What’s on my mind this month is the beginning of Spring, a time for rejuvenation and revitalization—and a time to renew a commitment to our ambitious long-term goals set forth in Vision 2020.
During this time of the year, we also celebrate Match Day, which was held at every U.S. medical school on March 20th. The national Match Day is an auspicious occasion when all fourth-year medical students discover where they will be doing their residencies and marks a turning point in their training. Each year, our students match to some of the most competitive areas in medicine. I am always proud to learn during the Match Day ceremony that many of the School of Medicine fourth-year students will remain in Maryland, some at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC). The tradition of the Match Day ceremony continues as one of camaraderie, as classmates celebrate each other’s success. Held for the second year at the Hippodrome Theatre, I encourage you to look inside this issue to see coverage of this emotionally charged, suspense-filled ceremony.
It is hard to believe that we are now nearing the end of the second fiscal year of our Vision 2020 strategic plan. We have accomplished much over the last two years: officially opened the Center for Innovative Biomedical Resources (CIBR); launched the Brain Science Research Consortium Unit; bolstered our clinical programs of excellence; and have two classes of medical students involved in research projects under the Foundations of Research and Critical Thinking course, just to name some examples.
Importantly, I am pleased that we are all working together to further the goals of the research component of Vision 2020, under the umbrella of the Accelerating Innovation and Discovery in Medicine (ACCEL-Med) Initiative. A major part of ACCEL-Med is our annual “Festival of Science,” and the visit from our distinguished panel of external scientific advisors, the Scientific Advisory Council (SAC). At the end of last month, I shared with the Chairs and Directors the feedback the Council sent us after the second Festival, but I would like to share one of their comments with all of you:
“We understand that by 2020, it is your objective to have the UMSOM be among the top-tier of research-intensive medical centers by focusing on ‘big science’ and, as a consequence, rank in the top 10% of all U.S. medical schools. These are laudable and achievable aspirations that will contribute to the discoveries needed to improve the quality of how health care is delivered. The SAC heartedly embraces the aspirational goal of the UMSOM to become a leading biomedical research enterprise. The need for such institutions has never been greater, and we believe the school is well positioned as a consequence of its excellent leadership, faculty, resources, and desire to take its place among the top tier.”
While the Council’s feedback was highly complimentary of our programs and progress, they encouraged us to continue to identify, establish and nurture interdisciplinary research teams across the School of Medicine. Because collaboration is a key piece to the success of ACCEL-Med, this edition of the SOMnews highlights a number of faculty working across departments, programs, institutes and centers. Under the direction of Terry Rogers, PhD, the Executive Director of Research Affairs, these research teams are strengthening their individual missions and furthering our entire continuum of research, promoting “big science” endeavors at many levels of our academic institution. While many of these groups have already received funding, others continue to work together to secure future support for both the proposed projects and educational opportunities for team members.
I hold biomedical research in such high regard because rigorous basic and translational science lays the foundation for excellent clinical care. We are living in an era of rapid scientific and technological advances. Never before has it been so necessary for our healthcare practitioners to stay up-to-date with the advances made in the laboratory. The UMMC would not be the renowned academic hospital that it is today without the breadth and depth of research at the School of Medicine. Our research informs how our clinical faculty approach treating and managing our patients, and providing the highest-quality care is of utmost importance!
Therefore, we have also featured a new Service Excellence Initiative, led by David Schwartz, MD, Director of Clinical Affairs at the School of Medicine, to improve our customer service goals and quality of care. This initiative is focused on fostering greater physician engagement, increasing communication between doctor and patient, and enhancing a better all-around experience for both patients and School of Medicine physicians.
Vision 2020 was established as a means to advance the School of Medicine against a tide of fiscal uncertainty. Although the challenges to academic medicine institutions continue, we, too, will continue to rise to the occasion, bolstered by our faculty members’ and students’ incredible accomplishments. William Jennings Bryan, one of our country’s greatest orators, said that “Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” I am extremely confident that, with everyone working together, we can and will achieve our bold, strategic and, perhaps, audacious, goals. In the relentless pursuit of excellence, I am
Sincerely yours,
E. Albert Reece , MD, PhD, MBA
Vice President for Medical Affairs, University of Maryland
John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and
Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine
Hats off to those who have been published!
