YEAR IN REVIEW
2006-2007
FUNDING: Overall, 2006-2007 was another excellent year in which the department continued to excel in education, research and service. Research funding in the department was $5,081,445 (total costs) in NIH support (source: NIH Website). NIH discontinued the practice of ranking medical school departments based on the amount of funding received from NIH so we are not sure how that may have changed from last year. Also noteworthy is the fact that during the year, our faculty held more NIH grants than any other department at the Medical Center. Of even greater significance to me as chair is the fact that during the year, nearly every faculty member’s research program was supported by major external funding. Some major new grants were funded during the year. Most noteworthy among them was a NIH Center grant on male contraception headed by Dr. Joe Tash. This grant also provides major funding for the research programs of two additional department members, Dr. Leslie Heckert and Dr. Gustavo Blanco.
EDUCATION: This was a year of major change for the department’s role in medical education as a new curriculum focusing on integration across disciplines was rolled out for the incoming class of students. Guiding the department through this major transition was Dr. Merrill Tarr who continues as Director of Medical Education for the department. While in the previous year Merrill served as director of both the Fall and Spring Medical Physiology courses, the department now has primary responsibility for two modules in the new curriculum - Cardiopulmonary and Renal-Endocrine. While the new curriculum was not without its share of “growing pains”, overall, it seemed to be a success and students reported that they appreciated the integration of material. To the credit of all the individual faculty instructors and particularly to Merrill, the Cardiopulmonary and Renal-Endocrine modules both were viewed favorably by the students. This was also another successful year in terms of teaching awards. At the “Grande Affair” celebration on March 31st, Dr. John Wood and Dr. Gustavo Blanco again were recognized for excellence in teaching. They each won the Student Voice Award for 1st year teaching. We congratulate both John and Gustavo on their continuing success. Special recognition also goes to Gustavo who, to our knowledge, achieved something this year that has never before been attained by any faculty member in the history of KUMC. Gustavo won the “Triple Crown” of teaching. He won all three major teaching awards in the same year including the Kemper Award, the Bohan Award and the Chancellor’s Club Teaching Award.
OPENING OF THE KANSAS LIFE SCIENCES INNOVATION CENTER: This year represented another major transition in the department’s history with the opening of a new 210,000 square foot, state-of-the art research building, fully outfitted with the new equipment. The intent of the building was to house research programs and, by so doing, bring together faculty members across departments with similar interests. The building has certainly achieved this and represents a major step forward in providing much needed additional research space on the campus. While we wish that all members of the department could have been given space in the new building, we are very pleased that about 70% of our faculty members are now enjoying terrific, energizing new space on either the 2nd floor of the new building, which houses the Neuroscience Program and the Kansas Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center or the 3rd floor which houses the Reproductive Science Center and Dr Tash’s newly funded Interdisciplinary Center for Male Contraceptive Research and Drug Development. The only downside to this space from a departmental view point is that the department office is now a considerable distance from most of the faculty members. However, we continue to work on ways to overcome this physical separation. Providing outstanding support for the activities of all department faculty members will continue to be the goal of the departmental office.
TENURE TRACK APPOINTMENTS: Dr. Andrei Belousov joined the Department as an associate professor on January 1, 2007. Andrei was previously an Associate Professor in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Tulane University. His research interests include 1) glutamate-dependent neuronal plasticity and the regulation of cholinergic phenotype in developing and mature CNS neurons, 2) cellular and molecular mechanisms of regulation of electrical synapses (gap junctions) during development and traumatic injury, and 3) activity-dependent homeostatic plasticity in CNS neurons.
MARION M. OSBORN PROFESSORSHIP: Our deepest gratitude goes out to Jim Osborn for his enormous generosity toward the department over the years. With Jim’s continuing generous donations, this year the Professorship achieved activation status making it eligible for matching income funds from the state. We are very excited about this development and have begun to work on plans for how the Professorship might best be put to work to strengthen our reproductive science research program. In addition to the Marion M. Osborn Professorship, Jim and Marion’s donations over the years have fully supported the highly successful Kathleen Osborn Memorial Lectureship, which completed its 36th year this year, and have also provided funds in support of the Gil Greenwald Symposium, which is now in its 4th year and growing stronger. Thank-you Jim!
