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

RESEARCHERS HONORED AS INNOVATORS
Eleven innovators from the College of Medicine, including 10 from the Department of Biomedical Sciences, were honored in December at the Office of Intellectual Property Development and Commercialization’s Seventh Annual Innovators Reception.

In alphabetical order, the honorees were Research Assistant Professor Ewa Bienkiewicz, Ph.D.; Professor Michael Blaber, Ph.D.; Research Specialist Kate Calvin, Ph.D.; Professor (and Senior Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs) Myra Hurt, Ph.D.; Professor (and Associate Dean for Medical Education) Mary Johnson, Ph.D.; Assistant Professor Sanjay Kumar, Ph.D.; Associate Professor Tim Megraw, Ph.D. (pictured at left); Associate Professor James Olcese, Ph.D.; postdoctoral associate Raed Rizkallah, Ph.D.; and Associate Professor Branko Stefanovic, Ph.D., all from Biomedical Sciences; and Assistant Professor Stephen Quintero, M.D. (pictured at right), from the Department of Family Medicine and Rural Health.

Researchers from across the campus were recognized for their work in the fiscal year ending June 30.

Find out the specifics of these innovators’ projects.

BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

The lab group of Myra Hurt, Ph.D., senior associate dean for research and graduate programs, has had a paper published. “Phosphorylation of the Transcription Factor YY1 by CK2α Prevents Cleavage by Capase 7 during Apoptosis” was published in Molecular and Cellular Biology. The authors were graduate student Sarah Riman; postdoctoral associate Raed Rizkallah, Ph.D.; graduate student Ari Kassardjian; Beth Alexander, Hurt’s research coordinator; Bernhard Luescher, professor and researcher in Aachen, Germany; and Hurt.

Department Chair Richard Nowakowski, Ph.D., was emcee for The Business of Life Sciences Symposium in Tallahassee in November. A top-notch group of speakers and panelists helped researchers explore ways to translate their lab discoveries into tangible products in the marketplace. The symposium was sponsored and organized by the FSU Office of Intellectual Property Development and Commercialization; the Office of Research; and the Life Sciences Faculty Commercialization Roundtable, which Nowakowski co-founded. “Translating FSU’s basic research into scientific breakthroughs that help a patient directly can happen best with work across disciplines, industry and the government,” he said.

Professor Mike Overton, M.D., had a paper published online by the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory Integrative and Comparative Physiology. The paper, “Evidence for the role of Hindbrain orexin-1 receptors in the control of meal size,” appeared in the December 2011 publication (Volume 301).

Assistant in Medicine Jake VanLandingham, Ph.D., received partial funding for his GAP proposal: “Use of Progesterone and its Enantiomer to Better Outcomes Associated with Concussion.”

In November, the lab of Associate Professor Yi Zhou, Ph.D. (pictured here), had a paper accepted for publication. The paper, “Determining nuclear localization of Alpha-synuclein in mouse brains,” was accepted by Neuroscience. Those who collaborated on it were Zhiling Huang (postdoc), Zhe Xu (graduate student), Dr. Yuying Wu and Zhou.


FAMILY MEDICINE AND RURAL HEALTH

Director of Rural Health Maggie Blackburn, M.D., helped secure a capital-improvement grant of just under $500,000 for a community program that’s working to enhance the school-based health centers in Gadsden County. The group is ICAN/ICAN TOO, based in Havana. It has assembled a coalition that includes not only the College of Medicine but also the FSU College of Nursing, the Florida A&M University Provost’s Office, the Gadsden School District, the Gadsden Health Department and many community volunteers. One of its projects has been the Havana Health and Wellness Center, which opened in August – joining two other school-based clinics in Quincy. Blackburn said the federal Health Resources and Services Administration grant will pay to purchase and upgrade equipment; repair and renovate clinic spaces; purchase an electronic health record system; and install dental suites in all three clinics. Quincy’s school-based health centers opened in 2007 with funding provided through the Children’s Miracle Network and generated by FSU students through Dance Marathon. FSU medical school faculty, medical students and psychology graduate students work in the centers part time.

Assistant Professor Meredith Goodwin, M.D., took over as the 932nd Medical Squadron’s newest commander Jan. 21, during an Assumption of Command Ceremony at Scott Air Force Base. Goodwin was promoted to colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve in September.

Transformation Through Teaching honors full-time FSU faculty members who’ve had an intellectual, inspirational and integrative impact on the lives of their students. In November, Associate Chair Curt Stine, M.D., was one of 19 faculty members across campus recognized on the basis of students’ compelling stories. In Stine’s case, the story came from Laura Davis (Class of 2013, Pensacola campus). Here is an excerpt from Davis:

“When I started medical school, I immediately became involved in numerous campus organizations. I volunteered at a local church and saw Dr. Stine working there. I volunteered at the homecoming 5K and saw Dr. Stine working there, too. I remember being intrigued as to how he could find time to do so much. Later, I realized why it was so easy for him. Medicine is not a job that you turn off when you leave the office. It is not just a career; rather, it is a lifestyle. I realized that Dr. Stine was involved because service is his passion, too. It is a part of his character, and when I realized this, it changed the purpose of my medical education, too. I was not sitting in class and studying long hours just to be a physician, but to be able to serve others in a way that not many people were trained or able to do.”

MEDICAL HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Late in 2011, a window-filled corridor in the College of Medicine became a temporary art gallery, displaying 10 works by nationally renowned Gadsden County artist Dean Mitchell. The exhibition did much more than beautify a blank wall. The people in those portraits could well be the medical students’ future patients.

