Cenk Sengun, assistant professor of neurology at the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “Facts About Parkinson’s Disease and Treatment” on Monday, March 15 from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the South Palm Beach County Chapter of the NPF support/caregiver meeting. The event will be held at the Mae Volen Senior Center, 1515 W. Palmetto Park Road, Boca Raton.

On Saturday, March 20, Miller School of Medicine and University of Miami faculty, graduate students, medical students, and postdoctoral associates will partner with the Miami Science Museum for an inaugural Brain Fair. Stop by the museum, 3280 South Miami Ave., Miami, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. for this free, fun-filled day of exciting neuroscience presentations, brain games, and educational activities designed to teach kids ages 4 to 10 how the brain works. The Brain Fair will also include tips for improving memory and preventing stroke and Alzheimer’s disease, and 15-minute information sessions on various topics such as the effects of stress on the brain, autism and vaccines, stem cell therapy, and uses of cord blood. For more information or to volunteer, e-mail Coleen Atkins at catkins@med.miami.edu or call 305-243-4698.

The American Cancer Society Institutional Grant is providing funds for meritorious cancer research that cannot be readily supported through other funding mechanisms. The primary purpose of the ACS grant is to provide seed funds for the initiation of promising new projects or novel ideas by junior faculty members. Applicants should be within six years of their first independent research or faculty appointment and must not currently hold any peer-reviewed funding. Senior faculty and postdoctoral fellows are not eligible to apply. Three awards of $45,000 each are available for a one-year period from June 1, 2010 to May 31, 2011.

The application deadline is Wednesday, March 31. For application forms and guidelines, contact Francis Urtecho or Ivette Lacayo at 305-243-2566, furtecho@med.miami.edu, or ilacayo@med.miami.edu.

The Medical Wellness Center kicks off National Sleep Awareness Week, which takes place March 7-13, with a lecture on good sleep hygiene on Tuesday, March 16 at 12:15 p.m. in the Medical Wellness Center’s educational classroom. The presenter, Shirin Shafazand, is a board-certified pulmonary, critical care, and sleep physician who completed her pulmonary, critical care, and sleep fellowships at Stanford University, where she also obtained a Master in Health Services Research. Shafazand is currently assistant professor of medicine in UM’s Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine. In addition to her clinical practice, she is actively involved in outcome studies in pulmonary hypertension and sleep and recently won a grant from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine to study prevalence of sleep disorders, sleep knowledge, and compliance with therapies in Hispanic patients. Please reserve your seat by Monday, March 15 by calling 305-243-7600.

Anthony Caswell, professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “Triadin” on Thursday, March 4 at 12 p.m. in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology Conference Room 6018. For more information, call Nivia Machin-Gonzalez at 305-243-5909.

[Please Note: This event has been cancelled. e-V eds. 03-03-10]

Antonio Marttos, assistant professor of surgery, Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “Educational and Clinical Activities in the Department of Surgery Using Telemedicine” on Thursday, March 11 from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. at the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, fourth-floor auditorium. The lecture will teach participants how to explain the current activities of the Department of Telemedicine and will offer new opportunities of networking worldwide. The University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine designates this educational activity for a maximum of one (1) AMA PRA Category 1 Credit. For more information, please contact Elisa Arguelles at 305-585-1280 or earguelles@med.miami.edu.

Hiranya A. Rajasinghe, chair of the Department of Surgery at Physicians Regional Medical Center, will present “Interventions for Deep Vein Thrombosis: Contemporary Management” on Thursday, March 4 from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. at the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, fourth-floor auditorium. Participants will discuss post-thrombotic syndrome, recurrent DVI/PE, and isolated pharmacomechanical therapy. The University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine designates this educational activity for a maximum of one (1) AMA PRA Category 1 Credit. For more information, please contact Elisa Arguelles at 305-585-1280 or earguelles@med.miami.edu.

Starting Monday, March 1, the entire University of Miami and Jackson Memorial medical campus will be smoke free.

To kick off the final push toward the initiative, the Smoke Free Committee is hosting a groundbreaking event at Alamo Park today, Thursday, at 12 p.m., where the first of dozens of permanent “Smoke Free Campus” signs will be installed. The remainder of the signs will be erected around campus over the next few days.

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Attend Pediatric Grand Rounds featuring a presentation on “Improving Care for Children with Special Health Care Needs” on Tuesday, March 9, at 8 a.m. at the Mailman Center for Child Development, eighth-floor auditorium. Lee M. Sanders, associate professor of clinical pediatrics, will present. For more information, contact Javier Salazar at 305-585-6042 or jsalazar@med.miami.edu.

Findings from a pilot study, believed to be one of the first designed to examine the effect of a school-based obesity prevention intervention on weight and academic performance, show a decrease in body mass index and an improvement in academic performance among elementary-age children. The study, conducted by pediatric researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and the Agatston Research Foundation on Miami Beach, was released online last Friday in the prestigious American Journal of Public Health.