RESEARCH TRACK APPOINTMENTS: After a flurry of appointments in the past few years, this year there were no appointments to the Research Track.
ADJUNCT APPOINTMENTS: One faculty member was granted a secondary appointment in the department. Dr. Zhiming Suo, is a Research Associate Professor in Neurology at KUMC and Director of the Laboratory for Alzheimer’s Disease and Aging Research at the Kansas City Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Zhiming has a strong research program funded by a VA Merit Award.
We are also very pleased to have added another appointment to our department from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. Ho Yi Mak was appointed as an assistant professor level. He joined the Stowers Institute from the Harvard University where he completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Gary Ruvkun. Ho Yi works on fundamental issues of fat storage using C. elegans as a model system.
FACULTY PROMOTIONS: There were no promotions or appointments of tenure during the year.
FACULTY DEPARTURES: Long standing department member and former Chair of the department, Jim Voogt, retired at the end of December. He finished his 30 year career at KUMC as Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Research. Jim was a major contributor to the department’s growth and success. We are pleased that in his role as Emeritus Professor he will remain connected with the Department and plans to continue helping with the Greenwald Symposium and the Osborn Lectureship. We thank him for his many contributions to the department and the institution and wish him the best in retirement. We know he will be busy with many new activities.
At the end of the year, Dr. Mehmet Bilgen left for a new opportunity at the University of South Carolina. Since 2002, Mehmet had been an associate professor in the department and Director of the High Field MRI laboratory at the Hoglund Brain Imaging Center. We wish Mehmet the best in his new position.
GRADUATE PROGRAM AND PHYSIOLOGY SOCIETY: The graduate students in the department had another active year. The “Physiology Society” leadership included Stephanie Fiedler as President, Lynda McGinnis as Vice President, Emily McDonald as Secretary and Sara Turk as Social Event Coordinator. We are very pleased with the growth of the graduate program in Physiology. In August of 2006, nine new students were recruited to the department including: Crystal Bethel-Brown working with Dr. John Stanford, Jeffrey Cotitta working with Dr. Joseph Tash, Tim Donohue working with Dr. Peter Smith, Argenia Doss working with Dr. Peter Smith, David Guggenmos working with Dr. Randolph Nudo, Anisha Gupte working with Dr. Paige Geiger, Emily McDonald working with Dr. Michael Wolfe, Sarah Tague working with Dr. Peter Smith, and Rachel Williams working with Dr. Shilpa Buch. In January, Won-Mee Park and Jitu Wilson George transferred from Tulane University with Dr. Andrei Belousov to the department graduate program. And in May, Aritra Bhattacherjee transferred from the graduate program at Bowling Green State University to the department graduate program working with Dr. Peter Smith.
Three students completed their degrees during the year. Marie-Helene Boudrias received her Ph.D. with Dr. Paul Cheney. She is doing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford. Ines Eisner-Janowicz received her Ph.D. with Dr. Randolph Nudo. She is searching for a postdoctoral fellowship in China. Jennifer Ho-Chen received her Ph.D. with Dr. Michael Soares. She is doing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California in San Diego.
Student Awards: Congratulations to the graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the department who received awards from the KUMC Biomedical Research Training Program. This was another outstanding year for the department. The award winners this year were: Gwenaelle Wernli, a Ph.D. student with Dr. Peter Smith, Stephanie Fiedler, a Ph.D. student working with Dr. Lane Christenson, Anisha Gupta, a Ph.D. student working with Dr. Paige Geiger and Alison Ting, a Ph.D. student working with Dr. Brian Petroff. In the postdoctoral category, awards went to Huizhen Wang working with Dr. Raj Kumar and Susan Smittkamp working with Dr. John Stanford.
Also deserving recognition are three students in our department who won first place awards at this year’s Student Research Forum. Session winners included Anisha Gupte (mentor Dr. Paige Geiger), Greg Onyszchuk (mentor Dr. Bill Brooks) and Alison Ting (mentor Dr. Brian Petroff). Also, congratulations to the poster presentation winners Anh-Nguyet Nguyen (mentor Dr. Gustavo Blanco) and Mariam Riazi-Kermani (mentor Dr. Paul Cheney).
Prepared by:
Dr. Paul D. Cheney
Professor and Chair
October 25, 2007
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The University of Kansas Medical Center