Kelley Banagan, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopaedics, co-authored “Subaxial Cervical Spine Injuries,” a chapter in Textbook of the Cervical Spine published by Saunders. Dr. Banagan and Steven Ludwig, MD, Professor, Department of Orthopaedics, were among the co-authors on “Traumatic Spinal Injury Treated with Minimally Invasive Stabilization,” a chapter in Complex Spine Cases: A Collection of Current Techniques published by Jaypee Brothers.
Brian Berman, MD, Professor, Department of Family & Community Medicine, and Director, Center for Integrative Medicine, and Claudia Witt, MD, MBA, Professor, Department of Family & Community Medicine and the Center for Integrative Medicine, were among the co-authors on “Using the Framework of Corporate Culture in ‘Mergers’ to Support the Development of a Cultural Basis for Integrative Medicine—Guidance for Building an Integrative Medicine Department or Service” in Patient Preference and Adherence, 2015 Jan 19;9:113-20. Dr. Witt was also lead author on “Combining ‘Omics and Comparative Effectiveness Research: Evidence-Based Clinical Research Decision-Making for Chinese Medicine” in Science, 2015 Jan 16;S50-S51.
Joana Carneiro da Silva, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, Amy Egan, Software Engineer, and Cesar Arze, Bioinformatics Software Engineer II, all from the Institute for Genome Sciences, were among the co-authors on “A New Method for Estimating Species Age Supports the Co-existence of Malaria Parasites and Their Mammalian Hosts” in Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2015 Jan 13 [Epub ahead of print].
Shifeng Chen, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was among the co-authors on “LDA-SVM-based EGFR Mutation Model for NSCLC Brain Metastases: An Observational Study” in Medicine (Baltimore), 2015 Feb;94(5):e375.
Karan Chopra, MD, Resident, Department of Surgery, and Robert Morales, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, were among the co-authors on “Superior Epigastric Artery Perforator (SEAP) Flap: A Novel Approach to Autologous Breast Reconstruction” in Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, 2014 Dec 18 [Epub ahead of print].
Derik Davis, MD, Assistant Professor; Michael Mulligan, MD, Professor; and Charles Resnik, MD, Professor, all from the Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, were among the co-authors on “Patient-Centered Care in Diagnostic Radiology: Lessons Learned from Patient Interviews Prior to Musculoskeletal Magnetic Resonance Imaging” in Quality Management in Health Care, 2015 Jan-Mar;24(1):38-44.
Natalie Davis, MD, MMSc, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, authored “Screening for Cardiopulmonary Events in Neonates: A Review of the Infant Car Seat Challenge” in the Journal of Perinatology, 2015 Feb 12 [Epub ahead of print].
Murtaza Dawood, MD, Assistant Professor, and James Gammie, MD, Professor, both from the Department of Surgery, were the first and senior authors respectively on “Contemporary Outcomes of Operations for Tricuspid Valve Infective Endocarditis” in Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 2015 Feb;99(2):539-546.
Timm-Michael Dickfeld, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, was among the co-authors on “Three-Dimensional 123I-Meta-iodobenzylguanidine Cardiac Innervation Maps to Assess Substrate and Successful Ablation Sites for Ventricular Tachycardia—A Feasibility Study for a Novel Paradigm of Innervation Imaging” in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology, 2015 Feb 23 [Epub ahead of print].
John Eley, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was among the co-authors on “Robustness of Target Dose Coverage to Motion Uncertainties for Scanned Carbon Ion Beam Tracking Therapy of Moving Tumors” in Physics in Medicine and Biology, 2015 Feb 21;60(4):1717–1740.