The previous week in the flagship journal for nutrition, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, results from the same study also showed improvement in weight and blood pressure among the intervention students.

The Healthier Options for Public Schoolchildren (HOPS) study was conducted over two school years (2004-05 and 2005-06) and included six elementary schools in Osceola County, Florida. Overall the study included 4,588 children, ages 6 to 13, and more than half were Hispanic. The results published last Friday were based on a subsample of 1,197 children who qualified for the Free and Reduced-Price Meals program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program.

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Like so many post-quake emergencies, this one was urgent. Doctors at the University of Miami’s hospital in Haiti knew a 13-year-old survivor of the January 12 cataclysm would not live without surgery. But they were not equipped to perform it.

With cell phone and satellite phone coverage spotty, and land lines destroyed, neither could the doctors summon an ambulance nor call other makeshift hospitals to search for one that could help the teenaged girl.

Fortunately, they had the world’s first, and still most reliable, wireless technology just 25 yards outside the hospital’s pediatrics tent: the impromptu ham radio station Ronald Bogue, assistant vice president for facilities and services, and UM alumnus Julio Ripoll established to ensure uninterrupted communications between the hospital at the edge of the Port-au-Prince airport and the Global Institute/Project Medishare’s Haiti Relief Task Force on the Miller School campus.

Bogue never dreamed, though, that Haiti’s WX4NHC, an offshoot of the ham station Ripoll founded at the National Hurricane Center as an architecture student 30 years ago, would evolve into a vital lifeline that has saved countless lives.

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With support from close to $90 million in stimulus-backed grant awards—and counting—from various federal agencies, University of Miami investigators have embarked on research projects aimed at finding solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Stimulus-backed research is being conducted on UM's Coral Gables, Miller School, and Rosenstiel School campuses.

The bioreactor that will enable Weiyong Gu to analyze the growth characteristics of intervertebral tissue without having to remove samples from the device hasn’t even been invented yet. But the University of Miami biomedical engineer is in a race against time, working long hours in his lab to build the instrument that could help pave the way for advanced techniques in the engineering of human tissue to replace organs.

At UM’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, the challenge that confronts geochemist Peter Swart lies not in building a new device, but in using existing tools to determine whether the technique of carbon capture can actually help solve the global-warming crisis.

Both investigators are conducting their research with the blessing and backing of Uncle Sam. They are beneficiaries of hefty grants that have been flowing from the federal government’s coffers ever since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) pumped $10.4 billion into the National Institutes of Health, with $8.2 billion earmarked for scientific research priorities.

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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the University of Miami a $14.8 million grant funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) towards the construction of a Neuroscience and Health Annex on the University’s Coral Gables campus. The Annex will create an interactive hub for interdisciplinary research based on neurological imaging and health research and will provide facilities to be shared by scientists from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Miller School of Medicine.

“This new facility will provide state-of-the-art laboratories where scientists and physicians from across the University can converge to ask some of the most pressing questions in modern science.  We are thrilled the NIH selected the University and the college to receive this award,” said Jacqueline Dixon, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “The new Neuroscience and Health Annex will allow us to continue the expansion of our research capabilities and establish a sophisticated imaging center.”

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With urgent medical evacuations of earthquake survivors to the U.S. now preceding smoothly, the new volunteer staff at the Miller School’s hospital in Haiti had a chance on Tuesday to orient themselves to their new surroundings and the needs of their patients.

With the recent onset of five-day deployments to the hospital, almost the entire staff turned over, bringing in fresh energy but underscoring the need for more permanent administrators who can ensure continuity in day-to-day operations. As Barth Green, professor and chair of neurological surgery, has frequently noted, “We need people who can stay here for months, not days or a week.”

Members of the UM Global Institute’s Haiti Relief Task Force, the tireless cadre of doctors, administrators, staff, and volunteers who are working non-stop to coordinate the massive medical mission that Green initiated a day after the 7.0 earthquake left Haiti in ruins, said they are looking to fill more permanent positions.

Among the new volunteers who began arriving Monday are 35 nurses who are needed to staff the 240-bed hospital the University opened at the edge of the Port-au-Prince airport on Jan. 21. Officially dedicated on Saturday, the four-tent compound, with its four operating rooms and skilled medical staff of volunteers from UM and beyond, has become a beacon of hope for the country’s critically injured residents.

Still, dozens of the most severely injured survivors need more advanced care and were being flown to South Florida—until the U.S. government halted the flights last week. The flights resumed Monday, relieving some of the stress at the hospital, which has become a way station and clearinghouse for the medical evacuees.

