Andrew Spielman

Andrew Spielman (24 February 1930 – 20 December 2006) was a prominent

Spielman was a world-renowned expert in the

.

Biography

Early life, education and military service

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2011)

Spielman earned a B.S. from

lieutenant commander

).

Career

Spielman became a member of the faculty at HSPH in 1959, where he divided his time between the lab and the field.

After George Healy, a researcher at the

red blood cells

.

Although a handful of human cases had been reported worldwide, babesiosis was not previously known as an established human disease. On Nantucket, he trapped

Ixodes dammini

, a species he named).

By this approach, he was able to identify the tick responsible for what he called “Nantucket fever" (it was not Dermacentor variabilis, the

• Spielman was author of more than 360 publications on the
  West Nile encephalitis, and filariasis
  .
  • First description of the life cycles and ecology of the agents of human babesiosis and Lyme disease
  • Elucidation of the role of saliva and its production in vectors such as ticks and mosquitoes in transmitting diseases
  • The first uses of growth regulators to interfere with normal mosquito development to aid mosquito control
  • The exploration of the possibility that roosting birds play a key part in perpetuating the viruses that cause
    eastern equine encephalitis virus and West Nile encephalitis
    .
  • Led the
    SmithKline Beecham Lyme disease vaccine among residents of Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Block Island
    .

In 1979, Spielman officially proclaimed the Nantucket version of the deer tick a separate species, naming it Ixodes dammini after Gustave Dammin, a prominent pathologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, because he had helped him with the research and was a property owner on Nantucket (Dammin's wife came from one of Nantucket's most prominent families).

Spielman built his case for I. dammini being a separate species from Ixodes scapularis on the observations that the two ticks had very distinct ranges (I. dammini in the Northeast, I. scapularis in the South) and that I. dammini was morphologically different, especially at the nymphal stage. He also marshaled DNA evidence to make his case.

Spielman fought a protracted, but probably ultimately losing, battle for I. dammini's identity as a separate species.

Siding with researchers in Georgia, the editors of the Journal of Medical Entomology officially ruled that, taxonomically, I. dammini is identical to I. scapularis and that the two species should be "synonymized" under Ixodes scapularis. Spielman disagreed, he asserted that maintaining I. dammini's separate identity is key to understanding the ecology and epidemiology of tick-borne diseases.

Publications

• Spielman, Andrew and Michael D'Antonio (2001), Mosquito: A Natural History of Our Most Persistent and Deadly Foe,
  Hyperion
  .

References

• Harvard University Gazette Obituary
• "Nantucket Fever" in Harvard Public Health Review at the HSPH website

External links

• Video of Andrew Spielman Discussing Malaria Free to view video by the Vega Science Trust.