Michael Grasso, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine; along with Daniel Lemkin, MD, Assistant Professor, and Michael Bond, MD, Associate Professor, both from the Department of Emergency Medicine, were co-authors on “Subspecialty Training in Clinical Informatics: Prerequisite Activities for Potential Applicants” in EM Resident, 2015 Feb-Mar;42(2).
Mariana Guerrero, PhD, Clinical Associate Professor, and Wei Lu, PhD, Associate Professor, both from the Department of Radiation Oncology, were among the co-authors on “Radiobiological Modeling Based on 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography Data for Esophageal Cancer” in Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Therapy, 2015 Jan;5:pii 1000190.
Benjamin Lawner, DO, MS, EMT-P, Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, and Deputy Medical Director, Baltimore City Fire Department, was a co-author on “The Price of a Helping Hand: Modeling the Outcomes and Costs of Bystander CPR” in Prehospital Emergency Care, 2015 Feb 9 [Epub ahead of print]. Based on a review of EMS quality assurance data, the authors documented the effectiveness of a community CPR training program, noting that an appreciable proportion of people who received bystander CPR had a shockable rhythm on their initial electrocardiogram. The lead author for this article was Andrew Bouland, BS, a third-year student at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The other contributors include Kevin Seaman, MD, Executive Director of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems, and Nicholas Risko, MD, Class of 2014, who was the first student to complete the emergency medical services elective at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Jolinta Lin, MD, Resident; Mohan Suntharalingam, MD, the Marlene & Stewart Greenebaum Professor of Radiation Oncology; and Michael Chuong, MD, Assistant Professor, all from the Department of Radiation Oncology, and Seth Kligerman, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, were among the co-authors on “State-of-the-Art Molecular Imaging in Esophageal Cancer Management: Implications for Diagnosis, Prognosis and Treatment” in Journal of Gastrointestinal Oncology, 2015 Feb;6(1):3-19.
Marta Lipinski, PhD, Assistant Professor, Alan Faden, MD, the David S. Brown Professor in Trauma and Director of the Center for Shock, Trauma & Anesthesiology (STAR), along with postdoctoral fellows Chinmoy Sarkar, PhD, Zaorui Zhao, PhD, Stephanie Aungst, PhD, and Boris Sabirzhanov, PhD, all from the Department of Anesthesiology, were co-authors on “Impaired Autophagy Flux is Associated With Neuronal Cell Death After Traumatic Brain Injury” in Autophagy, 2014 Dec 2;10(12):2208-2222. Drs. Lipinkski, Sarkar and Faden, along with Junfang Wu, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, and Shuo Liu, MD, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, also from the Department of Anesthesiology, and Eugene Koh, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopaedics, were co-authors on “Disrupted Autophagy After Spinal Cord Injury is Associated With ER Stress and Neuronal Cell Death” in Cell Death and Disease, 2015 Jan 8;6:e1582.
Alberto J. L. Macario, MD, and Everly Conway de Macario, PhD, both Adjunct Professors, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, were among the co-authors on “Data Mining-Based Statistical Analysis of Biological Data Uncovers Hidden Significance: Clustering Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis Patients Based on the Response of Their PBMC With IL-2 and IFN-g Secretion to Stimulation With Hsp60” in Cell Stress & Chaperones, 2015 Mar;20(2):391-5.
Haney Mallemat, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, was a guest editor of the November 2014 issue of Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America, devoted to the topic of critical care. Articles were contributed to this issue by David Wacker, MD, PhD, Chief Emergency Medicine Resident, and Michael Winters, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine (“Shock”); Michael Scott, MD, Sixth-Year Critical Care/Internal Medicine/Emergency Medicine Resident, and Dr. Mallemat (“Assessing Volume Status”); Kim Boswell, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, and Jay Menaker, MD, Associate Professor, Departments of Surgery and Emergency Medicine (“Assessment and Treatment of the Trauma Patient in Shock”); John Greenwood, MD, Fellow, and Daniel Herr, MS, MD, Associate Professor, both from the Department of Medicine (“Mechanical Support”); and Wendy Chang, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine (“Neurotrauma”).