Though security at the hospital compound remains an issue, new volunteers are beginning to find growing signs of order and routine amid the chaos that accompanies all large-scale disasters. For example, doctors, nurses, patients, their families, and other volunteers are now receiving three hot meals a day, thanks to local vendors who deliver breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the camp. That’s a noticeable improvement over the power bars, peanut butter, and crackers the first waves of volunteers subsisted on. But they should still expect cold showers and other camp-like conditions.

In addition to health care professionals, raising money for the Global Institute to support the University’s doctors, nurses, and students in Haiti remains a priority. You may make an online donation directly to the Global Institute or send a check made out to the “University of Miami-Global Institute” to P.O. Box 248073, Coral Gables, Florida, 33124.

Surgical Grand Rounds will be held this Thursday, February 11 from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. in the Rosensteil Medical Science Building, fourth floor auditorium. John Oeltjen, assistant professor of surgery, Division of Plastic Surgery, will present “Breast Reconstruction: Balancing the Options with the Patient’s Disease and Wishes.” Upon completion of this lecture, participants will be able to elaborate upon the process for counseling a patient desiring reconstruction and describe the multiple options for breast reconstruction, their indications, and their outcomes.

The University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine designates this educational activity for a maximum of one (1) AMA PRA Category 1 credit. For more information, please contact Elisa Arguelles at 305-585-1280 or at earguelles@med.miami.edu.

The Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Department of Medicine will present Thursday, February 4 at 1 p.m. in Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, fourth-floor auditorium. Eddyme Danger, Miami VA Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, will present “Rehabilitation of Vertebral Compression Fractures.”

For more information, please contact Angie Saint Jean at asaint-jean@med.miami.edu or at 305-243-8417.

The first planeload of volunteers to deploy for five days arrived at the Miller School’s hospital in Haiti last week, bringing the skills and energy of more nurses, orthopaedic surgeons, anesthesiologists, physical therapists, and a desperately needed psychiatrist to the ever-expanding mission to aid earthquake survivors.

Among the things volunteers from the University of Miami family and beyond will find are growing signs of the order and routine being imposed, slowly but surely, on the chaos that accompanies all large-scale disasters.

For example, doctors, nurses, patients, their families, and other volunteers at the University’s hospital at the Port-au-Prince airport are now receiving three hot meals a day, thanks to local vendors who deliver breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the camp.

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David Adams, professor of clinical neurology and chief of the General Neurology Division; Carol Petito, professor of pathology and affiliate professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery; and Evelyn Sklar, professor of clinical radiology and neurological surgery and chief of the Section of Neuroradiology at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “A 52-year-old woman with longstanding myelitis presenting with fever and altered mental status” on Friday, February 5 from 10:45 to 11:45 a.m. in the Clinical Research Building, Room 989. For more information, please contact Jessica Busquets at 305-243-8785 or JBusquets@med.miami.edu.

Cynthia Harden, professor of neurology and chief of the Epilepsy Division, and Carol Petito, professor of pathology and affiliate professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the Miller School of Medicine, will be present “A 43-Year-Old Man with a History of a Stroke, Presenting with Progressive Paraparesis” on Friday, January 29 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Lois Pope LIFE Center, seventh-floor auditorium. For more information, contact Jessica Suarez at 305-243-8785 or e-mail JSuarez5@med.miami.edu.

University of Miami doctors move an injured man from the back of a truck in Haiti.

Just a week after arriving in the demolished Haitian capital, the Miller School is ready to open a temporary 300-bed hospital at the edge of the international airport, expanding the urgent care center the University established a day after the January 12 earthquake left hundreds of thousands injured and the impoverished nation in ruins.

“From an urgent care center, we are evolving towards a full-scale, urgent care hospital,” Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt said at a morning news conference on the University’s ongoing efforts to help survivors. “Thanks to Barth Green and support from people like (former Miami Heat star) Alonzo Mourning and Stuart Miller, from the Miller School of Medicine family, we were able to build a four-tent compound, with each tent being about the size of a basketball court.”

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Miller School anesthesiologist Edgar Pierre, center, works to resuscitate a Haitian earthquake victim inside a makeshift hospital near Port-au-Prince’s airport. (Photo courtesy Carl Juste/Miami Herald)

Donations to crisis-hit Haiti began to flow from University of Miami employees through a special Web site launched just a day after the devastating earthquake killed tens of thousands in the island nation. The initiative is just the beginning of a series of relief efforts under way at UM as students and faculty return this week after a month-long winter break.

UM officials have met regularly since the quake hit, discussing relief efforts to aid victims and planning events such as a “Coming Together as a People of Haiti” forum and candlelight vigil, both of which will be held Wednesday night on the Coral Gables campus. The University is also working to facilitate the return of students who were in Haiti on intersession courses when the quake hit, assisting South Florida’s large Haitian community, and sending much-needed aid, especially the medical expertise of Miller School of Medicine physicians, to the country.

