Dr. Schenk (Class of 1983) was elected to a two-year term as one of six at-large members of the board at last week’s annual ACS meeting in New York.

“This election is testimony to Dr. Schenk's career-long work in cancer-related issues and to her leadership in primary care,” said Richard Wender, M.D., past president of the American Cancer Society and the first primary care physician to serve on the board and to become president of the organization. “It also confirms the ACS appreciation of the vital role played by primary care clinicians in the cancer fight. The interests of our discipline, and, it follows, the best interests of public health, will be well served by Dr. Schenk's election.”

Dr. Schenk is only the second primary care physician elected to the ACS board.

“Dr. Schenk’s dedication to patient care and to educating those devoting their lives to family medicine exemplify the model of physician and instructor who continues to develop the fine reputation of the School of Medicine,” said Robert M. Mentzer Jr., M.D., dean of the Wayne State University School of Medicine and senior advisor to the president on Medical Affairs. “Her boundless energy will no doubt be appreciated by the American Cancer Society, as it is here at the School of Medicine.”

The ACS is the largest health related not-for-profit organization in the world, and the fourth largest charity of any kind. The society is dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by saving lives, diminishing suffering and preventing cancer through research, education, advocacy and service.

Dr. Schenk oversaw this year the opening of the new Wayne State University Physicians group Family Medicine Center on Crittenton Hospital's campus in Rochester Hills.

On Dec. 2, Guangming Zhong, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, will present “Mechanism of chlamydial pathogenesis.”

Chris Yarima, a senior applications specialist for Millipore Corp., will speak on “The science of laboratory water” on Dec. 9.

Jennifer Jacob, Ph.D., a research scientist with Karmanos Cancer Institute and the School of Medicine, will present “Achieving effective anti-tumor immunity: the roles of DNA vaccination, regulatory T cells and autoimmune thyroiditis” on Dec. 10.

On Dec. 16, Paul Fidel, Ph.D., of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center’s Department of Oral and Craniofacial Biology, will present “Host resistance and susceptibility to mucosal candidiasis: much has been learned since by days at Wayne.”

All seminars begin at noon and take place in Room 7364 of Scott Hall.

Morris Goodman, Ph.D.; Lawrence Grossman, Ph.D.; Leonard Lipovich, Ph.D.; Derek Wildman, Ph.D.; and Harry Chugani, M.D.; will serve as co-investigators in the research for the School of Medicine. The NSF awarded the team $1.7 million for its project.

The School of Medicine team is working on the research with Monica Uddin, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, and Christopher Kuzawa, Ph.D., of the Northwestern University School of Medicine.

The NSF awarded an $800,000 companion grant to co-investigators Chet Sherwood, Ph.D., of George Washington University, and Patrick Hof, M.D., of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

“Collaborative Research: Evolutionary Origins of the Brain Energetics and Adaptive Plasticity of Humans” will seek to discover why the human brain learns at such a high rate during childhood and adolescence, but then sees that ability plateau or decrease in later years. The researchers will study a corresponding curve in primate brains’ consumption of glucose, which is intriguingly different from the human curve, and attempt to explain the difference.

“The brain’s capacity for learning (plasticity) is greatest during childhood, and involves the formation and refinement of new neuronal connections,” Dr. Goodman explained. That process is driven by high rates of glucose consumption in the brain.

The team will study key aspects of evolutionary genomics, including comparing RNA diversity and structure between the human brain and the gorilla brain, and attempt to determine which brain genes involved in human-specific aspects of metabolism have human-specific evolutionary changes at their "on/off switches," known as gene promoters, Dr. Lipovich said.

“If we can find the gene that tells us to turn off the glucose consumption in the brain, perhaps we can determine how to tell it to stay on, or turn back on,” Dr. Lipovich said. That could lead to increasing the “shelf-life” of brain plasticity, which could result in increased learning capacity beyond the current peak years of childhood and adolescence.

