The Sept. 25 unveiling of the center, housed on the entire second floor of a newly built medical office building next to Crittenton Hospital, provided guests with the opportunity to meet the people who developed the center and tour the initial product of the relationship the School of Medicine and Crittenton developed in 2007.

“This center will bring the family medicine philosophy to life by offering patients research-based care in a patient-centered environment,” said Robert M. Mentzer Jr., M.D., dean of the School of Medicine and advisor to the president on Medical Affairs. “If we are to meet the changing needs of the community we serve, we, too, must evolve. It is clear that academic medicine and community medical practices must partner to offer responsive, expert and respectful care. We know that ‘one size cannot fit all’ and that different people require different healthcare settings and services. We are working toward this.”

The new facility, Dean Mentzer said, represents a “paradigm of healthcare collaboration and partnership that is vitally important to our community.”

“Crittenton Hospital and the medical school have forged a partnership to improve the scope of medical education. … This partnership illustrates how education and patient care should intertwine to provide the best possible care for our community today and into the future,” he said. “Having medical students, residents, faculty and academic research at Crittenton enhances both institutions. From our perspective, we're extremely proud to partner with such a respected hospital and provide family medicine care to residents of Oakland County.”

Valerie Parisi, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., vice dean of Hospital Relations and Clinical Affairs for the School of Medicine, thanked Crittenton officials “for making us feel so welcome.”

“Family medicine physicians are special," said Dr. Parisi, who served as mistress of ceremonies during the reception. “They are committed to caring for entire families -- from infants to pregnant women to seniors -- and focus on keeping people well rather than treating specific diseases. A vital and growing medical field, family medicine is increasingly important as our population's needs change.”

The celebration, she noted, “highlights both a new era in family medicine and the medical school's educational partnership with Crittenton Hospital.”

Lynn Orfgen, president and chief executive officer of Crittenton Hospital Medical Center, called the event and center “a new chapter in family medicine residency programs, and a new chapter in how hospitals and medical schools work together.”

“Crittenton is excited to work with Wayne State University on this program,” he added.

The reception and tour of the center also served as a benefit for the Rochester Hills Public Library. Attendees donated children’s books that were in turn presented to the library.

That sense of community is what the WSUPG Family Medicine Center is all about, said Maryjean Schenk, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., chair of the Wayne State University School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences.

“The new WSUPG Family Medicine Center is designed to enhance patient-centered care and to provide a personal medical home to our patients,” Dr. Schenk said. “In partnership with Crittenton Hospital Medical Center, the FMC also provides an outstanding clinical learning environment for our family medicine residents and our WSU medical students. I am absolutely ecstatic that our dream of having a FMC that is designed to be a healing environment has come to fruition, and my greatest wish is that our patients and the community will feel at home in the FMC. Our mission is to improve the health and well-being of individuals, families and the community, and this FMC provides a place to do just that.”

The center will see and provide primary care for patients of all ages, so that all members of a family, from infant to grandparents, have access to cutting-edge, university research-backed medical care in a single setting. Wayne State University faculty physicians and residents will see and treat patients at the center.

"The opening of the new FMC is a ground-breaking event for our residency program, department and the community at large,” said Tsveti Markova, M.D., F.A.A.F.P., the Family Medicine Residency Program director and director of Clinical Operations for the center. “It embodies the integration of our patient care and educational missions. There are only a few centers nationwide that are specifically designed to function as a patient-centered medical home. The focus is on the relationship-based model of high quality, comprehensive and safe patient care, enhanced by information technology.

“I am grateful for the wonderful team of architects, designers, patients, staff and physicians who collaborated with us to accomplish this,” added Dr. Markova, who this year was named Educator of the Year by the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians. “I am sure that physicians practicing and training in this environment will influence the delivery of primary care in the future, improving the health of individuals, families and the community."

Six Wayne State University School of Medicine students will endure a 60-mile walk, sore feet and blisters this weekend to raise money to fight breast cancer.

Rachel Shields, Brandon Mancini, Natanya Maio, Danielle Zwier, Cathy Huber and Anila Balakrishnan, all second-year medical students, will take part in the Breast Cancer 3 Day challenge to benefit the Susan G. Komen For the Cure project. Each student had to raise at least $2,200 to walk in the event. Collectively, the School of Medicine students raised slightly more than $16,000.

