AHC News Capsules 12/12/07
December 12, 2007
NEWS CAPSULES is a biweekly newsletter for faculty, staff, and students of the Academic Health Center. Please send submissions to Jacob Portnoy at port0179@umn.edu.
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Strength in health informatics, computational biology, and systems biology is essential to any top research university's capacity to respond to emerging challenges in health, energy, and the environment. Finding solutions to these critical questions hinges on our capacity to manage, model, and utilize the vast biological data that science has tapped. We must make coordinated investments in bioinformatics and we've started in the AHC.
This week, I'm pleased to announce the establishment of an academic home for the discipline of health informatics, the Institute for Health Informatics (IHI). With joint appointments in the School of Nursing and the School of Public Health, Julie Jacko, Ph.D., will join the University as the director of IHI. The AHC is also conducting a search for a health information architect who will advise my office and provide leadership in coordinating informatics across our enterprise; working with internal and external partners to integrate electronic functions that support research, learning, and clinical care.
Finally, yesterday I had the pleasure of hosting and hearing from one of the nation’s leading health informaticists, Don Detmer, M.D., M.A., president and chief executive officer of the American Medical Informatics Association. He argues that Minnesota is well positioned to leverage existing yet often disparate strengths, and build a comprehensive program to advance into a leadership position in bioinformatics research and academia. In the coming weeks and months you'll hear more about University-wide efforts to build our capacity in this critical field.
– Frank B. Cerra, M.D.
Sr. Vice President for Health Sciences
Bakken to be awarded honorary degree
Earl Bakken, inventor of the battery-powered, wearable pacemaker and co-founder of Medtronic, will receive an honorary degree from the Medical School – the first such award in the school’s 120-year history. Dean Deborah Powell will present the award during a daylong symposium looking at the past, present, and future of the pacemaker, beginning 8 a.m., Dec. 13. To read the news release, go to: http://www.ahc.umn.edu/news/releases/bakken121007/home.html.
Institute for Health Informatics created
This new AHC institute was developed as a new interdisciplinary program to improve the quality and efficiency of health care and clinical research through research and education in health informatics. Julie Jacko, Ph.D., will lead the Institute for Health Informatics. For more information, go to: http://www.ahc.umn.edu/news/releases/informatics121107/home.html.
Researchers find combination for effective cancer pain control
Cancer researchers have found that the combination of morphine and celecoxib, an anti-inflammatory analgesic drug, provides better pain relief for advanced cancer than either drug alone. In addition, their research, which was done in mice, shows that this drug combination prevents the growth and spread of cancer, and increases survival. To read the news release, go to: http://www.ahc.umn.edu/news/releases/paincontrol120507/home.html.
AHC Faculty Research Development Program (FRD)
Six projects received funding in the latest round of FRD grants. Each project involves co-principal investigators from two or more AHC schools. The average award is more than $200,000. For a list of grant winners, go to: http://www.ahc.umn.edu/research/funding/devgrant/home.html.
Gary Dunny, Ph.D. (Medical School), has been selected to receive the 2008 American Society for Microbiology's Graduate Microbiology Teaching Award which will be presented at the ASM General Meeting Awards Dinner, June 2, 2008, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Janet Fitzakerley Ph.D. (Medical School – Duluth campus), has been asked to lead a national subcommittee in charge of promoting National Brain Awareness Week, scheduled for March 10-16, 2008.
The University at the AAMC
The Medical School was represented by several speakers at the annual meeting of the American Association of Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C. Presenters included: Frederic W. Hafferty, Ph.D., Steven Miles, M.D., Linda Perkowski, Ph.D., David Power, M.D., Jonathan Ravdin, M.D., Jennifer Welsh, M.D., and Dean Deborah Powell, M.D. For highlights from the annual meeting, go to: http://www.aamc.org/meetings/annual/2007/start.htm.
Mentoring goes online for first-year medical students
First-year medical students on the Twin Cities and Duluth campuses are working with a new educational tool and advisory system in what will become part of their total medical school learning experience. Each student is placing specific learning experiences, such as a recording of a mock patient interview, and reflections on learning in their e-portfolio and sharing selections of that portfolio with their master tutor and with a peer. The combination provides a longitudinal mentoring experience that will follow the students through medical school.
