiotic”. the Rutgers’ new Institute of Waksman supplied 10 g Microbiology, which was built from streptomycin to William the profits of the streptomycin discovFeldman and H Corwin ery. Waksman remained active all his Hinshaw at the Mayo life, writing over 20 books, including Clinic, who confirmed its My Life with the Microbes in 1954 and antituberculous properThe Conquest of Tuberculosis in 1964. ties—the news electrified Tonse N K Raju the medical world. Soon, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, USA large clinical trials from
THE LANCET • Vol 353 • May 1, 1999