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| C.J. Peters works with disease control |
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Alum helped to contain 1989 Virginia Ebola outbreak
Clarence James (C.J.) Peters (Wiess, '62) is the chief of the special pathogens branch of the Centers for Disease Control. His job is to stop infectious diseases such as the Ebola virus from expanding into lethal epidemics. As a field virologist and former army colonel, Peters has traveled to the jungles and backlands of Panama, Bolivia and Zaire to study killer diseases such as Machupo, Marburg and Lessa. The case Peters is best known for handling is the 1989 outbreak of the Ebola Reston virus among laboratory monkeys near Washington, D.C. In Zaire, where Ebola erupted in 1976, the virus killed 80 percent of the people it infected. The Washington crises was the subject of a 1994 best-seller The Hot Zone written by Richard Preston. It also inspired the movie Outbreak in which Peters emerges as one of the heroes who keeps the incident under control. Peters grew up in Odessa, Texas. At Rice, he initially majored in chemical engineering, but switched to chemistry his junior year after taking courses with Thomas Brackett. Peters received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1996.
This item appeared in the Features section of the October 10, 1997 issue. |
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