June 3, 2004
Health Sciences News Briefs
Fulbright award
Dr. Ray Colven, associate professor of medicine and section head for dermatology at Harborview Medical Center, has received a Fulbright Award and a grant from Puget Sound Partners for Global Health to establish a consulting dermatology program in Cape Town, South Africa. He will use an approach pioneered at Harborview, in which both a verbal description and digital photographs of a patient’s skin disease are transmitted via the Internet. Consulting dermatologists, using these files, are then able to assit primary physsicians located in remote areas. Colven will be in South Africa for a year.
Russian Academy
Dr. Scott Davis, professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, and a member of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has been elected as a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the first foreign-born epidemiologist to be elected. Davis was recognized for his research into the effects of radiation on children’s health after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster.
Honor for Hunt
Dr. Dan Hunt, who is leaving the UW this month to take up his new position as founding dean of the Thunder Bay campus of Northern Ontario Medical School, received a Certificate of Appreciation for his serivce on the UW’s Native American Advisory Board, a group that works statewide with tribes on higher education and professional education issues. He has been a member of the board since 1999. Hunt joined the UW in 1977 as a faculty member in psychiatry and has been associate dean for academic affairs for the School of Medicine since 1987.
Urology lectureship
Dr. Paul Lange, professor and chair of the Department of Urology, was the Whitmore lecturer at the recent annual meeting of the American Urological Association in San Francisco. The lectureship is awarded to those who have made significant contributions to the study and practice of urologic oncology. Lange’s lecture topic was “Urologic Oncology and Its Surgeon-Scientists: Past Triumphs, But Does It Have a Future?”
Elected president
Dr. Sandra Watkins, professor of pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Nephrology, was elected president of the American Society of Pediatric Nephrology at the group’s annual meeting in San Francisco last month. The group represents the 400 pediatric nephrologists in the United States and is involved in fellowship education, workforce issues, continuing medical education, advocacy for children with kidney disease and promotion of research in the field. She will serve for a two-year term.
Array analysis
The cover article in the May issue of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics reports the results of collaboration between the research groups of Dr. David Morris of the UW Department of Biochemistry, Dr. Ruedi Aebersold of the Institute for Systems Biology, and Dr. Lue Ping Zhao of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The study was funded by a grant from the National Cancer Institute the UW group to develop a methodology – translation state array analysis (TSAA) –that measures, at the genome level, both transcript level and association with the translational machinery of the cell. Employing baker’s yeast as a model system, the research compares the results of genome-wide protein synthesis predictions from TSAA with quantitative proteomics analysis by the ISB group. Morris noted that his group performed the original proof-of-concept experiments for TSAA, published four years ago, using mammalian cells. To develop genome-wide tools, they switched to yeast for obvious reasons, but are now ready to move back. Since proteins govern cell phenotype, TSAA adds an important dimension to global analysis of gene expression, he added.
Awards from foundation
Dr. Christopher Blagg, professor emeritus of medicine and executive director emeritus of the Northwest Kidney Centers, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Washington Health Foundation at the organization’s Heroes of Health Care awards banquet. Dr. Patchen Dellinger, professor of surgery, received a new “Excellence in Patient Safety” award for his work with a national coalition to improve care to prevent surgical infections.
Summer session
The 6th annual Seattle Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Clinical Research Methods summer session will be June 21 to 25 on the UW campus. The courses are geared to clinicians, researchers and health care administrators, who earn continuing education credits for participation. The session is co-sponsored by the Seattle VA Epidemiologic Research and Information Center (ERIC), the Department of Veterans Affairs, the VA Employee Education System and the UW departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. For more information, e-mail eric@med.va.gov
Prostate Cancer Conference
The Pacific Northwest Prostate Cancer Conference, geared to prostate cancer patients, survivors and spouses, will be held Thursday evening, June 24, and Friday, June 25, in Seattle. The Conference is co-sponsored by the UW School of Medicine, Oregon Health and Sciences University and the American Cancer Society, and is held in Portland or Seattle in alternating years. Keith and Virginia Laken, authors of the book Making Love Again, will speak at the Thursday event from 6 to 8 p.m. in Kane Hall on campus. Cost is $7.50 a person or $10 a couple. On Friday, the all-day program is at Nile Country Club north of Seattle. Cost for the Friday program is $35. For more information and to register, see http://depts.washington.edu/guoncres/News.html
