Malcolm John Casadaban | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 12, 1949 |
| Died | September 13, 2009 (aged 60) |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Harvard Medical School |
| Occupation(s) | Genetic and Cell Biology Professor |
| Known for | Death caused by plague |
Malcolm Casadaban (12 August 1949 – 13 September 2009) was associate professor of molecular genetics, cell biology and microbiology at the University of Chicago.[1] Casadaban died following an accidental laboratory exposure to an attenuated strain of Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that causes plague.
Early life and education
Casadaban was born to John and Dolores Casadaban in New Orleans, Louisiana. He graduated with a degree in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1971. In 1976, he earned a PhD from Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Jon Beckwith. He did a postdoctoral fellowship under Stanley Norman Cohen.[2]
Career
In his postdoctoral training, Casadaban began studying gene fusion, using novel methods for this technique.[2]
Casadaban became an assistant professor at Chicago in 1980, and associate professor in 1985.
He had also been associated with Thermogen, a company he formed with two of his former graduate students in 1998, to commercialize his work with thermophilic bacteria. The company expanded to an annual revenue of about $2 million, but was sold to MediChem in 2000; this company, in turn, was later purchased by DeCODE Genetics.
He had 17 scientific publications cited over 100 times.
Death
Casadaban died September 13, 2009, shortly after falling ill due to infection with an attenuated strain of Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that causes plague.[3][4] It was not known exactly how he was exposed to the bacterium he studied in his laboratory.[5]
According to a CDC report on the incident, the strain that killed Casadaban (KIM D27) had never been known to infect laboratory workers, as it was an attenuated strain that had defective genes for iron uptake. On autopsy, Casadaban was found to have undiagnosed hereditary hemochromatosis (iron overload), which likely played a role in his death.[6]
References
- ^ "Malcolm Casadaban, molecular genetics specialist, 1949–2009". uchicago.edu. 2009-09-25. Archived from the original on 2010-06-10. Retrieved 2009-10-04.
- ^ a b "Remembering Malcolm J. Casadaban". Journal of Bacteriology. 192 (17): 4261–4263. September 2010. doi:10.1128/JB.00484-10. ISSN 0021-9193. PMC 2937382. PMID 20511498.
- ^ "CDPH: Plague death not a threat to public health". chicagobreakingnews.com. 2009-09-20. Retrieved 2009-10-04.
- ^ "Scientist Killed by Plague Reveals Vulnerability to Lab Strains". Bloomberg.com. February 25, 2011.
- ^ Wertheim, Bradley (10 January 2013). "The Iron in Our Blood That Keeps and Kills Us". The Atlantic. Retrieved 10 June 2022.
- ^ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (September 18, 2009). "Fatal laboratory-acquired infection with an attenuated Yersinia pestis Strain--Chicago, Illinois, 2009". MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. CDC. 60 (7): 201–205. ISSN 1545-861X. PMID 21346706.
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