FROM THE DEAN

• Dr. Dickey is presenting a Programmatic Review for the HSC on Thursday, May 8 from 9–10:30 a.m. in SRPH Room 109.  This presentation is open to all faculty, so I encourage you to attend as she discusses new programs and campuses for the HSC.
• The interviews for the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs have been completed.  We interviewed three strong candidates and I am awaiting the recommendation from the committee.  I hope to extend an offer in the next couple of weeks.
• Phones have been installed in the classrooms for the purpose of calling IT support when there are video or equipment problems during a lecture.  These phones directly dial the OIT Help Desk.  We are working to remedy the call-back issues, so they should be functioning much better soon. 
• The Curriculum Committee is having a retreat with all the Clerkship Directors and Clerkship Site Coordinators on Friday, April 11.  This is a very important retreat as we expand our clerkship opportunities in College Station and Round Rock, so please make every attempt to attend if you are part of any of these groups.
• We are working on another report/letter to the LCME.  It is just a routine follow-up letter to report on our progress.
• Don’t forget that all Performance Reviews must be completed by May 15th.

STUDENT NEWS

COM Students to Give Away Free Bicycle Helmets to Local Children

COM students will be helping to ensure the safety of local children by giving away free bicycle helmets Saturday, April 5. The helmet giveaway will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Wal-Mart Supercenter east entrance on Briarcrest Drive in Bryan.
Free helmets will be available to any child in need. Medical students will be on hand to properly fit the helmets and present a safety presentation every half hour. They will have a decoration booth on-site so recipients can decorate their new helmets. Information on free and low-cost health care in Bryan-College Station and the Children’s Health Insurance Program will also be available.
The bicycle helmet giveaway is part of a statewide effort – Hard Hats for Little Heads – launched 14 years ago by the Texas Medical Association (TMA). The program is designed to educate Texas children and their parents about how to prevent head injuries by wearing helmets when bicycling, in-line skating, skateboarding and riding scooters.
For the full story, visit: http://medicine.tamhsc.edu/communications/news/31march2008.html

COM Fourth-Years Match to Residencies in 22 States

College of Medicine fourth-year students found out where they will be completing their residencies at the 2008 Match Day on March 20, with students entering fields as varied as pediatrics and ophthalmology to psychiatry and emergency medicine.

Check out pictures, facts and figures about where the Class of 2008 will be doing their residencies and what fields they're going into: http://medicine.tamhsc.edu/communications/news/24march2008.html

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE NEWS

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

Drs. Tony Errichetti, Jose Pliego and Hania Wehbe-Janek presented an interactive workshop, "A Theory-Based Model of De-Briefing High Fidelity Simulations: Transferring Competencies from the Simulation Workshop to the Workplace" and a poster, "Using the SimCom-T to Assess Team Communication During Simulation Training" at the 13th Ottawa International Conference on Clinical Competence in Melbourne, Australia, March 5-8.
 
Dr. Pliego presented "Changing the Culture of Health Care: The Role of Clinical Simulation" at the Faculty Research Colloquium held in Temple on March 19.
 
Dr. Pliego presented "Educational Program Human Error-Theory and Prevention Techniques Available at S&W" on System Quality and Patient Safety Day in Temple on March 21.

BASIC SCIENCE DEPARTMENTAL NEWS

HUMANITIES IN MEDICINE

Mary Elizabeth Herring, J.D., Associate Professor, Department of Humanities in Medicine presented a talk entitled “The Texas Medical Board: Facts, Myths and Impressions” to the following audiences:

• February 26, 2008 – Scott & White Department of Surgery Residents morning conference
• February 27, 2008 – Hospice Brazos Valley, Physician Appreciation/CME luncheon, Brenham, Texas
• March 10, 2008 – Scott & White Department of Internal Medicine noon conference
• March 13, 2008 – Scott & White Department of Anesthesiology morning conference

