From Outbreaks to Opportunity
With his planned gift, James Luby, M.D., an infectious disease specialist, aspires to offer generous support to future generations of students and researchers
Spend any amount of time with James Luby, M.D. – recently named Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine – and he will tell you about some of the country’s most fearsome infectious diseases he encountered during his 57-year tenure with UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Today, Dr. Luby is giving back to UT Southwestern through a planned gift to support multiple areas, including research by early-career investigators and scholarships for students in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine – where he served as Chief for 22 years. Because of his generous gift, Dr. Luby has now joined the ranks of The Wildenthal Society, which was established by Southwestern Medical Foundation to recognize those who make planned gifts to benefit UT Southwestern.
Dr. Luby credits his time as an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps – stationed at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – with sparking his lifelong passion for epidemiology.
James Luby, M.D., in his lab circa 2007 Provided by James Luby
Dr. Luby, a Chicago native, earned his medical degree at Northwestern University, and then pursued an internal medicine residency (including one year as chief resident) at Parkland Memorial Hospital and later, a fellowship in infectious diseases at UT Southwestern.
He joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 1967, eventually rising to Division Chief of Infectious Diseases. During his time at UT Southwestern, Dr. Luby’s research interests included clinical virology, herpes viruses, arboviral infections (for which spraying was performed in Dallas in 2012 to treat West Nile virus, and previously in 1966 to treat St. Louis encephalitis), HIV, the epidemiology of hospital-acquired infections, and histoplasmosis.
“The issue with epidemics is they often involve very hard-to-control diseases,” Dr. Luby said. “Epidemic years will come, and they will be followed by several years where people are only mildly bothered by the viruses. But still the populace has to realize how serious they can be.”
Epidemic Insights
Recently, Dr. Luby shared some snapshot memories of landmark epidemics he encountered during his career.
ST. LOUIS ENCEPHALITIS OF HOUSTON & DALLAS
“I still vividly recall,” Dr. Luby said, “how frightened Houston and later Dallas citizens were by this epidemic. After this first crucial experience, I knew I was extremely interested in infectious diseases. Control of urban epidemics of St. Louis encephalitis in Houston, in 1964, and Dallas, in 1966, necessitated aerial spraying of insecticides to control the vector mosquitoes.”
AIDS
“I will never forget how much stigma was attached to those contracting AIDS,” Dr. Luby said, who was an early member of UT Southwestern’s AIDS clinic.
WEST NILE VIRUS
“West Nile was similar in its clinical appearance in both epidemics – early in the case of St. Louis encephalitis – because the underlying mosquito vectors were the same in both diseases,” Dr. Luby said. “The mosquito populations may require aerial spraying of insecticides to stop the spread of the virus to humans.”
COVID-19
“What I discovered is that during every epidemic – and COVID was no exception – people tend to blame the doctors taking care of the patients,” Dr. Luby recalled. “But when such an epidemic comes along, you may have to be aggressive when facing early cases, particularly when there is only limited experience in their management.”
A gift to future generations
Dr. Luby’s main motivation for making his planned gift is his enduring memory of going through undergraduate and medical school buoyed by scholarship support. “Thanks to people who donated monies, I could concentrate on just studying,” Dr. Luby recalled. “People invested in me, and now I want to do the same for future generations of infectious disease clinicians and researchers.”
J. David Beckham, M.D.
J. David Beckham, M.D., Professor and current Division Chief of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, expressed his gratitude for Dr. Luby’s future planned gift.
“There is no doubt we will use this gift to support all the things Dr. Luby has been passionate about throughout his career,” Dr. Beckham said. “It will be invested in infectious disease research with a direct impact on elevating the education of fellows and residents.”
When assessing the multiple impacts of Dr. Luby’s future planned gift, Dr. Beckham points out an often overlooked area of its potential effect.
“My immense gratitude to Dr. Luby reflects the reality that even though infectious diseases exert such a broadly felt impact on society, they still don’t generate the same rate of government and donor support that say, oncology does,” Dr. Beckham said. “This reality makes the generous gift from Dr. Luby exponentially more significant and appreciated.”
- Dr. Beckham holds the Jay P. Sanford Professorship in Infectious Diseases.