Two other students – Erik Brown and Celine Cattier – also raised money to walk, but are unable to participate because of scheduled tests.

“A lot of our support came from the faculty, and it’s very much appreciated,” said Ms. Shields, treasurer of the Student Senate.

Mr. Mancini, Student Senate class president, said gathering a student group to walk in the event was an idea initially proposed by Ms. Shields.

“I’ve been wanting to do the walk for a couple of years,” she said. “A close friend has been doing it, and I thought we should do it, and represent the school.”

While Ms. Shields trained by walking on a treadmill while studying – hitting up to 11 miles at a time – Mr. Mancini hopes that his training for the upcoming Detroit Free Press half-marathon will carry him through the 60 miles.

In addition to volunteering for a worthy cause, he has another reason to walk. “My mom, Joanne, is a breast cancer survivor,” said Mr. Mancini, who plans to go into radiation/oncology.

The students, as well as thousands of other walkers in the Detroit metropolitan area, have a long haul before them. Each day of the three-day walk covers approximately 20 miles, followed by camping and recovery in the evenings.

The walk begins Friday with a stretch from Oakland Community College to Livonia. Day Two’s trek runs from Livonia to Plymouth, and on the final day, the walkers hoof it to Dearborn, where the event winds up at the Henry Ford.

The Wayne State University School of Medicine’s chapter of the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA) will be recognized by the Association of Chinese Americans, Organization of Chinese Americans Detroit Chapter (ACA) next month for bringing health awareness to the Asian community in the Detroit area.

“This award is very special to APAMSA, since it recognizes our organization, our medical students and volunteer physicians, and our e-boards for all the hard work and time we have dedicated toward our goal of improving Asian-American health and health education in Detroit,” said Edward Kim, a second-year student at the School of Medicine and health screening coordinator with the APAMSA.

The ACA will present the award Oct. 4 at its 36^th annual “Global Voices for the Future” celebration and fundraising event, to be held at the Hyatt Regency Dearborn.

Mr. Kim said the School of Medicine’s 40-member chapter will receive the honor in appreciation of its efforts to offer health screenings to the Chinese American community in the metropolitan Detroit area.

For the last several years, the chapter has organized health screening events with Wayne State University medical student and physician volunteers at ACA community centers. The free screenings are designed to provide people with Body Mass Index readings, blood pressure levels, and blood glucose and cholesterol measurements.

The chapter offers monthly health screenings at the ACA community center in Madison Heights and weekly blood pressure checks at the ACA community center in Detroit. The group is scheduled to offer three screenings at the Central Alliance Church in Detroit.

“The work this group does is invaluable,” said Shenlin Chen, executive director of the ACA. “Every month, rain or shine, the students show up to conduct the health screenings. We have many people who are uninsured or under-insured, and the screenings assist them and provide some preventive care.”

The APAMSA, founded officially in 1995 by Asian American students, works to promote awareness of and action against health disparity issues facing the Asian Pacific–Islander community in the greater Detroit area, as well as the nation.

“We hope to provide a medium in which both practicing and aspiring health professionals can learn to sensitively and accurately treat not just Asian-Pacific Islanders, but any persons of different cultural backgrounds they may meet in their careers,” Mr. Kim explained.

The WSU chapter has also worked in conjunction with the Healthy Asian American Project and other community leaders to provide health screenings, and hepatitis B education and immunizations to the Korean, Vietnamese, Hmong and Filipino communities.

APAMSA takes part in annual cultural events on the medical campus to raise awareness of the large Asian Pacific American community of Detroit. Members do so by scheduling speaker presentations that target important health issues, such as the prevalence of hepatitis B and its connection to liver cirrhosis and cancer. The WSU chapter also hosts annual medical trips to China that allow students to gain a unique perspective on health education, health care and cultural differences within the Asian community.

The 3 p.m. program, which will take place in the Blue Auditorium at Scott Hall, will recognize faculty and students who have made their mark, both in teaching and in academic achievement, during the 2007-2008 academic year.

