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Ignarro returns  Alumnus who won a 1998 Nobel Prize honors his mentor, shares success with old friends

Nobel Prize winner Louis Ignarro (front left) is pictured with former classmates on the steps of the building where they met in the 1960s.  In the back row (l to r) are Norman Sladek, Al Goldberg, and Ted Gram.  To the right if Ognarro are Sheldon Sparber (front) and Anant Kulkarni. Photo by Richard Anderson

The occasion of Ignarro’s return was to accept the Shideman Distinguished Alumnus Award, named in honor of Frederick Shideman, who was pharmacology department head from 1962 to 1987 and Ignarro’s thesis advisor.

“This recognition means very much to me because Fred Shideman was my mentor,” Ignarro commented as he accepted the award from Shideman’s widow, Margaret. “I truly believe that I owe my recent success to the maturation of what I learned from him.”

Ignarro, now a pharmacology professor at UCLA, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for his contributions to the discovery that nitric oxide triggers relaxation of smooth muscles that line blood vessels, which causes them to dilate. The finding led to the development of Viagra and is being applied to create drugs for high blood pressure, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and complications of advanced diabetes, among other diseases.

After receiving the Shideman award, Ignarro delivered the same speech he gave at the Nobel awards ceremony in Stockholm, which followed his research on nitric oxide since the early 1970s. The study showing how nitric oxide triggers smooth muscle relaxation, published in the January 1992 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, triggered a flurry of media coverage, including a page-one story in the New York Times. And the journal Science named nitric oxide its 1992 “molecule of the year.Last year, nitric oxide was the subject of 9,700 published scientific papers.

Ignarro learned about his victory just after flying from Nice, France to Naples, Italy last October. As the plane was landing, he saw a friend standing on the runway waving a piece of paper. It was a Swedish news release, but Ignarro says that when he saw the word “Nobel” and his own name in the text, he fell to his knees.

Ignarro shared the prize with co-discoverers Robert Furchgott, University of New York, and Ferid Murad, University of Texas.

“As my best friend and roommate Norm Sladek put it, ‘Louie, Who would have thunk it in 1962?’” Sladek, now a professor of pharmacology at the University of Minnesota, won the Shideman Distinguished Alumnus Award last year. He said that as a student, Ignarro was highly disciplined and insatiably curious, but also was very social and loved to have fun.

This is the Medical School’s second brush with the scientific world’s brass ring in as many years. Last year Paul Boyer, a former faculty member, won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  A total of 15 Nobel Prize winners have been affiliated with the University; six alumni and nine faculty.

University officials optimistic after NIH visit NIH officials will return in October to formally review the U's 'exceptional' status

David Hamilton, sponsored projects manager, poses with the NIH's Diana Jaeger during the June 8 symposium.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) may remove the “exceptional” status that it placed on the University of Minnesota in 1995 earlier than expected.

The status, a type of probation that invites intense scrutiny of research administration, will be formally evaluated by a team of NIH officials in October, said David Hamilton, director of the effort to overhaul grants management.

“That’s a good sign,” Hamilton said after a recent visit by NIH officials. “I’m very optimistic.”

On June 8, the NIH and the U sponsored an all-day symposium titled “Responsible Research and Society’s Expectations.” Nearly 300 University faculty attended the event, which featured sessions on intellectual property, authorship, research administration for principal investigators, conflict of interest, modular grant applications, and a question-and-answer segment.

“I was very happy with the turnout,” said Christine Maziar, dean of the Graduate School, and vice president of research. “I think the number of University faculty and staff attending and the quality of their particiaption demonstrated to NIH the importance that the University of Minnesota places on grants managemnt.”

The day also allowed faculty to learn more about several tools that are part of the new Grants Management Project. These include the Electronic Grants Management System (EGMS), which streamlines and simplifies grants applications and management, and Financial FormsNirvana, an electronic system that allows on-line purchase and payment for goods and services.

“I think the NIH believes we’ve done an exemplary job. Notice I used the term exemplary and not exceptional,” Hamilton said. “Our major effort is to keep the momentum going to fully implement the sponsored projects managment model throughout the University.” Faculty can help keep that momentum going by continuing to learn and use the various tools of the Grants Management Project, such as Financial FormsNirvana and EGMS, and by reading and understanding the external and internal regulations that govern how grants must be managed.

“What we have demonstrated to the NIH by developing the Electronic Grants Management System and by attending the symposium is that we are changing,” said Winifred Ann Schumi, assistant vice president for research and manager of the Sponsored Projects Management effort. “But when we come off [“exceptional”] designation and get back the authorities that were removed in 1995, we have to demonstrate that this culture change has occurred throughout every college, school and department. We can’t afford to let down our guard just because they say we’re no longer on exceptional status—and we can’t revert to the old way of doing things.”

Hamilton said the most important thing for faculty to do is “to understand their roles and responsibilities and how systems aid in financial compliance.” To illustrate the importance, he shared an analogy that the NIH’s Gary Thompson used during the symposium: “You can hit a home run, but if you don’t touch all the bases, it won’t count.”