Victoria Marchese, PT, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, was the lead author on “Exploring Factors that Influence Childhood Cancer Survivors’ Choice of Occupation and Choice to Attend College” in Rehabilitation Oncology, 2014 Oct;32:23-28. Dr. Marchese was also among the co-authors on “Exploring the Feasibility of Performing Objective Screening Tools on Survivors of Pediatric Cancers as Part of a Long-Term Survivorship” in Clinical Rehabilitation Oncology, 2014 Oct;32:29-37, and “A Comparison of Function After Limb Salvage with Non-invasive Expandable or Modular Prostheses in Children” in the European Journal of Cancer, 2014 Dec;50(18):3212-3220.
Paul Matuszewski, MD, Chief Resident; Andrew Pollak, MD, The James Lawrence Kernan Professor and Chair; and Robert O’Toole, MD, Professor, all from the Department of Orthopaedics, were among the co-authors on “Current Bacterial Speciation and Antibiotic Resistance in Deep Infections after Operative Fixation of Fractures” in the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma, 2015;29(1):7−17.
Minesh Mehta, MB, ChB, FASTRO, Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was the senior author on “Brain Metastasis and Treatment” in F1000Prime Reports, 2014 Dec 1;6:114. He was also a co-author on “In Regard to Badiyan et al.” in International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics, 2015 Feb 1;91:453–454, and on “Real-Time Pre-Treatment Review Limits Unacceptable Deviations on a Cooperative Group Radiation Therapy Technique Trial: Quality Assurance Results of RTOG 0933” in International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics, 2015 March 1;91(3):564-570.
Michael Miller, MD, Professor, Department of Medicine, published the book Heal your Heart—The Positive Emotions Prescription to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, which is available in bookstores and for download on Kindle.
Mark Mishra, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was among the co-authors on “Adjuvant Versus Salvage Radiation Therapy for Prostate Cancer Patients with Adverse Pathologic Features: Comparative Analysis of Long-Term Outcomes” in American Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2015 Feb;38:55–60.
Vincent Njar, PhD, Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Head of Medicinal Chemistry, Center for Biomolecular Therapeutics (CBT), and his lab personnel Senthilmurugan Ramalingam, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow; Vidya Ramamurthy, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow; Lalji Gediya, PhD, Research Associate; and A.K. Kwegyir-Afful, Graduate Student, were among the co-authors on “Simultaneous Targeting of Androgen Receptor (AR) and MAPK-Interacting Kinases (MNKs) by Novel Retinamides Inhibits Growth of Human Prostate Cancer Cell Lines” in Oncotarget, 2015 Feb 20;6(5):3195-210. Dr. Njar and Angela Brodie, PhD, Professor, Department of Pharmacology, were co-authors on “Discovery and Development of Galeterone (TOK-001 or VN/124-1) for the Treatment of All Stages of Prostate Cancer” in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2015 Jan 28 [Epub ahead of print].
Michelle Pearce, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Family & Community Medicine and the Center for Integrative Medicine, was among the co-authors on “Religious Involvement, Inflammatory Markers and Stress Hormones in Major Depression and Chronic Medical Illness” in Open Journal of Psychiatry, 2014 Oct;4(4):335-352.
David Rasko, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, Institute for Genome Sciences, was among the co-authors on “Conservation and Immunogenicity of Novel Antigens in Diverse Isolates of Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli” in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 2015 Jan 28;9(1):e0003446 [Epub ahead of print]. Dr. Rasko and Tracy Hazen, PhD, Research Associate, Department of Microbiology & Immunology and the Institute for Genome Sciences, were among the co-authors on “Blocking Yersiniabactin Import Attenuates Extraintestinal Pathogenic Escherichia coli in Cystitis and Pyelonephritis and Represents a Novel Target to Prevent Urinary Tract Infection” in Infection and Immunity, 2015 Jan 26 [Epub ahead of print].
