Listed by department. See other faculty achievements in Top Stories.

FACULTY COUNCIL AWARDS
The annual Faculty Council Awards were given out July 7. Here is the list of recipients:
*Teaching/Senior: Jon Appelbaum (pictured here), M.D., Clinical Sciences.
*Teaching/Junior: Ewa A. Bienkiewicz, Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences (pictured below).
*Research/Senior: Jamila I. Horabin, Ph.D., & Branko Stefanovic, Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences.
*Research/Junior: Sanjay S. Kumar, Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences.
*Guardian of the Mission: Helen Livingston, Ed.D., Research, Undergraduate and Graduate Programs.
*Faculty Service: Barbara Shearer, Medical Humanities (Library).
*Staff/Individual: Cathy Bell, Academic Affairs.
*Staff/Group: Biomedical Sciences staff.


BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES
Ewa Bienkiewicz, Ph.D., has been awarded $25,000 for a therapeutic agent that can go into the body and naturalize the effect of toxic hemin release following a stroke (“A Novel Approach to Treating Stroke Victims”). The GAP funding will help her take her current work much closer to a point where it will have commercial opportunity.

James Olcese, Ph.D., was elected this summer to be the next co-chair for the FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) Summer Research Conference on Melatonin Receptors.

The Department of Biomedical Sciences has four new faculty members. Here are brief bios:

Michelle Arbeitman, associate professor, graduated summa cum laude from the University of California at Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. in developmental biology from the Stanford University Medical School in 1998 and did postdoctoral studies in the Biological Sciences Department at Stanford. Her first faculty position was at the University of Southern California, where she held the Gabilan Assistant Professor Chair.

Arbeitman’s research focuses on sexual development and behavior in the fruit fly species Drosophila melanogaster. She and her colleagues were some of the pioneers in using large-scale genomic approaches for the study of animal development and behavior. At FSU she will continue to address one of the frontier questions in biology: How are complex behaviors specified by genes? This question asks how neural circuits that drive sex-specific behaviors are specified and how genes and their products within these neural circuits function to elaborate such behaviors. Understanding these questions will someday have important implications for our understanding of human neurological diseases and behaviors.

“This is a very exciting time to study the genetic basis of complex behaviors,” said Arbeitman, who has received research awards from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. “The repertoire of genomic, proteomic and molecular-genetic tools that are available to biologists allows one to investigate behavioral questions in an unprecedented manner. In the next decade, we will have much greater insight into how genes specify behavior. This will require an integrated cross-disciplinary approach, which is greatly facilitated by the colleagues I have at FSU.”

Another new faculty member is Associate Professor Eric D. Laywell. He received his baccalaureate degree in psychology from the University of Michigan, performed his postgraduate studies in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, and received a doctorate in neuroscience. He received postdoctoral training at the University of Utah and the University of Tennessee, and was an assistant professor at the University of Florida before moving to FSU.

Laywell’s broad research interest is the biology of astrocytes. He initially studied astrocyte responses to CNS injury, but he is perhaps best known for studies demonstrating that certain astrocytes have the cardinal properties of neural stem cells. More recently, he has been investigating novel therapeutic approaches for treating brain tumors. Laywell is the author of more than 40 papers and book chapters in his areas of expertise and is an active grant reviewer for several organizations, including the State of New Jersey, the State of New York and the National Institutes of Health.

In addition to his research activities, Laywell also enjoys teaching gross anatomy and neuroscience to medical students. He received numerous Exemplary Teacher awards at the University of Florida, and at FSU he currently serves as the assistant course director for clinical human anatomy, embryology and imaging.

Laywell also is in the news: He has been awarded a 2011 Brain Tumor Research Grant of $75,000 for his submission titled “Improving Glioma Treatment with Adaptive Therapy.” Fifteen grants were submitted from UF, FSU, Moffitt, M.D. Anderson, University of Miami, Scripps and private practice. Five grants were selected by an independent panel of reviewers who are renowned researchers from Johns Hopkins, Swedish Medical Center, Duke and the University of North Carolina.

Also new to the faculty is Pradeep G. Bhide, the inaugural holder of the Jim and Betty Ann Rodgers Eminent Scholar Chair of Developmental Neuroscience. He is also the director of the Center for Brain Repair.

He received his degree in veterinary medicine (B.V.Sc.) from Veterinary College, Bangalore, India, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He undertook postdoctoral training in developmental neuroscience at the University of Aberdeen, University College London, Yale University School of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Following his postdoctoral training, Bhide rose to the position of associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of research for neurology at Massachusetts General, where he was also the program director for the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Center.

