Georgia Regents University is sponsoring a free all-day camp for children with asthma July 8-12 at Camp Tanglewood in Columbia County.

Slots are available for 60 children age 6-13 at the second annual Augusta Area Asthma Day Camp. Daily activities include swimming, hiking, games, sports and arts and crafts. Lunch and snacks are provided. Transportation from the GRU campus and south Richmond County will be provided on a space-available basis.

“The camp is a chance for kids with asthma to just be kids. It’s a safe environment for them to participate in all the normal summer camp activities,” said Kitty Hernlen, Assistant Professor of Respiratory Therapy, who researches asthma management and education. “All they have to bring is a bathing suit and a towel.”

The program includes one hour of daily asthma education to help children recognize their asthma symptoms. A parent or guardian must attend a brief orientation and education session.

Volunteer camp counselors include GRU respiratory therapy students, College of Allied Health Sciences faculty members, Richmond County school nurses, private physicians and Georgia Regents Medical Center respiratory therapists, as well as volunteers from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Asthma Management Program and the CSRA Asthma Awareness Coalition.

Approximately 300,000 children in the United States have asthma. In children with chronic diseases, asthma is the leading cause of school absences. The condition is often undiagnosed, and if symptoms are uncontrolled, children may lose sleep, avoid physical activity, sidestep medication and feel embarrassed, frustrated or isolated 

This year’s camp is funded by a grant from the W.G. Raoul Foundation and co-sponsored by the CSRA Community Foundation.  

For more information, contact Hernlen at 706-721-3554 or khernlen@gru.edu.

Early life stress like that experienced by ill newborns appears to take an early toll of the heart, affecting its ability to relax and refill with oxygen-rich blood, researchers report.

Rat pups separated from their mothers a few hours each day, experienced a significant decrease in this basic heart function when – as life tends to do – an extra stressor was added to raise blood pressure, said Dr. Catalina Bazacliu, neonatologist at the Medical College of Georgia and Children’s Hospital of Georgia at Georgia Regents University. Bazacliu worked under the mentorship of Dr. Jennifer Pollock, biochemist in the Section of Experimental Medicine in the MCG Department of Medicine.

The relaxation and filling rate remained low in the separation model, although decreases stabilized by ages two and six months, as the rats neared middle age. Both the model and controls experienced decreases in those functions that come naturally with age.

Interestingly, the force with which the heart ejected blood remained unchanged with the additional stressor, angiotensin II, a powerful constrictor of blood vessels. Echocardiography was used to evaluate heart function.

“We expected the heart’s ability to relax and refill to lag behind in our model,” said Bazacliu, whose research earned her a Young Investigator Award from the Southern Society for Pediatric Research.  She is reporting her findings Feb. 22 during the Southern Regional Meetings in New Orleans, sponsored by the society as well as several other groups including the Southern Section of the American Federation for Medical Research.

“We believe these babies may be at increased risk for cardiovascular disease and we are working to understand exactly what puts them at risk,” Bazacliu said.  She believes hers is the first animal study of this aspect of heart function. 

Dr. Analia S. Loria, assistant research scientist in Pollock’s lab and also a co-author on the new abstract, has shown that the blood pressure of maternally separated rats goes up more in response to angiotensin II and their heart rates go higher as well. Normally, a compensatory mechanism drives the heart rate down a little when blood pressure goes up.  

Work by others has shown persistent blood vessel changes in the early stress model, including increased contraction and reduced relaxation when similarly stressed.

Longitudinal studies in humans have shown long-term cardiovascular implications, such as babies born to mothers during the Dutch famine of World War II, growing up at increased risk for cardiovascular disease as well as diabetes, obesity and other health problems. 

Bazacliu’s earlier studies in a similar animal model indicated that babies whose growth was restricted in utero by conditions such as preeclampsia – maternal high blood pressure during pregnancy – were at increased risk of cardiovascular disease as adults. This was true whether the babies were born prematurely or at full term.  Increased pressure during development reduces blood flow from mother to baby; reduced nutrition and oxygen to the baby is considered an environmental stress.

Bazacliu’s interest in early life stress grew out of the reality that, while obviously intended to save premature and otherwise critically ill newborns, neonatal intensive care units can further stress these babies. “All the procedures we must do, the separation from the mother, the environment, even though the babies need the help, it represents a stress.” NICUs such as the one at Children’s Hospital of Georgia work to minimize negative impact with strategies such as open visiting hours, minimalizing noise and other family-centered care strategies.

Bazacliu came to MCG in 2011 from the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

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Neuroscience Nurse Berkley Shields (left) and Neurointensivist Dr. Subhashini Ramesh talk with recovering stroke patient Alice Lewis, 46, at Georgia Regents Medical Center. The medical center is the only hospital in Georgia to be named an Advanced Comprehensive Stroke Center by the Joint Commission for complex stroke care.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations has designated Georgia Regents Medical Center as an Advanced Comprehensive Stroke Center, making it the only hospital in Georgia and one of less than 20 hospitals nationwide to achieve this designation.

“This means we provide high-level care for patients with the most severe and challenging types of strokes and cerebrovascular disease, and we help set the national standards in highly-specialized stroke care,” said David S. Hefner, CEO of the medical center. “It’s not any one thing that we do here; it’s a myriad of best-practices performed by specially-trained staff from a variety of health care disciplines, all working together to provide better outcomes for our stroke patients.”

A stroke or brain attack occurs when a blood vessel that carries oxygen and nutrients to the brain is either blocked by a clot or ruptures. When that happens, part of the brain cannot get the blood it needs, so brain cells die. Stroke is a leading cause of death and serious long-term disability in the United States, and especially Georgia, because it is located in the stroke belt.

During a rigorous two-day onsite review, Joint Commission experts examined the medical center’s compliance with Comprehensive Stroke Center standards and requirements, including 24/7 availability of specialized treatments, staff with the unique education and competencies to care for complex stroke patients and advanced imaging capabilities.

Last year, Georgia Regents Medical Center opened one of two new interventional radiology suites, becoming the first hospital in Georgia equipped with VasoCT imaging. This technology produces clear, three-dimensional pictures of the arteries and veins in the brain and neck that allow the hospital’s neurosurgery team to better pinpoint and open blockages. In addition, having two interventional suites means the hospital may treat more than one complex patient at a time, another Comprehensive Stroke Center requirement.

Surveyors also looked at post-hospital care coordination for patients and patient-centered stroke research efforts. Physician scientists at Georgia Regents University are currently researching the ways in which leg compressions, stem cell therapy and insulin administration methods affect stroke recovery.

Comprehensive Stroke Center Certification was developed in collaboration with the Brain Attack Coalition and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. The AHA/ASA awarded Georgia Regents Medical Center with its second consecutive Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award in 2012, and the hospital was named to the AHA/ASA Target: Stroke Honor Roll for excellence in emergency stroke care in December.

Georgia Regents Medical Center extends quality stroke care to rural patients throughout the region through REACH Health, Inc., a telemedicine program pioneered in 2003 at GRU’s Medical College of Georgia. This hub-and-spoke network allows stroke specialists at Georgia Regents Medical Center (the hub) to diagnose and treat stroke patients remotely at more than a dozen rural and a few larger community hospitals in Georgia and to transport those in need of surgery or more specialized neurointensive critical care to GRMC.

Those spoke hospitals are Burke Medical Center, Coliseum Medical Centers, Elbert Memorial Hospital, Emanuel Medical Center, Fairview Park Hospital, Doctors Hospital, Jefferson Hospital, Jenkins County Hospital, McDuffie Regional Medical Center, Morgan Memorial Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital, Tift Regional Medical Center, Washington County Regional Medical Center, West Georgia Hospital and Wills Memorial Hospital.

Georgia Regents Medical Center also collaborates with neighboring emergency medical services or EMS teams by providing pre-hospital and interventional stroke care education, covering everything from field recognition of stroke to proper patient transport.

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Each panelist will speak briefly about their experience with gun violence or gun legislation, and then the group will take questions from the audience. The panel will include:

• Dr. Richard Schwartz, Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University
• Robert Partain, Colonel of Operations at Richmond County Sheriff’s Office
• Ashley Wright, District Attorney of the Augusta Judicial Circuit
• Honorable Danny Craig, Superior Court Judge of the Seventh Division of the Augusta Judicial Circuit
• Honorable Edward Tarver, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia
• Gordon Rondeau, Founder and CEO of the Renee Olubunmi Rondeau Peace Foundation 
• Dr. Kim Davies, Chair and Professor in the GRU Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice and Social Work and author of The Murder Book
• Jack Batson, Civil Rights Attorney
• Dr. Bill Reese, Moderator and Professor in the GRU Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice and Social Work

“We’re doing this as a public service to allay the local public’s fears or anxieties,” Reese said. “We think there’s plenty of people concerned about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and equally concerned on the other side of the issue are plenty of people that are worried about the government taking away their guns.”

Dr. Samir N. Khleif, Director of the Georgia Regents University Cancer Center, is one of 100 international cancer experts who were invited to participate in the World Oncology Forum (WOF), which is calling on governments around the world to take urgent action to halt a catastrophic increase in death and suffering from cancer across the globe, and to deliver on commitments they made at the World Health Assembly in May 2012 to cut premature deaths from non-communicable diseases, including cancer, by 25% by 2025.

