The 2006-2007 academic year at Georgetown University Medical Center was one full of scientific advances, innovative research efforts and recognition for Georgetown's longstanding tradition of academic excellence. GUMC faculty attracted $138 million in sponsored research, and the number of applications received by both the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing and Health Studies continued to rise. The School of Medicine was ranked 44th, up from 46th last year, on U.S. News & World Report's medical school rankings.
Research Advances
Advances in Cancer Research
$2 Million Komen Award Will Fund Research to Reduce Risk of Breast Cancer
Insoo Bae, PhD, an assistant professor of oncology, received a $2 million research award from Susan G. Komen for the Cure to study the interaction between environmental carcinogens and genetic risk for breast cancer, a project aimed at developing novel prevention strategies for women who are genetically predisposed to breast cancer. Bae developed a novel methodology to study the environment-gene interaction, and he will first use the Komen grant to look at the BRCA1 mutation that is linked to breast cancer.
In 'Spontaneous' Liver Cancer, Researcher Sees a Cure
Researchers have uncovered a new molecular mechanism that may "spontaneously" cause liver cancer. Part of the well-known TGF-ß tumor suppressor pathway, the molecule disappears in the cells of nearly 90 percent of human hepatocellular cancers, the most common type of liver cancer. Lopa Mishra, MD, professor and vice chair in the department of surgery at Georgetown University Medical Center, showed that loss of only one copy of the embryonic liver fodrin, or ELF gene, can result in spontaneous development of liver cancer in human cell cultures and in vivo models.
Protein Identified That Regulates Effectiveness of Taxol Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer
Lombardi researchers have taken a step towards understanding how and why a widely used chemotherapy drug works in patients with breast cancer. In laboratory studies, the researchers isolated a protein, caveolin-1, showing that in breast cancer cells this protein can enhance cell death in response to the use of Taxol, one of two taxane chemotherapy drugs used to treat advanced breast and ovarian cancer.
Lombardi Expert Helps Set New Guidelines for Assessing Lymphoma Treatment
Bruce Cheson, MD, professor of medicine, head of hematology, and director of hematology research, and an international team of cancer specialists and imaging experts developed standardized guidelines for assessing how lymphomas respond to treatment. The guidelines provide clinicians worldwide with consistent criteria to compare and interpret clinical trials of lymphoma treatments and should facilitate the development of new therapies.
Young Cancer Survivors at Risk for Behaviors That Raise Future Cancer Risk
Research headed by Lombardi's Ken Tercyak, PhD, found that a significant number of young cancer survivors participated in behavior that increases the risk of cancer recurrence and that as a result need ongoing assistance to stay healthy.
In Vivo Study: Whole Wheat in Maternal Diet Reduces Breast Cancer Risk in Offspring
Pregnant rats fed a diet rich in whole wheat produced female offspring that were at a substantially reduced risk of developing breast cancer, adding to the growing body of evidence that maternal diet can affect future disease risk in the offspring. The study's lead author was Leena Hilakivi-Clarke PhD.
Hold the Hookah: Researcher Warns Against Trendy Tobacco Use
In a series of articles published in Acta Cytologica, Journal of Egyptian Society of Parasitology, and most recently, Nicotine and Tobacco Research, Christopher Loffredo, PhD, investigated the dangers posed by the growing fad of smoking tobacco through a waterpipe, which smokers incorrectly think is less toxic than cigarettes.
GUMC Leads Effort to Study Safety of "Alternative" Tobacco Products
A nationwide consortium of researchers, led by GUMC, has been awarded a five-year, $17 million research and development contract by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to determine if alternative tobacco products reduce health risks as they either overtly claim to or subtly imply. The sweeping contract, the first of its kind, will examine all aspects of the increasing number of "safer" tobacco or nicotine delivery systems.
Advances in Neurological Research
Can an Omega-3 Fatty Acid Slow the Progression of Alzheimer?s Disease?
Paul Aisen, MD, participated in a nationwide clinical study evaluating the effects of Omega-3 Fatty Acid on Alzheimer's Disease, funded by the National Institute on Aging at the NIH.
Researchers Find a Reaction to Spinal Cord Injury That Speeds Recovery
Especially in young rats, according to researchers in the department of Neurology, powerful cells near the site of spinal cord injury work overtime to restrict nerve damage and restore movement and sensation. This discovery could eventually lead to these cells being "switched" on therapeutically to speed and increase recovery from spinal cord injuries.