New members join UMP board of directors
Edward Cheng, M.D., Barbara Gold, M.D., Daniel Landers, M.D., Sarah Jane Schwarzenberg, M.D., and Douglas Yee, M.D., were recently elected to faculty seats on the University of Minnesota Physicians board of directors. Each will serve a three-year term.
Safety standards for laboratory animal care
A recent visit by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) determined the University needs to increase the intensity of some aspects of its laboratory animal care program. For more information, go to: http://www.ohs.umn.edu/ohs/mulcahyletter/home.html.
Submit your nominations for AHC academies
- Academy for Excellence in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
This award is the highest University recognition of excellence in the AHC educational mission. Up to four faculty members will be selected to receive a recurring annual augmentation of $10,000 for five consecutive years (which may augment their salary or support their teaching), and a lifetime membership in the academy. The deadline for nominations is February 22, 2008. Nominations are encouraged from all AHC colleges and departments. For more information, go to: http://www.ahceducation.umn.edu/OofE/academy/.
- Academy for Excellence in Health Research
This award is the highest University recognition of research excellence. Up to four faculty members will be selected to the AHC Academy for Excellence in Health Research each year. They will receive a recurring annual augmentation of $10,000 for five consecutive years (which may augment their salary or support their research), and a lifetime membership in the academy. Nominations are encouraged from all AHC colleges and departments. For more information, to go: http://www.ahc.umn.edu/research/academy.
Research symposium on Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology
This Jan. 18 symposium will bring together teams of scientists and administrators from the Twin Cities and Rochester campuses, the Hormel Institute, the Mayo Clinic, and IBM on the Rochester campus. The purpose is to facilitate further collaborations in data mining methods for clinical and laboratory data, and computational methods for rational drug design. To register, go to: http://www.dtc.umn.edu/cgi-bin/bicb.php.
Minnesota Tiger Summit: Preparing for 2010
A state law requires all health care providers to use an interoperable electronic health records by 2015. The MN Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (Tiger) Summit is an opportunity for nurses to contribute to the alignment of nurses around this effort as part of the overall strategy in Minnesota. For more information or to register, go to: http://www.nursing.umn.edu/MNTiger.
717 Delaware open house – save the date
Tour the results of a $36.5 million renovation to the old Department of Health building, 3-5 p.m., Jan. 16. A short program will begin at 3 p.m. Tours and refreshments will follow.
Call for proposals addressing the broad societal implications of problems in health, environment, or the life sciences
The Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment and the Life Sciences has awards available for graduate and professional students, for individual faculty, and for Consortium members. For more information, go to: http://lifesci.consortium.umn.edu/rfps/.
FACILITIES NEWS —
MBB construction underway
The University has begun work on the Medical Biosciences Building (MBB) adjacent to the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research in the East Gateway district. As part of that project, a steam tunnel will be extended underneath University Avenue. There will be lane closures and traffic delays in the vicinity of Oak Street and University Avenue to accommodate construction crews.
Workers drilled the final piling for the stadium’s foundation on Dec. 7.
TCF Bank Stadium Construction
All 2200 foundation pilings have now been installed as the underpinning of the stadium foundation. Each piling is a steel pipe that is drilled into bedrock, filled with concrete, and then capped in concrete. A Mortenson Construction spokesman told The Minnesota Daily the stadium “will start coming out of the ground in January.”
TIME CAPSULE —
A sketch of Health Sciences Unit A. The name was changed to Malcolm Moos Health Sciences Tower in 1983.
Architects of Health Care
"We will become the architects of health care delivery programs that bring to every citizen of the state the finest health care that society has seen." With these words, Malcolm Moos, the tenth president of the University of Minnesota, celebrated the groundbreaking for Health Sciences Unit A in 1971.To learn more about Health Sciences Unit A and read the full transcript of the remarks made at the groundbreaking ceremony, go to: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/moore144/ahcarchives/2007/12/health_sciences_unit_a.html.
AHC News Capsules is a biweekly newsletter for faculty, staff, and students of the Academic Health Center. Please send submissions to Jacob Portnoy at port0179@umn.edu.
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