The STOP CANCER NOW! appeal launched on World Cancer Day and is the statement that the WOF formulated during its meeting in February in Lugano, Switzerland. It raises the alarm about the rapid escalation in the human and economic cost of cancer, and warns that current strategies for controlling cancer are not working. It calls on governments and policy makers to commit to pursuing new strategies that have been shown to be effective and are achievable anywhere in the world. Meeting these commitments could save the lives of 1.5 million people across the globe each year.

The World Oncology Forum (WOF) was organized by the European School of Oncology in partnership with The Lancet for the purpose of evaluating progress in the fight against cancer. Having listened to the evidence on progress to date in controlling cancer, WOF participants concluded that current strategies are not fit for purpose and need radical overhaul. In launching this appeal, the WOF participants are not just calling on world leaders to wake up to the scale of suffering caused by cancer, but are also presenting a set of feasible strategies that can be carried out anywhere in the world and can make a real difference. Cancer is one of the biggest causes of death in every corner of the globe, and the rate of new cases is increasing so fast that it is expected to double over 25 years, with the heaviest burden falling on countries that are least prepared to detect and treat the disease and care for patients. This catastrophic scenario can be averted, but it will take the sort of determined international action that was mounted in response to the AIDS crisis 20 years ago.

The STOP CANCER NOW! appeal appeared today as an advertisement in the International Herald Tribune, Le Monde, El País, La Repubblica and Neue Zürcher Zeitung. It was also published alongside a commentary in The Lancet and in an article in Cancer World. The STOP CANCER NOW! Appeal is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

More than 50 organizations will be on hand, recruiting candidates for a variety of opportunities, including jobs as educators in school systems throughout Georgia and South Carolina, full and part-time employment, co-op, internship, and volunteer opportunities, as well as graduate and professional school programs.

Julie Goley, Director of GRU’s Career Center, says that the expos are designed to give students and alumni a “homefield advantage” to showcase their skills and abilities to employers who have a vested interest in hiring GRU students and graduates. “It’s a very tough and competitive job market,” Goley says. Georgia’s unemployment rate is now above eight percent.

”It’s important that students  present themselves professionally, confidently, and be very clear about what their strengths are in order to make a quick and solid first impression,” Goley adds. “Participants should show up prepared and be fully engaged in the process.”

For more information about the expo, call the GRU Career Center at 706-737-1604 or to view a list of participants, visit www.aug.edu/career_center.

A $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration will help Georgia Regents University continue its efforts to diversify Georgia’s health care workforce.

The five-year grant will continue funding for the Georgia Statewide Area Health Education Center Network, a partnership coordinated by GRU that aims to boost the supply of health professionals and distribute more of them in rural and underserved areas of the state.

“Georgia’s AHEC network is really a partnership of health providers, health professions students, educators, state agencies and communities, who are committed to resolving these problems,” said Executive Director Denise Kornegay. “That’s done by providing educational support to health professionals – both when they are students and when they are practitioners.”

There are six Area Health Education Centers scattered across Georgia and a program office, located at GRU. They offer a wide-range of programs, Kornegay said.  “We serve students as they move through the pipeline of health education. We help recruit the best and brightest, support them through their clinical training and then we help ensure they stay in the state after they graduate.”

The keys to addressing the state’s shortages are a good foundation and balance across all phases of health care education, she said. “Much of the work we do will not bear fruit for 3 to -10 years as participants travel across the education pipeline. Our work demands investment over time, but it is solid and enduring.”

The process often begins as early as grades K-12, where exposure to health care careers and an increased focus on STEM, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics, can encourage students to pursue health careers, Kornegay added.

Programming supported by statewide AHECs ranges from partnerships with health care professionals across the state who serve as community-based preceptors for medical students to supporting travel and housing for students completing clinical training in remote areas of the state. In fiscal year 2011, Georgia’s AHEC network also exposed 27,778 youth to health career opportunities; provided training, education and resources to more than 18,000 minority students, residents, trainees and practicing health professionals; and supported more than 550,000 hours of community-based clinical education and training.

For more information, contact Lauren Neville, 706-724-6100.

Dr. David Fulton, a vascular biologist and faculty member in the Vascular Biology Center at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University for more than a decade, is the center’s new Director.

Fulton, a Professor in the MCG Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, has served since 2011 as Interim Director of the 18-year-old center which focuses on cellular and integrated mechanisms underlying blood vessel and cardiovascular function in normal and disease states.

“David has done a tremendous job building on the strengths of the Vascular Biology Center during his tenure as Interim Director,” said Dr. Peter F. Buckley, MCG Dean. “He has recruited additional scientists who are working closely with our physicians to ensure that their laboratory studies translate to better care for patients with vascular problems such as heart disease and sickle cell disease. He also has ventured into new areas for the center such as vascular inflammation and cardiac function.”

“We are extremely excited about David’s ability to continue to accelerate the scope and impact of our research on cardiovascular disease, the number one killer in our state and nation,” said Dr. Mark Hamrick, GRU Senior Vice President for Research. “We thank VBC’s founding Director John Catravas for building such a strong foundation.”

Fulton plans to recruit more top investigators in areas such as lung biology and metabolism and obesity, increase faculty participation in national activities such as cardiovascular study sections of the National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association, aid development of a cardiovascular research facility that enhances collaboration and expand undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate training of future scientists.

Fulton chairs the American Heart Association Vascular Endothelial Biology Review Committee. He is Associate Editor of the journal Frontiers in Oxidant Biology and an editorial board member of the American Journal of Physiology/Heart and Circulatory Physiology, Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology and Circulation Research.

Fulton came to MCG in 2001 from Yale University where he completed postdoctoral training in pharmacology followed by a year as a research associate. He earned a Ph.D. in pharmacology from New York Medical College.

He studies molecular mechanisms regulating the function of vascular endothelium, the lining of the blood vessels, in health and disease. Normal vascular endothelium function is disrupted in diabetes and other cardiovascular disease such as acute lung injury.

The panel discussions are part of an ongoing project by GRU Communications Instructor Sea Stachura, Recovering History: Oral Histories of Augusta’s Forgotten 1970 Riot.

Stachura received a grant from the Georgia Humanities Council in November to transcribe testimonials from Augustans who can provide firsthand historical accounts of the riot, which occurred in downtown Augusta following the death of Charles Oatman, a mentally challenged black teen being held in the Richmond County jail.

Guest speakers will include Grady Abrams, a former city council member and community leader, and Bill Coleman, the lawyer who represented those arrested in the riot. Other panelists are GRU Assistant Professor and Civil Rights Historian Perzavia Praylow and Stachura, who will serve as moderator.

Stachura hopes the February events will raise awareness about the riot and help put her in touch with more people who can talk about the historic event for her project. “The idea is to spark conversation about race relations in the city and about the city itself. This is a part of our history, and yet it’s something that we’ve never taken the opportunity to openly discuss,” she said. “People who are from that time remember it, but otherwise, no one really knows about it. So it’s really our last opportunity, 43 years later, to take advantage of the people who are still living, gather their memories and connect this event to what we understand about attitudes on race and the city of Augusta itself.”

Applications are being accepted now for a summer enrichment program designed to help under-represented minority, underprivileged and non-traditional students find their way to the health professions. The Summer Educational Enrichment Program, or SEEP, helps diversify the physician workforce by exposing participants to life as a “student” at Georgia Regents University’s Medical College of Georgia. Students live on GRU’s Health Sciences campus in Augusta during the seven-week program and take courses in the biomedical sciences, prepare for admissions exams, gain hands-on experience in labs, shadow health care professionals and receive networking opportunities and exposure to insightful guest speakers.

The Pre-College SEEP program serves current high school juniors and seniors in Augusta and the surrounding area. The College program serves students who are sophomores, juniors, seniors or recent graduates.

The Office of Diversity Affairs in GRU’s Medical College of Georgia will also host Igniting the Dream, an all-day conference on Feb. 23 for undergraduate and high school students that will focus on preparing them to apply to medical school with workshops, hands-on activities and more.

“One of our goals is to make students who are truly interested in attending a health sciences university more competitive in the admissions process,” said Dr. Kimberly Vess Halbur, MCG Associate Dean for Diversity Affairs.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 10 of the 20 fastest-growing occupations are health care-related, and wages in the industry are projected to increase 22 percent through 2018.

The Igniting the Dream conference is $15 and registration is due by Feb. 15. Applications for this summer’s SEEP program, due by March 1,  are available at http://www.georgiahealth.edu/careers/specop/apply.html. For more information, call the MCG Office of Diversity Affairs, 706-721-2522.

Find the office on Facebook or follow them on Twitter @MCG_ODA.

About 30 medical students, MCG Dean Peter F. Buckley, Vice Dean for Academic Affairs Paul Wallach and a handful of other MCG leaders will participate in the event that has students meeting with legislators, touring the Capitol and a brief meeting with Gov. Nathan Deal.

Also, Dr. Bruce LeClair, an MCG family medicine physician, will volunteer as the Doctor of the Day in the Capitol’s Medical Aid Station, providing minor medical care to legislators and their staff. The Doctor of the Day is a program of the Medical Association of Georgia.