With Brain Scans, Researchers Find Evidence for a Two-Stage Model of Human Learning
Using advanced brain imaging techniques, lead author Maximilian Riesenhuber, PhD, published a study in Neuron that has provided the first human evidence for a two-stage model of how humans learn, using both lower and higher brain processes to learn novel tasks, an advance they say may help speed up the teaching of new skills as well as offer strategies to retrain people with perceptual deficits due to autism.
Research Finds Faster Grammar Skills in Children with Tourette's
Children with Tourette's syndrome may have to put up with some unwanted movement and verbal tics, but a team of neuroscientists has found that they are much quicker at processing certain mental grammar skills than are children without the disorder. The findings suggest that abnormalities in the brain linked to tics in Tourette's syndrome may also result in a range of rapid behaviors -- and, possibly, superior skills -- than had been appreciated previously.
Study of Language Use in Children Suggests Sex Influences How Brain Processes Words
A new study, published in Developmental Science, by two neuroscientists from GUMC found that boys and girls use different parts of their brain to process some basic aspects of grammar, suggesting that sex is an important factor in the acquisition and use of language. Michael Ullman, PhD, was the study's lead author.
Translational Research
Scientists Discover Key to Manipulating Fat
An international team of researchers, led by Zofia Zukowska, MD, PhD, were able to use simple, non-toxic chemical injections to add and remove fat in targeted areas on the bodies of laboratory animals. They say the discovery, published online in Nature Medicine, could revolutionize human cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery and treatment of diseases associated with human obesity.
New Alzheimer's Drug Shows Promise in Clinical Trial
A team of scientists led by Paul Aisen, MD, reports that a compound called tramiprosate reduced levels of a marker for the progression of Alzheimer's disease in a Phase II clinical trial as part of tests for a new class of drugs. The new drug is the most advanced anti-amyloid treatment (the amyloid peptide is considered to be the molecular cause of the disease) and has the potential for slowing down progression of the disease, according to Aisen.
Clinical Research
Georgetown Receives $7 Million in Federal Funding for Clinical Research
NIH and NCRR awarded $6.95 million to fund GUMC's General Clinical Research Center (GCRC). This new level of funding will markedly strengthen clinical and translational research at Georgetown University over the next three years. Georgetown's clinical research center has been funded by the NIH since 1999, to provide an optimal setting for controlled clinical research, encouraging collaboration among basic and clinical researchers, and facilitating the translation of basic scientific knowledge into superior patient care.
Largest Synthetic Gene Ever Built Offers Insights into Anti-Malarial Drug Resistance
GUMC researchers created the largest "synthetic" gene (a protozoan gene) ever built that successfully produces large quantities of an encoded protein that may hold the key to understanding why the most lethal form of human malaria has become resistant to drug treatment in the past three decades. These findings were published in the May 22 issue of the journal Biochemistry.
Scleroderma Outlook Improves as Survival Increases
Individuals with scleroderma are living significantly longer today, compared with 30 years ago, and the physicians who treat this rare disease of connective tissue hope the newer drugs now on the market may extend lives even further. Virginia Steen, professor of medicine, studied 2,000 patients with scleroderma and found that 10-year survival steadily improved over those years by 12 percent-- from 54 percent to 66 percent.
For First Time, Cochlear Implant Restores Hearing To Patient With Rare Genetic Disorder
For the first time, researchers have used a "bionic" ear to restore hearing in a patient with von Hippel-Lindau disease. They say this advance offers new hope for individuals with the rare disorder, which can produce both benign and malignant tumors in ears, as well as in the eyes, brain, and kidneys.
New Research Centers and Initiatives
Georgetown Kicks off Drug Discovery Partnership with Virginia Tech
Georgetown University Medical Center and Virginia Tech established a new partnership which will leverage each institution's strengths to develop new disease-fighting drugs. The joint drug discovery and development program brings together experts from both universities in disciplines ranging from medicine to chemistry to technology.
Georgetown Awards First Molecular Research Chair to Lombardi Cancer Expert
Albert J. Fornace, Jr, MD, professor of biochemistry and molecular & cellular biology and oncology, was awarded the first Molecular Cancer Research Chair at Lombardi. This Chair is given to a distinguished researcher in the field of DNA repair and cellular stress response and was endowed through a generous bequest from Charlotte Gragnani. Fornace's focus is in the area of cellular response to radiation and other environmental toxins.
Georgetown's Center on Health and Education to Launch Teacher Prep Program
The Georgetown University Center on Health and Education (CHE) at the School of Nursing & Health Studies, directed by Craig Ramey, PhD and Sharon Ramey, PhD, was recently awarded a $389,543 grant from the CityBridge Foundation to launch an intensive training program for college graduates who want to teach in early childhood educational settings. The intensive, year-long program will be launched this summer and is geared toward individuals who already have a four-year college degree and want to enter the field of early childhood education.
