Robert S. Desowitz: January 2, 1926 - March 24, 2008

Bob Desowitz's career in tropical medicine spanned six decades
and five continents, leaving us with a wealth of scientific
knowledge as well as personal insight into how science gets
done and the human impact of tropical disease. Bob received
his PhD in medical protozoology in 1951 from the London
School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene as the last student
of HE Shortt, who discovered the liver stage of malaria (and
who Bob fondly recalled as "the Colonel"). Shortt linked Bob
to a scientific lineage that went back to Samuel Christophers
and Ronald Ross. Immediately after completing his PhD, Bob
moved to the West African Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research
in Vom, Nigeria, where he worked until 1960. He
hosted many important scientists in Vom, such as Bill Trager,
who pioneered the malaria parasite culture system, and
Baruch S. Blumberg, who wrote about his time with Bob in
his book on the discovery of hepatitis B. In 1960, Bob joined
the faculty at the University of Singapore School of Medicine
as Chair of Medical Parasitology and spent time in Papua
New Guinea, where he later returned to work with Michael
Alpers, who directed the Institute of Medical Research there.
In 1965, Bob left Singapore to become Chief of the SEATO
Laboratory's Department of Parasitology in Bangkok, where
I (LHM) first met him and his family. He became a mentor
for me as a neophyte in malaria research, an interest that has
stayed with me to this day. In 1968, Bob returned to the
United States as Professor of Tropical Medicine and Medical
Parasitology at the University of Hawaii and stayed until his
retirement in 1995. During his "retirement" in Pinehurst, NC,
he was Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the University
of North Carolina.
One of Bob's great research interests was in the effects of
parasites on pregnancy and particularly the long-term effects
on the fetus. While in Nigeria, he observed that short-horned
cattle exposed to trypanosomes during pregnancy produced
offspring that enjoyed life-long resistance to trypanosomes.
He later extended this observation on what he called prenatal
immune priming or "PIP" to malaria protection in mice (a
seminal study published in Science 172:1151-1152, 1971) and
malaria sensitization in humans. More than this, he became
an avuncular correspondent and mentor to many young scientists
who joined this area of research. While working at a
relatively isolated station in Kenya, one of us (PED) published
his first report on pregnancy malaria in 1996 and
shortly thereafter received an unsolicited note of personal
introduction and congratulations from Bob, leavened by his
signature wit and inimitable writing style. Bob opened his
home to many young scientists who came to appreciate
through Bob's rich anecdotes that tropical medicine was a
noble discipline of vast importance to human health and also
an adventure involving outsized or odd personalities, hilarious
incidents, and great failures and successes. As recently as
2004, Bob was in Tanzania educating a new generation of
scientists about PIP, other topics in tropical medicine, and
their privileged position in a parasitology pedigree that they
now shared with Shortt, Ross, and Bob himself.
In 1976, Bob's career took a new direction when he began
writing for the public, drawing on his years of experience
working in tropical medicine. He wrote an article for Natural
History Magazine, "How the wise men brought malaria to
Africa" and followed this with a series of articles in the Magazine
that were brought together in his first book, New Guinea
Tape Worms and Jewish Grandmothers, which was published
in 1987. I (LHM) had the pleasure of writing one of the
articles with him, "The Nymphs of Nantucket," that began
with the sentence, "The rich are not like you and me, they go
to Nantucket and get babesiosis." This paraphrase of F. Scott
Fitzgerald (Poor Little Rich Boy) reflected his broad knowledge
and the wit that would enliven all of his books. His 1988
book, The Thorn in the Starfish, referred to Metchnikoff's
early experiments on cellular immunity in invertebrates,
which showed, long before modern immunologists, that the
study of immunity in invertebrates informs human immunology.
His wonderful book published in 1998, Who Brought
Pinta to the Santa Maria, again reflected his unusual ability to
turn a phrase and tell a story, as well as his broad knowledge
of the introduction of microbes into the Western Hemisphere.
The Malaria Capers, published in 1991, may have been his
best effort, receiving widespread acclaim and media attention.
The writing was driven by his disgust at the illegal misuse of
USAID money intended for malaria research to alleviate suffering
of children in Africa that was instead diverted for the
private gain of an administrator and a few scientists. A quote
by Max Perutz, Nobel Laureate and humanist, in the New
York Review of Books captures the force of Bob's writing.
"Some years ago I listened to an emotional appeal by a director
of the World Health Organization to fight against the
parasitic infections that kill millions of children in the Poor
World every year. His speech fell flat, partly because the
audience regarded it as a well-rehearsed and often repeated
performance and partly because mere numbers fail to arouse
people's emotions. In contrast, the opening of Desowitz's
book on tropical diseases strikes to the heart with the story of
the illness and unnecessary death of a single child in India.
Unnecessary, because the mother could have saved her child
had she or the Indian government been able to afford $15
worth of medicine." One of the great microbiologists of the
mid-20th century, René Dubos wrote about the insights from
Bob's books on the interplay of people, politics, and microbes-"
the life complexities of the microbial agents of disease
are more than matched by that of human behaviour."
Bob Desowitz will be greatly missed by all of us, young and
old, who enjoyed his wonderful company and humor. Bob is
especially missed by his wife, Carrolee, daughter Duba Desowitz-
Leibell, son Gregory Desowitz, and four grandsons,
Brandon Charles Desowitz-Leibell, Zachary James Taylor
Desowitz-Leibell, Robert Gregory Desowitz, and Charles
Michael Desowitz.

LOUIS H. MILLER
NIAID, NIH
Bethesda, Maryland

PATRICK E. DUFFY
SBRI and UW
Seattle, Washington