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UM faculty members were part of a CREF panel discussion at the Miller School. From left, Cherie Stabler, assistant professor of biomedical engineering; Ozcan Ozdamar, professor and chair of biomedical engineering; Norma Kenyon, director of the Coulter Center for Translational Research; Joshua Hare, director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute; Richard Cote, professor and chair of pathology; Na Li, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering; and Michael Wang, professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Personalized medicine for everyone. Medical devices that, thanks to nanotechnology, are so small they are nearly undetectable. Ergonomically enhanced medicine containers. Innovative ideas like these–some still in early stages of development, others closer to realization–make it clear that the future of medicine is closely linked with the future of biotechnology engineering.

The University of Miami’s enthusiastic embrace of this interdisciplinary future was highlighted in the third session of the Collaborative Research Exchange Forum (CREF), cosponsored by the Miller School of Medicine and the College of Engineering.

The forums—this year’s was titled “Medical Devices and Biomaterials”—are hosted by Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt and College of Engineering Dean James M. Tien, and are designed to enhance collaborative research between medical and engineering faculty.

“By putting our expertise together we can achieve great advancements that allow better medicine to reach more people in more parts of the world,” Dean Goldschmidt said on January 14 as he welcomed the group and congratulated many of the physicians and scientists for their recent success in obtaining NIH stimulus grants. “It takes two to tango. What we have here is a perfect recipe for progress. There is an amazing future for this University.”

Dean Tien also welcomed the gathering at the medical school’s Clinical Research Building. He discussed how the collaborative efforts could concentrate more on “systems biology” and touted UM’s hosting of a prestigious meeting of leaders of the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. The February 25 meeting will discuss “Engineering Innovations in Health Care.”

The “Medical Devices” event was coordinated by Richard Bookman, executive dean for research and research training and vice provost for research, and Jennifer McCafferty-Cepero, assistant dean for research, both from the Miller School, and Helena Solo-Gabriele, associate dean for research at the College of Engineering.

The event also featured a panel of speakers that featured faculty from both schools, and a keynote presentation, “Evolution of Medical Innovation,” by Bart Chernow, vice president for special programs and vice provost for technology.

Joel Fishman, associate professor and medical director of Radiology Imaging Services and chief of the Section of Thoracic Radiology at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “Cardiac MR: Beyond Anatomy and Function” on Tuesday, February 2 from 12 to 1 p.m. at University of Miami Hospital, South Building, first-floor Seminar Center A and B. For more information, call Raquel Mota at 305-243-9120 or e-mail rmota2@med.miami.edu.

Carlos T. Moraes

A research group led by Carlos T. Moraes, professor of neurology and cell biology and anatomy at the Miller School of Medicine, has published new findings about how increased mitochondrial levels may improve overall health and increase longevity.

According to the article, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the researchers increased the amount of mitochondria in a mouse model by a transgenic expression of a gene called PGC-1α. The protein produced by this gene controls the expression of many genes that are involved in mitochondrial biogenesis.

Mitochondria, known as the powerhouses of the cell, make the energy that fuels cells and are a key player in deciding whether cells live or die.

“By increasing the number of mitochondria in the muscle cells of aged mice, we saw a remarkable improvement in their overall health, and they also experienced increased longevity,” explains Moraes, senior author of the article, titled “Increased muscle PGC-1α expression protects from sarcopenia and metabolic disease during aging.”

“It is believed that anti-aging compounds, such as resveratrol, act by stimulating this same PGC-1alpha pathway as well,” Moraes adds. “Our earlier research has also shown that the PGC-1α pathway can also be induced through exercise.”

By increasing the number of mitochondria in the muscle cells, the researchers were able to protect the mice from age-related phenomena such as muscle wasting and the development of metabolic disorders such as diabetes.

“As we age, we lose muscle mass and consequently grow weaker,” Moraes says. “Over time our metabolic responses also weaken, leading to different types of age-related disorders. Our team has shown we can protect the muscle cells from dying, resulting in better muscle tone and significantly improved whole-body health, including better bone density and less chronic inflammation.”

Tina Wenz, a postdoctoral associate on the research term, was the first author on the study. Other Miller School authors included Richard Rotundo, professor of cell biology and anatomy, and Susana Rossi, research assistant professor of cell biology and anatomy. The two researchers studied the preservation of the neuromuscular junction in the animal model used in the study.

Pascal J. Goldschmidt, dean of the Miller School of Medicine, and James M. Tien, dean of the College of Engineering, will be in attendance on Thursday, January 14 for the third Collaborative Research Exchange Forum (CREF) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the Miller School campus, Clinical Research Building, sixth floor. The forum’s topic is biomedical devices and biomaterials. CREF programs encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and include faculty presentations and panel discussions. For questions or suggestions, e-mail Helena Solo-Gabriele, associate dean for research at the College of Engineering, at hmsolo@miami.edu, or Jennifer McCafferty-Cepero, assistant dean for research on the Miller School campus, at jmccafferty@med.miami.edu. Please RSVP to Pamela Simmons at psimmons@med.miami.edu.