The School of Medicine’s interdisciplinary research team will use positron emission tomography scans of brain glucose consumption. Members will integrate the results with patterns presented by RNA and protein data on the thousands of genes expressed at changing levels in brain regions across similar developmental stages.

To determine whether molecular and cellular change in human brain development is distinctive to humans, the researchers will incorporate comparative data from great apes and macaque monkeys, our close relatives.

Dr. Goodman said the team expects to find “coordinated expression patterns” in energetic and brain plasticity genes, evidence that adaptive evolution occurred “in their regulatory machinery during the origin of humans.” The results, he hopes, will provide clues about brain plasticity that gives humans their capacity to incorporate experience and learning into the production of culture.

The research, while focusing on adaptive brain plasticity, may serve as a potential springboard for further research into diseases of the brain that involve altered plasticity, such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s, Dr. Lipovich said.

“There is still much to discover about this so-called ‘junk DNA’ that we haven’t yet identified as having a purpose,” Dr. Lipovich said. A key, and completely unique, aspect of this research will be to monitor RNA in the brain that does not encode proteins. The "junk DNA" may encode tens of thousands of kinds of new RNA molecules that regulate proteins in the brain, although they themselves do not encode proteins. The group is poised to secure a pioneering glimpse of non-protein-coding RNA in human evolution and the brain.

The findings should attract interest across a number of fields, including anthropology, neuroscience, molecular evolution, bioenergetics, endocrinology and pediatrics.

Dr. Goodman is a Wayne State University School of Medicine distinguished professor of anatomy. Dr. Grossman, professor of Molecular Medicine and Genetics, is the Henry L. Brasza director of the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics. Dr. Wildman is assistant professor in WSU’s Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, and Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and a member of the Perinatology Research Branch. Dr. Chugani is a professor of Pediatrics, Neurology and Radiology. Dr. Lipovich is an assistant professor for the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, and Neurology.

Pioneering heart surgeon, cardiac researcher and Wayne State University School of Medicine professor Adrian Kantrowitz, M.D., has died.

Dr. Kantrowitz, who performed the first heart transplant in the United States and the second in the world, was 90. He died Nov. 14.

His devotion to cardiovascular research led to a lifetime of developing mechanical devices to assist patients facing heart failure. He designed more than 20 such devices, including an early version of an implantable pacemaker. His other creations included a plastic heart valve, a heart-lung machine and an auxiliary left ventricle. He also developed some of the first motion pictures of the interior of the living heart.

Larry Stephenson, M.D., professor of surgery for the School of Medicine and chief of the Cardiothoracic Division of the Department of Surgery, worked with Dr. Kantrowitz for 20 years.

"Dr. Kantrowitz was one of the real innovators in cardiac surgery, one of the real pioneers," Dr. Stephenson said. "His biggest contribution was the intraoral balloon pump, which saves hundreds of thousands of lives every year worldwide."

Dr. Stephenson described Dr. Kantrowitz as "jovial and fun to be around."

"His brain was always thinking and always coming up with ideas,"" he said.

In 1966, Dr. Kantrowitz implanted the first partial mechanical heart in a human patient. A year later, he performed the first heart transplant in the U.S., only three days after the first such procedure in the world by Christiaan Barnard in South Africa.

Dr. Kantrowitz, while at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., implanted the heart of a brain-dead infant into another infant, who lived about six hours before dying of a bleeding complication. However, that procedure led to a lifetime of research and development that continues to assist heart failure patients to this day.

Dr. Kantrowitz left Maimonides in 1970, bringing his team of surgeons and staff to the Wayne State University School of Medicine and Sinai Hospital. He served as professor of the Department of Surgery.

He and his wife, Jean, launched LVAD Technology, a medical device company based in Detroit, in 1983.

The Office of Faculty Affairs is taking a new and innovative approach to diversifying academic medicine and the ranks of future practicing physicians and professionals by expanding its scope to also focus on leadership and professional development within the School of Medicine.

