The second Wayne State University Professional Academic Development seminar for faculty, department chairs, postdoctoral trainees and senior graduate students is set for Nov. 13.

“Research to Innovation: New Pathways for Faculty Members” is an interactive program on technology commercialization facilitated by a panel of WSU researchers who have “been there and done that.”

Topics include “Why should I care about commercialization?,” “What can I commercialize?,” “What do you mean there's a difference between science, technology and innovation?,” “What’s my role?,” “What is the university’s role?” and “How can I work with industry?”

The session will take place at the School of Medicine in the Margherio Family Conference Center, located in the Mazurek Education Commons, from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Please register in advance by logging into Pipeline, going to the Employee or Student tab and clicking on the Trainings, Seminars and Workshops button on the far right side of the screen. Scroll down to the Research category, click on the Professional and Academic Development Seminars link and select your session of interest.

In addition, mark your calendar for the next PAD seminar, “Research Education: Teaching and Learning through Research in the Laboratory,” set for Dec. 4.

Since 2007, Wayne State's offices of the Vice President for Research, Graduate School and Provost have sponsored these career development sessions twice monthly from September through June. This year, the School of Medicine’s Office of Faculty Affairs, Human Resources and Professional Development and the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs are partnering with those offices to deliver the series.

To view the videos of past seminars, visit http://www.research.wayne.edu/seminars-training/seminar-series.php.

For more information about program, contact Sarah James at sjames@wayne.edu or (313) 577-8997.

A second-year psychiatry resident with the Wayne State University School of Medicine recommended that economic stimulus funding be used to address mental illness disparities in the region during the 56th annual American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Conference.

Deepak Prabhakar, M.D., M.P.H., presented “Metro Detroit: Is There a Need to Bail Out the Mentally Ill?” at the conference, held recently in Honolulu, Hawaii. He noted that the correlation between socioeconomic status and the prevalence of mental illness is recognized in existing medical literature. The lower a person's socioeconomic status, the greater his or her chances are of developing mental illness. He examined the rates of mental illness in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.

“There is evidence of great socioeconomic disparity among the three counties. It is interesting to see how this disparity correlates with mental illness prevalence in our local community,” Dr. Prabhakar explained. “Wayne County has a higher overall mental illness prevalence as compared to Oakland and Macomb. Wayne County adolescents have a higher mental illness prevalence compared to Oakland and Macomb. Among Wayne County adolescents, minority groups have higher mental illness prevalence as compared to caucasians.

“There is a great disparity in the prevalence of mental illnesses across metropolitan Detroit and it correlates with the existing socioeconomic disparity,” he said. “Adolescents and minorities in particular have worse outcomes.”

Dr. Prabhakar recommended the use of age-appropriate and culturally congruent programs to alleviate disparities, adding that consideration should be given to using economic stimulus funds to address the situation.

“This has the potential of bringing much-needed relief to the adolescent patients of the metropolitan Detroit area and will also help in creating jobs that would eventually become self-sustaining with time.”

Dr. Prabhakar also recently submitted a chapter for a new book, “Community Quality-of-Life Indicators: Best Cases IV,” published by the Society for Quality-of-Life Studies. His chapter is titled “Mental Health Indicator Parity: Integrating National, State, and Local Data.”

The writing grew out of his 2007-2008 stint as project director of the needs assessment component of Project Transform: A North Texas Mental Health Transformation Initiative. That work resulted in the publication of “Epidemiologic Profile: Assessment of Mental Health in Dallas County,” which led the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies to invite him to contribute the chapter.

“Health is a function of the interaction of an individual’s social, genetic and physical environment,” said Dr. Prabhakar, whose area of interest is health care disparities, in particular those among minorities and children and adolescents. “Disparities exist as a consequence of the inequitable distribution of commodities, resources and political capital in American society.”

Young African-American asthma sufferers will be the beneficiaries of a National Institutes of Health grant that funds a new research position and study within the Wayne State University School of Medicine.

The $625,397 grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute not only funds the transition of Karen MacDonell, Ph.D., assistant professor of the Department of Pediatrics, to a tenure track position, it also allows a replacement for her as project manager of current asthma studies and creates a new research assistant position.

