Journal of Fish Diseases 2014, 37, 859–861
doi:10.1111/jfd.12251
Biography Dr John Carl Harshbarger
John Carl Harshbarger was born in 1936 in Weyer’s Cave, Augusta County, Virginia, where his parents owned and operated a small dairy farm. His father was a carpenter and an inspector for the U.S. Inspection Service. His mother graduated in 1930 from the Virginia State Teacher’s College, now James Madison University. She taught high school maths at Standardsville in Green County, VA, for 4 years until she married, a disqualifying event for a teacher during the Depression. John completed his school work with ease. Life on the family farm involved chores such as feeding calves, and John made it a priority to complete the chores early so that he could listen to the old radio programs that he enjoyed. On weekends, the family often went for drives in the country, to visit friends or relatives, or for picnics on the Skyline Drive. Ó 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
859
John attended Bridgewater College (Bridgewater, Virginia), a small liberal arts college. He majored in science and mathematics, graduating in 1957. For his master’s degree, he majored in entomology and minored in statistics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He graduated in 1959; the same year, he published his first paper, A method for collecting and counting populations of the shaft louse, in the Journal of Economic Entomology. John continued his graduate education at Rutgers University, receiving his doctorate in 1962 for his work in entomology, with a minor in pathogenic microbiology. He worked as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Insect Pathology Laboratory of U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center from 1962 to 1964. Harshbarger then moved across the country to the University of California, Irvine, working for
Journal of Fish Diseases 2014, 37, 859–861
3 years as a research pathobiologist, focusing on invertebrate neoplasia. Highlights of his work included sampling trips to coastal California and Mexico. In 1967, he published his first cancerrelated paper, Responses of invertebrates to vertebrate carcinogens and a year later a review article, Neoplasms of insects. At that time, he returned to the east coast, taking courses in human pathology at Harvard and Georgetown University medical schools. In 1967, John succeeded Dr. Clyde Dawe as the director of the Registry of Tumors in Lower Animals (RTLA). The RTLA was founded in 1966 with funds from the National Cancer Institute and housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Harshbarger’s distinguished reputation was earned, in part, for his service as the RTLA’s director for 36 years, the first 28 at the Smithsonian and last eight at the George Washington University Medical Center. The RTLA has functioned as a diagnostic centre, literature centre, specimen depository and a general clearinghouse for information on neoplasia and related disorders in invertebrate and cold-blooded vertebrate animals. John developed the RTLA into a centre for collaborative research with scientists frequently visiting from across the globe. One colleague was His Imperial Highness Prince Masahito Hitachi of the Cancer Institute of the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research. Harshbarger hosted the Prince when he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from George Washington University in 1997. During his directorship, Harshbarger was responsible for expanding the RTLA’s archival specimen collection to >7000 cases recruited from sources worldwide, including many materials from his own survey work. The taxonomic breadth of Harshbarger’s interest is seen clearly by examining the titles of his bibliography consisting of approximately 200 journal articles and book chapters, as well as abstracts from numerous presentations, and coedited books. These include pathological studies of insects, mollusks, lizards, snakes, turtles, frogs, salamanders, hellbenders and multiple species of fish. John’s work goes well beyond the laboratory. Several of his works are literature syntheses of neoplasia in various taxa. Others focus on neoplasia as an indicator of environmental condition. He has collaborated on many studies that utilize biomarkers along with pathology and chemical data to gain insights into causative environmental factors. Ó 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
860
Biography
Harshbarger has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Fish Diseases since 1978. For many years, he was a member of the editorial boards of Cancer Research, Toxicologic Pathology and Herpetopathologia. Due to his renowned expertise in fish histopathology and environmental tumour monitoring, he was the lead testifier on The Causes of Reported Epidemics of Cancer in Fish and the Relationship between these Occurrences and Environmental Quality and Human Health before a U.S. Congressional Subcommittee in 1983. Harshbarger has served and continues to serve on scientific advisory panels concerning epizootics of toxicologically induced neoplasms in wild fish. His dedication and enthusiasm for research was unmatched. For example, when Paul Baumann was starting his work on polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and neoplasms in the early 1980s, John agreed to do the histopathology. However, he went way beyond the meagre bounds of the research proposal and flew his own plane (a 4-seat Mooney) up to Lorain, Ohio, to help with the field work on the Black River. This enabled them to load a large quantity of fish specimens for the flight back. As John flew back east over Ohio, a mechanic’s error caused the gas to drain from his fuel tanks. Talking with air traffic control, he realized he could not glide far enough to reach an airport. Keeping his wits (as always), John selected a large abandoned field for his landing. All went well until he hit a fence concealed by weeds. John was bruised and a little bloody, and the plane was damaged irreparably. When the sheriff and ambulance arrived, he refused to leave, because he did not want anything to happen to the fish samples. The sheriff finally gave him a choice of getting in the ambulance voluntarily or being arrested. Harshbarger was forced to go to the hospital, but the samples were well taken care of and formed the basis for a series of publications. These papers tracked the prevalence of liver neoplasms in brown bullheads (Ameiurus nebulosus) in the Black River and showed how the response coincided with changes in PAH exposure. Their 1998 paper, Long term trends in liver neoplasm epizootics of brown bullhead in the Black River, Ohio, is often cited as one of the few field studies that meet the classic epidemiological criteria for causation. Harshbarger’s ongoing collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Chesapeake Bay Field Office in Annapolis, Maryland, began in 1991. In a sampling effort aimed at analysing contaminant