“This day enables our students to get an up-close perspective on our state’s leaders and legislative process as it gives state leaders the opportunity to meet some of the best ambassadors for our state, our medical college and our university,” said Buckley. “We believe this experience will strengthen our students’ innate skills of leadership as well as their interest in and commitment to their community.”

MCG students and leaders will spend the morning attending House and Senate sessions during which a resolution recognizing MCG on its 185 anniversary will be read into the record for adoption by both Chambers. Next there will be lunchtime addresses from MCG graduate and Georgia Rep. Ben Watson; insurance executive and state Sen. Renee Unterman; association executive and state Rep. Pat Gardner; and Georgia Department of Community Health Deputy Commissioner Blake Fulenwider.  Afterward, students will meet individually with legislators, largely from their hometown districts.

For the second year in a row, second-year students at the GRU/UGA Medical Partnership also visited the Capitol Jan. 29 as part of the Population Health component of their Essentials of Clinical Medicine II course in which they learn more about advocacy and the role of the physician.

MCG is Georgia’s only public medical school. About 95 percent of MCG’s students are Georgia residents and one-in-five Georgia physicians went to medical school or did their training at MCG.

“I am honored to have been selected for this position,” Hogan said. “I am passionate about helping students succeed and I am looking forward to getting them more involved with the council as we prepare for the classroom.”

According to council officials, Hogan’s appointment is four-year commitment in which she will serve as Vice Chair of the Program Committee as well as a member of the Communications Committee.

“We are very proud of the work Dr. Hogan does with her students and for our university,” said Cindi Chance, Dean of GRU’s College of Education. “The passion she has for special education is phenomenal and we wish her the best as she takes on this new leadership position.”

She has been a member of the national organization since 2007 and began serving on the awards subcommittee for the Georgia chapter in 2012.

Hogan is the recipient of the U.S. Department of Education Grant for Doctoral Leadership Program in Behavioral Disorders and the Augusta State University Faculty Research and Development Grant.

She holds a Ph.D. in special education and criminal justice from the University of North Texas.

Scientists have found an early step in how the brain’s inhibitory cells get excited.

A natural balance of excitement and inhibition keeps the brain from firing electrical impulses randomly and excessively, resulting in problems such as schizophrenia and seizures.  However excitement is required to put on the brakes.  

“When the inhibitory neuron is excited, its job is to suppress whatever activity it touches,” said Dr. Lin Mei, Director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Genetics at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University and corresponding author of the study in Nature Neuroscience.  

Mei and his colleagues found that the protein erbin, crucial to brain development, is critical to the excitement.

It was known that a protein on the cell surface called TARP gamma-2, also known as stargazing, interacts with a brain cell receptor called AMPA, ensuring the receptor finds the cells surface. It is here that the receptor can be activated by the neurotransmitter glutamate. AMPA receptor activation is essential to activation of the NMDA receptor, which enables cells to communicate, ultimately enabling learning and memory, Mei said. How TARP gamma-2 was controlled, was an unknown.

Inside the nucleus of inhibitory cells in areas of the brain that control learning and memory, the researchers found erbin interacts with TARP gamma-2, enabling it to survive.  “If you do not have this mechanism, your stargazing becomes very unstable and your AMPA receptor cannot be on the surface so this neuron is inactive,” Mei said. They also found that erbin is only in these inhibitory neurons, called interneurons. They’re already working on what they believe to be the counterpart for excitatory cells, which account for about 80 percent of brain cells.

 “Interneurons basically control firing,” releasing GABA, a major inhibitory neurotransmitter, Mei said. They tone down or synchronize the activity of pyramidal cells, pyramid-shaped neurons that get both excitatory and inhibitory input then make the call on what action to take.  

When scientists ablated the erbin gene in mice or kept erbin from interacting with TARP gamma-2, a protein that helps anchor the AMPA receptor on the cell surface, TARP gamma-2 couldn’t do its job. The result was less receptors on the cell surface and mice that were hyperactive with impaired learning and memory.

Cell activity hinges on receptor activity and receptors must be anchored on the cell surface to work. Ensuring AMPA receptors are strategically placed is a lifelong task since the busy receptors wear out and each brain cell has tons of them, Mei said.

He and his colleagues reported in the journal, Neuron, in 2007, two genes – neuregulin-1 and its receptor ErbB4 – that help maintain a healthy balance of excitement and inhibition by releasing GABA at the sight of inhibitory synapses, the communication paths between neurons.  Years before, they showed the genes were also at excitatory synapses, where they also could quash activation. Both genes are involved in human development and implicated in schizophrenia and cancer.

Mei is a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Neuroscience.

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Georgia Regents University cancer researchers are expanding the reach of an easy-to-use algorithm that could keep 30 percent of patients with a rare but deadly form of leukemia from dying within the first month of diagnosis.

The GRU Cancer Center and Dr. Anand Jillella, Associate Cancer Center Director for Clinical Affairs and Chief of Hematology/Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant, have received a $1.67 million grant over the next five years from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to expand the project throughout Georgia and South Carolina.

Along with its project partners—Emory University in Atlanta, the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, Northside Hospital in Atlanta and Upstate Oncology Associates in Greenville—the GRU Cancer Center will use the funding in hopes of decreasing early death rates in patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia.

Studies at Stanford University, the Swedish Adult Leukemia Registry and a U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program analysis demonstrate that almost 1 in 3 patients with APL die within a month of diagnosis. Patients with APL develop an abnormally high level of immature white blood cells (promyelocytes) in their bone marrow, resulting in a shortage of healthy red and white blood cells and platelets.

But Jillella likens this new approach to national initiatives that helped prevent heart attack-related death by reducing door-to-balloon times. In APL, he focused on condensing the existing complex, multiple-page standard of care into a simple, one-and-a-half-page algorithm (easily emailed or faxed to physicians) to help prevent delays in diagnosis and treatment; bleeding; side effects of treatment; and infection—all identified as major causes of early death in APL.

“Similar to heart attack patients in the first minutes after diagnosis, those with APL who can be treated quickly, aggressively and proactively within the first month after diagnosis have better outcomes,” he said. In fact, none of 12 APL patients in a GRU pilot study died after use of the new protocol.

Led by leukemia experts at the partner centers, the grant will focus on:

• Educating hematologists/oncologists throughout Georgia and South Carolina to better recognize APL, leading to rapid diagnosis and, if needed, transfer to an experienced treatment center;
• Simplifying the treatment algorithm at these hospitals;
• Providing 24/7 experts to guide hematologists at outlying hospitals from diagnosis through the 30-day initial management period.

Investigators particularly hope to target smaller centers to improve care in outlying areas. “Because this is such a relatively uncommon cancer, one simple misstep in the early stages of treatment could lead to increased morbidity or mortality,” said Dr. Vamsi Kota, medical oncologist at the GRU Cancer Center and a study co-investigator. “What we’re hoping to achieve is a system-wide approach, where physicians everywhere will follow the exact same steps every time.”

While the high early death rate of APL is widely known, this project is the first large-scale population-wide study in the country testing an intervention to decrease APL’s death rate. “If it is successful, this project will have global implications,” said Jillella.

“This is actually a very treatable cancer,” added Kim Cheely, Oncology Nurse Manager at the GRU Cancer Center. “But the biggest obstacle has been the complications that patients can get early on. We’ve really developed the very best recipe for managing patients’ disease.”

An aggressive education program for oncologists in the catchment area began in January, with patient enrollment slated to begin in July. Project results will be reported and published in 2017.

“As a cancer center that conducts research, our role is to enhance cancer care for citizens here in Georgia and South Carolina, and, ultimately, around the world—through projects that advance the standard of care for cancer,” said Dr. Samir N. Khleif, Director of the GRU Cancer Center. “This study exemplifies the accomplished work performed by our physician-scientists every day.”

Georgia Regents Health System physicians now have a quick, thorough method to identify the viruses and bacteria causing respiratory illness.

Within an hour the technique, called polymerase chain reaction, determines which of 21 common viruses and bacteria are causing coughing, hacking, wheezing and other respiratory symptoms. That information tells physicians how best to treat – or not treat – the illness. It’s also giving physicians an accurate snapshot of circulating pathogens and when they occur.

“Our goal is to get patients the most rapid, accurate diagnosis,” said Dr. Christine M. Litwin, Medical Director of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at GR Health System and Professor in the Medical College of Georgia Department of Pathology.  “You don’t have to grow a virus, that takes days and we don’t always have days. You can go right to the molecular level to identify it and you don’t need much material to do that. PCR is very, very sensitive.”

PCR enables rapid copying of DNA, in this case found in a small nasal sample, to determine whether it’s the rhinovirus which causes the common cold, several different Variations of influenza virus or the new metapneumovirus that is making people sick. Since in the majority of respiratory viruses RNA actually carries the genetic information, it first converts RNA back to DNA.

“This is the wave of the future for more rapid diagnosis,” said Dr. Dennis L. Murray,  Chief of the MCG Section of Pediatric Infectious Diseases.

At the Health System, most of the PCR testing is done in children age 5 and younger, who are most vulnerable to respiratory infections. The elderly, who may have multiple other medical conditions, are another vulnerable population.

“Children have many more viral infections than adults because kids get closer to each other,” Murray said. “They pass colds and other viral kinds of diseases around.” Young children also are more susceptible because their immune systems are less experienced than adults’ and not as prepared to fight an infection.

