Pathology: Study Gets Handle on Papillomavirus Infection Initiatives: The University Inaugurates Stem Cell Institute, Examines Issues Women's Health: Curtain Drawn on Hormone Therapy for Older Women Medical Education Students Present Their Scientific Contributions at Soma Weiss Day Regulator of Muscle Wasting Revealed Sirtuin Protein SIRT1 Links Stress with Cell Survival Calorie Restrictions May Reduce Risk of Breast Cancer   Two from HMS Elected to NAS Brock Begins as Ethics Division Head Frei Earns Lifetime Achievement Award in Cancer Research Soroses Recognized for Funding Fellowships Appointments to Full and Named Professorships Hinton-Wright Society Takes New Name from the Late Harold Amos Honors and Advances News Briefs   No Place for Us vs. Them in Clinical Care   The Mirror of Medical Training   Front Page

MEDICAL EDUCATION Students Present Their Scientific Contributions at Soma Weiss Day The boon afforded by new AIDS drugs is not being shared by the poorest and most marginalized members of our society. "An African-American woman in Dorchester is 15 times more likely to die of the disease than a white male in Boston," said Mitul Kadakia (above), at the 64th annual Soma Weiss Student Research Day, on April 15, featuring keynote speaker Jerome Groopman, the Dina and Raphael Recanati professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess. In his poster and his talk, Kadakia, a first-year medical student, said that the problem is not access to treatment but lack of compliance due to factors like poverty, substance abuse, homelessness, mental illness, and social isolation. With the Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment (PACT) project and its patron organization Partners in Health, Kadakia has embarked on a pilot study that combines daily observed therapy (DOT) and home-based case management in an effort to deliver treatment to 15 difficult-to-reach patients with advanced AIDS in inner-city Boston. The approach, pioneered by Partners in Health in Haiti to treat TB and HIV patients, appears to be feasible here, Kadakia said. Adherence rates of participants receiving therapy averaged 97 percent. Eleven patients had undetectable levels of HIV in their bloodstream at the end of the pilot. Kadakia concluded his talk with a quote from one of the patients: "The medications saved our life, but the hand that gives it to us means so much." (Photo by Liza Green, HMS Media Services)