Bhide’s research program in developmental neuroscience focuses on an atypical role of the neurotransmitter dopamine – a role in regulating neurogenesis and neuronal migration in the developing brain. His discoveries in this field have led to a successful research program on the deleterious effects of drugs such as cocaine on the developing brain. His research program also focuses on the neurobiology of ADHD and development of safe, abuse-free stimulant medications. Bhide has an active research program on another developmental neurological disorder, early-onset torsion dystonia. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Finally, meet Assistant Professor Jinmin Zhu, a longtime colleague of Bhide. Zhu received his M.D. degree from the School of Medicine of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, and a Ph.D. in neurobiology from Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University. He worked at NIMH, NIH and Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia as a postdoctoral fellow, then was appointed instructor at Harvard Medical School and Mass. General Hospital. He joined Medical Online Inc. in Lexington, Mass., in 1999. He received his M.S. in bioinformatics from Brandeis University the same year he was appointed a faculty member in the Department of Radiology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. He then transferred to the Neurology Department at MGH in 2009.

Zhu’s research focuses on the structure and function of opioid receptors in the developing and adult nervous system. He cloned the human and rodent opioid receptors and determined the genetic structure for the receptor and intracellular signaling mechanisms. Brain opioid receptors play important roles in the regulation of the sensation of pain and also mediate addiction and drug abuse. Zhu has studied the interactions between opioids and catecholamines in the regulation of pain. In recent years, he has worked on the role of opioid receptors in stimulant abuse, especially abuse of methylphenidate, a commonly prescribed stimulant for the treatment of ADHD. He believes that a better understanding of opioid receptor mechanisms in stimulant abuse can help design a safer therapy for ADHD, which is estimated to affect about 10 percent of children and 5 percent of adults worldwide.

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT
Dennis Baker (pictured here), Ph.D., associate dean for faculty development; Greg Turner, Ed.D., assistant dean for faculty development; and Nancy Clark, director of medical informatics education, presented in Toronto last May at the first International Conference on Faculty Development in the Health Professions.

Baker’s presentation was “Contextual Enablers that Provide for a Robust Faculty Development Program for Community-Based Preceptors in a Geographically Distributed Campus Model.” Turner presented “Description of a Progressive Developmental Faculty Development Program in a Community-Based Distributed Campus Model.” And Clark’s presentation was “Delivering Faculty Development in Medical Informatics to Community Based Clinical Faculty Located in Six Cities Across Florida.” The conference had more than 300 participants representing 28 countries. It was hosted by the medical colleges of the University of Toronto and McGill University.


FAMILY MEDICINE AND RURAL HEALTH
Gail Bellamy, Ph.D., director of the Center for Rural Health Research and Policy, and Maggie Blackburn (pictured here), M.D., director of rural health, participated several months ago in a summit meeting on rural health care for six surrounding counties. It was called the North Florida Rural Health Care Workforce Development Leadership Summit, and more than 100 health-care professionals and community leaders participated. The two faculty members are on the steering committee of the workforce development network, which planned the summit.

 “We decided to do the summit in order to bring together the leadership of the six-county area to address the health care workforce needs, both of the present and the future, and to really help problem-solve … to keep our communities healthy and moving forward,” Blackburn said. The six counties are Hamilton, Jefferson, Lafayette, Madison, Suwannee and Taylor.

In addition to the College of Medicine and the workforce development network, the summit was sponsored by North Florida Community College, Doctor’s Memorial Hospital, Madison County Memorial Hospital, Florida Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) and North Florida Medical Centers Inc.

Kendall Campbell, M.D., is the department’s newest faculty member. He was a graduate of Florida A&M University and of Florida State’s Program in Medical Sciences (Class of 1997), predecessor of the College of Medicine. He got his M.D. at the University of Florida and completed training at the TMH Family Medicine Residency Program.

For six years he served on the faculty at the UF College of Medicine, where he also was assistant dean of minority affairs and medical director and chief of one of its clinics for underserved populations. He has a long history of mentoring, educating and encouraging youth and young adults, serving as a motivational speaker and advisor.

“Kendall brings to the College of Medicine a heart for teaching,” said Dan Van Durme, M.D., department chair, “and the goal of encouraging students to appreciate the fulfillment and challenges of caring for the underserved.”

Suzanne Harrison, M.D., has been elected to a two-year term on the board of directors of the American Medical Women’s Association.


GERIATRICS
Alice Pomidor, M.D., participated in a roundtable discussion of transportation and Florida’s rapidly growing aging population, hosted by Ford Motor Co. Also participating were representatives of the state Departments of Transportation, Elder Affairs, and Children & Families, as well as AARP, the Alzheimer’s Project and more.

As of August, Pomidor – formerly an associate professor – became a professor of geriatrics.

A former Florida State nutrition student, whose Ph.D. advisor was Ken Brummel-Smith, M.D., is co-author of a paper in the July-September edition of Topics in Clinical Nutrition. Delores Truesdell co-wrote “Unintended Weight Loss and non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in a Frail, Elderly Patient.”

MEDICINE AND LAW
Marshall Kapp, J.D., M.P.H., presented “Humanizing the Legal Risk Management Education of Medical Students” June 30 at the 34th Annual Health Law Professors Conference sponsored by the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics.

In May, Kapp presented the keynote address “Let There Be Law: Empowering Aging Families” at the Spring Conference of the Massachusetts Gerontology Association, at Brandeis University.