While there is not a proven treatment for every viral infection they can now detect, Murray notes in the case of viruses causing respiratory illness it can be as important to know what not to give: antibiotics, which are effective only against bacterial infections and are overprescribed in the United States. Overuse is hurting the effectiveness of the drugs when they are needed and, while use is finally trending downward, Murray says he regularly runs across cases of antibiotic resistance. There are conditions, such as certain pneumonias, caused by both a virus and bacteria, but in children pneumonia it’s usually viral, Murray said. Drugs such as Tamiflu, can diminish the duration and intensity of the flu. The kind of detail provided by PCR will become even more useful, as more therapies emerge, he said.

Despite the sophistication of the information generated, the PCR system is simple to use: the self-contained reagent pouch goes inside the machine, the hydrating solution goes in one side and the nasal sample goes in the other. Litwin notes its simplicity and rapidity dramatically improve lab efficiency.

The long-time standard has been growing a sample in culture for about three days, which requires virology skills to run and read and days to get results. It’s also limited in what it can find and some viruses and bacteria grow better in culture than others. Antigen tests also are available for certain pathogens, but also are not as rapid or as specific as PCR, which can reduce the need for multiple tests in a single patient.

Previously, for example, the lab could not diagnose the new metapneumovirus infection much less determine its incidence in the region, Litwin said. They also have numerous examples where the older tests produced negative findings while the more sensitive PCR was able to identify the infection type, she said.

PCR enables relatively inexpensive and rapid replication of DNA, making millions or even a billion copies available within a few hours rather than a few days. First used as a research tool, it’s moving into clinical settings to help diagnose divergent maladies such as cancer and genetic disorders.

For respiratory infections, GR Health System is using the FilmArray® Instrument, developed by BioFire Diagnostics, Inc., a spinoff biotech company of the University of Utah.  Litwin, who came to MCG and GRU last year from the University of Utah where she was Medical Director of Microbial Immunology, worked to bring the PCR technology to Augusta. She is supplying BioFire Diagnostics with stool samples from area children as the company finalizes similar technology that can determine the source of diarrhea.

“As we continue creating the next great American university, it is essential that we demonstrate a single, unified brand identity that reflects the scope and impact of our mission,” said Dr. Ricardo Azziz, President of Georgia Regents University and CEO of the Health System. “Georgia Regents University is an education, research and innovation hub that fosters a world-class health care delivery system. Today, that clinical enterprise became Georgia Regents Health System; our adult hospital became Georgia Regents Medical Center and our Children’s Medical Center is now Children’s Hospital of Georgia. These are truly exciting times for GRU.”

The 478-bed Georgia Regents Medical Center, which houses Georgia’s first Level I Trauma Center, treated nearly 16,000 inpatients and 357,000 outpatients last year. In addition, there were more than 83,000 emergency room visits, and the hospital provided about $35 million in indigent care.

“We’ve taken another giant leap into our future,” said David Hefner, CEO of the Medical Center and Medical Associates and EVP for Clinical Affairs for the Health System. “As ‘Georgia Regents Medical Center,’ we will continue to recruit and retain the nation’s top physician scientists in order to discover and deliver innovative, expert treatment, while maintaining an environment focused on compassionate, Patient- and Family-Centered Care.”

Founded as the first children’s hospital in the South, the 154-bed Children’s Hospital of Georgia is the second largest in the state. The hospital cares for the most vulnerable newborns in its Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and the most acutely ill kids in its Level I Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

“The name ‘Children’s Hospital of Georgia’ more closely reflects the vision not only for GRU, but for the children’s hospital itself,” said Dr. Bernard L. Maria, Medical Director of Children’s Hospital of Georgia and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at GRU’s Medical College of Georgia. “We serve children and families from every county in Georgia and beyond. We have pediatric care partnerships in the four corners of the state – Albany, Savannah, Rome and Athens. We are a proven leader, earning top national rankings in quality and safety when compared to our peers. We believe ‘Children’s Hospital of Georgia’ is the right name. It certainly fits,” Maria said.

The boards also approved renaming all other clinical operations to include Georgia Regents. The Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of Georgia Health Sciences Medical Associates, the physicians practice group, voted to change its name to Georgia Regents Medical Associates earlier this month.

New logos will be released at a later date.

The legal names of the organizations remain unchanged.

Augusta, GA – Knology of Augusta – a leading cable, digital phone and high-speed Internet services provider – today announced it will donate $7,830 to the Georgia Health Sciences University Cancer Center to support research for the treatment and prevention of cancers below the waist.

All funds were raised at Knology of Augusta’s First Annual 5k Pajama Run, which took place on Sept. 22 at GreenJackets Stadium. The run drew more than 300 participants in its inaugural event.

“We were thrilled to see such a large group come out and support our first Pajama Run in Augusta,” says Abu Khan, general manager for Knology of Augusta. “It is truly a reflection on our community members and their drive to help fund research for cancers occurring below the waist.”

“Our thanks go out to Knology and to our greater community for their support of these types of cancers, which affect hundreds of patients in this area alone—and thousands throughout the state of Georgia,“ said Dr. Samir N. Khleif, Director of the Georgia Health Sciences University Cancer Center. “Together, we can advance care for these patients, thanks to ongoing support of both basic research and innovative clinical trials.”

Since the first Pajama Run was held in its Charleston, S.C. division in 2008, Knology has drawn thousands of pajama-clad participants and raised more than $50,000 for cancer research. The event aims to educate communities about ovarian, testicular, prostate, bladder and colon cancers.

About Knology

Knology, Inc., headquartered in West Point, Georgia, is a leading provider of interactive communications and entertainment services. Knology serves residential and business customers with one of the most technologically advanced broadband networks in the country. Innovative offerings include over 200 channels of digital cable TV, local and long distance digital telephone service with the latest enhanced voice messaging features, and high-speed Internet access that enables consumers to quickly download video, audio and graphic files using a cable modem. For more information please visit www.knology.com or www.connectwithknology.com.

On Jan. 8, 2013, Georgia Regents University became a new university when Augusta State University and Georgia Health Sciences University consolidated. Undergraduate nursing was the only duplicate academic program at both universities, requiring that the two programs be combined into one with new admission guidelines, a new curriculum and new program standards.

“With the combined student population, GRU College of Nursing is the largest nursing school in the state of Georgia,” said Dean Lucy Marion. The college will launch a brand new Bachelor of Science in Nursing program in Fall 2013. All undergraduate nursing students will attend classes on the Health Sciences Campus in Augusta, where GRU’s hospitals are located, or at the college’s satellite campus in Athens.

“The inaugural BSN Class will experience a brand new GRU BSN curriculum—more than the sum of the parts from ASU and GHSU nursing,” Marion said. “We have highly experienced and dedicated faculty ready to educate students and provide a fantastic journey for each to become an excellent professional nurse.”

GRU College of Nursing will offer students hands-on learning opportunities in simulation labs, instruction from faculty with varied experiences and diverse backgrounds and the opportunity to work alongside students from other health professions.

“The ideal applicant has a commitment to the nursing profession, caring for others who cannot care for themselves and striving for better health. The applicant needs to be flexible, change-oriented, able to describe how they have worked well independently and with a team and have outside interests and hobbies,” said Rebecca Rule, GHSU BSN Program Director for the teach-out and the Interim GRU BSN Program Director.

GRU College of Nursing will teach out two different curricula from ASU and GHSU for students previously enrolled in the nursing program at one of the institutions.

“Individuals with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing are in demand, and employers have expressed a need for these professionals. Previous graduates have accepted positions in a variety of settings,” Marion said.

 To apply for the program or learn more about the admission requirements, visit http://www.georgiahealth.edu/nursing/bsn.html.

Students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty and staff from the GRU Section of Experimental Medicine and College of Allied Health Sciences will staff information tables from noon to 2 p.m. at the Health Sciences Campus Student Center on Friday, Feb. 1, and at the Summerville Campus Jaguar Student Activities Center on Friday, Feb. 8. They will give out information on cardiovascular disease and risk factors in women and offer free blood pressure screenings.

The GRU Medical College of Georgia Department of Medicine will also sponsor a presentation by Dr. Virginia Huxley, Director of the National Center for Gender Physiology at the University of Missouri, at noon on Thursday, Feb. 7, in Room 140 of the GRU Auditoria Center.

Huxley’s research efforts are focused on understanding the structure and regulation of small blood vessels. In her presentation, Cellular Sex-Identity Impacts Vascular Function in Health and Disease: Is it Time to Reconsider the Paradigm That One Size Fits All?, she will discuss how her research has shown distinct differences between male and female blood vessels, suggesting that general conclusions based on the study of one gender’s blood vessels may not be widely applicable.

In addition to campus events throughout February, GRU will also organize a team to participate in the American Heart Association’s Heart Walk, Saturday, March 9 at the North Augusta Greenway. Last year, the university and its clinical system raised $117,000 for the AHA. Last year, GRU received nearly $7 million in funding from the American Heart Association placing it among the top 10 in the nation and number one in funding per capita.

To participate in the Heart Walk, contact Nancy Hannan, Department Administrator for the Section of Cardiothoracic Surgery, at nhannan@gru.edu or by phone at 706-721-1118.