“I now have start-up money to begin my own research,” said Dr. MacDonell, project director of the Family Community Access To Child Health and the Asthma Family Project for Wayne State University. “I will continue to focus on asthma, but I am planning on developing technology-based interventions for African-American emerging adults (ages 17 to 22) with asthma.”

That research will incorporate the use of computers, personal digital assistants, cell phones, texting and the Internet to address asthma disparity among younger African-American patients. The first phase of that study, now under way, explores the experience of living with asthma and gathering youth input to develop the proposed intervention. Dr. MacDonell plans to apply for independent government funding for her research in 2010.

The rate of deaths from asthma for children in Detroit is 5.4 times higher than the rate for all Michigan children, according to the Michigan Department of Community Health. The number of asthma-caused emergency room visits for children living in Detroit consistently tracks 60 percent higher than similar emergencies across the state. In 2006, the latest year for which statistics are available, the number of hospitalizations for asthma in Detroit outstripped statewide numbers, three to one.

According to the state Department of Community Health and the Asthma Initiative of Michigan, African-American children are hospitalized for asthma at a rate 4.2 times higher than that of white children. The prevalence of persistent asthma is 23 percent higher for African-American children than their white counterparts. African-American children visit emergency rooms for asthma at a rate 2.7 times that of white children.

School of Medicine researchers Sylvie Naar-King, Ph.D., and Deborah Ellis, Ph.D., associate professors in the Department of Pediatrics and the Pediatric Prevention Research Center, are using a $2.4 million grant for their study, “Multisystemic Therapy to Reduce Health Disparities in Adolescents with Asthma.” Dr. MacDonell had been managing that research.

With this most recent grant, Phebe Lam will take over Dr. MacDonell’s prior position, and Robert Berry joins the department as a new research assistant.

The Karmanos Cancer Institute honored a Wayne State University School of Medicine professor with its Scientific Distinction Award during the 15th annual Heroes of Breast Cancer Awards.

Angelika Burger, Ph.D., director of the Translational Research Laboratory at the Karmanos Cancer Institute and professor of the Department of Pharmacology at the School of Medicine, received the award at the Oct. 28 ceremony. The award recognizes demonstrated leadership in breast cancer research.

“I am honored and deeply touched by receiving the 2009 Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute Heroes of Breast Cancer Scientific Distinction Award,” Dr. Burger said. “This honor motivates me and my team to work even harder on finding and developing new treatments for breast cancer patients.”

Researchers from the School of Medicine, Karmanos Cancer Institute, Cardiff University in Great Britain and the Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto collaborated to design a series of compounds based on Disulfiram, typically used to treat alcoholism, and found that one of the compounds was more potent than DSF itself in inhibiting an enzyme that spurs the growth of breast cancers. More than 50 percent of invasive breast cancers have the presence of the enzyme that could be treated by the DSF-derived compound.

Dr. Burger was one of the scientists to present the findings at the 2009 American Association for Cancer Research’s 100th Annual Meeting, highlighting research advancements in the treatment of aggressive forms of breast cancer. Researchers gave an oral presentation about the compounds derived from Disulfiram that could provide viable treatment options for breast cancer patients. Dr. Burger served as principal investigator of the study and doctoral candidate Daniela Buac presented the research.

“DSF is a very safe drug,” said Dr. Burger. “It could be given to cancer patients alone or in combination with standard therapies used to treat breast cancers."

The Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, in cooperation with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, will launch a targeted health initiative in January 2010 focused on environmentally-associated cancers.

By the end of this year, the American Cancer Society estimates, 1,479,350 new cases of cancer will be reported in this country. Karmanos Interim President and CEO Ann G. Schwartz, Ph.D., M.P.H., said approximately 70 percent of all cancers are linked to occupational and environmental causes, including tobacco use and diet, based on information from the National Institutes of Health.

“A medical evidence-based approach will be presented to doctors participating in BCBSM’s Physician Group Incentive Program in early December,” Dr. Schwartz said. “The initiative is being designed to detect cancers and other serious illness resulting from exposure to arsenic and asbestos, two of the state’s most frequently encountered carcinogens.”

The director and author of the initiative, Michael Harbut, M.D., M.P.H., F.C.C.P., chief of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, said that by utilizing existing data that has identified workplace and environmental arsenic and asbestos, “we can determine who is at risk, what preventive care may be recommended and more accurately diagnose and treat those at risk because of the water they drink or air they breathe.” 