Annual Fay Lecture Series in Analytical Psychology

David H. Rosen, M.D., McMillan Professor of Analytical Psychology, Professor of Humanities in Medicine and TAMU Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, announces The Annual Fay Lecture Series in Analytical Psychology, slated for April 4-6 and hosted by the TAMU Department of Psychology.  The 2008 Fay Lecturer and Author is Joseph Cambray, Ph.D., a Jungian Analyst in private practice in Boston, MA and Providence, RI.  He is also a faculty member, Harvard Medical School, Center for Psychoanalytic Studies in the Psychiatry Department at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Lectures will take place in various rooms in the Memorial Student Center.  The Carolyn and Ernest Fay Lecture and Book Series in Analytical (Jungian) Psychology was established to further the ideas of C.G. Jung among students, faculty, therapists and citizens, as well as to enhance the scholarly activities related to analytical psychology.  The Lecture and Book Series address topics of importance to the individual and to society.  The annual Lecture Series consists of four lectures with subsequent publication by Texas A&M University Press.  For registration and attendance details contact Patti Henderson at drosen@psych.tamu.edu or call 979-845-0477.

Medicine and Humanities Consultation – April 14, 2008

The Department of Humanities in Medicine’s next Medicine and Humanities Consultation will be Monday, April 14, 2008, at the Stonecreek Settlement, Salado, Texas, 1:00-6:00 p.m.  The Consultation will engage clinicians of medicine, nurses, social workers, clergy and academic humanists in an in-depth exposure to “Prejudices and Biases in Medicine”.  The day will be spent in informal discussion led by our invited guest, Cy Worby, M.D., as our facilitator.  If you would like to register for the Consultation, please contact the department, 979-845-0755.

Dr. Cy Worby, retired in 1995 as Professor and Vice-Chair Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Nevada School of Medicine.  His 35-year career spanned academic and administrative responsibilities in four successive medical schools.  He has had curricular and supervisory responsibilities for medical students, residents in psychiatry and family medicine, and clinical psychology graduate students.

MICROBIAL & MOLECULAR PATHOGENESIS

Faculty

Dr. David McMurray traveled to Rockville, MD, from February 12-14 to attend the quarterly meeting of the Board of Directors of the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation. Aeras is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to carry several novel TB vaccines through Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials, and to begin large-scale Phase 3 efficacy trials for the most promising of those vaccines in high-burden countries in the next seven years.

Grants Received

Dr. John Quarles began a research study February 25 in collaboration with the Baylor College of Medicine entitled  “A Randomized, Double-Blind, Clinical Trial Evaluating  the Immunogenicity of An Inactivated Influenza  A/H9N2 Vaccine Among Healthy Adults with and without Prior Exposure to Influenza A/H2N2 (DMID Protocol #06-0073)”. He received a supplemental grant award of $74,743 to conduct the study.

Dr. David McMurray received the Award Notice for the next year of funding of the NIH sub-contract to Johns Hopkins University (AI 30036) for the project entitled “New animal models for tuberculosis”. The total award for the fiscal year (8/22/07 to 8/21/08) is approximately $192,258.

Dr. McMurray received the Award Notice for Year 26 of his NIH R01 grant (AI 15495), entitled “Dietary deficiencies and tuberculosis vaccine efficacy”. The total award for the next year of funding (2/1/08 to 1/31/09), is $220,737.

Recent Publications

Wilson, VG and Heaton, PR. “Ubiquitin proteolytic system: focus on SUMO” Expert Rev Proteomics 5:121-135, (2008).

Rosas-Acosta, G and Wilson, VG. “Identification of a Nuclear Export Signal Sequence for Bovine Papillomavirus E1 Protein” Virology [Epub ahead of print] (2008).

MOLECULAR & CELLULAR MEDICINE

Recent Publications

Ilinskaya, ON, Koschinski, A, Repp, H, Mitkevich, VA, Dreyer, F, Scholtz, JM, Pace, CN and Makarov, AA. RNase-induced apoptosis: Fate of calcium-activated potassium channels. Biochimie Feb. 2 [Epub ahead of print] PMID 18291113 (2008).