Hervé S.G Tettelin, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, and Amol Shetty, Bioinformatics Software Engineer, Senior, and Sonia Agrawal, Bioinformatics Software Engineer, Senior, both from the Institute for Genome Sciences, were among the co-authors on “Molecular Epidemiology and Genomics of Group A Streptococcus” in Infection, Genetics and Evolution: Journal of Molecular Epidemiology and Evolutionary Genetics in Infectious Disease (MEEGID), 2014 Oct 30, S1567-1348(14)00382-7. Dr. Tettelin and David Riley, Senior Bioinformatics Software Engineer, Institute for Genome Sciences, were among the co-authors on “Ten Years of Pan-Genome Analyses” in Current Opinions in Microbiology, 2015 Feb;23C:148-154. Dr. Tettelin and Sean Daughtery, Senior Bioinformatics Analyst, Institute for Genome Sciences, were among the co-authors on “Complete Genome Sequence of Streptococcus agalactiae Strain CNTC 10/84, a Hypervirulent Sequence Type 26 Strain” in Genome Announcements, 2014 Dec 24;2(6).
Nathalie Urrunaga, MD, MS, Academic Fellow; Leon McLean, MD, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor; Kunrong Cheng, PhD, Assistant Professor; and Jean-Pierre Raufman, MD, Professor, all from the Department of Medicine, along with William Twaddell, MD, Department of Pathology, were among the co-authors on “M1 Muscarinic Receptors Modify Oxidative Stress Response to Acetaminophen-Induced Acute Liver Injury” in Free Radical Biology & Medicine, 2015 Jan;78:66-81.
Yuji Zhang, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, was among the co-authors on “Cardiac Transcriptome and DCM Causative Genes in Zebrafish” in Circulation Research, 2014;115:A232; and “Linked Vaccine Adverse Event Data Representation from VAERS for Biomedical Informatics Research” in BioData Mining, 2014 Dec 31;7:36.
We applaud our colleagues on their recent appointments!
William Chiu, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery, has been elected Treasurer of the Surgical Critical Care Program Directors Society.
Richard Eckert, PhD, the John F. B. Weaver Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, has been appointed the 2015 Chair of the New Membership Committee-ASBMB/Public Affairs Advocacy Committee.
Ronald Gartenhaus, MD, Professor, Department of Medicine, has been appointed to the Editorial Board of PLoS Genetics as an Associate Editor.
Braxton Mitchell, Jr, PhD, MPH, Professor; Kashif Munir, MD, Assistant Professor; and Kristi Silver, MD, Associate Professor, all from the Department of Medicine, have been appointed Vice Division Chiefs of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition. Dr. Mitchell will lead the research and related activities in the Division, Dr. Munir will direct and manage all clinical operations within the Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology (CDE), and Dr. Silver will handle all aspects of clinical research in the CDE.
Samuel Tisherman, MD, Professor, Department of Surgery, has been selected as President-elect of the Surgical Critical Care Program Directors Society. He has also been appointed to the Trauma Burns and Critical Care Board of the American Board of Surgery.
We welcome our new faculty!
Valeriu Cebotaru, MD, Assistant Professor, joined the Division of Nephrology in the Department of Medicine in January, after completing a clinical fellowship in nephrology at the University of Texas Southwestern and a research fellowship in nephrology at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Cebotaru’s research interests include autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease.
Mario Rubin, MD, Associate Professor, joined the Division of Nephrology in the Department of Medicine in December 2014. He was recruited from the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Medicine, where he was a Professor of Medicine. Dr. Rubin is Board certified in internal medicine and nephrology.
Congratulations to the following who have received honors!
Danielle Cusmano, PhD, a recent graduate of the Program in Neuroscience, where she worked in the laboratory of Jessica Mong, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology, received an Outstanding Publication award from the Endocrine Society in March 2015 for “Gonadal Steroid Modulation of Sleep and Wakefulness in Male and Female Rats is Sexually Differentiated and Neonatally Organized by Steroid Exposure.”
