Aaron Frederick "Fred" Rasmussen Jr. (May 27, 1915,
St. Anthony, Idaho
St. Anthony is a city in and the county seat of Fremont County, Idaho, Fremont County, Idaho, United States. The population was 3,542 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, up from 3,342 in 2000.UCLA School of Medicine. He is known for his pioneering research in psychoneuroimmunology.
Biography
He graduated in 1937 with a B.S. from the University of Idaho. At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he graduated in 1940 with an M.S. and in 1941 with a Ph.D. in medical bacteriology. He received his M.D. in 1944 from the
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...
, where he was a research associate from 1941 to 1942 and an instructor from 1942 to 1943. From 1944 to 1948 he served as an officer in the United States Army Medical Corps. From 1947 to 1948 in Washington, D.C., he was the chief of the chemotherapy research section of the department of viral and rickettsial diseases at the
Army Medical Center
Founded by U.S. Army Brigadier General George Miller Sternberg, MD in 1893, the Army Medical School (AMS) was by some reckonings the world's first school of public health and preventive medicine. (The other institution vying for this distinction ...
(which in 1953 was renamed the
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) is the largest biomedical research facility administered by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The institute is centered at the Forest Glen Annex, in the Forest Glen Park part of the uni ...
).
From 1948 to 1952 at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Rasmussen was an associate professor and then a full professor of medical microbiology and preventive medicine. At the UCLA School of Medicine (now named the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA), he was appointed in 1952 a full professor in the Department of infectious diseases (which became the department of microbiology and immunology) and chief of the department's virology section. He chaired the department from 1962 to 1969. In 1953 he was appointed to the staff of the City of Hope Cancer Research Institute. In 1969 at the UCLA School of Medicine, he was appointed associate dean, a position he held until his sudden, unexpected death in 1984 from an acute pulmonary embolism.
Rasmussen's 1957 paper ''Increased susceptibility to herpes simplex in mice subjected to avoidance-Learning stress or restraint'', coauthored by James T. Marsh and Norman Q. Brill, and his 1969 paper ''Emotion and immunity'' have foundational roles in psychoneuroimmunology. In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Rasmussen and his colleagues investigated the effects of emotional stress in animal models for various viral infections, such as herpes simplex,
Coxsackie B
Coxsackie B is a group of six serotypes of coxsackievirus (CVB1-CVB6), a pathogenic enterovirus, that trigger illness ranging from gastrointestinal distress to full-fledged pericarditis and myocarditis ( coxsackievirus-induced cardiomyopathy) ...
,
vesicular stomatitis
''Indiana vesiculovirus'', formerly ''Vesicular stomatitis Indiana virus'' (VSIV or VSV) is a virus in the family ''Rhabdoviridae''; the well-known ''Rabies lyssavirus'' belongs to the same family. VSIV can infect insects, cattle, horses and pigs ...
,
poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe sym ...
, and
polyoma
''Polyomaviridae'' is a family of viruses whose natural hosts are primarily mammals and birds. As of 2020, there are six recognized genera and 117 species, five of which are unassigned to a genus. 14 species are known to infect humans, while othe ...
.
For the academic year 1960–1961, he was on sabbatical as a visiting scientist at the United States Naval Research Unit 2 in
Tapei
Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...
. During his sabbatical year he found that the influenza virus that caused the
1957–1958 influenza pandemic
The 1957–1958 Asian flu pandemic was a global pandemic of influenza A virus subtype H2N2 that originated in Guizhou in Southern China. The number of excess deaths caused by the pandemic is estimated to be 1–4 million around the world (1957� ...
was closely related to at least 4 different influenza viruses occurring in Asia among pigs, ducks, chickens, and horses.
Rasmussen was elected in 1953 a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
. He was the president of the American Society for Microbiology for the academic year 1972–1973.
In 1941 he married Besse Mabel Tatum (1913–1982). They had a son and two daughters. Their son, Frederick Tatum Rasmussen (1943–2020), became a lawyer and partner at several law firms in Seattle.