More than 100 students from Collins Elementary School in Richmond County will receive complimentary screenings, fillings and preventive treatments such as sealants from GRU dental and dental hygiene students, said Dr. Tara Schafer, director of the Pediatric Dentistry Residency Program.

The ADA began the program in 2003 as a way for members to join with others in the community to provide dental services to underserved children. It began as a one-day event, but it has since grown to local and national events that happen year round. Dentists and other team members volunteer their time and services to provide dental education and treatment to children throughout the United States. Each year, approximately 450,000 children benefit from more than 1,500 events, Schafer said.

“It’s a way for dentists to join with others in the community to provide dental services to children who may not otherwise have access to care,” Schafer said. “We really enjoy the chance to give back, and it’s a great day for all involved.”

In addition to being a chance to give back to the community, the day often creates learning opportunities for students, said Ana Thompson, Associate Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Dental Hygiene.

“Give Kids a Smile Day is an opportunity for dental and dental hygiene students to work together providing basic care to a large group of children with diverse dental needs,” she said. “But the best part is that children also learn about oral hygiene and prevention of dental disease while having a good time. They really enjoy the comfortable environment of the new dental building, which we hope reduces dental anxiety.”

For more information, visit www.givekidsasmile.ada.org.

Researchers want to know whether a sleeping pill reduces suicidal thoughts in depressed patients with insomnia.

“The more we look at it, the more it looks like insomnia by itself is a predictor of suicide so the next question becomes: Why not treat insomnia strategically as a focus of care and see if that reduces suicidal thinking,” said Dr. W. Vaughn McCall, Chair of the Medical College of Georgia Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at Georgia Regents University.

McCall is principal investigator on a $1.2 million National Institute of Mental Health grant to objectively assess patient response to this strategy. The study at GRU, Duke University and the University of Wisconsin is enrolling 138 adults over four years. To help ensure their safety, all participants will receive the anti-depressant fluoxetine for the eight-week trial while half will also get the sedative-hypnotic zolpidem.

It’s a complex treatment conundrum that the study hopes to unravel. Some physicians are understandably concerned about giving sleeping pills to people with suicidal thoughts. “We are faced very commonly with a patient who is not sleeping, is depressed, is suicidal and the treating physician is understandably concerned about giving that patient sleeping pills,” McCall said.

In fact, some sleep experts routinely condemn sleeping pills, saying the pills are potentially deadly, independent of suicide. Other people with chronic insomnia never seek professional help, trying home or natural remedies while their negative thoughts about sleep escalate. If they do seek medical care as problems mount, they may find themselves with a doctor hesitant or even adamant about hypnotics, McCall said.

If researchers can show a direct link between insomnia treatment and reduced suicidal thinking, it could help mainstream targeted drug therapy as well as non-drug approaches such as cognitive behavior therapy, a structured talk therapy that targets faulty thinking such as, ‘I will never sleep again,’ said McCall, who also uses this approach.

Researchers have evidence that the intensity of insomnia correlates with the intensity of suicidal thoughts as well as a pilot study linking proactive hypnotic treatment to reduced suicidal thoughts. In fact, 31 studies have linked insomnia to suicidal thoughts, behavior or death. Still suicide risk factors and prevention often overlook insomnia, McCall said.

Acknowledging the very vulnerable population they study, there are numerous safeguards built into the research protocol such as participants only getting one week’s supply of sleeping pills for the first two weeks, then getting a two-week supply if their suicidal thoughts stabilize. Additionally, they will be asked to take the drug shortly before going to bed and to allow eight hours for sleep.

Sleeping pills such aszolpidem accentuate the body’s normal mechanism for sleep by targeting GABA, a neurotransmitter that essentially turns the brain’s metabolism down, McCall said. Existing antidepressants don’t affect GABA.  Many over-the-counter sleep aids are essentially anti-histamines; histamine is another neurotransmitter that helps keep you awake. In insomniacs, GABA tends to be underactive while histamine works overtime.

Insomnia is a symptom and about half of all cases are related to a mental disorder such as depression. About 90 percent of patients hospitalized for depression and 60 percent of those treated as outpatients also have insomnia, McCall said.  Not sleeping also can also be tied to personality, specifically hypervigilant individuals who are always “on.” “They just can’t relax,” said McCall, who admits to at least a small case of that himself. Others have life-issues, such as divorce or illness, that can cause transient insomnia. In others, it’s a long-standing problem with no obvious basis.

Patients with insomnia that persists over a year have a 30-fold increased risk of developing depression compared to the insomniac who gets treatment. “That is like the risk of cigarette smoking for cancer: it’s huge,” McCall said. This begs more questions about how insomnia causes depression and, if you’re already depressed, how insomnia aggravates suicide risk, he said.

He notes there is a subset of depressed people, particularly young people, who sleep too much, and that older people generally have a harder time falling and staying asleep.

Wake Forest University will assist in statistical analysis for the study. Individuals with sleep apnea as severe suicidal thoughts will be excluded. Participants will be referred for outpatient management at the end of the study.

For more information, contact Senior Research Assistant Mary Anne Riley at mriley1@georgiahealth.edu or (706) 721-1011.

Augusta, GA—For many cancer patients, it can feel like they’re spending as much time coordinating appointments and waiting for referrals as they are in getting treatment.

It’s the typical model of cancer care, where patients must self-navigate a complex arrangement of multiple specialists—including cancer physicians, surgeons, radiation specialists, dietitians, mental health providers, social workers, supportive services, and much more.

“Can you imagine living with a diagnosis of cancer and struggling with all those typical logistics of care? That’s very hard on patients and their families,” said Dr. Samir N. Khleif, who joined the Georgia Health Sciences University Cancer Center as its director in January. “But there’s a better way to deliver cancer care, and we are making it our mission to do just that. When you can coordinate care, it makes it easier for the patient—and also ends up resulting in better care. It’s a model that leading cancer centers, including GHSU, are moving toward.”

Georgia Health Sciences University Cancer Center is launching this new model of care in its cancer clinics, including breast, gynecologic oncology, head and neck, bone marrow transplant/leukemia, lymphoma, gastrointestinal/liver/pancreas, genitourinary (prostate), lung, central nervous system, melanoma/sarcoma and symptom management. This new multidisciplinary approach focuses on a more streamlined process to deliver cancer care that puts the patient’s needs first.

Dr. E. James Kruse, a surgical oncologist at GHSU who specializes in cancers of the gastrointestinal tract, liver and pancreas, has worked under a similar model in his previous role at the Medical College of Virginia. “It’s a great concept,” said Dr. Kruse. “Multidisciplinary care puts the patient first by literally bringing the patient and family to the same table with all the health care providers involved in their cancer treatment. We work on a treatment plan together, and everyone leaves in agreement on the best treatment options for the patient.”

The multidisciplinary model focuses on:

Communication. During the initial appointment, patients and families participate in a discussion with their entire cancer team—including physicians, surgeons, dietitians, social workers, mental health providers and more—about the recommended treatment plan. Patients and families are encouraged to ask questions and the plan is refined through team input.

Convenient, Comprehensive and Coordinated Care. In the old model, the patient held the burden of coordinating the plan of care among multiple specialists during multiple appointments at various locations. Under a multidisciplinary model, a complete plan—including medical and surgical needs, as well as pain management, nutrition, psychosocial needs, support for both patient and family, and more—is formulated at the first appointment with input from the entire team, at one time and at one location.

Connection. A dedicated cancer navigator, who is an RN, serves as the patient’s single point of contact for physicians, as well as for any care needs, help with resources or questions, eliminating the need for phone calls to multiple offices.

“In essence, we are caring for the whole person,” said Dr. Asha Nayak, a medical oncologist with the GI clinic who, along with Dr. Kruse, cares for nearly 150 new cases of digestive cancer annually at GHSU. “Cancer affects so much more than just a person’s physical well-being. A multidisciplinary approach focuses on that aspect of care, but even more than that, it proactively addresses those many other needs that affect a cancer patient and their family.”

“It really draws a more complete picture of a patient’s care by bringing all the players to the same table,” said Kim Luckey, RN, navigator for the GI clinic at GHSU. “By sitting down together, we are able to present the treatment plan to the patient and family in a more complete way, interacting together to address their questions and concerns, instead of a patient having to get in touch with multiple care providers and wait for a response.”

Recent studies on multidisciplinary care models have found that patients are more satisfied with their care, have an improved care experience, benefit from higher-quality, evidence-based care and may experience better outcomes. Physician and staff satisfaction also improves.

The multidisciplinary model of care is part of Georgia Health Sciences University Cancer Center’s mission to provide the highest level of cancer care in the region and beyond. The GHSU Cancer Center is also working toward achieving National Cancer Institute designation.

The 42-year-old organization represents more than 60 institutions across the world that teach undergraduate and graduate pathology.

Dr. Diane Turnbull, MCG’s Director of Phase 2 Curriculum Development, is hosting the 2013 GRIPE Winter Meeting of about 60 participants today at the Robert B. Greenblatt, M.D. Library on GRU’s Health Sciences Campus. Presentations by many MCG educators will highlight today’s session, with a focus on curriculum, evaluation and pedagogy.  Remaining sessions will be at Augusta Marriott at the Convention Center.