Raymond Flores, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, was named the Medical Honoree for the Arthritis Foundation Jingle Bell Run, which was held on December 6, 2014.
Jeff Hawk, MPT, MDE, MBA, Director of Instructional Technology, Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, was awarded the 2014 Feitelberg Award for his article, “SECTIONS Model: Strategizing Technology-Based Instruction in Physical Therapist Education” at the American Physical Therapy Association’s Combined Sections Meeting in Indianapolis, IN. on February 6. This award acknowledges excellence in publication by a first-time author in the Journal of Physical Therapy Education in 2014.
Seungyoun Jung, ScD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, had her abstract “Adolescent Endogenous Sex Hormones and Breast Density in Early Adulthood” ranked among the top 20 abstracts by the American Society of Preventive Oncology (ASPO). It was also selected for an ASPO travel award, which enabled her to attend the 2015 ASPO Conference in March to present her paper. Dr. Jung’s abstract has also been accepted for publication in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
Victoria Marchese, PT, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, was awarded the Steven Gudas Award for Outstanding Publication in Rehabilitation Oncology from the Oncology Section of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) for her paper “Exploring the Feasibility of Performing Objective Screening Tools on Survivors of Pediatric Cancers as Part of a Long-Term Survivorship Clinic,” which was published in Rehabilitation Oncology, 2014 Oct;32:29-37.
The State Anatomy Board, led by director Ronn Wade, was honored by The Defense & Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management and the School of Medicine for the Board’s longstanding support of the Acute Pain Medicine and Regional Anesthesia Course. The award was presented by Jeffrey Haugh, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, who is also a colonel with the Maryland National Guard.
Congratulations to our very productive faculty on their recent grants and contracts!
Richard Eckert, PhD, the John F. B. Weaver Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, was awarded an R01 from NIH and the National Cancer Institute for “Stem Cells and Skin Cancer Prevention and Angiogenesis.”
Jean-Pierre Raufman, MD, Professor, Department of Medicine, received a four-year, $650,000 VA Merit Award for “M3R, MMP1 and Colon Cancer Dissemination.”
Tricia Ting, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Neurology, received a two-year, $1.54 million contract from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for “Characterization of Epilepsy Patients at Risk for Adverse Outcomes Related to Switching Antiepileptic Drug Products.”
Kudos to our colleagues who are experts in their fields and give their all to represent the School of Medicine!
Brian Berman, MD, Professor, Department of Family & Community Medicine, and Director, Center for Integrative Medicine, presented “The Body Electric: Using Kirlian Photography to Diagnose and Treat Chronic Conditions” at “The Human Guide to our Creative Brain” conference at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, on February 1.
Maureen Black, PhD, the John A. Scholl, MD, and Mary Louise Scholl, MD, Professor, Department of Pediatrics, presented “Strategies To Plan, Implement, and Evaluate Early Child Development Interventions” at the US Agency for International Development, held in Mbabane, Swaziland, on January 13; “Micronutrients and Early Child Development Intervention: Effects on Brain Development” at Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital and Dhaka Medical College Hospital, located in Dhaka, Bangladesh; “Nutrition: Linkages and Measurement Strategies” at the World Bank in Washington, DC, on February 5; and “Nutrition and Early Child Development Interventions Post the First 1000 Days” at the NICHD Global Health Consultation Meeting: Research Gaps at the Intersection of Child Neurodevelopment, Inflammation, and Nutrition in Low Resource Settings, held in Bethesda, MD, on February 11.
Raymond Cross, MD, MS, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, presented three lectures at Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Disease, held in Orlando, FL, in December 2014. The topics of his talks were “5-ASA Products and Corticosteroids: Indications and Approaches;” “Sexual Dysfunction in IBD: Case Studies;” and “A Patient-Centered Approach to Achieve Remission in Ulcerative Colitis.” Dr. Cross and Mark Flasar, MD, MS, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, co-directed the 7th Update in Inflammatory Bowel Disease, held in Baltimore, in mid-December 2014.