Dr. Kenneth Palmer has been appointed to be the first vice dean for Faculty Affairs, Human Resources and Professional Development effective January 1, 2009. In this expanded role, Dr. Palmer will devote his full-time energies to serving as an advocate for the diverse School of Medicine faculty. He will be responsible for interpretation, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting of institutional policies and procedures. These procedures include the development and implementation of expanded resources for professional development and human resource administrative support services.

Dr. Palmer has been with the School of Medicine for 28 years. For ten of those years he served as dean for Research and Graduate Programs. He served five years as director of Preclinical Curriculum and has chaired the Committee on Public Health Sciences, which led to the establishment of the new Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences and Master of Public Health program. Most recently, Dr. Palmer served as interim chair of Pathology, where he was fully engaged in faculty development and the promotion and tenure processes leading to successful clinical faculty promotions. He successfully recruited nine new clinical faculty members and a new director of Pathology Education while overseeing thriving GME, UME and graduate biomedical education programs.

A National Institutes of Health-supported basic science principal investigator for 12 years, Dr. Palmer has served as program director for the first 18 years of our successful Pathology Graduate Program, and as director for the last 27 years of our highly regarded Year 2 medical Pathophysiology course. He has directed several graduate courses, including leading a systemic pathophysiology course for biomedical students for 14 years.

Dr. Palmer was recruited from Boston University School of Medicine and the Mallory Institute of Pathology. A Massachusetts native, Dr. Palmer received his M.S. in development biology from Villanova University, in Villanova, Pennsylvania, and his PhD in pathology from Boston University.

Dr. Bluth also serves as director of Translational Research for the Department of Pathology, and associate director of the Transfusion Service for the Detroit Medical Center.

His areas of research include immunology/inflammation, pancreatology, biomarker discovery, glycolipid based anti-inflammatory therapy, role of IgE in viral diseases and cancer, and blood derived stem cell propogation.

In his role as director of Translation Research, Dr. Bluth is immersed in bringing research from bench to patient bedside, training residents and fellows in applied science, and “synergizing strengths of clinical and basic science toward human application.”

Dr. Bluth said he gravitated toward his research interests because of “the relationship of how basic science research addresses the clinical questions and how the clinical need translates and applies basic science to the human condition.”

He completed his undergraduate studies at Yeshiva University, where he majored in biology. He received his medical and doctorate degrees from Downstate Medical Center in New York. His doctorate degree is in immunology. Dr. Bluth, who is editor in chief of the Journal of Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine (Dove Medical Press) - http://www.dovepress.com/articles.php?journal_id=38 - completed his residency in Clinical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, as well as a fellowship in Blood Banking and Transfusion Medicine, in which he is dual board certified.

He holds more than 15 new inventions and technologies, many of which are patent pending. Dr. Bluth is also vice president of BioMedica Management Corp., and on the board of directors of FirstPoint Biotech venture fund. He has recently pioneered biomarker discovery platforms for use toward clinical applications and entrepreneurial start-up companies.

Bengt B. Arnetz, Ph.D., professor of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences in the School of Medicine at Wayne State University, led the team of researchers to conduct a mental health study among Iraqi soldiers and civilians still living in Iraq who were exposed to sustained socio-environmental stress since the Gulf War. Earlier studies have been confined to Allied forces that have had a number of important confounding factors, including deployed soldiers who were not accustomed to the Gulf War’s geographical, ethnic, cultural and microbial characteristics, as well as the desert climate.

Following the Gulf War, veterans were returning to their native countries with increased mental and somatic symptoms similarly being reported by soldiers deployed in recent conflicts. Previous studies have noted that the Gulf War appears to have resulted in a higher prevalence of medical symptoms with longer duration, although no consensus as to the underlying reason for elevated psychological symptoms exists.

The researchers sought to determine whether mental health disorders differ between Iraqi soldiers deployed during the Gulf War as compared to Iraqi civilians. They also studied whether soldiers deployed closer to the war epicenter exhibited more mental health disorders as compared to soldiers deployed farther away.