Following is a statement from Georgia Regents University President Ricardo Azziz, regarding today’s State of the State Address by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal.

“I am extremely appreciative and encouraged by Gov. Nathan Deal’s comments today in his State of the State Address. The Governor not only demonstrated he is well aware of the state’s future health care and educational needs, but he also explicitly mentioned the excellent work we are doing at Georgia Regents University. Among the highlights of his speech:

• A call for an additional $2 million to support the expansion of graduate medical education at hospitals throughout the state, helping ensure that physicians completing their training in Georgia remain here to practice.
• Increase hospital reimbursements to help the state’s hospitals and health care providers contend with the approximate 100,000 additional Medicaid recipients to be covered under new federal health care legislation.
• Increase funding for the Hope scholarship by 3 percent over last year, increasing total scholarship funds to nearly $600 million.
• A commitment to implement the Higher Education Funding Commission’s recommendations – which will serve to transition the higher education funding system from enrollment-based to outcomes-based – further supporting GRU and the university system’s Complete College Georgia plans.

These great words of support should highlight to all of us the great value we bring to our students and the state of Georgia, and the extremely bright future of our institution.”

“When it comes to stroke, time is brain. Treatment within the first three hours – the golden window for stroke – is critical to saving the millions of neurons vital for human function,” said Dr. David Hess, Medical Director of the Primary Stroke Center and Chair of the Department of Neurology at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University. GHS Medical Center is currently one of only about a dozen hospitals in Georgia to make the Target Stroke Honor Roll, making it among the fastest in the nation for life-saving care.

Hospital measures include aggressive use of the clot-busting drug tissue plasminogen activator, commonly known as tPA, and a fast-track protocol to diagnose and treat stroke within a 60-minute window. The multidisciplinary stroke team includes physicians, nurses and staff from emergency, neurology, radiology, pathology and other specialists who work together in a seamless process. Target Stroke Honor Roll recognizes hospitals that treat at least half of eligible patients with tPA within an hour of their arrival to the emergency department.

In addition, GHS earned the AHA/ASA Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award for the second consecutive year for achieving 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines Stroke Quality Achievement Indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals and 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 stroke quality measures during the same time period.

These measures include tPA use, anticoagulation therapy, cholesterol-lowering drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients. Studies have shown that patients who are taught to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital are less likely to have another stroke.

Stroke is a leading cause of death and serious long-term disability in the United States. On average, someone dies of a stroke every four minutes. GHS Medical Center, located in the heart of the Stroke Belt, is designated as a Primary Care Stroke Center by the Georgia Department of Public Health Office of EMS and Trauma and the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations

Patients in rural Georgia hospitals have fast access to quality stroke care at GHS through REACH Health, Inc., a telemedicine program pioneered at GRU’s Medical College of Georgia that allows neurologists to diagnose and treat stroke patients remotely. Hospitals in partnership with GHS Medical Center for remote stroke care include Burke Medical Center, Coliseum Medical Centers, Elbert Memorial Hospital, Emanuel Medical Center, Fairview Park Hospital, Jefferson Hospital, Jenkins County Hospital, McDuffie Regional Medical Center, Morgan Memorial Hospital, Palmyra Medical Center, St. Mary’s Hospital, St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital, Tift Regional Medical Center, Ty Cobb Memorial Hospital, Washington County Regional Medical Center, West Georgia Hospital and Wills Memorial Hospital.

For more information, please contact Lauren Neville, 706-724-6100.

DeRemer has been a hematology/oncology pharmacy clinical specialist for the Bone Marrow Transplant program since joining the health system at GRU in 2005. DeRemer is also a Clinical Associate Professor in the University of Georgia’s College of Pharmacy and serves as post-graduate year two oncology residency program director for GRU-UGA.

He earned his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Kentucky in 2002 and completed both a pharmacy practice residency and a hematology/oncology specialty residency at UK Medical Center. DeRemer completed a one-year oncology fellowship with emphasis in drug discovery and development at the UK College of Pharmacy.

His teaching, clinical service and scholarship interests include drug research, hematological malignancies, bone marrow transplant and supportive care. In addition to GSHP, he is a member of the Hematology Oncology Pharmacy Association, the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, American College of Clinical Pharmacy and the American Society of Health System Pharmacists.

Campus offices will reopen Tuesday, Jan. 22.

]]> http://news.georgiahealth.edu/archives/7407/feed 0 c http://news.georgiahealth.edu/archives/7407 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ghsunews/~3/CkF39Jfwo1I/7401 http://news.georgiahealth.edu/archives/7401#comments Tue, 15 Jan 2013 13:36:07 +0000 Toni Baker https://news.georgiahealth.edu/?p=7401 Dr. Sylvia Smith, Interim Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and Co-Director of the Vision Discovery Institute at Georgia Regents University, has been named Chair of the Medical College of Georgia Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy. Smith, a … Continue reading →]]>

Dr. Sylvia Smith, Interim Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and Co-Director of the Vision Discovery Institute at Georgia Regents University, has been named Chair of the Medical College of Georgia Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy.

Smith, a faculty member in the department for more than 20 years, assumes her new duties Feb. 1. Smith will maintain co-leadership of the Vision Discovery Institute with MCG Ophthalmology Chair Julian Nussbaum. GRU Provost Gretchen Caughman has selected Dr. Patricia Cameron, Acting Vice Dean of the College of Graduate Studies, to serve as the college’s Interim Dean while the national search for that position is completed.

“Sylvia already is an accomplished leader who inspires by the excellent example of her strong work ethic, upbeat nature and tireless sense of the importance of teamwork,” said Dr. Peter F. Buckley, MCG Dean.  “In her two decades with us, she has been an enthusiastic educator, a strong mentor and colleague. She takes the reins of a solid department with excellent faculty that was wonderfully managed by Dr. Sally Atherton who retired from MCG this month and is now Executive Director of The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.”

“Sylvia’s willingness to step up to serve our university as Interim Dean of Graduate Studies and the skill she has shown in that role are much appreciated and another clear gauge of her excellent leadership skills,” Caughman said. “We congratulate her on this new position.”

Smith, a retinal cell biologist and Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, is renowned for her research on retinal function, particularly retinal degeneration. In 2010, she was one of 54 women in North America selected a Fellow in the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine, or ELAM, Program, the nation’s only in-depth national course preparing senior female faculty for leadership positions at academic health centers.

She received the GRU Research Institute’s 2007 Mahesh Distinguished Research Award for significant and sustained contributions to research, sustained external funding and outstanding mentoring and leadership. Smith, currently the principal investigator on two National Institutes of Health grants totaling more than $2.24 million, has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1992. She has served on numerous NIH Study Sections, is an editorial board member of the journal Ophthalmology and Eye Diseases and a guest editorial board member for Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Current Eye Research and Molecular Vision.

Smith is a member of MCG Faculty Appointments/Promotions/Tenure Committee and Pre- and Post-Tenures Committees. She also is a member of the M.D./Ph.D. Advisory Committee. She served as the medical school’s Associate Dean for Students from 2004-08. As a founding Co-Director of the Vision Discovery Institute, she has helped grow vision-related science and education at GRU in the past five years.

She completed postdoctoral training at NIH’s Laboratory of Retinal Cell and Molecular Biology.

More than 1,500 IHOP restaurants across the United States, including four in the Augusta-Aiken area, will invite diners to enjoy a complimentary short stack of IHOP’s signature buttermilk pancakes and to consider donating what they would have paid, or more, for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.

Local participating IHOPs are located at:

•    2525 Washington Road, Augusta
•    3125 Peach Orchard Road, Augusta
•    4361 Washington Road, Evans
•    180 Aiken Mall Drive, Aiken

IHOP’s Pancake Day brought in more than $3,200 for the Children’s Medical Center in 2012.

“Those funds were used by our respiratory therapy team to purchase specialized equipment for patients with asthma and other breathing issues,” said Catherine Stewart, CMN Development Coordinator. “The Children’s Medical Center is a not-for-profit hospital, so we are truly grateful for the financial support from our community we receive through special events like National Pancake Day.”

About GHS Children’s Medical Center
The 154-bed Children’s Medical Center is the second largest children’s hospital in the state, providing the highest level of pediatric critical care and neonatal intensive care as well as a wide range of general and complex health care for children.

About IHOP
For 52 years, the IHOP family restaurant chain has served famous pancakes and a wide variety of breakfast, lunch and dinner items for all ages. IHOP strives to offer its guests an affordable, everyday dining experience with warm and friendly service. The first IHOP opened in Toluca Lake, Calif., in 1958. There are currently 1,438 IHOPs across the greater United States. IHOP restaurants are franchised and operated by Glendale, Calif.-based International House of Pancakes, LLC, and its affiliates.

Under the agreement, the university’s faculty, staff and students will be admitted free of charge to society events held on the Summerville campus. The society began its partnership with former Augusta State University in 1999 when university officials agreed to host the society’s music series at its Grover C. Maxwell Performing Arts Theatre. Prior to that, the society held its performances in the ballroom of the Old Medical College building on Telfair Street.

“We realize the importance and the value of the arts to a university and a community,” said David L. Brond, Senior Vice President for Communications and Marketing at GRU. “Its educational and cultural benefits have long been recognized and extending this benefit to the GRU community is an exciting step for the university.”

