making muscle wasting history

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About Karl2346

Music

Classical Music especially music by Beethoven, Wagner, Bruckner and Mahler as well as more recent serious music. I regularly go to symphony concerts and the opera.

Interests

Music, the arts, literature and history as well as interests related to my previous career as a microbiologist. I love to travel especially to visit places of cultural or historical interest. I try to follow the current studies on evolution and on the origin of the universe.

About Me

I am the grandfather of a boy with DMD. I am also a retired microbiologist / biochemist.

Short Autobiography.

Karl Albert Bettelheim
Short Biography

I was born in 1936 in Vienna, Austria and just over two years later after the Anschluss, my parents and I had to flee our homeland. We went via Belgium to Shanghai, China, where we lived through the subsequent Japanese occupation and liberation, returning to Vienna in 1949 to avoid the civil war in China. A year later we moved to London, where I completed my secondary education. I then read for an Honours B.Sc. in Biochemistry at the University of Leeds, followed by taking an M.Sc. in Microbiology at the Imperial College, University of London. I then took a position at the Central Public Health Laboratory working mainly on different aspects of the pathogenicity of Escherichia coli. Part of those studies were also submitted for a Ph.D. to the University of London. In 1962 I married Shirley, a New Zealand nurse and we have three children, two sons and a daughter.
After working as a lecturer at the Medical School of St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, we moved in 1976 to Wellington, New Zealand, where I was offered a position at the National Health Institute. While there I worked with many different aspects of infectious diseases and particularly set up a reference laboratory for Legionnaires' Disease. I also set up an E. coli reference laboratory and was one of the first to describe Verocytotoxigenic E. coli as human pathogens in 1980. In 1987 I went to Fairfield Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, where I set up the Australian National E. coli Reference Laboratory. Following closure of the hospital in the mid-ninety’s, the laboratories have become the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory. I was seconded to the Microbiological Diagnostic Unit, part of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, from which I retired in December 2005. In all I have well over 200 publications in scientific journals and chapters in books, and still spend some time being involved in these studies. With colleagues I have even published a paper recently showing a link of the carriage by an infant of certain toxin-producing E. coli and the development of Sudden Infant Death (cot death)
Throughout my career I have maintained an interest in E. coli but tried to have as wide a view of bacteriology and infectious diseases as possible. I also have a great interest in serious music, art and literature, both classical and contemporary and spend my spare time in these pursuits. I also maintain an interest in international affairs, which I try to view in their historical context. With my sons now living in London, my wife and I moved to London following my retirement and our daughter joined us here last year.
My daughter has two children, a boy (born 1995) and a girl (born 1999). My eldest son has a son, Frederick, (born 2002), who has DMD and from the time he was diagnosed, I have taken a great deal of interest in this condition and used my scientific background to try to understand the underlying biological aspects. This involves a lot of reading and learning a whole new set of terms. However, I am getting a greater understanding and beginning to get a grasp of this complex issue.

Your Shout [3] - (View All Articles)

• Research Review No. 34 (corrected)
  10:47AM, 13 January 2012 | 0 comments

  A major researcher on Resveratrol has been accused of Fraud and therefore all studies on this drug should be treated with caution.

• Research Review No. 46. A healthy Heart, a problem.
  00:37PM, 01 January 2012 | 0 comments

  Heart function tends to remain asymptomatic, while the progress of cardiac dysfunction proceeds in tandem with the general muscle wasting. When cardiac symptoms do occur it may be too late. Earlier testing and possible treatments are discussed.

• Research Review No. 45. Halofuginone; A new update.
  01:09PM, 20 December 2011 | 0 comments

  In the 18 months since I wrote Research Review No.13, a lot more work has been done on Halofuginone and a clinical trial on its use in DMD is being planned. It thus seemed relevant to revisit the scientific literature on this drug especially in relation to DMD.