The ceremony will include the awarding of the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Staff Award for teaching and the Lamp Award for teaching.

Special posthumous awards for Charles Whitten, M.D., and Helene Lycaki, Ph.D., will also be awarded.

Dr. Matherly, who also serves associate director of the graduate program in cancer biology, received the grant for his research project titled “NOTCH Signaling and therapy of T-cell leukemia in children.” He hopes the research will establish the extent to which NOTCH1 mutations predict clinical outcomes in T-cell ALL and identify new approaches for treating T-cell ALL in children.

“Our project is an extension of our established translational research program in the biology of childhood leukemia at the Karmanos Cancer Institute and the Children's Hospital of Michigan, and is a paradigm for translational research in that it involves close collaboration between basic Ph.D. researchers and practicing oncologists,” Dr. Matherly said. “It is this unique working arrangement which, in itself, provides the major conduit for translating laboratory results on primary patient specimens back to patients.”

The St. Baldrick's Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to raising money for childhood cancer research. The foundation coordinates worldwide head-shaving events in which volunteers raise donations to support childhood cancer research.

Dr. Gruber’s protocol and findings were published in July in Transplantation, one of two major journals in the field of transplant surgery. The publication in Transplantation centers on Dr. Gruber’s results with the first eight patients.

Only two other transplant centers in the U.S. – Drexel University and the University of California, San Francisco – have reported results on a larger number of such cases, said Dr. Gruber, professor and chief of the Section of Transplant Surgery for the Wayne State University School of Medicine, and director of the Organ Transplant Program at Harper University Hospital.

The patients who received the transplanted kidneys were required to have had CD4 counts above 200 cells/mm3 and an ultrasensitive viral load for HIV below 50 copies/ml for at least six months while receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).

“HIV positivity is still considered an absolute contraindication to renal transplantation in most transplant centers,” Dr. Gruber said. “This stems from the fear that further immunosuppressing these patients with pharmacologic agents, over and above their baseline state of immunosuppression from the disease itself, would produce an unacceptably high risk of infections and malignancy. However, this has not proven to be the case in patients who are maintained on HAART therapy with adequate cell counts and suppression of the virus.

“HIV-positive patients are no longer dying rapidly from AIDS, can have prolonged survival and may even develop renal failure over the long term on the basis of their HIV infection,” he added. “There is no longer any reason to deny the appropriate HIV-positive candidate a chance at receiving a kidney transplant.”

Many transplant centers, he noted, harbor concerns regarding the close monitoring HIV-positive patients require due to powerful drug interactions between the HAART medications and the immunosuppressive agents required to reduce the chance of transplant rejection. “We are very fortunate here at Wayne State to have assembled a team of experts to help care for these most challenging patients, with active participation from transplant surgery, nephrology, infectious disease and pharmacy,” he said.

While HIV-positive patients previously were not considered viable for kidney transplantation, when suffering organ failure – either from the disease or other causes – they were maintained on dialysis.

“However, just like HIV-negative patients, the quality of life on dialysis is poorer and the results of renal transplantation for appropriately chosen HIV-positive candidates are superior to those of remaining on dialysis,” Dr. Gruber said. “Why should such candidates be deprived of this option?”

Four centers, Dr. Gruber said, previously reported results with renal transplantation in HIV-positive recipients on HAART therapy, with the incidence of acute rejection ranging from 43 percent to 67 percent. These rejection rates were much higher than those for HIV-negative patients (15 percent to 20 percent). “For the first time, we were able to achieve a low incidence of acute rejection (13 percent), equivalent to that observed in HIV-negative patients,” Dr. Gruber said.

Dr. Gruber and his team achieved the lowered infection and rejection rates by introducing three modifications to the regimens used by others: adding an anti-interleukin-2 receptor antibody for induction of immunosuppression; increasing the initial target blood levels of cyclosporine, the main immunosuppressive drug around which the maintenance anti-rejection protocol is based; and adjusting the dose of another anti-rejection medication, mycophenolate mofetil (Cellcept), according to blood levels obtained beginning at two to four weeks, and up to six months following transplantation.