“We’re excited to partner with Augusta’s newly consolidated university,” said Quentin Kuyper, the society’s Artistic Co-Director. “We look forward to sharing new musical experiences with the Georgia Regents University family and the community of Augusta.”

To view the society’s spring 2013 concert schedule, visit http://maxwelltheatre.aug.edu/hjcms.php.

About the Harry Jacobs Chamber Music Society

For each of the last 23 years, the Harry Jacobs Chamber Music Society has presented six world-class music events for Augusta and the surrounding CSRA. In addition to this great music, the charter of the society places strong emphasis on its educational mission, and its association with Georgia Regents University is a part of this commitment. Regular master classes and clinics provided by the visiting professional Artist Ensembles help to encourage and educate the high school and university musicians who are invited to participate, as well as those who attend these classes.  For additional information, go to www.hjcms.org, or email hjcms@comcast.net.

About 100 coroners, deputy coroners and law enforcement officials will participate in this free continuing-education event featuring keynote speaker Joseph Scott Morgan, a criminal justice and forensic professor and author of the book Blood Beneath My Feet: The Journey of a Southern Death Investigator.

Other presenters include Dan Hillman, Executive Director of Child Enrichment, Inc., who will discuss how to recognize maltreatment of children. Eric Emery, Medicolegal Operations Consultant for the National Transportation Safety Board, will speak on mass fatalities and disaster victim recoveries; and the Rev. Brennan Francois, a chaplain at Georgia Health Sciences Medical Center and a motivational speaker, on making a difference in the midst of tragedy.

The symposium provides valuable training to the coroners who participate, while also raising awareness about organ and tissue donations.

“One tissue donor can enhance the lives of more than 50 people,” said Carl Eubanks, Director of Tissue Donor Services at GHS Medical Center. “Coroners work with families who’ve lost loved ones. If they can broach the subject of organ donation with the families they encounter, perhaps these families will choose to give the gift of life to another, and maybe experience a touch of hope during their loss.”

For more information about the symposium, call Eubanks at 706-533-4210, or Augusta-Richmond County Chief Deputy Coroner Mark Bowen at 706-821-2383.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. Lewis V. Baldwin, a historian and author who specializes in the history of black churches, will be the guest speaker at an annual celebration service in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The event, hosted by Augusta Technical College, Georgia Regents University and Paine College, will be at noon Friday, Jan. 18, at GRU’s Maxwell Performing Arts Theatre. The public is welcome.

Baldwin, a native of Camden, Ala., participated in civil rights demonstrations as a student in Wilcox County public schools, the heart of the so-called Alabama blackbelt, and at Talladega College in Talladega, Ala.

He has co-authored or authored seven books on Dr. King, including There is a Balm in Gilead: The Cultural Roots of Martin Luther King, Jr., which received the Midwest Independent Publishers Association’s Best All-Around Book and Midwest Book Achievement awards in 1992. He also recently edited and introduced two volumes of King documents as part of the Beacon Press’s King Legacy Series.

Baldwin has a master of art degree in black church studies, a master of divinity in theology and a doctoral degree in American Christianity. Baldwin was ordained in 1978 and has preached and appeared on radio and television programs throughout the country and is currently a professor of religious studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He was inducted into Morehouse College’s Martin Luther King Jr. International Collegium of Scholars in 2004.

In addition to remarks by Baldwin, the service will feature performances by choruses from GRU and Paine. The Jaguar Express bus will make two runs between the Health Sciences and Summerville campuses, with pick-ups at 11:15 and 11:45 on Laney Walker Boulevard, in front of the old dental school. Another shuttle will pick riders up from the Health Sciences Campus, Annex 1, North Entrance at 11:30 a.m.

For more information, call Felicia Smalls in the GRU Office of the Provost, 706-721-4014.

“This is an important step in promoting, protecting and managing the new Georgia Regents University brand – locally, regionally and nationally,” said David L. Brond, Senior Vice President for Communications and Marketing at GRU. “LRG brings collegiate and industry expertise and experience that will be integral to creating and maintaining a trademark licensing program.”

LRG will assist the newly consolidated university in establishing a trademark licensing program that will be managed from the group’s North Carolina office.

“The program will not only help to ensure quality and consistency in the products carrying the Georgia Regents University and athletics marks but support the creation of a strong brand that is both distinctive and recognizable,” Brond said.

“We are thrilled to partner with Georgia Regents University,” said LRG President and CEO Lewis Hardy. “Our focus will be the creation of a merchandising program, which will offer products that appeal to the university’s faculty, staff, students and supporters, while establishing and protecting the institution’s trademarks in various streams of commerce.”

About the Licensing Resource Group

Founded in 1991, LRG represents more than 180 universities, colleges, athletic conferences and special properties nationwide. LRG provides trademark management services including contract management, merchandising, brand development, information technology, and royalty management from offices in Michigan, North Carolina, Iowa and Rhode Island. http://www.lrgusa.com

AUGUSTA, Ga. – As we age, it just may be the ability to filter and eliminate old information – rather than take in the new stuff – that makes it harder to learn, scientists report.

“When you are young, your brain is able to strengthen certain connections and weaken certain connections to make new memories,” said Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, neuroscientist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University and Co-Director of the GRU Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute.

It’s that critical weakening that appears hampered in the older brain, according to a study in the journal Scientific Reports.

The NMDA receptor in the brain’s hippocampus is like a switch for regulating learning and memory, working through subunits called NR2A and NR2B.  NR2B is expressed in higher percentages in children, enabling neurons to talk a fraction of a second longer; make stronger bonds, called synapses; and optimize learning and memory. This formation of strong bonds is called long-term potentiation. The ratio shifts after puberty, so there is more NR2A and slightly reduced communication time between neurons.

When Tsien and his colleagues genetically modified mice that mimic the adult ratio – more NR2A, less NR2B – they were surprised to find the rodents were still good at making strong connections and short-term memories but had an impaired ability to weaken existing connections, called long-term depression, and to make new long-term memories as a result. It’s called information sculpting and adult ratios of NMDA receptor subunits don’t appear to be very good at it.

“If you only make synapses stronger and never get rid of the noise or less useful information then it’s a problem,” said Tsien, the study’s corresponding author. While each neuron averages 3,000 synapses, the relentless onslaught of information and experiences necessitates some selective whittling. Insufficient sculpting, at least in their mouse, meant a reduced ability to remember things short-term – like the ticket number at a fast-food restaurant – and long-term – like remembering a favorite menu item at that restaurant.  Both are impacted in Alzheimer’s and age-related dementia.

All long-term depression was not lost in the mice, rather just response to the specific electrical stimulation levels that should induce weakening of the synapse. Tsien expected to find the opposite: that long-term potentiation was weak and so was the ability to learn and make new memories. “What is abnormal is the ability to weaken existing connectivity.”

Acknowledging the leap, this impaired ability could also help explain why adults can’t learn a new language without their old accent and why older people tend to be more stuck in their ways, the memory researcher said.

“We know we lose the ability to perfectly speak a foreign language if we learn than language after the onset of sexual maturity. I can learn English but my Chinese accent is very difficult to get rid of. The question is why,” Tsien said.

Tsien and his colleagues already have learned what happens when NR2B is overexpressed. He and East China Normal University researchers announced in 2009 the development of Hobbie-J, a smarter than average rat. A decade earlier, Tsien reported in the journal Nature the development of a smart mouse dubbed Doogie using the same techniques to over-express the NR2B gene in the hippocampus.

Doogie, Hobbie-J and their descendants have maintained superior memory as they age. Now Tsien is interested in following the NR2A over-expressing mouse to see what happens.

Tsien is the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Cognitive and Systems Neurobiology. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the GRA.

]]> http://news.georgiahealth.edu/archives/7365/feed 5 ahttp://mcgsites.org/news/files/2013/01/tsienweb1-2.jpg http://news.georgiahealth.edu/archives/7365 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ghsunews/~3/KKCO-VHCW2E/7356 http://news.georgiahealth.edu/archives/7356#comments Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:37:34 +0000 Jennifer Scott https://news.georgiahealth.edu/?p=7356 Students and faculty from the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University are fighting obesity, one step – and one bite – at a time. Continue reading →]]>

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Students and faculty from the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University are fighting obesity, one step – and one bite – at a time.

The Pediatric Obesity Intervention Program is aimed at encouraging healthy lifestyle choices for children who were identified as overweight by their pediatrician, according to Dr. Katrina Nguyen, a pediatric gastroenterologist at the Georgia Health Sciences Children’s Medical Center. Nguyen, Pediatrics Resident Jordan Weitzner and students from MCG’s Medicine-Pediatrics Interest Group targeted local pediatricians and sent letters asking if they had patients that could benefit.

In all, four families – five adults and eight children – completed the inaugural 12-week program. Participants were offered free exercise classes weekly at the Salvation Army Kroc Center; lessons on cooking healthy meals from Kitchen 1454 Owner and Chef Edward Mendoza; meetings with dieticians; and an extra dose of motivation.  Wildtree, a healthy food company, and Kroger provided grocery items and condiments for the cooking classes, and dietary interns from GHSU and University Hospital provided information on nutrition.

