Jack Remington, MD, Famed Toxoplasmosis Researcher, Dies at 90

Jack. S. Remington, MD, the Stanford University scientific scientist who developed a take a look at to title babies at threat for unpleasant toxoplasmosis, died on April 8 on the age of 90.

Remington used to be professor emeritus of infectious diseases at Stanford Pills. A legendary researcher, Remington used to be described by colleagues and trainees as a dogged clinician. Identified as “Stat Jack” for his sense of urgency, he retired in 2005.

He died after a tumble; it used to be the final of many. When he wasn’t treating patients or conducting study, Remington used to be continuously rock hiking. Friends said he had broken many bones but used to be continuously a passionate climber.

Remington used to be retired when Upinder Singh, MD, arrived at Stanford. Now she is chief of infectious diseases and geographic treatment at Stanford Pills. Singh told Medscape Medicdal News that Remington used to be a incandescent, forward-considering scientist.

Remington performed study on the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF), a part of the Sutter Successfully being network. He ran a toxoplasmosis serology lab, and it used to be his child, Singh said. In 2019, it used to be renamed for him: The Dr Jack S. Remington Laboratory for Enviornment of skills Diagnostics.

Whereas he performed study at PAMF, he treated patients at Stanford, the set he might well well well watch his study attend them.

“What he held closest to his heart used to be that scientific endeavors have to soundless assist patients,” Singh told Medscape.

Born in Chicago in 1931, Remington did his undergraduate work at Loyola University in Chicago and the University of Illinois, the set he graduated from clinical school in 1956, in step with a observation from Stanford. He spent 2 years as a senior assistant surgeon for the US Public Successfully being Carrier and as a researcher on the Nationwide Institute of Hypersensitivity and Infectious Diseases.

There, he performed key study on Toxoplasma gondii, a in most cases dormant parasite that poses a serious threat to anybody with a compromised immune gadget — a team that comprises babies, transplant recipients, and folks with HIV. T gondii is the explanation pregnant ladies are told no longer to desirable out litter containers, because it would also be unfold thru cat feces. Humans also contract toxoplasmosis by eating substandard meat. The Amenities for Illness Assign an eye on and Prevention estimates that 300 to 4000 babies are uncovered once a year and construct toxoplasmosis. Typically symptom-free for a length, the younger folks can wander on to construct imaginative and prescient issues or developmental delays.

Remington developed a blood take a look at that measures a baby’s publicity and, therefore, threat for toxoplasmosis. Per the Stanford announcement, “The take a look at renowned between antibodies that a newborn has passively obtained from its mom thru the placental barrier and antibodies that screen a newborn has in truth been infected in the womb by pathogens, particularly T. gondii, that had been residing in the mom’s tissues. The latter case supposed a baby wished immediate medication to stave off active toxoplasmosis.”

Remington also led scientific trials and developed treatment to treat the placement. Stanford studies that he authored or coauthored more than 600 articles and held 11 patents.

He also coauthored the most authoritative textbook in the self-discipline. Remington and Klein’s Infectious Diseases of the Fetus and Unusual child Infant is now in its eighth edition.

Remington used to be elected a fellow of the American College of Physicians in 1966, the London-essentially based completely Royal College of Physicians in 1999, the American Association for the Fashion of Science in 2000, and the American Academy of Microbiology in 2000. He used to be a past president of the Western Society for Clinical Learn, the Infectious Diseases Society of The United States (IDSA), and the Global Immunocompromised Host Society.

Friends and colleagues buy into chronicle him as a loyal mentor, evidenced by the many trainees who traveled to his 70th birthday party, said Philip Pizzo, MD, professor of pediatrics and immunology at Stanford Pills. Pizzo, the broken-down dean of the College of Pills, met Remington in 1977 after presenting a study paper on the self-discipline of the immunocompromised host at a Unusual York assembly of the IDSA. They grew to alter into lifelong colleagues and company.

Remington had his contain form of confidence and self-assurance, Pizzo said: “He climbed the most no longer easy rock faces on this planet. It takes a obvious form of persona to achieve that.”

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