Dr. Gruber said the program will move forward with further kidney transplants in HIV-positive patients using the same protocol. He has several such patients on the list awaiting receipt of a suitable kidney.

The center’s 24th anniversary celebration recognized the leadership of Michael Treblin, M.D., who has been involved with the Farmington Hills center for nine years.

Dr. Treblin, a 1979 graduate of the School of Medicine, has served as president of the center for four years, “and I plan to be involved indefinitely,” he said.

"This honor represents years of devotion to a cause dear to my heart,” said Dr. Treblin, a pediatrician at Pediatrics Consultants of Troy, in Shelby Township. “I feel overwhelming pride.”

His father, Joseph, who will turn 89 this month, is a Holocaust survivor. The senior Treblin attended the Sept. 14 celebration.

“I have an unabated passion that the victims of the Holocaust are never forgotten,” Dr. Treblin said. “The prejudice and intolerance of the Holocaust translate to present times. People must know that prejudice and intolerance are incompatible with a healthy society. The Holocaust Memorial Center remembers and teaches.”

The center will soon develop a children’s gallery to tell the story of the Holocaust in an age-appropriate fashion. In addition, the center will erect a memorial tomb.

“As president, Dr. Treblin demonstrated a form of leadership and commitment that may rightfully be the envy of any institution,” said center founder and CEO, the Rabbi Charles H. Rosenzveig. “… We are honoring Dr. Treblin not only for his exemplary leadership as president of our institution, but also for his continuous inspiring devotion to its causes.”

Researchers at the Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute have developed an HER2 DNA cancer vaccine that has shown to be effective on drug-resistant tumors in mice. The study was reported in the Sept. 15 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The vaccine, researchers said, completely eliminated HER2-positive tumors – including cancers resistant to current anti-HER2 therapy – in mice, without any toxicity.

The study suggests the vaccine could treat women with HER2-positive, treatment-resistant cancer or help prevent cancer recurrence. The researchers also said it might potentially be used in cancer-free women to prevent initial development of these tumors.

Wei-Zen Wei, Ph.D., professor at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the School of Medicine, together with a team of researchers, has been working on a series of cancer-fighting vaccines since 1996 to help prevent HER2-positive breast cancer.

Approximately 20 percent to 30 percent of breast cancers make too much of the protein HER2, which is made at low levels by normal breast cells. Tumors that overexpress HER2 (called HER2-positive) tend to grow faster and are more likely to return than tumors that don’t overexpress the protein.

Dr. Wei said this vaccine was tested in the laboratory on tumor cells that no longer responded to other therapies for HER2-positive breast cancer. The results in mice showed that the vaccine prevented cancer growth and was not toxic.

“We each have an immune system to help fight off disease,” Dr. Wei explained. “However, when cancer develops, the immune system can’t always distinguish tumor cells from normal cells, so the full power of the immune system is not harnessed to fight the disease. This vaccine helps to educate the immune system so that it recognizes HER2-positive cancer cells, helps destroy them and prevents them from spreading.”

The vaccine consists of “naked” DNA -- genes that produce the HER2 receptor -- as well as an immune stimulant. The researchers used pulses of electricity to deliver the injected vaccine into leg muscles in mice, where the gene produced a huge quantity of HER2 receptors that activated both antibodies and killer T cells.

“While HER2 receptors are not usually seen by the immune system when they are expressed at low level on the surface of normal cells, a sudden flood of receptors alerts the body to an invasion that needs to be eliminated,” Dr. Wei said. “During that process, the immune system learns to attack cancer cells that display large numbers of these receptors.”

Dr. Wei and her colleagues also used an agent that temporarily suppressed the activity of regulatory T cells, which normally keeps the immune system from over-reacting. In the absence of regulatory T cells, the immune system responded much more strongly to the vaccine. When the researchers implanted HER2-positive breast tumors in the mice, the cancer was eradicated.

“The immune response against HER2-positive receptors we saw in this study is powerful, and works even in tumors that are resistant to current therapies,” she said. “The vaccine could potentially eliminate the need to even use these therapies.

“Both tumor cells that respond to current targeted therapies and those that are resistant to these treatments were eradicated,” Dr. Wei said. “This may be an answer for women with these tumors who become resistant to the current therapies.