Mitchell’s work is celebrated far beyond North Florida. His paintings are included in the permanent collection of 13 art museums across the U.S. and the Library of Congress, and he’s represented by six private art galleries from California to Mississippi. He has more than 400 awards for his work, and his paintings of jazz musicians were turned into postage stamps.

But Gadsden County is where Mitchell grew up and where much of his art springs from. The 10 paintings had been part of his recent “Rich in Spirit” exhibition at the Gadsden Arts Center. That was where Janine Edwards, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Medical Humanities and Social Sciences, saw them and was immediately inspired.

“The mission of the FSU College of Medicine focuses on serving the underserved populations of Florida,” she wrote when she planned the College of Medicine exhibition. “Mitchell’s works illustrate the lives of these people.”

In January, just before the paintings came down, the artist himself visited the College of Medicine to talk about his work and his home county. He was introduced by Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education and Academic Affairs Alma Littles, M.D., a fellow graduate of James A. Shanks High School in Quincy and a longtime admirer of his art. For years, she said, “I have had the opportunity to discuss his paintings of tobacco barns, scenes of nature and facial expressions with his high school classmates and others in Quincy who could relate directly to the paintings.”

She quoted remarks by Grace Maloy, executive director of the Gadsden Arts Center, speculating about what makes Mitchell great: “Dean Mitchell has enormous talent; he is also very intelligent, perceptive, empathetic, and he loves people. Dean learned from his grandmother, Marie, and childhood experiences in Quincy to value the intangible, and to have a tremendous work ethic and strength of character.”
 

Exhibition produced in partnership with the Gadsden Arts Center, Quincy, Fla. Many thanks to Executive Director Grace Maloy and Curator Angie Barry.

ADMINISTRATION

Alma Littles, M.D., senior associate dean for medical education and academic affairs, was among the North Florida notables honored in Tallahassee Community College’s African-American History Calendar for 2012. For 12 years, the calendar has highlighted the achievements of African-Americans in Leon and surrounding counties.

Littles, who grew up in Gadsden County, earned her medical degree from the University of Florida College of Medicine. She is past president of both the Florida Academy of Family Physicians and Capital Medical Society, as well as former director of the family medicine residency program at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital.

CENTER FOR INNOVATIVE COLLABORATION

IN MEDICINE & LAW
The center has been awarded a grant under the Retirement Research Foundation POLST Innovative States Award initiative. Ken Brummel-Smith, M.D., chair of the Department of Geriatrics, and Marshall Kapp, J.D., MPH, director of the center, have been designated co-principal investigators. The vision of POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) is to ensure that seriously ill people’s wishes regarding life-sustaining treatments are known, communicated and honored across all health-care settings. Said Kapp: “This financial support, plus (even more importantly) the national recognition of our efforts that the award signifies, will help us greatly in moving POLST forward in this state.”

In November, Kapp presented “Beyond Advance Directives: Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST)” as part of a Boston symposium titled “Aging and Advance Care Planning” at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America.

In January Kapp presented “Innovative Collaboration in Medicine and Law: The Ivory Tower as a Strategic Advantage” as part of a panel on Reaching Out Beyond the Classroom: Health Law Professors Interacting With the Real World. It was sponsored by the section on law, medicine and health care at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools in Washington, D.C. He also presented a paper titled “If We Can Force People to Purchase Health Insurance, Then Let’s Force Them to Be Treated Too” at a symposium sponsored by the American Journal of Law & Medicine and Boston University School of Law on the theme of “The American Right to Health: Constitutional, Statutory, and Contractual Healthcare Rights in the United States.”

Kapp also was appointed to the Board of Directors of Kendal Outreach LLC, the outreach arm of Kendal Corp., a progressive nonprofit long-term care and retirement community.


FORT PIERCE REGIONAL CAMPUS
Juliette Lomax-Homier, M.D., a clerkship director at the Fort Pierce campus, was one of two St. Lucie County OB-GYNs recognized recently for their use of certified electronic medical records. She and Leigh Hoppe, M.D., operate Just Ladies Healthcare of the Treasure Coast in Fort Pierce. They were saluted by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology as well as the South Florida Regional Extension Center. They also have received financial incentive funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for their achievement.


ORLANDO REGIONAL CAMPUS
Michael Muszynski, M.D., dean of the Orlando campus, has been named secretary of the Orange County Medical Society.


SARASOTA REGIONAL CAMPUS
Nicole Bentze, D.O., family medicine clerkship director for the Sarasota campus, was named Part-Time Educator of the Year by the Florida Academy of Family Physicians.


FLORIDA CENTER FOR UNIVERSAL

RESEARCH TO ERADICATE DISEASE
FL CURED, which operates within the College of Medicine, recently helped develop Florida’s first Health Disparities Research Agenda, which outlines a research plan for achieving health equity for all Floridians. Working in partnership with FL CURED are the Florida Department of Health’s Office of Minority Health and the Biomedical Research Advisory Council, in coordination with 31 of the state’s top health disparities researchers.

Floridians of various ethnic/racial backgrounds have higher proportions of heart and other cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS and infant mortality. The Health Disparities Research Agenda links academic institutions, health-care providers, and government, community-based and faith-based organizations. Florida Surgeon General Frank Farmer, M.D., Ph.D., called it “the first step of public and private health researchers moving forward on a path together to improve the health of underserved groups.”

FL CURED is sponsored by the Florida Department of Health. Its principal investigator is Michael Smith, and its executive director is Mike Devine, Ph.D.

The report on the Health Disparities Research Agenda can be found on DOH’s website.