Volume 5, Number 40Oct. 10, 2001

Physician and medical scientist Dr. Wes Van Voorhis is an associate professor of medicine in the UW Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He and his wife Rev. Debra Jarvis were visiting friends Sept. 11 in New York City, Wes had lived in New York City for six years as a medical student at Cornell University Medical College and a Ph.D. graduate student at Rockefeller University.

When the World Trade Center towers collapse, Wes and Debra reported as volunteers to draw blood at the blood bank, and later served at the Armory, the site for families to report missing persons. Wes also registered as a physician volunteer at the New York City Medical Examiners Office, in case his skills as a pathobiologist and immunologist were needed.

At the UW, Wes researches the immunopathogenesis of three infectious organisms: Trypanosoma cruzi, the protozoa that causes Chagas’ disease in Latin America, Treponema pallidium, the bacteria that causes syphilis, and Chalmydia trachomatis, a bacteria that can cause pelvic inflammatory disease.

Recently, Wes became an investigator in the new federally funded Structural Genomics of Pathogenic Protozoa (SGPP) Consortium. The consortium will develop methods and technologies for determining protein structures in protozoan species that cause such tropical diseases as malaria, sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis and Chagas' disease. These infectious diseases affect many people living in developing nations. One of the goals of this research is to design better drug treatments and vaccines to improve world health.