“As we continue our extensive research on this promising vaccine, based on the results to date, we believe this could eventually help control the spread of HER2-positive breast cancer in patients who have been resistant to other treatments, and possibly prevent HER2-positive breast cancer from occurring. The greatest power of vaccination is protection against initial cancer development, and that is our ultimate goal with this treatment,” Dr. Wei said.

Dr. Wei’s lab is the first to develop HER2 DNA vaccines. The first vaccine was developed in 1999. In collaboration with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, a pilot clinical trial with the HER2 DNA vaccine has been conducted in patients with Stage IV breast cancer and has demonstrated safety. Further testing is being considered.

Alexander Gow, Ph.D., associate professor in the School of Medicine’s Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, the Carman and Ann Adams Department of Pediatrics, and the Department of Neurology, will use the four-year grant to generate a non-immune animal model of multiple sclerosis.

Because MS and similar diseases do not occur in animals, Dr. Gow said, researchers must first establish an animal model with a weakened immune system for testing. Once the animal model is established, Dr. Gow can use the mice to determine how the disease gets started, study its pathology and then design drugs to alleviate the symptoms.

MS is considered an autoimmune disease. The body’s own immune system attacks the brain and gradually destroys it, typically over many years.

“An obvious treatment for such a disease is to suppress the immune system so it won’t attack the brain,” Dr. Gow explained, “and such a treatment is in common use, using steroids. This treatment does improve the disease symptoms, but only in the short term. The long-term prognosis is unchanged.”

Since immune suppression is not a cure, Dr. Gow’s lab has been investigating metabolic stress as a factor in the disease process. He said there is “good evidence” that cells in the brain damaged by MS – cells called oligodendrocytes – experience the stress. Dr. Gow is studying a mouse with a genetic mutation that causes metabolic stress in oligodendrocytes. His lab has been characterizing the effect of stress on the cells, and has engineered a new gene into the Rumpshaker Mutant Mouse (RSH). The Trb3 gene appears to relieve the stress, and RSH mice that also have the gene show milder disease symptoms than RSH mice without that gene.

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society of America grant will allow Dr. Gow’s lab to complete the characterization of the mice and determine the biological function of the Trb3 gene.

"This is an important study to investigate whether MS causes myelin-making cells to self-destruct, and if so, find ways to block this process," said Dr. Patricia A. O’Looney, vice president of Biomedical Research for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Once he determines the biological function of the Trb3 gene in oligodendrocytes, “we will probably know how this gene reduces the disease symptoms of RSH mice,” Dr. Gow explained. “Next, we will look for drugs that mimic the activity of the Trb3 gene and use them on the RSH mice. If those tests identify useful drugs, we will be in a position to begin pre-clinical trials for MS.”

Eventually, Dr. Gow said, he hopes that the drugs identified as reducing oligodendrocyte stress in the mice can then be tested in MS patients.

“Because there are no similar approaches to MS treatments, the drugs may move fairly rapidly through the trial process,” he said. “We will focus on drugs that are already in pre-clinical or clinical trials, which should move the drug trials along fairly quickly.

“I can’t overemphasize the timeliness of these grants for our work. We are on the verge of significant advances in these diseases, but federal government policies toward medical research over the last four to six years have been so harsh that it has become very difficult to continue research on rare diseases,” Dr. Gow said. “The National Institutes of Health simply has insufficient funds to support such research.”

The donor's commitment represents a significant investment in medical education and metropolitan Detroit, said School of Medicine Dean Robert M. Mentzer Jr., M.D.

The donor, who wished to remain anonymous, helped finalize the campaign goal of $30 million for the new state-of-the-science facility.

The donor asked that the pledge be used to honor Raymond Margherio, M.D., who graduated from the School of Medicine in 1965.

“This gift means so much to the School of Medicine, and to the future of medical education and healthcare,” said Dean Mentzer. “The donor’s foresight and commitment to the School, the residents of the community and to medicine will help establish the foundation for the next generation of medical education in Michigan.”

The Margherio Family Conference Center will serve as an education center for the future leaders and innovators in medicine, and as a focal meeting place for community groups.