Stephen Davis, MBBS, Professor and the Dr. Theodore E. Woodward Chair in the Department of Medicine, along with the Department of Medicine’s John McLenithan, PhD, Assistant Professor; Braxton Mitchell, PhD, MPH, Professor; Kashif Munir, MD, Assistant Professor; Toni Pollin, PhD, Associate Professor; Kristi Silver, MD, Associate Professor; Soren Snitker, MD, PhD, Associate Professor; Laura Yerges-Armstrong, PhD, Assistant Professor; and Norann Zaghloul, PhD, Assistant Professor, participated in the American Diabetes Research Summit, which was held on February 7 at Sheppard Pratt in Towson, MD. They presented talks, presided over round-table discussions, and held Q&A sessions in order to educate the general public about diabetes.
Vasken Dilsizian, MD, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, was a speaker at the National Academy of Sciences “State of Molybdenum-99 Production and Utilization and Progress Toward Eliminating Use of Highly Enriched Uranium” meeting, which was held in Washington, DC, on February 12, where he provided perspectives from the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology and recommendations for the study.
Richard Eckert, PhD, the John F. B. Weaver Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, presented “Epidermal Cancer Stem Cells Drive Angiogenesis” at the American Medical and Graduate Biochemistry Departments (AMGDB) Annual Meeting in St. Kitts, Caribbean, in January 2015.
Gary Fiskum, PhD, the M. Jane Matjasko Professor for Research in Anesthesiology, Department of Anesthesiology, presented “Mitochondrial Mechanisms of Hypoxic Ischemic Neonatal Brain Injury” in February at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.
Erin Hager, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics presented the keynote speech “Home and School Environments Predict Children’s Dietary Choices” at the Child Environmental Health Network, held in Austin, TX, on February 5.
Ronna Hertzano, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, was an invited speaker at the University of Purdue, where she presented “Cell Type-Specific Analysis of the Inner Ear—From Datasets to the gEAR.”
Mariusz Karbowski, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, presented “Transient Assembly of F-actin on the Outer Mitochondrial Membrane Contributes to Mitochondrial Fission” and “Role of Mitochondrial E3 Ubiquitin Ligase MARCH5 in the Control of Mitochondria-Associated Degradation (OMMAD) Pathway” at the American Society of Cell Biology Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, on December 6, 2014.
Philip Mackowiak, MD, MACP, Professor Emeritus, Department of Medicine, and the Carolyn Frenkil and Selvin Passen History of Medicine Scholar-in-Residence, presented Grand Rounds on “Beethoven and the Sound that Failed” at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University in Camden, NJ, on February 3.
Amal Mattu, MD, Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, presented the keynote address at the 8th Annual Risk Management Summit, sponsored by Emergent Medicine Associates, on February 3 in Los Angeles. He also presented four additional lectures on pulmonary edema, low-risk chest pain, pericarditis vs. STEMI, and wide complex tachydysrhythmias. A week later, more than 8,000 miles to the east, Dr. Mattu was the keynote speaker for the first annual Saudi Emergency Medicine Assembly in Riyadh. In addition to his plenary address on “Ten Things You Must Consider in the Crashing Patient: Beyond A-B-C and ACLS,” Dr. Mattu led two workshops on electrocardiographic interpretation and gave lectures on acute cardiac syndrome and acute heart failure.
David Rasko, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, Institute for Genome Sciences, presented “Examining the Genomic Diversity of Enterotoxigenic E. coli” at the UJCC—The 49th US-Japan Conference on Cholera and Other Enteric Bacterial Infections, held in Gainesville, FL, from Janury 14–16.
Hervé S.G Tettelin, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, Institute for Genome Sciences, presented “Comparative and Functional Genomics of Mycobacterium massiliense Serial Clinical Isolates” on January 30 at the Carnegie Mellon University–Pittsburgh University, PhD Program in Computational Biology seminar series, in Pittsburgh, PA.
