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Tuesday, April 16. 1991 / University Daily Kansan
Retired professor still seeking answers
His 40 years of research on illness has been used worldwide
By Vanessa Fuhrmans Kansan staff writer
Kansan staff writer
Now that David Paretsky has retired, he can get down to work.
Gone are the graduate students who worked alongside the professor of microbiology. Gone are the grants that funded pioneer research in biochemistry
But Paretsky remains. A sink full of dirty beakers and test tubes reminds him that nobody else will rinse the glassware, prepare the Petri dishes, document data — all of the mundane chores that inevitably come with running a world-renowned research laboratory.
"If I have to have clean glassware," he said throwing his hands in the air to emphasize his point, "I wash glassware."
Don't get Parettsky wrong, though.
He's not complaining.
"For 40 years I was telling other people what to do," said the former chairperson of the department of microbiology. "These people were here for a while, and we were having all of the fun. Now I do it myself, and that's marvelous."
Paretsky's fun may lead some day to a vaccine for Q fever. His research into the biochemical changes caused by Q fever, an illness resembling biomware's Disease, has been used as a tool by immunologists all over the world.
Solving the Q-fever puzzle
Nearly 40 years of studying Q fever has made Paretsky one of the foremost authorities on the pathobiology of the disease. His laboratory is one of the few in the world devoted strictly to the biological changes caused by Q fever, a rickettsial disease.
"I refer to it as the Paretsky school of rickettsia," said James Akagi, chairperson of the department of microbiology.
"Before, everyone was asking about the cause of the disease, and how does one become immune to the disease. He came in and said, 'Let's do some biochemistry and find out what causes this disease does and how the body responds.'"
The Q-fever bacterium, first discovered in 1935 in Queensland, Australia, causes symptoms similar to influenza, including a dry cough, a
fatty liver and an infection of the heart that can lead to heart failure. Infection can be caused by inhaling dust contaminated with the bacteria or consuming contaminated milk or food.
Paretsky compares the continuum of his Q-fever research to a set of wooden Russian dolls: Just as the opening of each doll reveals another smaller doll, new theories are waiting to be discovered inside old ones.
David Paretsky, retired professor of microbiology, still conducts lab research in Haworth Hall.
"It's been a lot of fun for me," he said. "If you like to do crossword puzzles, chess problems, figure out what goes on in George Bush's head — you know, things like that — then it's an enjoyable problem."
It's a compelling problem, too. New theories and unanswered questions are what keep him coming back for years. He's also he officially retired in May 1989.
"There is always a new frontier, new things coming up that he would like to keep going." Akagi said. "I hope he works on and on and on. I don't know what he would do if he suddenly cut out from his research."
But Paretsky, a biochemist at heart, may never have developed an interest in Q fever had it not been for the late Cate Downs, a fellow KU microbiologist who asked him to collaborate with her on some Q-fever research.
"She was straight immunology and pathogenesis, and I was straight biochemistry," he said. "So she asked me one day if I could do XYZ for her. I thought it was something that would take a week of my time."
Today Paretsky carries on that research, and although he insists he is not interested in developing a vaccine for Q fever, his biochemical findings have helped immunologists learn more about the disease.
"Someone out there who really is interested in preparing some kind of vaccine or agent that will inhibit tumor formation can say, 'Oh wait, maybe this has something to do with it,'." he said.
"So ultimately they're inter-
terredous which is beautiful. It's so
beautiful."
A tight circle of friends
That was 1955.
The advent of Paretsky's Q-few research coincided with his appointment to department chairperson in 1956. Today, much of the KU department of microbiology on the seventh floor of Haworth Hall is testimony to the 20 years Paretsky served as chairperson, years he calls his best times.
"A lot of the current reputation of the department goes back to the leadership he provided," said Del Shankel, professor of microbiology who, hired by Paretsky in 1959, served a stint as acting chancellor and now is interim executive vice chancellor. "He was responsible for hiring the majority of the people who are in the department."
Paretsky, however, takes pride in some of his more modest achievements, such as the laboratories themselves, as designed with the student in mind.
"Look at the lab," he said in his office, an offshoot of the much larger laboratory. "I'm in here and they're in there, and there is no barrier that separates us. We talk about things. We have lunch together."
The camaraderie within the department goes deeper than research and studies. From KU basketball games to late-night poker colleagues and students are a tight circle of friends.
Shankel said it was just as well that the stakes in their poker games were never high because Paretsky was not a deft gambler.
"Dave was usually a contributor rather than a winner." he said.
He might never have won a bet on the Jayhawks either, but that has not prevented his success.
Once a "mean handball player" among the rest of the faculty, Parettskay said he now kept in shape by walking his Doberman pinscher, Stosh (Polish for Stanley), on his Eudora farm.
"He would try to get into the football games or the basketball games all of the time on a student ticket," Akagi said. "Finally age caught up with him, and he couldn't do that anymore."
"Or vice versa," he said. "We have
a good walk. I tell him my problems, and he gives me his reactions."
Philip Meining/KANSAN
Teaching creative thought
Stacked to the ceiling in Paretsky's office are science books that date as far back as his undergraduate days at City College in New York. Nestled in a corner, however, is this semester's Western Civilization literature.
"It doesn't matter what the discipline is — the creative thought is the creative thought," he said. "The top scientist is no more capable of the creative thinking than a humanitarian." One of Thomas Mann's books could be every bit as
Once a week, the scientist turns humanist as a volunteer discussion leader for honors Western Civilization. Discussing the Western world's greatest thinkers is not so different from his scientific experiments, he insists.
important as the development of the transistor."
But Paretsky's decision to be a volunteer discussion leader was not without ulterior motives.
"You want other people to believe like you do," he said, grinning.
"I've heard people say, 'Gosh, he can take a subject that's really complicated and bring it right down to their level,'" Akagi said. "But it's not that, because what he does is he raises people up to his level and challenges them."
Developing their own creative thought is what Paretsky tries to encourage in his students, both within and outside of microbiology.
Akagi speaks from first hand experience. He first met Paretsky in 1951 as a graduate student in his laboratory. Hired as a professor in 1956, he later succeeded Paretsky as chairperson of the department of microbiology in 1976.
Paretsky, who now occasionally teaches introductory microbiology and advanced physiology, a graduate course, said that teaching students was just as important as his research.
"If teaching ended up to be a thankless chore, a burden to justify your existence and that's it, where would the researchers of tomorrow come from?" he said. "There has to be a balance."
Today, many of the graduate students who worked with Paretsky have gone to other universities to explore new aspects of Q fever.
Meanwhile, Paretsky holds down the fort back at the KU laboratory where it all began. And that suits him just fine.
"Some people like to travel; some people like to garden," he said. "I don't, I like what I'm doing."
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Then take the Mathematics Department Placement Test at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, April 18.
Call the Mathematics Department
864-3651
for a reservation and the location of the test.
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