Camillo Ricordi of the Diabetes Research Institute led a UM team in isolating and purifying an airman’s insulin-producing cells, which were flown to Walter Reed for transplantation

Physicians involved in the historic islet cell transplant, including the Diabetes Research Institute's Camillo Ricordi, left, stand at the bedside of airman Tre Porfirio.

A 21-year-old Georgia airman who was gravely wounded in Afghanistan and faced a future as a severe diabetic may live a normal life after the Miller School’s Diabetes Research Institute helped doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center perform an unprecedented transplant of the serviceman’s own insulin-producing cells.

The Thanksgiving Day transplant was performed by Walter Reed surgeons in Washington, D.C., under the telemedicine-assisted guidance of DRI Director Camillo Ricordi, the professor of surgery who invented the machine and method for isolating large numbers of islets and transplanting them into the liver to reverse diabetes.

Just 15 hours earlier, Ricordi and his four-member DRI team began an all-night race against the clock to isolate U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Tre Porfirio’s islets from his damaged pancreas, which had been partially removed after he was shot three times in Afghanistan five days before Thanksgiving. Completely removed at Walter Reed, the organ was rushed to Miami, arriving late Wednesday as most people were readying for bed and the long holiday weekend.

By Thanksgiving afternoon, Walter Reed doctors had more than 220,000 of Porfirio’s re-purified islets suspended in a Ricordi infusion bag and, with Ricordi’s remote guidance, began injecting them into the Air Force enlistee’s liver via his portal vein. Today the transplanted islet cells are producing insulin in the normal range.

“This was the first successful post-traumatic autologous pancreatic islet transplant performed in an emergency procedure,’’ Ricordi said before a Tuesday afternoon news conference at Walter Reed announcing the historic collaboration and procedure. “To be able to give back to a wounded warrior this way—I couldn’t think of a better way to spend Thanksgiving.’’

Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt, who accompanied Ricordi to Washington, said the Miller School and the entire University of Miami “are extremely proud and honored to be involved in the care of young Tre, a wounded warrior.’’

“It is just one beautiful accomplishment of two teams working to save a life from diabetes,’’ the dean said. “I can tell you first hand the incredible damage that diabetes creates for individuals.’’

After three long, agonizing weeks, Porfirio’s father, a widower with five sons, finally has reason to be optimistic. “Three weeks ago, I thought I had lost him forever,’’ Karl Porfirio said. “Now he is recuperating and he will walk out of Walter Reed a new man, minus a few organs. I am ever grateful to all the physicians and scientists who made this happen.’’

Without the pioneering transplant made possible by extraordinary military/civilian teamwork, Porfirio, who is recovering on a general ward, was destined for a grim future.

“When you completely remove the pancreas you develop one of the most severe forms of diabetes,” Ricordi explained. “Not only do you lack any source of insulin, but you miss the so-called counter-regulatory hormone, glucagon, which helps protect you from low blood glucose levels. That’s why it’s so difficult to manage diabetes following total pancreatectomy.”

Now, Ricordi said, the success of the transplant holds great promise for other patients who lose their pancreas in an accident, a shooting, or some other trauma. If they are within a six-hour plane ride from Miami, their physicians could take advantage of the emergency procedure he and his team, with help from more than 60 Walter Reed professionals, proved possible for trauma patients and have long performed on patients with chronic pancreatitis who undergo scheduled pancreatectomies to ease intractable pain.

“Every physician, surgeon, and center should know that in cases where the pancreas needs to be removed due to chronic pancreatitis or trauma, it should never be thrown away,’’ Ricordi said. “We can process the pancreas, re-purify the insulin-producing cells, and return them to patients so they will be cured of one of the most severe forms of diabetes.’’

Usually, pancreatic islet transplants are conducted with donor cells from a cadaver. Avoiding rejection and immunity issues is a huge advantage of an autologous transplant, Ricordi said.

The race to save Porfirio, who has undergone 11 surgeries in 20 days, began the Saturday before Thanksgiving, when an insurgent shot him three times in the back at close range on the remote Army outpost where he was serving. The assailant was killed.

Surgeons in two forward combat medical bases in Afghanistan operated on the airman twice, performing a rare trauma Whipple, which involves the removal of the head of the pancreas, a portion of the stomach, gallbladder, and the entire duodenum. They also removed a portion of the airman’s large and small bowels.

Another procedure to prevent infection was performed at a military base in Germany, before Air Force Critical Care Air Transport airlifted Porfirio to Walter Reed.

