Going to
Work in Genes
John W. Kusiak '69, a neurobiologist who works for the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) studying Alzheimer's disease, has noticed that his career in
research seems to be following the seasons of a person's life. After earning a
Ph.D. in biochemistry from George Washington University Medical School,
Kusiak's first postdoctoral fellowship for NIH was studying inherited diseases
that afflict infants and children. Several years later he changed fields and
began working on drugs for high blood pressure, a condition associated with
mid-life adulthood. Now, as a molecular neurobiologist at NIH's Gerontology
Research Center at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, Kusiak is
studying the causes and prevention of Alzheimer's disease, which most commonly
attacks the elderly.
Fortunately, his career progress from the cradle to the nursing home has
outpaced his own aging. Just in from a run and not particularly breathless for
a man who turns 48 this month, Kusiak said he jogs three days a week and lifts
weights regularly to stay in shape for some of his other interests--wine
tasting and eating out among them.
Kusiak came to Colby in the mid-'60s already pretty sure that he wanted to go
to medical school. He majored in chemistry, concentrating on biochemistry, and
spent two summers as a lab assistant to chemistry professor Doug Maier.
Together they worked on a grant from the Maine Heart Association studying
proteins known to increase blood pressure. After graduation Kusiak taught high
school for a year in Skowhegan, Maine, and then entered a master's degree
program at George Washington University, planning to move from there into GW's
medical-doctor program. He didn't realize until he compared his own laboratory
work with the studies of medical school colleagues that he preferred
experimentation and research to memorization of anatomical and pharmacological
details and to the practice of medicine.
Kusiak, who in those days shared a Georgetown apartment with fellow Colbian
Eric Rosen '67, said the transition from Colby's laboratories to those at the
GW Medical School was smooth sailing. "In general, the education I got at
Colby, especially the biochemistry training, helped me a lot in graduate
school," he said. "I basically breezed through [graduate courses in]
biology."
During his first stint at NIH, in the laboratory of the Institute of
Neurological Diseases and Stroke, he studied drugs and treatments for Tay-Sachs
and Fabry's disease. Because the clinical hospital was in the same building, he
occasionally visited Tay-Sachs and Fabray's patients on the wards. As
distressing as it was to see terribly sick children, it was a great motivator,
he says. "It really makes you want to run back to the lab and spend the night
finishing up experiments trying to shed a little light on those diseases."
When Kusiak moved to the Institute on Aging he first studied beta-blocker
drugs for treating high blood pressure, then, when a new director came on board
five years ago, was granted a sabbatical leave to study neurobiology (brain
functions) and genetics at the NIH center in Bethesda. His current work focuses
on genetic aspects of Alzheimer's disease; he is studying how a portion of a
certain protein is deposited in the brain of Alzheimer's patients. Research by
Kusiak and his colleagues indicates that a genetic mutation of the protein in
one form of Alzheimer's is inherited. That's the exception, though, since
Alzheimer's usually occurs sporadically and does not run in families, he says.
Other recent research at the facility seems to have discounted aluminum
deposits in the brain as a cause of the disease and has discovered that severe
head trauma--getting knocked out cold--can be a risk factor for Alzheimer's.
So what's left after studying childhood, mid-life and geriatric diseases?
"Maybe next I'll do research on near-death experiences and the paranormal,"
Kusiak joked. In the meantime he's decided that practicing what he and his
colleagues preach about exercise and cardiovascular fitness is a good idea.
"I've been hanging around the aging institute long enough that I'm sort of
becoming a believer in it," he said, explaining the motivation for his running
and lifting regimen. "I know it's really hard to do it--you've got to just make
up your mind."
The Fifties Class Notes/Table of Contents/The Sixties Class Notes