New Website Helps Physicians Combat Inappropriate Pharmaceutical Company Promotion
Georgetown University researchers launched PharmedOut, a website designed to provide tools and resources to distinguish objective information on health issues from drug promotion by pharmaceutical companies as well as assist with continued medical education (CME). The lead investigator on the project is Adriane Fugh-Berman, MD and is funded through a grant created as part of a settlement between a division of Pfizer, Inc. and the Attorney Generals of the fifty states and the District of Columbia.
Georgetown Establishes Leading Institute For Global and National Health Law
Georgetown University announced the establishment of the Linda and Timothy O?Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, which was created by a generous $10 million gift from Linda and Timothy O'Neill and is among the first for the study of global and national health law. Co-founded by the Georgetown University Law Center and the School of Nursing & Health Studies, the institute will create a center on global health, disease prevention and health outcomes, health regulation and governance, and health care financing and organization.
$6.5 Million Gift to Establish Hereditary Cancer Center at Georgetown University
The establishment of the Jess and Mildred Fisher Center for Familial Cancer Research (Fisher Center), facilitated by a $6.5 million gift from the Robert M. Fisher Memorial Foundation, Inc., will substantially expand both the clinical and research programs at Lombardi, allowing the cancer center to conduct more research on genetic predisposition to cancer, provide increased clinical trial opportunities and allow physicians to evaluate and treat more patients. Also, $1.5 million from the gift will endow the Cecilia F. Rudman Arts and Humanities Program Fund, the largest gift in the program's history, substantially expanding the reach and scope of the cancer center's current arts in healthcare program.
Community Outreach Initiatives
High School Students Travel "Pathways to Success"
Nearly 40 high school students will travel to Georgetown University this summer to participate in the Pathways to Success program supported by founding sponsor The Goldman Sachs Foundation. Since 2002, Pathways to Success has developed community partnerships in rural and under-served communities in America. The program engages upcoming juniors and seniors in innovative science and health studies; encourages them to attend college; and showcases careers in biomedical science, health care, and science technology.
Capital Breast Care Center Tackles Cancer Disparities
The Capital Breast Care Center, a facility operated in partnership by Lombardi and MedStar Health and headed by Executive Director Amari Sokoya Pearson-Fields, is the only facility in Southeast Washington focusing on reducing disparities in breast cancer screening and treatment rates. D.C. has the nation's second highest breast cancer mortality rate and the second highest incidence rate. The CBCC is focused on providing quality care to underserved women.
GUMC Hosts First-Ever Regional Childhood Cancer Survivors Conference
Lombardi, along with the Children's Cause for Cancer Advocacy and Special Love for Children with Cancer, presented the first-ever regional late-effects conference for young adult cancer survivors, entitled Rise to Action -Washington, DC. The conference was an opportunity for survivors to share stories and hear from medical experts and also to address the unique needs of young adult survivors of childhood cancer and their families, covering topics such as ensuring proper follow-up health care, fertility concerns, health insurance, employment issues and patient advocacy.
Doors to Medical Specialty Offices are Largely Closed to DC Medicaid Patients
A survey conducted by first- and second-year medical students in Georgetown's Health Rights Project found that patients who use Medicaid generally have access to primary care physicians, but likely have a much more difficult time finding specialists who accept Medicaid payments. Even if a physician recommends advanced care from a specialist, medical help for patients with little discretionary income can stop after primary care.
Faculty Recruitments and Awards
Georgetown's experts and leaders were publicly recognized in a number of venues this year.
Recruitments
The 2006-2007 year brought new leaders to Georgetown, most notably the new Executive Vice President for Health Sciences, Dr. Howard Federoff. Coming to Georgetown from the University of Rochester, Dr. Federoff’s research interests include gene therapy and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and he holds a number of medical patents. Dr. Federoff assumed his new responsibilities in April.
Amari Sokoya Pearson-Fields, the new executive director of the Capital Breast Care Center (CBCC), wants to use her position not only to provide the best quality health care to medically underserved women in the District of Columbia, but also to get those women to understand why it is so important to have access to information about how to better take care of themselves. She said that "we have to change the dynamic from being wary about yearly examinations to viewing it as an annual commitment and celebration of life."
GUMC announced the recruitment of Albert J. Fornace, Jr., MD, a nationally known expert in molecular oncology and the biology of cell injury, to the position of Molecular Cancer Research Chair at Lombardi and, primarily, to the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology in the BGRO. He will continue his work to investigate what happens to cells when they are stressed or injured, work that has thus far revealed processes underlying development of cancer and other disorders.
