Monday, November 8, 2010

Visited Holy Cross College to deliver the Inaugural Joseph E. Murray, M.D. Distinguished Lectureship in Medicine. Joe Murray (class of ’40) had won the Nobel Prize for performing the first kidney transplant. I gave the lecture to a full house at the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross in Worcester. Write-ups in Boston Globe and Worcester Telegram. Old friends came to see the lecture from my class of 1962 – Bob (and Peggy) Curran, Jim Mulvihill, Pete Deckers. Best part of the evening was the appearance (stayed for dinner and the lecture) of Bob Cousy who had said that he was so proud of what I had done for the country and the world that he wanted to come to meet me and hear my lecture. He was attentive and engaged for the entire lecture in the first row. During the day before the dinner and lecture, I met for hours with students (almost all pre-med and mostly women). They were great and we had fun. They said that I was “cool” and “awesome” Nov. 23-24, 2010 – Big advance in HIV prevention research. The iPrEx study results for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PreP) for prevention of HIV infection in MSM came out on 11/23/10 in the NEJM showing 44% decreased risk in Truvada arm versus placebo. Importantly, for those who took the drug 90% or more of the days, decreased risk was 73%. For those with blood levels of Truvada vs those without blood levels, the risk was decreased by 92%. Big media days for me – Front page of NY Times, CNN Situation Room with Suzanne Malveaux, multiple print medias, Canadian and European TV, Local Fox News, several NPRs including “Talk of the Nation”; The NewsHour. This will be an important addition to the toolkit of prevention methods. Megan spending the first semester of 3rd Year in Morocco. Somewhat stressful, but extraordinary experience. She is an amazing young woman. I am actually in awe of her courage and adventurous spirit.