Past Highlights
Notable discoveries and contributions to modern medicine from the Boston University School of Medicine Pulmonary Section:
Pre-Snider Era (1940s-1968)
Description of a device for timed vital capacity measurements: the spirometer and use of the FEV1 as a clinical tool for assessing obstructive lung disease. (Gaensler EA. Science 1951; 114:114)
Description of the criteria for removal of lung parenchyma in emphysema: the origins of lung reduction surgery. (Gaensler E. Ann Thorac Surg 1965; 1:332–362)
Snider Era (1968-1986)
Description of the xray findings and response to steroids of eosinophilic pneumonia. (Jederlinic PJ, Sicilian L, Gaensler EA. Chest 1975; 68:665-71)
Differentiation of the pathologic entities of UIP and DIP. (Carrington CB, Gaensler EA, Coutu RE, et al. N Engl J Med 1978; 298:801)
Description of the first reproducible small animal models of emphysema with pancreatic elastase: the chemical origins of the protease-anti-protease balance theory. (Karlinsky JB, Snider GL. Am Rev Respir Dis 1978; 117:1109–1133)
Description of the first reproducible small animal model of pulmonary fibrosis and acute lung injury with bleomycin. (Snider GL, Hayes JA, Korthy AL. Am Rev Respir Dis 1978; 117: 1099-1108)
Description of the first instrument for sterile sampling of the lower respiratory tract during fiberoptic bronchoscopy: the protected brush. (Wimberley N, Faling LJ, Bartlett JG. Am Rev Respir Dis. 1979 Mar; 119(3):337–343)
Description of spurious hypoxemia in patients with high white blood cell counts: leukocyte larceny. (Fox MJ, Brody JS, Weintraub LR. Am J Med 1979; 67:742-746)
Description of the entity of chronic necrotizing pulmonary aspergillosis infection. (Binder RE, Faling, LJ, Pugatch, RD, et al. Medicine 1982; 61,109-124)Description of the first lymphocyte specific chemotactic cytokine: cloning of Interleukin-16. (Cruikshank WW and Center, DM .J Immunol. 1982 Jun; 128(6):2563-8)
Description of the Clinical entity Bronchiolitis Obliterans Organizing Pneumonia: BOOP. (Epler GR, Colby TV, McLoud TC, Carrington CB, Gaensler. EA. N Engl J. Med 1985; 312:152–8)
First description of biologic effects of protein products of HIV-1 independent of infection: the chemotactic and activating functions of gp120. (Kornfeld, H,Cruikshank, WW, Pyle, SW; Berman, J. S.; Center. D. M. Nature, 1988, 335, 445-448)
Post-Snider Era (1986-present)
Description of engraftment of stem cell-derived populations in the injured lung (Kotton DN, Ma BY, Cardoso WV, Sanderson EA, Summer RS, Williams MC, Fine A. Development. 2001 Dec;128(24):5181-8.
Description of fundamental mechanisms controlling early embryonic lung development (reviewed in:Cardoso WV, Lü J. Development. 2006 May; 133(9):1611-24)
Description of the airway transcriptome as a tool for determining genes associated with lung cancer and COPD. (Spira,A., Beane,J., Shah,V., Liu,G., Schembri,F., Yang,X., Palma,J. and Brody, PNAS 2004 101 27 10143-10148. Spira A, Brody JS et al..Nat Med. 2007 Mar; 13(3):361-6)