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Ian Lipkin: Microbe Hunter Hollywood Consultant

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  • Catching the Hollywood Bug [3:00] Catching the Hollywood Bug
  • 30 Second Science: Ian Lipkin [0:46] 30 Second Science: Ian Lipkin
  • 10 Questions for Ian Lipkin [2:11] 10 Questions for Ian Lipkin

Q&A with Ian
I always liked infectious diseases, because you could come up with a drug… and you could give it to someone… and they would become well rapidly.
His Science:
Microbe Hunter

What he studies: Infectious diseases

Which diseases: Some big ones - HIV/AIDS, SARS, West Nile

His tools: Microscope, molecular tools, utter fearlessness

His Secret:
Hollywood Consultant

Why he does it: To educate millions of people about public health issues

The number of “Contagion” DVDs sold in its first week on sale: Almost three-quarters of a million

Who sang “Happy Birthday” to Ian on the “Contagion” set: Kate Winslet

About Ian Lipkin

Ian Lipkin is a self-described “microbe hunter.” A professor at Columbia University, he does research on a wide array of infectious diseases. When Ian’s not in the lab, he helps Hollywood put science up on the silver screen. Among his many other contributions to the film “Contagion,” Ian taught Gwyneth Paltrow how to have a seizure.

Posts about Ian Lipkin

Seandor Szeles

WATCH: “A Haiku with Ian Lipkin”

Posted by Seandor Szeles | 14 December 2012

Our friend the microbe hunter waxes philosophical with a haiku about vaccine.


Comments
Seandor Szeles

WATCH: “Science for Soderbergh”

Posted by Seandor Szeles | 11 December 2012

Ian Lipkin paints a picture of life as a Hollywood Consultant by telling us about one instance in which he helped “Contagion” director Steven Soderbergh keep his film scientifically accurate.


Fixing the mistake required an expensive and time-consuming reshoot, but as Ian put it - “it really has to be good science.”

Kudos to Soderbergh for keeping his film scientifically honest.

Comments
Carl Zimmer

Science Ink #6 - “Vaccine Tree”

Posted by Carl Zimmer | 04 December 2012

One of Ian Lipkin’s fellow virologists shares her tattoo of a vaccine tree, inspired by a verse from the biblical book of Revelation: “On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of nations.”

“Vaccine Tree” - Photos and Text Courtesy of “Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed” by Carl Zimmer

“I’m a virologist in a biotech company in Singapore,” writes Shi-Hsia Hwa. “Here’s my story: I’ve been interested in infectious diseases since I was a kid because my father almost died of TB when he was an infant, and his secretary was an older man with a pronounced limp from polio. I must have been the only kid who looked forward to mass vaccination days in school.”

Check out more tattoos in “Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed” by Carl Zimmer.

Comments
Seandor Szeles

WATCH: “Matt Damon: Happy He’s Not Gwyneth Paltrow” with Ian Lipkin

Posted by Seandor Szeles | 16 November 2012

SPOILER ALERT: This video and post contain spoilers about the film Contagion (2011).

Director Steven Soderbergh wanted the film Contagion to convey a message: no one is beyond the law of nature. Not even Gwyneth Paltrow.

Here’s one way he achieved that goal.


Comments
Caitlin Shure

WATCH: 10 Questions with Ian Lipkin

Posted by Caitlin Shure | 12 November 2012

Dr. Ian Lipkin answers 10 questions and clarifies the age-old debate: Soap? Or Purell? He also gets into a lesser known dilemma: Matt Damon? Or Elliot Gould?

Watch Ian discuss infectious diseases—including the Hollywood bug—in the player above and on his Secret Life homepage.

Comments
Tom Miller

Brave

Posted by Tom Miller | 08 November 2012

Ian Lipkin describes himself as a “microbe hunter,” because he’s studied and worked on numerous infectious diseases over his many years in the lab (and not just the virus he created for “Contagion”). But while Ian always knew that he wanted to do research, in his younger days he also practiced medicine. Young Dr. Lipkin And in the early 1980’s, before one horrific disease even had the name that we know it by now, Ian worked with patients whose condition filled some other doctors with such fear that they wouldn’t even treat them:

“When I was a neurology resident at University of California, San Francisco, I was running a clinic that was devoted to taking care of people who had Gay-Related Immune Deficiency Disease (GRIDD), as it was then called, which we now know to be a precursor to HIV/AIDS. And I had this open clinic, people could come, there was no charge for doing so. And I received a message from a man in Dale, Colorado, who thought he had multiple sclerosis.”

When the man came to Ian’s clinic, it turned out that he didn’t have multiple sclerosis, but he was, in fact, deteriorating right before Ian’s eyes:

“What he had kept changing. So he would begin to lose sensation and then strength in the fingers and hands and one side of his face and another. I went off to go to the bathroom, and by the time I came back he was different again. He was changing so rapidly that he was at risk for respiratory failure or something of that nature.”

Continue >
Comments
Tom Miller

Ask Ian Your Questions

Posted by Tom Miller | 08 November 2012

If you’re a microbe, he’ll hunt you down. And he’ll show no remorse.

But if you’ve got a question for Ian, ask in the comments and he’ll be glad to answer you.

Comments
Seandor Szeles

WATCH: “Here’s Looking At You, Gwyneth Paltrow”

Posted by Seandor Szeles | 07 November 2012

Based on the serious ocular heat he’s throwing at Gwyneth Paltrow, can you guess Ian’s secret life?


Sound off in the comments section.

Comments
Carl Zimmer

Science Ink #2 - “Micro Macro”

Posted by Carl Zimmer | 07 November 2012

This tattoo belongs to Vincent Pigno, a self-described “fledgling mathematician.” He wears it great, but we know a certain sleepy microbe hunter (our next scientist, Ian Lipkin) who could totally pull this one off.

“Micro Macro” - Photos and Text Courtesy of “Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed” by Carl Zimmer

Among the things one can see with a microscope is a bacteria-infecting virus, called a bacteriophage, on Pigno’s left shoulder. Of course, a microscope lit by reflected sunlight wouldn’t quite be up to that particular challenge. Bacteriophages were first seen in the 1940s, thanks to the invention of more powerful scanning electron microscopes. Before then, many scientists doubted that bacteriophages even existed. Today, we know them to be the most common form of life on Earth, numbering an estimated ten to the thirty first power all told - that is, ten thousand billion billion billion.

Check out more tattoos in “Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed” by Carl Zimmer.

Comments
Seandor Szeles

WATCH: The Sleepy Microbe Hunter

Posted by Seandor Szeles | 06 November 2012

In his “30 Second Science,” a very sleepy Ian Lipkin tells us why he doesn’t need a gun or a pith helmet for the type of hunt he’s on - Lipkin is after the world’s smallest, most dangerous game: microbes.


Saving lives with a microscope? We think we just found Marvel Comics’ next franchise.

Take a nap, Lipkin. You’ve earned it.

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