Maxwell, SA and Kochevar, GJ. Identification of a p53-response element in the promoter of the proline oxidase gene. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. Feb 13 [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 18279664 (2008).

Bix, G and Iozzo, RV. Novel interactions of perlecan: Unraveling perlecan's role in angiogenesis. Microsc Res Tech. Feb 25 [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 18300285 (2008).

Scientific Presentations

Dr. Greg Bix attended the American Society for Neurochemistry 39th Annual Meeting on March 1-5 in San Antonio.  An invited speaker at the meeting, he presented a talk entitled “Endorepellin and endostatin affect the neurovascular unit in vitro” on March 3.

Dr. Nick Pace attended the 16th Annual Texas Protein Folders Meeting on March 14-16 in Navasota.  An invited speaker at the meeting, he presented a talk entitled “Tryptophan fluorescence reveals the presence of long-range interactions in the denatured state of ribonuclease Sa”. He also presented a poster entitled “Tryptophan fluorescence reveals the presence of long-range interactions in the denatured state of ribonuclease Sa” at the meeting.

Dr. J. Martin Scholtz attended the 16th Annual Texas Protein Folders Meeting on March 14-16 in Navasota. He presented two posters entitled “Charge-charge interactions within the denatured state ensemble of ribonucleases Ba, T1, and Sa demonstrate small, physical changes in hydrodynamic radius that correlate with changes in m value and ASa” and “The effect of intrinsic factors on amyloid formation”.

Dr. Siegfried Musser was a Visiting Lecturer of the Chemistry Research Promotion Center (Taipei, Taiwan).  A lecture entitled "Single Molecule Fluorescence Studies of Nucleocytoplasmic Transport" was given at the following locations: Mar 19 – National Taiwan University Medical School, Department of Biochemistry; Mar 20 – Academia Sinica, Department of Chemistry; Mar 21 – National Taiwan University, Department of Chemistry.

Dr. Tina Gumienny presented a seminar entitled “TGFbeta Pathway Regulation: Thinking Outside the Cell (Size Matters)” as part of the Texas A&M Toxicology Seminar Series on March 24.

NEUROSCIENCE & EXPERIMENTAL THERAPEUTICS

Recent Publications

Vock, VM, Ponomareva, ON and Rimer, M. Evidence for muscle-dependent neuromuscular synaptic site determination in mammals. Journal of Neuroscience. 28: 3123-3130 (2008).

SYSTEMS BIOLOGY & TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE

Awards

Eric Bridenbaugh received a Lymphatic Research Foundation (LRF) Young Investigator Scholarship to cover travel costs associated with attending the Gordon Research Conference: Molecular Mechanisms in Lymphatic Functions and Disease from March 2-7.

Recent Publications

Huang, HC, Jupiter, D, Qiu, M, Briggs, JM and VanBuren, V. Cluster analysis of hydration waters around the active sites of bacterial alanine racemase using a 2-ns MD simulation. Biopolymers 89(3) 210-219 (* Featured on the journal cover) (2008).

Jupiter, DC and VanBuren, V. A visual data-mining tool that facilitates reconstruction of transcription regulatory networks. PLoS ONE 3(3): e1717 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001717. Web site for a new freely available resource for rapid hypothesis development, StarNet: http://vanburenlab.medicine.tamhsc.edu/starnet.html

Na, S, Trache, A, Sun, Z, Meininger, GA and Humphrey, JD. Time-dependent changes in cell stiffness and focal adhesion area in response to cyclic stretch. Annals Biomed. Eng. 36 369-380 (2008).

Trache, A and Meininger, GA. Atomic Force Microscopy. In Current Protocols in Microbiology (book chapter), Coico, R, Kowalik, T, Quarles, JM, Stevenson, B and Taylor, RK, eds., Wiley & Sons Inc., 2C 2.1-17 (2008).