The study concludes that Iraqi soldiers that took part in the Gulf War face many of the same mental health disorders that plague Allied soldiers, and exhibited significantly more mental disorders than civilians. Those soldiers closest to Kuwait were at a higher risk, which suggests a link to war-specific environmental exposures such as oil well smoke and aerial bombings, which were more frequent in this area, although self-reported trauma exposure was higher in the southwest of Iraq. In addition, the study points out that sustained socio-environmental stress originating from the war and subsequent hardships such as oppression, unemployment and lack of food are significant contributors. Factors such as climate, culture and microbial characteristics, many of the confounders from earlier studies of Allied Gulf War veterans, were not factors, as participants were acclimated to these conditions.

“This is the first large controlled study of the mental health of Iraqi soldiers and civilians that remained in Iraq under severe socio-environmental stress following the Gulf War,” Dr. Arnetz said. “This article will likely contribute to moving the field as to long-term implications of war trauma, and it will also raise special interest since it is the first of Iraqi soldiers.”

To view the full article, visit http://www.newiraqijm.4t.com/box_widget.html and open Volume 5 Number 1.

Xianguang Chen, M.D., Ph.D., is the principal investigator for “Measuring cigarette smoking behavior progression with cross sectional data,” a study funded by the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Drug Abuse. Dr. Chen has secured a four-year, $857,852 grant for the study.

Dr. Chen is an associate professor and researcher in the Prevention Research Center in the Carman and Ann Adams Department of Pediatrics. Established in 2003, the Pediatrics Prevention Research Center’s main research focus is to reduce health disparities in both domestic and international settings. These areas of research include HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse, pediatric obesity and treatment adherence among children with chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma.

He will collaborate with Feng Lin, Ph.D., of the Wayne State University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, on this research.

“The purpose of the project is to develop a new analytical method by adapting a mathematical model from engineering, and then use the new method to investigate the progression of adolescent smoking behavior in the United States from 1990 to 2005,” Dr. Chen explained. “Despite several decades of tobacco control efforts, particularly since the 1990s, one in every five adolescents now still smokes, far away from the 16 percent goal set forth by Healthy People 2010. To address this gap, current tobacco control strategies must be improved based on new data.”

Healthy People 2010 is a set of national health objectives hoped to be achieved by the first decade of the century. The effort builds on initiatives and research pursued over the past two decades. Developed through a consortium of agencies, Healthy People 2010 was established based on scientific knowledge and was developed to measure programs. The initiative has two main goals: to help increase life expectancy and improve quality of life, and to eliminate health disparities among population segments.

First, Dr. Chen and Dr. Lin will establish a new analytical method for behavioral research by adopting a mathematical model from engineering and system control. They will then use that method to analyze 16 years of national data collected through the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 1990 to 2005. They hope that new analysis will provide “evidence on dynamics and responses” of teen smoking in the United States to a number of key tobacco control activities at national and state levels, including tobacco taxation, school- and community-based behavioral intervention, anti-tobacco marketing, and legal restrictions on tobacco sales and use. Using the model, the pair will predict future smoking patterns and numbers by simulating different tobacco control scenarios.

Dr. Chen hopes the findings from the prediction analysis can be used to inform tobacco control decision-making at national and state levels to optimize current tobacco control strategies in an effort to speed up the effect of current tobacco control and to support tobacco control goal-setting for the next decade of Health People 2020.

Before joining the School of Medicine in 2003, Dr. Chen received funding from the state of California to assess adolescent smoking at the state level using traditional methods in the preventive medicine field. That study expanded his previous research by adapting methods from engineering field to analyze national data.

Frank P. MacMaster, Ph.D., will present “The Neurobiology of Pediatric Depression” at 12:30 p.m. in the Main Auditorium of Children’s Hospital of Michigan. Lunch will be served from noon to 12:30 p.m.