Internationally-recognized genito-urinary cancer expert Nancy Dawson, MD, joined Georgetown University Medical Center in April as an attending oncologist in the clinic and the director of the Clinical Research Management Office (CRMO) at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. At Georgetown, she will continue developing novel approaches to the treatment of prostate, bladder and kidney cancers.
Georgetown University Medical Center announced the appointment of Jett McCann as Director of its Dahlgren Memorial Library and Associate Dean for Knowledge Management at GUMC. As the Director of Dahlgren Medical Library and Associate Dean for Knowledge Management at GUMC, McCann will manage, supervise and provide strategic direction for Dahlgren Memorial Library and Faculty and Curriculum Support Services.
Andy Deubler joined the Executive Office staff in 2007 as the Vice-President of the Office of Enterprise Development. This new office focuses on entrepreneurial partnerships to increase the flow of extramural funding to GUMC. The Office of Enterprise Development will help to catalyze key teams of faculty, administration and GUMC/University leadership to explore new collaborations and funding opportunities that will help fuel our growth.
Claudia Stewart, PhD, was appointed Vice President of Technology Commercialization. In this position, Stewart is responsible for defining a strategy for the protection and commercialization of Georgetown intellectual property. Stewart will report to Georgetown's Senior Vice President and will direct the Georgetown University Office of Technology Licensing.
Awards and Achievements
Professor of Oncology Named Editor-in-Chief of New Journal
Leena Hilakivi-Clarke, PhD, was named Editor-in-Chief of the new open access journal Endocrine Carcinogenesis. The journal, launched July 2, focuses on the role of the endocrine system and factors like diet and the environment which impact the system in cancer risk, progression and metastasis.
NHS Professor Selected As Fellow of American Academy of Nursing
Edilma L. Yearwood, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Nursing at Georgetown University, has been selected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN). She specializes in mental health and psychiatric nursing and will officially become a fellow at an induction ceremony on Nov. 10 at the academy's annual meeting.
Professor Named Statistical Editor of New AMA Journal
Michael Stoto, PhD, a professor within the School of Nursing & Health Studies at Georgetown University Medical Center, has been named statistical editor of the Journal of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. He specializes in biostatistics, emergency preparedness, and population health, and is a faculty member in the school?s Department of Health Systems Administration.
Georgetown Scholar Appointed Chairman of National Board for Education Sciences
Craig Ramey, PhD (director of Center on Health and Education at SNHS) was recently elected chairman of the National Board for Education Sciences, an advisory panel of the Institute of Education Sciences within the U.S. Department of Education. The institute was established by Congress in 2002 as the primary federal agency to sponsor and promote education research and the collection of national educational statistics.
Renowned Childhood Experts Receive Distinguished Award at National Conference
Craig Ramey, PhD, and Sharon Ramey, PhD., directors of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education (CHE), have received the "Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy for Children" award from the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), a leading professional association with a membership of approximately 5,500 researchers, practitioners, and human development professionals from over 50 countries. They earned the award, "For wise leadership in preventing developmental disabilities through healthy pregnancies, innovative early interventions, and enhanced parenting competence."
Prestigious UNESCO Chair Awarded to GU Faculty
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized the interdisciplinary work of a Georgetown University team of psychologists, lawyers, theologians and policy experts (led by Phyllis Magrab, PhD) for their work to enhance access to education in the world's most poverty-stricken areas by awarding them a Chair designation. UNESCO Chairs are awarded to colleges, universities and research institutions to initiate programs furthering research and education globally.
School of Medicine Celebrates Minority Alumni Leaders
Worta McCaskill Stevens, MD, MS, (M 85), led a panel discussion on the minority physician experience on October 21 that included four other Georgetown SoM graduates. This panel was part of the Alumni Reunion Weekend, which also included a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Georgetown Experimental Medical Studies (GEMS) program.
Inaugural Marilyn Hughes Gaston, MD, Award for Outstanding Achievement in Women?s Health
The first national Award for Outstanding Achievement in Women's Health and Wellness, named in honor of Marilyn Hughes Gaston, MD, its first recipient, was given by the Capital Breast Care Center on October 25th 2006. The award honors individuals who have made significant contributions to increasing local and national access to health care services, promoting disease prevention and wellness for minority and under-served women, an integral part of CBCC?s mission. The award's recipient, Dr. Gaston, has dedicated her life to improving the health of our nation, focusing on poor and minority families.
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