NIH staff spent June 9 and 10 visiting with officials from various University departments, including epidemiology, surgery, and psychology to review how the new grants management model is working and to hear from University researchers.

Hamilton noted that only four members of the 11-member NIH team that will evaluate the University’s status were here for the symposium. “The other seven have not been here since 1995,” he said. “That creates some uncertainty. We have a tremendous amount of work to do to educate them on what we’ve accomplished here.”

Hamilton remains optimistic, however, that the exceptional status will be removed, saying that the only way it won’t be is “if a huge segment of the institution decided that they were not going to be ethical in their research. And I think that’s absolutely unlikely to happen.”

For more information about EGMS, refer to http://nirvana.ortta.umn.edu/.

Ideas for sale
Collaboration with industry helps move ideas for new
biomedical products from the laboratory to the marketplace

Wouldn’t it be nice if a virtual model of your mouth could fill in for you at your dentist’s office?

That might not happen in time for your next check-up, but School of Dentistry researchers Bill Douglas and Ralph DeLong are busily at work on the Virtual Dental Patient, a software program designed to predict the effects of years of chewing in days.

That’s important, DeLong says, because in the post-fluoride era most of us will keep our teeth for our lifetimes. Consequently, wear on enamel caused by abrasion is emerging as a dental health issue. Using the Virtual Dental Patient, your dentist would be able to detect wear problems before they happen and take corrective measures. DeLong and Douglas have a grant from the National Institute of Dental Research to develop their idea by digitizing the mouths of 20 patients.

The Virtual Dental Patient is one of a handful of the most promising new technologies in the Academic Health Center this year, according to Jim Severson, director of the University’s Health Technologies division of Patenting and Technology Marketing. Severson’s other picks for the year are:

• A microsurgical instrument for treating prostate cancer equipped with a sensor that can differentiate between cancerous and healthy tissue based on density. The “smart needle” is designed to implant radioactive seeds near tumors. Medical School researcher Ron McGlennen says that the device is pioneering the use of microchips in medical devices.
• A series of antiviral compounds called nucleosides developed by Carston Wagner, College of Pharmacy, for treating AIDS and cancer. Until now the potential of nucleosides has been limited by their toxicity, but Wagner is exploring ways of both reducing toxicity and increasing potency.
• A potential vaccine against salmonella using a surface protein identified by Kakambi Nagaraja, College of Veterinary Medicine. The protein could also be used in a test to check food for contamination.
• A panel of DNA-based tests to diagnose forms of Spinocerebellar Ataxia (SCA), a group of hereditary neuromuscular diseases. The tests are based on amplifying sequences of DNA from specific genes in a suspected patient.  The panel was developed by Laura Ranum and Harry Orr of the Medical School’s Institute of Human Genetics.
• A new approach to imaging and treating tumors using radiolabeled Vitamin B-12 compounds, which home in on cancerous cells and show up on radiologic scans.  Harry Hogenkamp in the Medical School’s Department of Biochemistry and Doug Collins of the Mayo Clinic jointly developed this technology.

Over the past year, AHC researchers reported 83 ideas for inventions, captured 17 patents, signed 28 licenses, and earned $3.5 million in royalties, about three-fourths of the U’s total royalty revenues.  Top royalty earners included a vaccine for porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome (Jim Collins, College of Veterinary Medicine), a transgenic mouse model for Alzheimer’s disease (Karen Hsiao Ashe, Medical School), PigChamp software for herd management, (William Marsh, Veterinary Medicine), and the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure questionnaire (Jay Cohn and Thomas Rector, Medicine).

The AHC transfers more technology than any other unit, and the University of Minnesota compares very favorably to other research institutions. Minnesota ranked second among universities nationwide for number of licenses and options executed last year. Nevertheless, there’s lots of room for growth, Severson says. Earlier this year, Christine Maziar, vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School, unveiled a plan for enhancing technology transfer.

“There is a sense in both the business and university communities that University of Minnesota researchers are producing many more innovations with potential public and commercial benefits than are being recognized,” Maziar said in her report.

Her recommendations include “prospecting” for ideas more aggressively, promoting pre-commercial development of technology, collaborating with regional research institutions such as Mayo and the University of Wisconsin, and joint funding of major research facilities with industry.

The Academic Health Center increased its “prospecting” capacity this year by hiring Susan Patow, who worked for several years as a technology transfer specialist for the National Institutes of Health. Patow is housed in the AHC’s Research Service Organization, which serves as a point of entry for companies looking for academic collaborators. She’s also part of the health technologies PTM group.

Another way to get more products to market is for faculty to act as their own marketing agents and start their own companies, Severson says. He is working with the Carlson School of Management to match business students with researchers to help them develop business plans and attract investors.

“University faculty have started their own companies in the past, but  there’s more interest now than ever before,” Severson says.

Ron McGlennen, who founded his own company last year, thinks it’s a good idea for faculty to act on their own behalf because there just aren’t enough licensing agents to handle all of the ideas. But he acknowledges that while he’s comfortable with being an entrepreneur, it’s not for everyone.

It’s all something for the Virtual Dental Patient to chew on as it makes its way to your local dental clinic.