Regulatable fatty acid transport mechanisms are central to the pathophysiology of obesity, fatty liver, and metabolic syndrome
✍ Scribed by Paul D. Berk
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2008
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 593 KB
- Volume
- 48
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0270-9139
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
n the fall of 2007, my new laboratory at Columbia was producing a wealth of interesting data. I resolved to cut down on travel, accept no invitations to write reviews, and to focus on getting these new data published. I briefly stuck to my guns, and was feeling quite noble about it, when Keith Lindor struck. In a letter informing me that I was a highly respected and internationally recognized authority in a field of liver disease, with a unique perspective, multiple contributions, and broad recognition, he invited me to submit an article to a series in HEPATOLOGY to be entitled "The Master's Perspective", providing my personal take "on an aspect of the field of liver disease and pathobiology that is near and dear to [my] heart, and which would help others understand how a true leader in the field approaches a problem". Well, flattery-especially of that magnitude-will get you almost anywhere. My resolve rapidly melted, and I began to work on the solicited article.
Query: Of what field was I such a master? While my work for 25 years had been on fatty acids, I felt I was still mainly regarded as a bilirubin maven. But the fatty acid work was more current and, in my view, more important, so fatty acids it will be. Lest readers wonder where the yellow went, I will briefly review the logical processes involved in transferring affection from one organic anion to another.
Background
To begin at the beginning, my father, a general practitioner, was the best diagnostician I have ever known. He was also a subtle and devious man. He never said that he wanted me to become a physician. However, for my 10th birthday, he gave me his beautiful old brass Zeiss medical school microscope. Thereafter, every Wednesday evening, when he didn't have evening office hours, he would bring home some blood smears from the office, set up the microscope on the dining room table, and we would sit together for hours reviewing the slides. I was ready to take the Hematology boards before I was ready for my Bar Mitzvah. A few years later, fascinated by a Scientific American article about mathematical modeling of cardiac function, I determined to be a cardiologist. That remained my goal through medical school. However, during my internship, stimulated by Paul Marks, Helen Anderson, and other hematologists at Columbia University, I considered switching my allegiance back to Hematology.
Toward the end of that year my draft board began to take an interest in my future. I discussed the situation with my Chief of Medicine, Stanley Bradley. I remember our joking about how I was likely to end up at the NIH, by which he meant the mythical Ninth Infantry Hospital, allegedly located somewhere northwest of Danang. Dr. Bradley suggested I might want to consider the "other NIH", and arranged an interview for me. The interview went very, very badly. In response to a question, I stumbled in attempting to describe the nature of the three principal projects that would be consuming the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute 100 years from that date and was summarily dismissed. Waiting for a bus back to National Airport, I met a friend who was already a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Associate. Knowing of my interest in mathematics, he suggested that I contact Dr. Nathaniel Berlin, Clinical Director of the National Cancer Institute, who was looking for a Clinical Associate with a mathematical background. At my