Dr. Harbut said Karmanos “will offer this program to physicians to accurately identify who is at risk for disease before symptoms become apparent. It is not unusual for people to be unaware that they have even been exposed to these toxins.”

Asbestos and arsenic have been singled out because their impact continues to take a serious health toll on Michigan residents. Michigan has the nation’s largest arsenic-contaminated water table, located primarily in the southeastern part of the state, and an estimated 300,000 homes with asbestos-contaminated attic insulation.

Even low levels of exposure to asbestos can cause asbestosis – a potentially fatal disease of the lungs – as well as lung cancer and mesothelioma, an extremely aggressive cancer of the covering of the lungs and intestines. Smokers are 50 times more likely to develop lung cancer if they also are exposed to asbestos. In addition, colon cancer has been associated with asbestos exposure. There is a latency period from time of first exposure to clinical identification of disease of 15 to 40 years.

Studies recently published in Confronting Health Inequities in Latino Health Care, a supplement to the Journal of General Internal Medicine, indicate that disparities in care were reduced or eliminated for Latinos with patient-centered medical homes.

Awareness and treatment of chronic diseases, including diabetes and hypertension, improved among Mexican-Americans who had a usual source of care, such as a regular primary care physician. However, Latino groups in the United States are the least likely to live in patient-centered medical homes.

“Diabetes Awareness and Knowledge Among Latinos: Does a Usual Source of Healthcare Matter?,” conducted by Hector Gonzalez, Ph.D., a clinical neuropsychologist and assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, found that the knowledge gained through access to a primary care physician lessened the effects of diabetes among Latino groups.

The study reported that Mexican-Americans with a usual source of health care – generally considered consistent access to a primary care physician -- were 20 percent more likely to have knowledge about diabetes and the use of important preventive services than those who reported that they did not have such access.

Latinos of Central and South American descent also had lower rates of having a usual source of health care, lower rates of health insurance coverage and lower annual household incomes.

“Our findings indicate that a usual source of health care may be a valuable tool for reducing risks and burden of diabetes, a major health problem,” said Dr. Gonzalez, also a member of the WSU Institute of Gerontology. “With dismay, our research also indicates that no progress has been made over the past decade in achieving the Healthy People 2010 objective of improving the proportion of Latinos with a usual source of health care.

While Latinos are the largest ethnic minority, they are also the least likely to have health care coverage, Dr. Gonzalez said. “Among Latinos, Mexicans, who make up over two-thirds of the Latino population in the United States, have the lowest rate of health care insurance. The bottom line is lack of health care insurance is a barrier to care.”

When the Latino population does gain access to health care, he noted, cultural barriers – primarily language – can arise.

Pointing to a growing Latino population in Detroit and southeast Michigan, Dr. Gonzalez said, “There are very dedicated people committed to Latino health in Michigan and Detroit who are struggling with shrinking budgets. I am delighted that student groups at Wayne, like Amigos Medicos, are looking ahead to the health needs of Michigan and the country. I believe the School of Medicine at Wayne State is well poised to help build the needed infrastructure for the future health needs of the region and the nation in serving diverse populations.”

The Amigos Medicos student group seeks to improve the health and well-being of underserved members of the local Hispanic population by providing free health education in the community as well as Spanish language instruction for future physicians. Graduating medical students who can speak Spanish will be in high demand as the state and nation’s Latino population continues to expand, Dr. Gonzalez said.

The study by Dr. Gonzalez was accompanied by two others examining disparities among Latinos in the United States. “Latino Access to the Patient Centered Medical Home” found that health care disparities were eliminated or reduced for Latinos who have a patient-centered medical home. But, only 35 percent of Mexican-Americans and 34.2 percent of Central and South Americans have such homes. A patient-centered medical home was defined as a personal physician who patients see regularly, who engages them in their own health and provides continuous comprehensive that includes preventive care and coordination of care.

“Predictors of Hypertension Awareness, Treatment and Control Among Mexican American Women and Men” showed that in Mexican-American adults with high blood pressure, 65 percent were unaware they had hypertension and 71 percent were not receiving treatment for the condition.