Arriving just 72 hours after the shooting, the airman was returned to the OR the day before Thanksgiving. There, Colonel Craig Shriver, chief of general surgery at Walter Reed and professor of surgery at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, began reconstructing his entire intra-abdominal structure. But during the operation, Shriver found the remainder of the airman’s pancreas to be damaged beyond repair, and reluctantly removed it.

“The optimal procedure at this point was to remove his entire remaining pancreas to prevent further leakage of the pancreatic enzymes and control the bleeding, which could be fatal,” Shriver said. “We knew that the procedure would lead to the most severe and life-threatening form of diabetes, which tends to be very difficult to control in this type of situation.”

Shriver consulted with Rahul Jindal, a transplant surgeon at Walter Reed and clinical professor of surgery at George Washington University. Jindal, who had training and experience in islet cell transplantation and clinical trials, recommended calling the man who invented the procedure.

“Isolation and purification of pancreatic islets is a very intricate procedure, which requires a specialized laboratory, and there are only a few such facilities in the United States,” Jindal said. “I knew the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine had such a facility and I put a call in to its director.’’

Ricordi didn’t hesitate. “Anything to help a wounded warrior,’’ he said, giving his Walter Reed colleagues the protocols and instructions on how to package and ship the organ.

“The organ arrived at 11 o’clock the night before Thanksgiving, and my cell processing team at the Diabetes Research Institute spent the next six hours performing the islet isolation and purification procedure,” Ricordi recalled. “More than 220,000 purified islets were then suspended in a specialized cold solution and flown back to Walter Reed.”

By 3:30 Thanksgiving afternoon, Ricordi established a live telemedicine link with the Walter Reed team, and guided them through the process of injecting the airman’s islets into his liver.

Less than a week later, a c-peptide blood test showed evidence of pancreas islet function in Porfirio’s liver. Fifteen days later, the same test indicated the transplanted islet cells were producing insulin in the normal range, turning the liver, in Ricordi’s words, into “a double organ.’’

As time goes on, the transplanted pancreatic islets are expected to take up new blood supply in the liver, decreasing Porfirio’s dependence on exogenous insulin, preventing complications from the disease, and improving his overall quality of life.

“The prospect is that they will continue to work for many years and hopefully forever,’’ Ricordi said. “He had several organs removed, so if he can recover from that he should have a normal life.’’

Listening in to the news conference by phone, the airman’s father said he was overwhelmed with gratitude—for his son, for his family, which has been touched by diabetes before, and for the millions of people suffering from the disease.

“Again, I can’t thank everyone enough for saving my son’s life and for what you all have done,’’ he said.

W. Jarrard Goodwin, director of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption before a head and neck cancer diagnosis strongly predict the patient’s future risk of death, according to previously published studies. Now, results of a new study show a similar effect among those who continued these habits after their cancer diagnosis.

W. Jarrard Goodwin, director of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, is a senior author of the study. “We found that survivors who smoked after their diagnosis were two times as likely to die,” Goodwin said.

“Most cancer survivors are counseled to quit smoking; despite this, many still smoke. In our study, 21 percent continued to smoke even after their cancer diagnosis, increasing their risk of death,” said lead researcher Susan T. Mayne, professor of epidemiology at the Yale Schools of Public Health and Medicine. They also found that patients who drank alcohol were three times as likely to die following their diagnosis.

Based on their findings, Goodwin and Mayne advise survivors of head and neck cancer—which includes cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx and larynx—to quit smoking cigarettes and drinking alcoholic beverages in order to increase their odds of longer survival.

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The Miller School of Medicine’s Developmental Center for AIDS Research (DCFAR) and the Division of Infectious Diseases presents its Seventh Annual Miami HIV Winter Symposium, titled “Aging and HIV Infection,” on Friday, March 5 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the University of Miami Hospital Seminar Center. For more information, call 305-243-8125.

The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology invites you to participate in the 35th Annual Review and Recent Advances in Pathology course, held January 25 to 29, 2010 at The Alexander All-Suites Oceanfront Resort in Miami Beach, Florida.

This is the 35th in a series of courses conducted by the Miller School faculty, where practicing pathologists, oncologists, and other health care professionals are exposed to a panel of distinguished guests and faculty, all leaders in their field, with the latest developments in pathology.

Whether this is the first time you will attend, or if you have been a regular to our program, you will not want to miss this year’s event. This comprehensive course promises to bring you to the cutting edge of advances in the field. As an added bonus this year, you will also have the opportunity to enjoy a workshop dedicated to ”Automation in Anatomic Pathology.” Registration is free and is open to the first 30 participants.

Take advantage of our Early Bird Special, which ends December 21, 2009, and register online today!

For more information, visit the conference Web site at: http://pathology.med.miami.edu/x81.xml

Mathias Lichtenheld, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “Unraveling ‘confused’ CTL” on Monday, December 14 at 12 p.m. in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, Room 3109. For more information or to add your name to the distribution list, please contact Ilse Duarte at iduarte@med.miami.edu.