The center will seat up to 120, and will contain eight alcoves along its perimeter to accommodate break-out study sessions. Each alcove will boast a plasma screen and computer, providing students access to online diagnostic resources to research topics ranging from diabetes to women’s health issues. Grand Rounds can also take place there, allowing physicians to present unusual cases. The two projection screens are so technologically advanced that physicians will be able to display large images, such as X-rays or pathology specimens, with microscopic precision from almost any angle. The hub’s user-friendly technology will easily display material with great accuracy so students can witness, for example, close-up footage of surgery.

Physicians will take advantage of continuing medical education opportunities in the center as well, whether in classes or by actual testing. Sixty percent of all southeastern Michigan physicians receive all or part of their medical training at Wayne State University, and the center is designed to directly serve that population. The center’s flexibility allows it to accommodate the Southeast Michigan Center for Medical Education. A hospital consortium that includes numerous teaching hospitals from the metropolitan Detroit area, SEMCE organizes programs in every specialty for residents, fellows and practicing physicians.

Education beyond the traditional classroom will be taught in the center regularly, with an emphasis on commitment to community. The head of a hospice will speak. Directors from numerous organizations, including the Cass Clinic, the Triangle Foundation and Covenant House, will lecture. These are some of the experts who address first- and second-year medical students enrolled in the Co-Curricular for Credit Program, which helps raise student awareness as they volunteer in the Detroit community. Participants learn firsthand about the people who become their patients, they see the health disparities in our communities and gain new-found empathy as they witness a new perspective. This humanistic approach to medicine has proved so successful that Saturday morning presentations are packed by more than 100 students, making the center the ideal place for such learning.

Other events can take place here as well, including Med Ed Prep, a four-week community outreach course designed to give students 16 and older a taste of medical school.

She is the association’s first woman president.

Dr. Sloane, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Wayne State University School of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology, and Distinguished Professor of the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, will serve as president-elect of the association until the winter of 2009. She will then take on the role of president, and will serve in that capacity until the winter of 2011.

“I am honored to be elected to serve as president of AMSPC,” Dr. Sloane said. “This society serves as an important forum through which chairs can discuss the profession of pharmacology and how to work together to respond to issues facing our profession such as inadequate federal funding for research, changes in medical curricula and modifying pre-doctoral training for non-academic careers.

“I look forward to building on the momentum set in motion by the current president, Dr. Kenneth Tew, Chair of the Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the Medical University of South Carolina,” she added.

Dr. Sloane, who has led the Department of Pharmacology since 1995, will organize and chair the association’s winter meetings in 2010 and 2011. She will also chair business meetings held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Along with representatives of similar organizations and scientific societies, Dr. Sloane will meet with members of Congress to appeal for increased federal funding for research.

The Association of Medical Pharmacology Chairs is composed of current and emeritus Chairs of medical school pharmacology departments in the United States and Canada, and associate members from other countries. The association works to promote pharmacology as a discipline.

Dr. Maier received his medical degree from the Wayne State University School of Medicine. He completed a transitional internship at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak and then returned to Wayne State University School of Medicine, where he successfully completed his residency in Radiation Oncology in 2006.

He is board certified in Radiation Oncology and has been in practice at the Cancer Centers of Florida in Winter Park.

Dr. Maier will be appointed medical director at the Weisberg Cancer Treatment Center, and will also work at the Gershenson Radiation Oncology Center.

David Kessel, Ph.D., professor of Pharmacology for the Wayne State University School of Medicine, recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Kessel received the award at a July 8 meeting in Moscow sponsored by the International Conference on Porphyrins and Phthaliocyanines, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. The award was for his studies related to Photodynamic Therapy and was funded by the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, where the modern era of PDT began.

“When one of my friends received such an award, his first comment was: ‘Does this mean I don't have to do anything else?’ In my case, I realized that this was not going to work, since I still had a few more years of NIH grant support, students to deal with and the realization that I would be assigned to space in a landfill if I failed to keep my research program going,” Dr. Kessel said.