Journal of Fish Diseases 2014, 37, 859–861
concentrations in channel catfish near the Potomac River National Wildlife Refuge Complex about 40 km downriver from Washington, DC, the biologists observed many brown bullheads with pink, raised lip lesions. John was called in and diagnosed liver and skin neoplasms in a follow-up sampling of bullheads from the tidal creeks. Subsequent studies in 1996 and 2000 examined a wider area of the Potomac River watershed, including the highly contaminated Anacostia River in Washington, DC. There, he documented the highest liver tumour prevalence in brown bullheads in North America. Later studies demonstrated a dramatic improvement in this river, as shown by a 50% decrease in tumour prevalence. His work on collaborative monitoring studies throughout the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes helped establish brown bullhead liver neoplasms as an environmental indicator of habitat quality and a technique for monitoring the success of cleanups. Among his many honours, Harshbarger was the first recipient of the Prince Hitachi Prize for Comparative Oncology presented by His Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi of Japan in Tokyo in 1996.
Ó 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
861
Biography
He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has received awards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Sigma Xi, the Roswell Park Memorial Institute and Bridgewater College. In 2008, he delivered the Edward Elkan Memorial Lecture, Chronology of Oncology, Corals to Reptiles, at the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando, Florida. John Harshbarger continues to work as an Adjunct Professor of Pathology at George Washington and as a consulting Environmental Pathologist. With this biography, we not only honour his 55 years of authorship in professional journals, his enthusiasm, generosity, mentoring of fellow scientists, sense of humour and humility but also his ongoing work and wish him continued success. A E Pinkney1, P C Baumann2 and J C Wolf 3 1 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Chesapeake Bay Field Office, Annapolis, MD, USA 2 U.S. Geological Survey, Leetown Science Center (retired), Columbus, OH, USA 3 EPL, Inc., Sterling, VA, USA
doi:10.1111/jfd.12251
Biography Dr John Carl Harshbarger
John Carl Harshbarger was born in 1936 in Weyer’s Cave, Augusta County, Virginia, where his parents owned and operated a small dairy farm. His father was a carpenter and an inspector for the U.S. Inspection Service. His mother graduated in 1930 from the Virginia State Teacher’s College, now James Madison University. She taught high school maths at Standardsville in Green County, VA, for 4 years until she married, a disqualifying event for a teacher during the Depression. John completed his school work with ease. Life on the family farm involved chores such as feeding calves, and John made it a priority to complete the chores early so that he could listen to the old radio programs that he enjoyed. On weekends, the family often went for drives in the country, to visit friends or relatives, or for picnics on the Skyline Drive. Ó 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
859
John attended Bridgewater College (Bridgewater, Virginia), a small liberal arts college. He majored in science and mathematics, graduating in 1957. For his master’s degree, he majored in entomology and minored in statistics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He graduated in 1959; the same year, he published his first paper, A method for collecting and counting populations of the shaft louse, in the Journal of Economic Entomology. John continued his graduate education at Rutgers University, receiving his doctorate in 1962 for his work in entomology, with a minor in pathogenic microbiology. He worked as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Insect Pathology Laboratory of U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center from 1962 to 1964. Harshbarger then moved across the country to the University of California, Irvine, working for
Journal of Fish Diseases 2014, 37, 859–861
3 years as a research pathobiologist, focusing on invertebrate neoplasia. Highlights of his work included sampling trips to coastal California and Mexico. In 1967, he published his first cancerrelated paper, Responses of invertebrates to vertebrate carcinogens and a year later a review article, Neoplasms of insects. At that time, he returned to the east coast, taking courses in human pathology at Harvard and Georgetown University medical schools. In 1967, John succeeded Dr. Clyde Dawe as the director of the Registry of Tumors in Lower Animals (RTLA). The RTLA was founded in 1966 with funds from the National Cancer Institute and housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Harshbarger’s distinguished reputation was earned, in part, for his service as the RTLA’s director for 36 years, the first 28 at the Smithsonian and last eight at the George Washington University Medical Center. The RTLA has functioned as a diagnostic centre, literature centre, specimen depository and a general clearinghouse for information on neoplasia and related disorders in invertebrate and cold-blooded vertebrate animals. John developed the RTLA into a centre for collaborative research with