An FDA-approved clinical trial is the first to show that treating patients with adult stem cells after a heart attack is safe and that it appears to repair damaged heart tissue. Results of the study are published in the December 8 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The trial, lead by Joshua M. Hare, director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, found that the stem cell-treated patients had lower rates of side effects, such as cardiac arrhythmias. Moreover, “they had significant improvements in heart, lung, and global function,” Hare explained. “Echocardiography showed improved heart function, particularly in those patients with large amounts of cardiac damage.”

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Oliver Lenz, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “The Chronic Kidney Disease: Can We Reduce Cardiovascular Risk?” from 12 to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, December 15 at University of Miami Hospital, South Building, first-floor Seminar Center A and B. For more information, call Yanay Tabraue at 305-243-1998 or e-mail ytabraue@med.miami.edu.

Ralph Sacco

Cardiovascular diseases and stroke remain among the leading causes of death in the United States, and finding ways to reduce risk and prevent disease onset is essential. Few risk models are currently available that predict heart attack, stroke, or vascular death in an ethnically diverse population, and most models do not fully include behavioral risk factors.

Researchers from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Columbia University have constructed a model that addresses both issues and have published the details in the December 8 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

“There are a number of tools to estimate risk of coronary heart disease alone, or stroke alone, but few risk prediction models look at the wide spectrum of cardiovascular diseases,” said Ralph Sacco, professor and chair of neurology at the Miller School, lead author of the study, and president-elect of the American Heart Association.

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Wei Li, assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “New Perspective for ORF Phage Display as an Efficient Versatile Technology of Functional Proteomics” on Tuesday, December 15 at 12 p.m. in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, fourth-floor auditorium. For more information, contact Nilcer Aviles at 305-243-6691 or e-mail naviles@med.miami.edu.

Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt and Eneida Roldan, president and CEO of Jackson Health System, sign up to be Smoke Free Ambassadors as Asma Aftab and Ted Vana (background), members of the Smoke Free Campus Initiative, look on.

The Miller School of Medicine, UHealth – University of Miami Health System, and Jackson Health System came together to take a bold step during the 34th Annual Great American Smokeout. During this year’s event marking the national program, Pascal J. Goldschmidt, senior vice president for medical affairs and dean, stood side by side with Eneida Roldan, president and CEO of Jackson Health System, to announce that the University of Miami/Jackson medical campus will become smoke-free March 1, 2010.

The Smokeout, founded by the American Cancer Society, is aimed at encouraging people to stop smoking for one day, with the hope that they will kick the habit for good. Dean Goldschmidt, a renowned cardiologist and CEO of UHealth, told the scores of people gathered Thursday morning in Alamo Park that he has seen the damage smoking can cause. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. While he acknowledged that quitting smoking can be difficult, the dean declared that the goal is “to promote health and to promote wellness for everyone.”

That goal was echoed by Roldan, who said that going smoke free was a “great vision to make this a true wellness campus.” The Jackson chief pointed out the various booths set up with information about cessation programs, the dangers of smoking, nutrition, stress reduction, and exercise. Pamphlets, flyers, and banners contained facts about the physical benefits of quitting smoking. Twenty minutes after cessation, a person’s blood pressure drops to normal. Eight hours later. the oxygen level in the blood increases; 48 hours later, nerve endings start to regrow and the senses of smell and taste are enhanced.

The smoking ban will apply to all property owned or leased by the Miller School and Jackson Health System on the medical campus. In addition to the smoke-free buildings, smoking will also be prohibited in any outdoor areas on campus, including parking garages or in vehicles parked on campus. The Jackson North and South facilities will also fall under the smoke-free banner. Read the full story

Miller School of Medicine Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt will deliver the tenth Biennial Gross Lecture, “Medical Knowledge in the Information Technology Era,” on Thursday, December 10 at 4 p.m. at Louis Calder Memorial Library, first-floor lobby.

The Ralph H. and Ruth F. Gross Biennial Lecture was established in 1990 by the Louis Calder Memorial Library to commemorate the Ralph H. and Ruth F. Gross Medical Library Endowment. The first Gross lecturer was Emanuel M. Papper, vice president for medical affairs and dean of the Miller School from 1969 to 1981, who spoke on January 10, 1991 in the library’s History of Medicine Room. The lectureship has been delivered every two years since 1991 by individuals of exceptional accomplishment on the topic of their choice and is attended by members of the Gross family.

Information on the Gross Endowment and the first eight lectures can be found at http://calder.med.miami.edu/gross/. The last lecturer was Mary Moore, professor and chair of the medical library and biomedical communications.

Adriana Rebelo, graduate student in the Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology Program, Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “Probing Mitochondrial DNA Structure with Mitochondria-Targeted DNA Methyltransferases,” a dissertation in fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree on Tuesday, December 1 at 12 p.m. in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, fourth floor auditorium. For more information, e-mail Maria Penton at mpenton@med.miami.edu.

