Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

As the fog of new year celebrations wear off, it is interesting to reflect on such beginnings. Although New Year's Day is a completely arbitrary designation, the beginning of the year 2011 does indeed have something very new to offer: the launch of iCons at UMass Amherst !! And that launch will begin with our study of the cholera outbreak in Haiti. Since the hallmark of iCons is studying science making news today rather than one or two centuries ago, it is only fitting that the Haiti cholera outbreak remains very much in current affairs.

Indeed, a study published in the Dec 9, 2010 issue of New England Journal of Medicine by a team of geneticists from Silicon Valley and Harvard University has shown that the Haitian strain of cholera matches the virulent South Asian version of the disease. This is both good news and bad news. The good news is that the genetic signature allows the disease to be sourced and tracked more definitively. The bad news is that this strain of cholera is particularly tough causing more intense diarrhea, killing as fast as 2 hours after symptom onset. The CDC has reported that this strain of cholera is 11.5 times more likely to kill as other S. American strains [1]. These sobering reports compel us all to gain the attitudes, knowledge and skills needed to help solve problems like this one in Biomedicine, and others in Renewable Energy.

To the first (vanguard) class of iCons students: I hope you enjoy the rest of your winter break, so you can return to campus for the Jan 18, 2011 launch of iCons full of the energy and enthusiasm needed to solve the world's toughest problems.

Prof. Scott Auerbach, Director
Integrated Concentrations in Science

For more information, see:

[1] CDC WMMR Update: Cholera in Haiti 2010

[2] New Scientist: Haitian Cholera Strain Could Dominate the Americas