scientists frequently visiting from across the globe. One colleague was His Imperial Highness Prince Masahito Hitachi of the Cancer Institute of the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research. Harshbarger hosted the Prince when he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from George Washington University in 1997. During his directorship, Harshbarger was responsible for expanding the RTLA’s archival specimen collection to >7000 cases recruited from sources worldwide, including many materials from his own survey work. The taxonomic breadth of Harshbarger’s interest is seen clearly by examining the titles of his bibliography consisting of approximately 200 journal articles and book chapters, as well as abstracts from numerous presentations, and coedited books. These include pathological studies of insects, mollusks, lizards, snakes, turtles, frogs, salamanders, hellbenders and multiple species of fish. John’s work goes well beyond the laboratory. Several of his works are literature syntheses of neoplasia in various taxa. Others focus on neoplasia as an indicator of environmental condition. He has collaborated on many studies that utilize biomarkers along with pathology and chemical data to gain insights into causative environmental factors. Ó 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
860
Biography
Harshbarger has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Fish Diseases since 1978. For many years, he was a member of the editorial boards of Cancer Research, Toxicologic Pathology and Herpetopathologia. Due to his renowned expertise in fish histopathology and environmental tumour monitoring, he was the lead testifier on The Causes of Reported Epidemics of Cancer in Fish and the Relationship between these Occurrences and Environmental Quality and Human Health before a U.S. Congressional Subcommittee in 1983. Harshbarger has served and continues to serve on scientific advisory panels concerning epizootics of toxicologically induced neoplasms in wild fish. His dedication and enthusiasm for research was unmatched. For example, when Paul Baumann was starting his work on polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and neoplasms in the early 1980s, John agreed to do the histopathology. However, he went way beyond the meagre bounds of the research proposal and flew his own plane (a 4-seat Mooney) up to Lorain, Ohio, to help with the field work on the Black River. This enabled them to load a large quantity of fish specimens for the flight back. As John flew back east over Ohio, a mechanic’s error caused the gas to drain from his fuel tanks. Talking with air traffic control, he realized he could not glide far enough to reach an airport. Keeping his wits (as always), John selected a large abandoned field for his landing. All went well until he hit a fence concealed by weeds. John was bruised and a little bloody, and the plane was damaged irreparably. When the sheriff and ambulance arrived, he refused to leave, because he did not want anything to happen to the fish samples. The sheriff finally gave him a choice of getting in the ambulance voluntarily or being arrested. Harshbarger was forced to go to the hospital, but the samples were well taken care of and formed the basis for a series of publications. These papers tracked the prevalence of liver neoplasms in brown bullheads (Ameiurus nebulosus) in the Black River and showed how the response coincided with changes in PAH exposure. Their 1998 paper, Long term trends in liver neoplasm epizootics of brown bullhead in the Black River, Ohio, is often cited as one of the few field studies that meet the classic epidemiological criteria for causation. Harshbarger’s ongoing collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Chesapeake Bay Field Office in Annapolis, Maryland, began in 1991. In a sampling effort aimed at analysing contaminant
Journal of Fish Diseases 2014, 37, 859–861
concentrations in channel catfish near the Potomac River National Wildlife Refuge Complex about 40 km downriver from Washington, DC, the biologists observed many brown bullheads with pink, raised lip lesions. John was called in and diagnosed liver and skin neoplasms in a follow-up sampling of bullheads from the tidal creeks. Subsequent studies in 1996 and 2000 examined a wider area of the Potomac River watershed, including the highly contaminated Anacostia River in Washington, DC. There, he documented the highest liver tumour prevalence in brown bullheads in North America. Later studies demonstrated a dramatic improvement in this river, as shown by a 50% decrease in tumour prevalence. His work on collaborative monitoring studies throughout the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes helped establish brown bullhead liver neoplasms as an environmental indicator of habitat quality and a technique for monitoring the success of cleanups. Among his many honours, Harshbarger was the first recipient of the Prince Hitachi Prize for Comparative Oncology presented by His Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi of Japan in Tokyo in 1996.
Ó 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
861
Biography
He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has received awards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Sigma Xi, the Roswell Park Memorial Institute and Bridgewater College. In 2008, he delivered the Edward Elkan Memorial Lecture, Chronology of Oncology, Corals to Reptiles, at the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando, Florida. John Harshbarger continues to work as an Adjunct Professor of Pathology at George Washington and as a consulting Environmental Pathologist. With this biography, we not only honour his 55 years of authorship in professional journals, his enthusiasm, generosity, mentoring of fellow scientists, sense of humour and humility but also his ongoing work and wish him continued success. A E Pinkney1, P C Baumann2 and J C Wolf 3 1 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Chesapeake Bay Field Office, Annapolis, MD, USA 2 U.S. Geological Survey, Leetown Science Center (retired), Columbus, OH, USA 3 EPL, Inc., Sterling, VA, USA
