1:16 p.m., April 22, 2010----A biologist and a historian in the University of Delaware's College of Arts and Sciences delivered their inaugural lectures as named faculty members this week, each describing some highlights of her research as well as the process that led her to a particular academic interest.

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Patricia Martin-DeLeon, Trustees Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences, spoke Monday, April 19, on the topic, “Facing Up to the Fertility Flipsides: Genes Involved in the Maturation and Function of the Male Gamete.” DeLeon, a leader in the field of human reproductive genetics, is a faculty member in the Delaware Biotechnology Institute and the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence at UD, in addition to her position in the Department of Biological Sciences, and also is a member of the University's Board of Trustees.

Susan Strasser, the Richards Chair of American History, spoke Tuesday, April 20, on a topic related to a book she is currently writing, “A Historical Herbal: Household Medicine and Herbal Commerce in a Developing Consumer Society.” A prolific and well-known writer and editor in the history of American consumer culture, the environment and industrialization, Strasser also has served as senior resident scholar at the Hagley Museum and Library's Center for the History of Business, Technology and Society.

Patricia DeLeon

DeLeon began her studies at the University of the West Indies, where she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees, and she spoke to the audience at her inaugural lecture about her early experience as a scientist.

“I was fascinated by the beauty of chromosomes,” she said. “I was actually hypnotized. I was hooked, and I thought I'd spend the rest of my life peering through a microscope.”

Continuing on to explain which chromosomes she was most interested in, DeLeon said, “The chromosomes of which I was hypnotized were not the nice ones on the right, the nice banded chromosomes. They were the short stubby ones over on the left.”

She discussed the functions of chromosomes in more detail, saying, “Chromosomes are the physical vehicles of variety. They carry the DNA, they carry the blueprint of life, and in humans, there are 23 pairs of chromosomes which are found in the nucleus, and in order to study these chromosomes, one has to pair them.

“Pairing allows us to detect not only the numerical changes but also structural changes, or the changes in shape, because it's enormously important that each parent donates only one member of each of his pair-one from the father by way of the sperm and one from the mother by way of the egg.”

DeLeon's current research at the University of Delaware focuses on the identification of genes and mechanisms that are involved in sperm dysfunction and male factor infertility/subfertility. Helping to discover sperm dysfunction is important to her, she said.

“One of the most interesting statistics is that if you go to worldwide fertility clinics, only 75 percent of the cases at the infertility clinics have an explained basis for their infertility,” she said. “It's believed that genetic defects account for the majority of the unexplained infertility.”

DeLeon quoted a 2002 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control which found that 7.3 million people in America are affected by infertility and that one in six, or 15 percent, of couples face infertility.

“What is concerning is that the frequency is increasing,” she said. “We know now that in this decrease in fertility, the single most common cause is sperm defect.” She went on to say that one in five 18-year-olds in England are considered infertile based on their semen assessments.

This problem leads to another dilemma, which DeLeon described as “to fertilize or not to fertilize,” referring to world overpopulation as one of the biggest problems facing geneticists and biologists when it comes to solving the world's infertility problem.

DeLeon earned her doctorate in microscopic anatomy from the University of Western Ontario. She did postdoctoral studies at McGill University, where she also taught before coming to Delaware in 1976. She also has mentored many undergraduate and graduate students and recently went to the White House to accept the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.

Susan Strasser

Strasser began her lecture by discussing her earliest research projects that led to her first three books, which focused on a history of housework in America, advertising and mass marketing in America and a social history of trash.

Each book project led to the next one, Strasser said, as her research on housework got her interested in domestic technology, which then interested her in how that technology was marketed. In turn, as she became more aware of environmental issues, her research interests turned to the subject of trash and environmental history.

“I see my first three books as three different takes on the same subject,” she said, adding that the field of consumer culture history is not so much a distinct or independent discipline as it is “a lens through which we can view all kinds of history.”

Strasser described her interests as examining the interface of public and private, of economic and domestic issues, especially during the period of about 1870-1930. During that time, she said, a transformation took place in American life as commodification and consumerism grew. Her work has been praised, for example, by The New Yorker for “retrieving what history discards: the taken-for-granted minutiae of everyday life.”

Also in the lecture, Strasser offered an overview of some of her current work, which she expects to explore in detail in a book to be called A Historical Herbal, which will be an account of the commerce and culture of medicinal herbs.

Although she told the audience that she grows herbs, including medicinal herbs, herself, she said the story she wants to tell in the book “is not the story of alternative medicine.” Rather, she said, plant-based medicines “have been central to the history of medicine” and always have been prescribed by physicians and manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. Many plants, she said, have well-established medicinal properties and cannot be assumed to be “quackery” that is either useless or harmful.

Strasser said she plans to organize the book by plant types, with a chapter on peppermint (“the ultimate in gardener's medicine, in domestic medicine”), one on Echinacea and another on opium (“Opium is really addictive; once you start reading about opium, you want to read more”).

Other topics she discussed included medicine shows, in which so-called patent medicines were sold by traveling entertainers. The shows, Strasser said, played an important part in American culture by getting audiences used to the idea that their entertainment was sponsored by a product. “You sat through the pitch, and then you got to hear the banjo player,” she said, adding that sometimes that sales pitch was entertaining, too, “like Super Bowl ads.”

Her research has also included an examination of the Shaker communities, which are known to Americans today for their handmade furniture but which first created their own business brand by making and selling medicinal herbs and extracts, Strasser said. “It was the medicinal herb business, above all, that made the Shaker name one to be trusted,” she said.

Strasser also pointed out that many patent medicines and other plant-based tonics and treatments contained ingredients that were valid treatments for minor, everyday complaints, similar to over-the-counter painkillers or antacids that Americans routinely take today without consulting a doctor. Many of the herbal medicines were marketed to women, who Strasser said should not be considered “drunks or dupes” for buying and using them.

Article by Ann Manser and Adam Thomas