The Wayne State University School of Medicine’s Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology will present a seminar Nov. 12 in Room 8366 of Scott Hall.

Robert Skoff, Ph.D., professor of the department, will speak on “Myelin Proteolipid Protein Mutations Cause Global Brain Mitochondrial Dysfunction.” The seminar begins at noon.

Sandeep Mittal, M.D., F.R.C.S.C., assistant professor of the School of Medicine’s Department of Neurosurgery and co-director of the Neuro-Oncology Multi-Disciplinary Team at the Karmanos Cancer Institute, will present “Advances in the Surgical Management of Intractable Epilepsy” on Nov. 7.

On Nov. 14, Stanley Fahn, M.D., professor of Neurology, College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Columbia University and Neurological Institute, will present “Recent Advances in Parkinson Disease.”

Peter Stys, M.D., professor of Neurosciences at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute of the University of Calgary, will speak on “Axonal-Glial Interactions: Implications for Neuroprotection in Multiple Sclerosis,” on Nov. 21.

All lectures begin at 9 a.m. in the Kresge Auditorium at Harper University Hospital.

Ms. Greb, who served as director of the school’s Genetic Counseling Graduate Program in the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, said she looks forward to working with faculty members to develop an academy that brings teaching faculty together and supports excellence in teaching.

“Other medical schools have similar institutions and entities,” she noted. “We want to promote the idea and prestige of teaching. We want those who want to improve to have access to people and resources that will help them improve.”

Establishing a Teaching Academy is a component of the School of Medicine’s Strategic Plan. The goal of the academy is to “recognize teaching as central to the mission of the School of Medicine, to foster career development for the faculty, and to ensure innovation and excellence in medical education.”

The school has already launched two programs to advance faculty development in teaching. One is the Stanford Program, an intensive course nationally recognized to improve faculty teaching. The other is the Medical Education Research Scholars Program to develop faculty expertise in medical education.

“As course director for medical genetics for the past 15 years, I’ve come to really enjoy working in medical education and appreciate the challenges facing the teaching faculty. With my background in patient care, teaching and program development, I feel I can help create a culture in our school that celebrates medical teaching,” Ms. Greb said about accepting the new challenge.

Ms. Greb has served as president of the American Board of Genetic Counseling, and understands issues related to setting education standards and determining competencies.

She noted that Robert Frank, M.D., executive vice dean, pushed for the development of a Teaching Academy for the School of Medicine.

“Under Anne Greb’s direction, the Teaching Academy will be a faculty-centered organization that will advance educational development and innovation at the School of Medicine. Faculty will use the academy to enhance their teaching skills, establish collaborations, and achieve recognition for their dedication to medical and graduate student education” Dr. Frank said about this exciting new initiative.

Ms. Greb has been speaking to groups within the School of Medicine about the new effort.

She explained that she will begin by establishing an advisory committee that will include department chairs, course directors, clerkship directors, students and graduate faculty, among others. That group will begin investigating similar efforts at other medical schools and surveying the School of Medicine faculty about their needs. The committee will need to determine the Teaching Academy’s structure and set its priorities.

“I think we need to begin gathering data, seeing what the faculty needs and investigating what other schools are doing, because there’s no sense starting from scratch,” she said. “It will be important that the faculty and administration work together to best meet the educational goals for the school.”

The faculty needs, Ms. Greb said, could be something as simple as a lesson in PowerPoint or instruction in how to write test questions. “Going to medical school doesn’t necessarily teach you how to teach,” she said.

Another goal of the Teaching Academy is to bring together faculty who are truly passionate about teaching so they can share ideas, collaborate on education projects and engage in medical education research.

While just now building the foundation for the academy, Ms. Greb said she plans to eventually offer resources that run that gamut. The academy is offering an item writing workshop and will soon offer peer evaluation of teaching to those faculty interested in getting feedback from their peers.

For more information on the Teaching Academy and its initial services, contact Ms. Greb by calling (313) 577-3492 or by email at agreb@med.wayne.edu.