Brian Berman, professor of dermatology and cutaneous surgery at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “Minimizing Scars and Keloids – Update” on Wednesday, December 2 from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. at University of Miami Hospital, Seminar Center. For more information, call Myra Ramos at 305-585-5285 or e-mail mramos4@med.miami.edu.

From left, professor of marine biology and fisheries Sharon Smith, Rosenstiel School Dean Roni Avissar, Miller and Rosenstiel researcher Lora Fleming, and Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt at the BMAA and The Brain conference.

The University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine joined forces with the Institute of Ethnomedicine and the Center for Oceans and Human Health at UM for a dialogue on “BMAA and the Brain” held on November 4. The program, introduced jointly by Rosenstiel School Dean Roni Avissar and Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt, highlighted the University’s unique interdisciplinary research in Oceans and Human Health and efforts now under way in ethnomedicine, neurosciences, toxicology, marine biology, and oceanography.

One noteworth project involves research into cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) found on land and in freshwater and the oceans that can produce BMAA, an environmental neurotoxin that affects humans and animals. BMAA has been linked to age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, ALS, and Parkinson’s in humans.

Paul Cox of the Institute of Ethnomedicine discussed the genesis of his studies in Guam and the widespread neurological disease associated with the Chamorro people, which is now being linked to the ingestion of animals that eat cycads with cyanobacteria. Deborah Mash, director of UM’s Brain Endowment Bank who is currently testing for BMAA in postmortem human brain samples, spoke of the vital importance of the brain biorepository and the preliminary findings she and her team are making in their studies of neurodegenerative brains and control brains.

Larry Brand, a professor at the Rosenstiel School discussed BMAA as a toxin in the marine food web.

The discussion was followed by a reception hosted by the codirectors of the Center for Oceans and Human Health, Lora Fleming, who holds joint appointments at in epidemiology and public health at the Miller School and marine biology and fisheries at Rosenstiel, and Sharon Smith, professor of marine biology and fisheries.

Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Miller School of Medicine and medical director for UHealth psychiatry in Coconut Grove, will present “Recent Trends in Prescribing Atypical Neuroleptics for Children and Adolescents” on Friday, November 20 from 12 to 1 p.m. at the Mailman Center for Child Development, Room 3023. For more information, call Wanda Castro at 305-243-4466 or e-mail wcastro@med.miami.edu.

The Laboratory Core of the Miller School of Medicine’s Developmental Center for AIDS Research (DCFAR) presents its guest speaker, Barton Haynes of Duke University. Haynes, director of Duke’s Human Vaccine Institute and Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology, will present “The Initial B Cell Response to HIV-1 and Influenza: Clues for Vaccine Development” on Monday, November 30 from 12 to 1 p.m. in the Rosenstiel Medical Sciences Building, Room 3109.

Sara J. Czaja, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and codirector of the Center on Aging at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Sara J. Czaja, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and codirector of the Center on Aging at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, has received renewed funding of $9 million over five years from the National Institute on Aging for the Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE). The renewal marks the 11th straight year of grant funding from the National Institutes of Health and has resulted in CREATE I, CREATE II, and, now, CREATE III.

A multi-site center, CREATE is a collaborative effort among the Miller School of Medicine, UM’s College of Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Florida State University to help older people adapt to the information age. Czaja also has a secondary appointment in UM’s Department of Industrial Engineering.

Given the increased use of computers and other technology, an overriding societal concern has been how well older people adapt to rapid developments in technology, now essential to living independently. The original goal of CREATE I was to design a multidisciplinary center of research and education to assess factors that affect successful adoption of technology by older adults and to examine issues associated with technology training and interface design.

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The Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics and the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics will host a seminar by Amanda Myers, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Miller School of Medicine. Myers will present “The Human Brainome: Genome, Transcriptome, Proteome, and Phenome Interaction in Human Cortex” on Tuesday, November 17 at 4 p.m. in the Mailman Center for Child Development, eighth-floor auditorium. For more information, call Lourdes Acosta at 305-243-2559 or e-mail lacosta@med.miami.edu.

Alessia Fornoni, assistant professor of clinical medicine in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “Novel Therapeutic Targets for the Improvement of Pancreatic Beta Cell Function” on Thursday, November 19 at 12 p.m. in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology Conference Room 6018. For more information, call Nivia Machin-Gonzalez at 305-243-1078.

Tongyu Cao, assistant professor in the Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery at the Miller School of Medicine, will present “Keratinocyte Stem Cells in Disease and Therapy: What We Learned from Mice” on Tuesday, November 24 at 12 p.m. in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, fourth-floor auditorium. For more information, call Nilcer Aviles at 305-243-6691 or e-mail naviles@med.miami.edu.

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