Scientific Presentations

The following presentations were given at the Gordon Research Conference “Molecular Mechanisms in Lymphatic Function and Disease” in Ventura, California in March:

• Eric Bridenbaugh presented “Modulation of lymphatic contractility by capsaicin-sensitive signaling pathways”.
• Andrea Foskett presented “Varying muscle cell compositions and functions in mouse lymphatic tissue beds”.
• Anatoliy Gashev presented “Long-term culture of lymphatics and development of transfection techniques to target genes involved in the regulation of lymphatic contractility.”
• Mariappan Muthuchamy presented "Unique contractile protein composition and contractile function of lymphatic vessels".
• Zhanna Nepiyushchikh presented “Molecular regulation of lymphatic muscle contractility”.
• David Zawieja presented "The regulation of the real lymphatic function - lymph transport".

Soon Mi Lim, B Kreipe, Jerome Trzeciakowski, Warren Zimmer and Andreea Trache presented “Real-time monitoring of histamine effect on live endothelial cells: mechanotransduction studies in live cells using combined AFM-TIRF/IRM techniques” at the 52nd Annual Meeting of Biophysical Society, held February 2-6 in Long Beach, Calif.

Cindy Meininger presented “Fidarestat, an aldose reductase inhibitor, increases tetrahydrobiopterin levels in endothelial cells from diabetic rats” at the International Conference on Tetrahydrobiopterin, Phenylketonuria, and Nitric Oxide Synthase in St. Moritz/Champfer, Switzerland in March. She also participated as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the meeting.

CLINICAL DEPARTMENTAL NEWS

PEDIATRICS

News & Notes

• Dr. Alma Golden has done a wonderful job in recruiting general pediatricians for the Williamson County area at UMC. 

SURGERY

Faculty

Dr. Jonathan Friedman, Associate Dean for the Bryan-College Station campus, recently received the Health Policy Scholarship of the American College of Surgeons/American Association of Neurological Surgeons to attend the Leadership Program in Health Policy and Management at Brandeis University in June 2008.

Scientific Presentations

Three second-year medical students will join COM faculty members and their colleagues in presenting at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting in Chicago, slated for April 12-19.

• Sohum Desai will join Dr. Jonathan Friedman and colleagues in presenting “Actively bleeding aneurysm demonstrated by CT angiography”.
• Ravi Kumar will join Dr. Rajesh Miranda and Dr. Jonathan Friedman in presenting “Modeling a neurovascular stem cell niche: Implications for the development of neural tumors”.
• Jeffrey Liu will join Dr. Friedman and a colleague in presenting “Comparison of inpatient vs. outpatient anterior cervical discectomy and fusion”.

DATES TO REMEMBER

• April 4: Cadaver Ball; 6:45 p.m. – Pebble Creek Country Club
• April 5: TMA Hard Hats for Little Heads Bicycle Helmet Giveaway; 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.; Wal-Mart Supercenter in Bryan
• April 11: Curriculum Committee Retreat
• April 15: Family & Community Medicine Preceptor Dinner; 6:30 pm – 7F Lodge
• April 17: GSO Symposium; 8 a.m.–5 p.m. – Reynolds Medical Building (College Station)
• May 8: HSC Programmatic Review; 9-10:30 a.m.; SRPH Room 109
• May 16: Senior Banquet – Reed Arena
• May 17: Class of 2008 Commencement; 2 p.m. – Rudder Auditorium
• May 26: Memorial Day holiday – COM offices closed

Christopher C. Colenda, M.D., M.P.H.
The Jean and Thomas McMullin Dean
Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine
147 Joe H. Reynolds Medical Building
College Station, TX 77843-1114
Phone: 979-845-3431
Fax: 979-847-8663
Email: colenda@medicine.tamhsc.edu