Steven Tropello, MD, MS, Clinical Instructor, Department of Emergency Medicine, presented “Coaptive Ultrasound: A Novel Procedural Technique Applicable in Acute Care Settings” at the 44th Annual Congress of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, held in Phoenix, AZ, in mid-January. Haney Mallemat, MD, Assistant Professor, participated in the described study, which tested acute care physicians’ proficiency in catheter placement using a patented platform technology that combines magnetic guidance and ultrasound visualization.
Chris Wells, PhD, PT, CCS, ATC, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, presented “It Is Safe to Mobilize a Patient with Femoral ECMO Cannulas,” at the American Physical Therapy Association’s Combined Sections Meeting in Indianapolis, IN. At the pre-conference, Dr. Wells was an invited instructor for the course “Where Do I Begin When Treating a Patient with Complex Cardiopulmonary Dysfunction?”
Emerson Wickwire, PhD, ABPP, CBSM, FAASM, Assistant Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Medicine, spoke on insomnia and sleep health at NASA on March 12.
Norann Zaghloul, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, presented “Functional Assessment of Type 2 Diabetes Genes in Zebrafish” at the School of Medicine Council meeting on January 28.
On March 13–15, 2015, the University of Maryland, Baltimore hosted the 13th Annual Meeting of the National Postdoctoral Association. The local organizers for this meeting were Jennifer Aumiller, MEd, Director of Career Development, Office of Postdoctoral Scholars at the School of Medicine, and Erin Golembewski, PhD, Senior Associate Dean, UMB Graduate School. The meeting set a record for attendance with nearly 400 postdoctoral fellows and representatives from Postdoctoral offices from around the world attending. The keynote speaker was Rosina Bierbaum, PhD from the University of Michigan, who presented “From the Lab to the White House and Back: Bridging the Science-Policy Gap.”
The Division of Cardiac Surgery within the Department of Surgery performed a successful first case using the Direct Flow valve as part of the SALUS clinical trial. The new transcatheter aortic valve represents the latest option for patients among a full spectrum of leading-edge investigational valves available within the division.
The Division of Transplantation within the Department of Surgery performed a successful single-incision living donor nephrectomy using the da Vinci robotic system. It is believed to be the first use of the robotic system for this type of case and is a demonstration of our faculty’s innovation in transplant surgery. More living donor nephrectomies will be performed at UMMC using this technique based on a feasibility study approved by the IRB.
Thanks to those who selflessly donate their time, talent and resources. Your goodwill does not go unappreciated.
Gary Fiskum, PhD, the M. Jane Matjasko Professor for Research in Anesthesiology, Department of Anesthesiology, traveled to São Paulo, Brazil in February to serve as a scientific advisor to the Center for Research on Redox Processes in Biomedicine, located at the University of São Paulo. The center and its 22 faculty members are supported by a $15 million grant from the São Paulo Research Foundation.
Jeffery Wolf, MD, Associate Professor; Rodney Taylor, MD, MPH, Associate Professor; and Andrea Heber, MD, Fourth-Year Resident, all from the Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, assembled a team of six surgeons, five anesthesia providers, three nurses and one non-medical person, largely from the University of Maryland, and went to Migori, Kenya for a medical mission through the organization Kenya Relief. Over a period of four days, they screened over 100 patients and performed 38 operations, most involving adults with massive, obstructive thyroid goiters. The mission was a huge success, helping more patients than any other surgical team in the organization’s history. The mission was made possible through the generous donations of many family and friends as well as the generous support of Peter Rock, MD, MBA, the Dr. Martin A. Helrich Chair, Department of Anesthesiology, and Scott Strome, MD, Chair of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, respectively.
Faculty members on the Liver Transplant team at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) hosted a medical group from Dow University Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan earlier this year. The team of eight visiting physicians sought out UMMC as an international example of an integrated model of care for living donor liver transplantation.
Correction
In the February issue of SOMnews, in the photo for the Komen Distinguished Lecture, the woman identified as Dr. Sandra McLeskey was actually Dr. Nina Trocky, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland School of Nursing.