The award to Dr. Kessel was the academy’s first for achievements in the field of Photodynamic Therapy, a procedure for “selectively photosensitizing malignant tissues to light,” Dr. Kessel explained. The process is used for therapy of bladder, esophageal, lung skin, gastrointestinal and -- in experimental protocols -- prostate cancer.

Dr. Kessel, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan and Harvard Medical School, was named professor of Pharmacology and Medicine at Wayne State University in 1974. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health since 1959.

The International Photodynamic Association, founded in Japan in 1986, meets every two years, bringing together mainly clinical personnel but also basic scientists. At the 2007 meeting in Shanghai, Dr. Kessel was elected the association’s next president. He is charged with organizing the next meeting, scheduled for June 2009 in Seattle.

Elderly people who take a cholesterol-lowering drug after a stroke or mini-stroke lower their risk of having another stroke just as much as younger people in the same situation, according to research by a Wayne State University School of Medicine physician published in the Sept. 3 online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“Even though the majority of strokes and heart attacks occur in people who are 65 and older, studies have found that cholesterol-lowering drugs are not prescribed as often for older people as they are for younger people,” said study author Seemant Chaturvedi, M.D., F.A.A.N., F.A.H.A., professor of Neurology at the School of Medicine and director of the WSU-DMC Stroke Program.

“These results show that using these drugs is just as beneficial for people who are over 65 as they are for younger people,” added Dr. Chaturvedi, who is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

The study involved 4,731 people 18 and older who had a recent stroke or transient ischemic attack, or mini-stroke. The 2,249 people 65 and older were in one group, with an average age of 72, and the 2,482 people younger than 65 made up the other group, with an average age of 54. Within each group, about half of the people received the cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin and about half received a placebo. The participants were then followed for an average of four and a half years.

Overall, LDL, or low-density lipoprotein “bad” cholesterol, was lowered by an average of 61 points during the study for the elderly group, and by 59 points for the younger group. Those in the younger group reduced their risk for another stroke by 26 percent; the risk was reduced by 10 percent in the elderly group.

“We tested to see whether age had any effect on how well the treatment worked, and we did not find any differences between young people and older people,” Dr. Chaturvedi said. “It’s estimated that 20 percent of the U.S. population will be 65 or older by 2010, so it’s important that we identify ways to reduce the burden of strokes and other cerebrovascular diseases in this group. This is a step in that direction.”

The study was part of a larger study called the Stroke Prevention by Aggressive Reduction in Cholesterol Levels trial. The study was supported by Pfizer Inc., maker of atorvastatin.

Dr. Chaturvedi noted that the findings are not an indication that everyone over the age of 65 should be placed on statins to reduce the risk of stroke, though he said statin use to ward off strokes will likely increase. Instead, patients should be evaluated for their profile and risk of vascular disease before statins are recommended.

Ming Dong, Ph.D., associate professor of Computer Science in the College of Liberal Arts, is leading the team on this initiative. Farshad Fotouhi, Ph.D., Chair of Computer Science; Mark Haacke, Ph.D., professor of Radiology in the School of Medicine; and Jing Hua, Ph.D., assistant professor of Computer Science, are collaborating with Dr. Dong on this project.

According to the grant abstract, compared to the explosive collection of visual datasets, computation techniques for gaining knowledge from large, diverse, heterogeneous visual datasets have only evolved modestly. This project aims to bridge these gaps and to promote more effective utilization and better understanding of the data.

"The project will foster a strong research program in geometry-guided knowledge discovery in multimodality visual data, with an emphasis on neuroimaging applications," Dr. Dong. "The project can immediately help to elevate the existing resources and ongoing research to a unified, systematic level and strengthen computer science education."

The ultimate goal of the project is to apply the computational tools to computer-assisted diagnosis of brain diseases such as tumors and brain functional disorder. The research team is working to identify disease patterns in the human brain, thus providing both clinical and social benefits to a large sector of the population. In addition, the team hopes to disseminate the research results to both computer science and medical communities through free Web access of the software tools and the set of sample data.

"This project is a great example of the multi-disciplinary collaborative environment that is growing at Wayne State University," said Gloria Heppner, associate vice president for Research at WSU. "By bringing great minds together from departments such as computer science and radiology, new research ideas are being fostered that will ultimately impact the lives of many."