Writing, as with science, often takes a village, especially when the author, like me, has a different day job. I am much indebted to my daughter Simone Blaser for helping me shape my early ideas into a form that could be attractive to a publisher, and to Dorian Karchmar, my agent (and Simone’s boss at William Morris), who helped me get there. Sandra Blakeslee did yeoman work converting my ideas and prose, generated by an academic, into a manuscript that could be more widely understood. To Sandra, with her endless creativity, intellect, and energy, and who I now count as one of the most important teachers in my career, I will be forever grateful. Gillian Blake, editor in chief at Henry Holt, and an enthusiast about this work from the very start, contributed in too many ways to count, and I learned that with regard to both style and content she was always right.
Many of my colleagues read portions of the manuscript to help determine whether or not I was on track and accurate. I appreciate the efforts of Drs. William Ledger, Ernst Kuipers, Claudia Plottel, and José Clemente, and the important suggestions of Erika Goldman. Dr. Robert Anderson read the work as both physician and reader, and he gave great advice. I am indebted to Dr. Jan Vilcek for his critical insights as well; although English is not his native language, Jan also corrected my grammar. Linda Peters and Isabel Teitler helped me understand what could be understood and was interesting. I appreciate the friendship they each shared, helping me to craft this manuscript. My assistants at New York University, Sandra Fiorelli, Jessica Stangel, and then Joyce Ying, helped make order from chaos, no small feat, and I am most appreciative of their efforts. Adriana Pericchi Dominguez was an assiduous and resourceful fact-checker.
An important segment of the book focuses on the research done in my lab at Vanderbilt University and, over the past fourteen years, at NYU. At Vanderbilt, Drs. Tim Cover, Murali Tummuru, Guillermo Pérez-Pérez, Richard Peek, John Atherton, and Ernst Kuipers played key roles. At NYU, it also was very much a team effort, involving other faculty members, graduate and medical students, college and high school students, and visiting researchers. So many were involved in substantive ways that it would difficult to name them all. But for the work highlighted in the text, Drs. Guillermo Pérez-Pérez, Zhiheng Pei, Fritz Francois, Joan Reibman, Yu Chen, Zhan Gao, Ilseung Cho, Claudia Plottel, Alex Alekseyenko, Leo Trasande, and Jan Blustein—all fellow NYU faculty members—contributed in ways mentioned and not. I have had outstanding graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who worked with me on the experiments discussed, notably Laurie Cox, Shingo Yamanishi, Alexandra Livanos, Sabine Kienesberger, and Victoria Ruiz. Yael Noble worked as a research assistant before her time in medical school, but in her efforts she was more like a grad student. Many other students, post-docs, and colleagues are working on ongoing projects that one day will be described in great detail in original scientific publications. Together we have had and continue to have an amazing lab, with a great culture of sharing and generosity.
Hurricane Sandy hit us very hard. With a loss of electrical power, we had a mad dash to retrieve our thawing specimens in freezers—the work of thirty years of research. We rescued nearly all of the current studies, but lost some of our archives—samples obtained from villages and patients all over the world decades ago. They were irreplaceable. We were out of our home lab at the New York Veterans Affairs hospital for more than ten months and had one tribulation piled on the next. Yet with their kindness to one another, adaptability, and “can do” mentality, it was, for the lab members, their finest hour, and the storm and its aftermath provided lessons in life that can not be learned from books.
For the past eight years, my research has had major philanthropic support in the form of the Diane Belfer Program in Human Microbial Ecology. Diane was an early believer in the value of our studies. I much appreciate her enthusiasm and unwavering support, beginning when the ideas were more of a dream. Early support also came from the Ellison Medical Foundation. More recently, the Knapp Family Foundation and the Leslie and Daniel Ziff Foundation have been major sponsors of our explorations. Our work also has been supported by the D’Agostino Foundation, Hemmerdinger Foundation, Fritz and Adelaide Kaufman Foundation, Margaret Q. Landen-berger Research Foundation, Graham Family Charitable Foundation, James and Patricia Cayne Trust, and Messrs. David Fox, Richard Sharfman, Michael Saperstein, Robert Spass, and Joseph Curcio, and Dr. Bernard Levine, as well as Mss. Regina Skyer, Edythe Heyman, and Lorraine DiPaolo. Donna Marino has been an incredibly effective advocate for our work. I am very grateful to all.
Our work described in this book has been supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Army, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Ellison Medical Foundation, the International Union against Cancer, the World Health Organization, and governments and universities in Japan, the Netherlands, Korea, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, France, Italy, Turkey, and Venezuela for support of visiting scholars. Institutional support came in many different forms from the NYU Langone Medical Center and from the Manhattan/NY Harbor Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
This combination of major research university, U.S. government, private foundations, international support, and philanthropy is necessary for a research program to survive and ultimately to flower.
Finally, my wife and research partner, Dr. Maria Gloria Dominguez Bello, has helped with insight, criticism, adventure, and love. I am glad that I could highlight a few of her many contributions to our shared field. My children Daniel, Genia, and Simone have been steadfast in their love and support.
As with most projects that take a long time, many hands stirred the pot and contributed greatly. I thank one and all for their wonderful help and fellowship.