Anil Wali, Ph.D., and his laboratory personnel spread the word about mesothelioma during Mesothelioma Awareness Day on Sept. 26.

Dr. Wali, associate professor of Surgery and Pathology for the Wayne State University School of Medicine, informed WSU staff, faculty, students and armed services veterans about mesothelioma incidence, prevalence and translational research efforts into the condition’s early detection and treatment options.

The event took place at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center.

Mesothelioma is a malignant tumor caused by environmental or industrial asbestos exposure around the lining of the lung and abdomen.

Dr. Wali has secured funding from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Protection Agency and the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation to identify the early detection biomarkers of the disease.

The jointly accredited laboratory animal care and use program of Wayne State University and the John D. Dingell VAMC will be site visited by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International on Oct. 27-29.

Site visits are conducted every three years. Site visitors are James Elliott, D.V.M., D.A.C.L.A.M., D.A.C.V.P.M., and David Ruble, D.V.M., D.A.C.L.A.M. Dr. Elliott is director of the Department of Lab Animal Resources at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center. Dr. Ruble is senior director of Bioresources at Wyeth Corp.’s Pearl River, N.Y., research facility.

AAALAC International is a private, not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting the responsible treatment of animals in science. Site visits are a peer review process conducted by expert teams of veterinarians, researchers and other professionals. During the site visit emphasis is placed on reviewing animal facilities, research labs, standard operating procedures, and policies and procedures of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

AAALAC accreditation is recognized as the best means to demonstrate to extramural funding agencies, that a high quality laboratory animal care and use program is in place.

Dr. Merlin Ekstrom, director and attending veterinarian of the Division of Laboratory Animal Resources and associate professor of the Department of Pathology, said Wayne State University has been accredited since 1977. WSU was one of fewer than 20 major research universities to obtain accreditation at the time of its initial accreditation.

The Wayne State University School of Medicine made an impressive showing at the annual World Congress on the Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis.

Omar Kahn, M.D., who recently returned from the 24th congress, held Sept. 17-20 in Montreal, said the Wayne State University Multiple Sclerosis Center, in conjunction with the Detroit Medical Center Multiple Sclerosis Clinic, presented more research papers than any other MS clinic or center in the United States.

This marked the first time the clinics earned these rankings, said Dr. Kahn, professor of Neurology and director of the Multiple Sclerosis ClinicalResearch Center and Image Analysis Laboratory for the Wayne State University School of Medicine. He also serves as director of the MS Clinic for HarperUniversity Hospital.

Dr. Kahn said this year’s congress was the largest, with almost 6,000 attendees from around the world. Nearly 1,000 research papers (platform presentations and posters) on all aspects of multiple sclerosis were presented at the meeting.Of the 25 papers presented by the WSU-DMC Multiple Sclerosis Program, 13 were WSU-DMC investigator-initiated projects and 12 were multi-center collaborations, Dr. Kahn said.

Of the top 10 national MS centers based on the number of research papers presented at the 2008 congress, Wayne State University and the DetroitMedicalCenter ranked first with 25. Globally, the team ranked third.

“It is a pretty good group of centers from the U.S. to be part of, and what makes it even better is that we are at the top of that group,” Dr. Kahn said.

This showing, Dr. Kahn said, “put Detroit on the map and gave one more reason to be a proud member of the WSU-DMC community.”

The state of Michigan, Dr. Kahn noted, is home to approximately 30,000 patients with multiple sclerosis, making it the third-largest state with multiple sclerosis patients, after California and New York.

Lisa J. Brossia, D.V.M., M.S., D.A.C.L.A.M., has joined the staff of the Division of Laboratory Animal Resources at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.

Dr. Brossia assumed the clinical veterinarian position vacated by Dr. Karen Rossman following her retirement earlier this year.

Dr. Merlin Ekstrom, director and attending veterinarian of the Division of Laboratory Animal Resources and associate professor of the Department of Pathology, said Dr. Brossia was selected after a national search conducted by a committee formed by the Wayne State University Vice President for Research Office.

Before coming to Wayne State University, Dr. Brossia most recently served as director of the Laboratory Animal Resource Center at the Indiana University School of Medicine. She comes to WSU with strong credentials in clinical laboratory animal medicine and lab animal facility administration, Dr. Ekstrom said.

Dr. Brossia is a graduate of the Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine. She completed a master’s degree and residency in Laboratory Animal Medicine at the University of Missouri. She is board certified by the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine.

Meera Chitlur, M.D., assistant professor of Pediatrics, Department of Hematology/Oncology in Wayne State University’s School of Medicine, received a $49,910 grant from the Children’s Research Center of Michigan to further develop a laboratory method that could dramatically improve the management of children inflicted with hemophilia.

The method utilizes a thromboelastograph, a small instrument that provides a graphic representation of the formation and break down of blood clots using a small sample of blood. By determining the strength of a clot, the instrument could enable doctors to understand the severity of a patient’s hemophilia before and after they receive treatment.

This new information will help to better gauge the best treatment regimens for individual patients and prevent bleeding complications.

Hemophilia, which is a group of hereditary disorders that impair the body's ability to produce blood clots, is typically managed by intravenously administering a “clotting factor” – a protein that the patient lacks. To prevent bleeding, patients are generally given the clotting factor every 48 to 72 hours. Although varying severities of hemophilia require the factor to be given more or less frequently, these cases typically aren’t discovered until bleeding complications occur.

Now, with the use of thromboelastography to gauge the correct treatment regimen ahead of time, some of the most devastating complications of hemophilia can be avoided. One of those severe complications is bleeding into joints, a condition that causes debilitating joint deterioration over time.

“The whole purpose of putting someone on a preventative treatment regimen is to preserve their joints,” Dr. Chitlur said. “What we’re trying to do is prevent joint bleeds from happening, so that patients can live more productive lives.”

Thromboelastography requires less than one milliliter of blood in order to produce an image, while standard clotting factor assays call for much more.

“That’s the biggest advantage,” Dr. Chitlur said. “It’s very important in children, and especially in newborns. If you want to test something frequently, drawing that much blood can itself become a problem. Additionally, while clotting factor assays take several hours to perform, thromboelastography can provide results in less than one hour.”

The Wayne State University School of Medicine and its partner, Crittenton Hospital Medical Center, celebrated the opening of the new Wayne State University Physicians Group Family Medicine Center on Crittenton's campus in Rochester Hills.

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."

For more information about the WSUPG Family Medicine Center, call (248) 650-6301 or visit www.crittenton.com or www.med.wayne.edu/fam.