Scientist dies of plague while trying to develop a stronger vaccine for it

[Jenna]

Malcom Casadaban was a professor of molecular genetics at the University of Chicago for 30 years.

For the past eight years, his daughters say, he'd been working with a strain of bacteria called yersinia pestis, trying to develop a stronger vaccine for the plague, once the world's worst health scourge.

The weakened strain he was using, however, isn't supposed to make healthy people sick.

And that is the big mystery now for investigators with the Centers for Disease Control and the state and city public health departments who've been looking for clues at the U. of C. labs.

"Was it a change in the organism, something about the person infected that made him uniquely susceptible? We don't really know the answers yet," said John Easton, University of Chicago Medical Center.

"It was hurtful because we remember our father as very healthy. He rode his bike to work, never smoked, never drank," said Brooke Casadaban.

Brooke and Leigh Casadaban say they're not satisfied with the answers they've been given so far.

How did their father, who had flu-like symptoms, enter the hospital a week ago Sunday morning and die 12 hours later with no one suspecting that it could be related to the plague?

Leigh, who is following in her father's footsteps, now attends her father's alma mater Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says it may be up to her to solve this.

"I plan to go to the lab to read his papers and notes and go and really understand what he was trying to do," said Leigh Casadaban.

More here: Chicago plague death: Family seeks answers in UofC scientist's death - 9/22/09 - Chicago News - abc7chicago.com

Rest in peace.

[MacLean]

Sometimes you get the bear...

[ms1600]

"It was hurtful because we remember our father as very healthy. He rode his bike to work, never smoked, never drank," said Brooke Casadaban.

That's his problem right there. You gotta test the system to make sure it works.