Ray Boston

Professor of Applied Biomathematics, School of Veterinary Medicine

Professor of Biostatistics, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

I attended Camberwell during the years 1956 - 1960 … may I call these 'The Great Years'.

I had no idea what I wanted to do when I left school so my time at Camberwell was completely formative for me. I was fortunate to have loyal and clever friends and the best teachers imaginable and, quite frankly, my years following Camberwell at various universities were much more downhill than I would have anticipated.

There were several teachers who challenged me and chartered my career … Dobel, Aickman, Gliddon, Huttner, Ferris, and Hart, and the students who were almost as influential; Gibson, Pratt, Penfold, Burton, Barton, Sanderson, Zyk, Witenberg, and Mackenzie.

It was also a privilege to be in Camberwell's great rowing squad in the years when the only thing that interfered with the size of our winning streaks was the number of boats we could get access to …..... ........well almost.

After leaving Camberwell in 1960, I studied Science at Melbourne University for 9 or so years, leaving there in 1970 with a Doctorate in Theoretical Physics and a Masters in Physiology.

From 1970 to 1973, I studied at ANU in the Statistics Department of the Research School of Mathematics and Statistics (formally RSSS) investigating the cause of the failure of Mirage Aircraft to handle extreme down drafts. To work at ANU at this time, in the Research School's Statistics Department under the two greatest Australian Statisticians, PAP Moran and Ted Hannan, was such an honor. It was impossible to work with these people and not be truly impressed by the magnitude of their intellect.

Following my time as a Research Fellow in Statistics at ANU, I was appointed as a lecturer in Statistics in the School of Agriculture of La Trobe University. The transition to La Trobe was softened by the fact that I was able to take my Defence Contract (the Mirage Project) with me.

It was there that I was greatly influenced by a colleague, and eventual Dean of the School, David Leaver.

David was an outstanding investigator who provided me, as Biometrician and Data Analyst, with an array of extremely interesting and challenging problems. We studied reasons for abnormal metabolism, and mineral malabsorption in a host of animals (sheep, rats, mice etc.) and this led not only to a series of articles, research grants, and graduate students, but also to opportunities for me, through the auspices of Dr. Leaver, to study, and advance my ideas on how metabolism could be more generally investigated, abroad.

In 1976, I went to the US National Institutes of Health for the first time and was invited to involve myself with the development of new Computing and Statistical approaches being developed there for the investigation of metabolic problems … it is ironic that I now control this entire initiative from my home base at Penn.

Dr. Mones Berman coordinated and inspired the research effort at the National Institutes of Health… yet another giant of science and medicine who shaped my career.

Before leaving La Trobe, in 1985, I was very fortunate to become intimately involved with the Diabetes group at St. Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne. Here with Drs. Frank Alford, Jim Best, and Glenn Ward, I was given the opportunity to develop and apply new methods for detection of aberrant glucose metabolism and to efficiently quantify insulin resistance.

During my La Trobe appointment, I worked with other groups in this field, with investigators from Monash, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Austin Hospital, Repatriation and General Hospital, Preston Hospital, and the Southern Memorial Hospital. By now, the application of my work had considerably broadened to embrace drug action, tumor development and anticancer drug mechanisms … with the theme of my work remaining loyal to the focus introduced from my association with Drs. Leaver and Berman.

In 1985, I was invited to take up the Foundation Chair of Computer Studies at Murdoch University and, coincidentally, an appointment at the University of Pennsylvania was offered.… I took the Murdoch position. While there, I continued to develop my metabolic investigation initiative (metabolic modeling), and the software I had evolved in association with the NIH people for that purpose became more and more popular throughout the world (it was known as Consam, at that time). In addition, I taught the usual Murdoch teaching load (140 or so hours per semester) and visited my NIH collaborators (Dr. Berman had passed away and his work was being continued by Dr, Zech), up to three times per year, to continue our research.

Also at Murdoch I had many international guests, from the US, Europe, Israel, and Africa visit, and spend sabbatical periods, with me. In 1991 the workload at Murdoch had become unmanageable … teaching, administration, and research were conflicting too seriously with one another and a move had to be made. The University of Pennsylvania continued to make increasingly attractive offers and in September of that year I left Murdoch to take up a Professorship in Applied Biomathematics with the School of Veterinary Medicine at Penn.

My time at Penn has been superb … whereas the workload is extremely high, each project I work on is exciting and challenging. I continue to develop my metabolic modeling software (indeed the entire NIH WinSAAM project, for 45 years located at the US National Institutes of Health is now managed by me in my own Biostatistics Section at Penn) and I have recently entered into an arrangement with Dr. Richard Bergman at the University of Southern California to develop computer-based mathematical techniques to cater for the needs of Hospitals, Clinics, Municipalities, and Nations to chart and understand the progression of Types 2 Diabetes through the world (this is a disease likely to affect 3 to 4 hundred million people in our life time).

Since arriving at Penn I have been appointed to positions in Medicine, where I am Professor of Biostatistics, and to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences where I teach Biological Modeling, as well as a teaching appointment in the Medical School where I offer instruction in Applied Biostatistics.

 

Projects, that I am currently involved in, include:

Causes of obesity amongst African-American Women

Glucose metabolism and Insulin resistance in Thoroughbred horses

Failure of adherence to prescribed medications amongst different ethnic groups

The propagation of diseases in aquaculture fish tanks

Estrogen metabolism changes in association with breast tumors

MR breast imaging pattern changes associated with Tamoxifen treatment

Sickle-cell anemia in African-Americans, Blood clotting properties as predictors of survival in acutely ill equine neonates

Race training paradigm as a predictor of Bucked Shine in Two-year-old Thoroughbreds

Free fatty acid metabolism in association with the FSIGT

Causes of infantile galactosemia

MR techniques for the rapid detection of ischemia

 

Any reader interested in exploring the application of my software can freely download it from www.winsaam.com. I will be delighted to help you with its use.

 

Ray in his Form 1V C, 1958, class photo