“We taught them to exercise as a family and provided a simple way to prepare healthy foods,” Nguyen said. “At the end of the program, kids reported that exercise was not a chore anymore, but was an opportunity for their family to do something fun together. Children that could barely walk a block at the start of the program were able to walk about a mile by the end of the program. We think those are all great signs that we are slowly making a difference.”

Parents and their children lost between 4 and 20 pounds over the 12-week period. Twenty children will start the next 12-week program Jan. 26.

“We hope these are lessons they take with them – like how to prepare healthy alternatives to their favorite snacks and meals and how exercise can be fun,” Nguyen said.

Program organizers are hoping to increase awareness of childhood obesity as a growing health epidemic in the community by planning the first Fight Obesity! Walk with Me! 5K. The event will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 19, at the Kroc Center, 1833 Broad St. Registration is $8 for adults and two children. Additional children can register for $4 each. Children will receive a free t-shirt.

Proceeds from the race will be used to fund future sessions of the program. Register online at http://www.active.com/walking/augusta-ga/fight-obesity-walk-with-me-2013. For more information about the program or the race, contact Nguyen at 706-721-4724.

University officials have signed a three-year agreement with the Augusta Sports Council to become the title sponsor of the council’s annual half marathon and 10K, which will be renamed Georgia Regents University Augusta Half Marathon and 10K. The next race is slated for Feb. 24, 2013.

“Georgia Regents University will be committed to promoting an active and healthy lifestyle in the community,” said David Brond, Senior Vice President for Communications and Marketing at GRU. “We’re excited to partner with the Augusta Sports Council, a community organization that strengthens the quality of life and economic well-being of the citizens of Augusta.”

The race, which begins and ends at Enterprise Mill, includes tours through the city’s downtown area and historic Summerville neighborhood. More than 1,500 athletes are expected to participate in next year’s race.

“It is very exciting to have Georgia Regents University on board as the title sponsor of the Augusta Half Marathon and 10K,” said Augusta Sports Council CEO Brinsley Thigpen. “The university’s increased emphasis on public health initiatives makes it a perfect partner for the Augusta Sports Council. Working together, we will be able to grow the event and enhance our community.”

The half marathon has been the fastest growing distance road race in the United States since 2003, according to a national survey by Running USA. Of those surveyed, 35 percent of men and 39 percent of women preferred the 13.1-mile distance to other race distances.

“Our priority has always been the health and well-being of the athlete,” said Tim McLane, Head Athletic Trainer at GRU’s Sports Medicine Center. “Our team will be there to keep an eye on the runners, educating them on injury prevention and providing first aid, when necessary. We’re excited for the opportunity and look forward to continuing our partnership with the Augusta Sports Council for this event.”

Registration for the 2013 Georgia Regents University Augusta Half Marathon and 10K is now open. For more information, or to register, visit www.augustahalf.org.

“Today marks an important milestone for Georgia Regents University,” said GRU President Ricardo Azziz, who today was appointed to lead the consolidated university. “I am thankful for the trust the regents have placed in us and the partnership, support and active engagement exhibited by our faculty, staff, students, alumni, volunteers and friends throughout this consolidation process.”

Following approval of a recommendation to consolidate the two universities at its January 2012 meeting, the regents approved the new university’s mission statement in May and the name Georgia Regents University in August.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, a regional accrediting body for higher education institutions, affirmed the regents’ recommendation when it voted to approve the consolidation at its annual meeting in December. The accrediting body will make a site visit in the fall to ensure the new university is complying with accreditation principles and standards. Prior to the visit, university officials are expected to produce a self-study, or an assessment of the school and its operations.

The new  university includes nine colleges, nearly 10,000 students, more than 650 acres of campus, nearly 150 buildings, more than 1,000 full-time faculty, approximately 5,600 staff, an integrated health system and a growing intercollegiate athletics program. Its economic impact will be nearly $1.3 billion. The inaugural class of GRU will enroll in this fall.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – A virtual patient named Denise may help future physicians feel more comfortable and capable assessing suicide risk.

“Primary care doctors tend to be the frontline providers for people with mental illness so we need to put the same kind of educational effort into suicide risk assessment that we put into recognizing a heart attack,” said Dr. Adriana Foster, psychiatrist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University and principal investigator on an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention-funded study to determine how to do just that.

“Suicide risk assessment should be one of the ‘must haves,” said Foster, who hopes Denise, a mother and wife seeking psychiatric care for insomnia and a mood disorder, can help.

Suicide is occurring earlier and more often in the United States than ever before. Rates are up 25 percent in the last decade to 12.4 per 100,000 individuals annually. It’s the second-leading cause of death for college students and third for all 15-24 year olds, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Twenty percent of high school students report having seriously considered suicide during the previous 12 months.

The new MCG study of second-year medical students is helping determine if the opportunity to ask tough questions about suicide risk to a virtual (computer-simulated) patient can help real families avoid this tragedy. Forty sophomore medical students watch a video of a physician interviewing a patient with a mood disorder. The interview includes a suicide risk assessment. Another 40 students will electronically interview Denise, who was designed by the University of Florida Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering.

Later, all the students go to MCG’s Clinical Skills Center to interview an actor portraying a patient with a mood disorder. A subgroup will also interact with a second actor with a different mental health problem. These actors, called standardized patients, are trained to portray and report symptoms associated with a certain condition. Before all MCG students enter their clinically intensive third and fourth years of medical school, they spend time with these patients, honing communication and patient-examination skills.

“We hope this approach will help future practitioners deal with really difficult issues such as suicide, psychosis, anxiety and depression,” Foster said. Mood disorders, such as depression, are the most common mental health disorders coming to physician attention that carry a high risk of disability and suicide, she said.

The researchers hypothesize that students who interact with Denise will be better able to assess suicide risk in the standardized patients.  If they are right, researchers want to share Denise with other medical students through the Association of American Medical Colleges MedEdPORTAL (see https://www.mededportal.org/), an online medical education tool collection. They also want to study Denise’s long-term impact on students as they take clinical rotations in psychiatry and graduate from medical school.

While students type their questions and mostly get a typed response from Denise, the virtual interaction helps them think through what to ask and the best way to ask it. In fact, Denise tells them when she doesn’t understand. To enhance Denise’s inter-actability, MCG is sharing unanswered questions with collaborators at the University of Florida, to see if maybe she should respond. As in life, sometimes the problem is just a matter of phrasing.

Studies show that front-line providers, such as family medicine physicians, don’t feel comfortable assessing suicide risk. In countries with some of the highest suicide rate, such as Japan and Hungary, targeted provider education has helped decrease rates.

MCG already uses a virtual patient with depression in the first-year curriculum to help students learn the basics of asking about a depressed mood. First- and second-year students also get several lectures and team-based learning sessions focused on mental health, Foster said. “While there has been tremendous progress in the last few years introducing mental health topics to first- and second-year students, they tend to remain somewhat textbook- and other reading material-bound. We are trying to introduce more interactive methods.”

Warning signs of suicide include unrelenting low mood, hopelessness, desperation, anxiety, withdrawal, sleep problems, increased alcohol and/or other drug use, impulsiveness, taking unnecessary risks and threatening suicide or expressing a strong wish to die, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

“Most suicides don’t occur out of the blue,” Foster said, and most suicidal individuals are open to intervention. “Most people are actually ambivalent about it and seeking help,” making provider assessment and family/friend awareness even more important, she said. “There is a lot of stigma, a lot of things friends and family feel they should never talk about. But when you are a doctor, a lot of your patients are going to have these types of disorders in addition to physical disorders. We want our students to be prepared and not afraid to ask questions.” 

For more information about the Virtual People Factory and Virtual Experiences Research Group at the University of Florida visit http://verg.cise.ufl.edu/

AUGUSTA, Ga. – A Georgia Health Sciences University researcher has developed a topical ointment and a daily lip protector with natural ingredients to combat herpes simplex virus type 1, commonly known as cold sores and fever blisters.

Adding to his line of green tea technology-derived products, Dr. Stephen Hsu, Professor of Oral Biology in the College of Dental Medicine, created the AverTeaX^®topical ointment and the daily lip protector using esters of a green tea polyphenol called EGCG.

The formula in these products inhibits symptoms caused by herpes simplex virus and significantly shortens the duration of cold sores. The daily lip protector is designed to reduce recurrence if applied on a daily basis and also treats dry, cracked or chapped lips. The topical ointment can be applied at the first sign of a breakout for treatment. The products, called AverTeaX^®, are available at www.camellix.com (888-483-7775). Camellix LLC is the company that markets Hsu’s green tea products, including MIGHTEAFLOW^® products for dry mouth and REVITEALIZE^® shampoos for dandruff and hair loss.

“We observed that when the EGCG esters get around the cells, they protected the cells from viral infection. That means there’s a potential to prevent recurrence,” Hsu said.

In November, Hsu published a human study in “Inflammation & Allergy—Drug Target” outlining the effects of the treatment on two patients. The infection of the first patient cleared after three days (70 percent faster than usual) and the infection of the second cleared by the next day. A third patient, treated with a placebo, showed little improvement seven days later.

“That means the formula that we prepared worked very well. It either shortened the duration significantly or we could see a prevention of the breakout,” Hsu said.

Hsu is continuing the research with 60 patients, half of whom are receiving the treatment and half a placebo. In the study published in “Food and Chemical Toxicology,” Hsu collaborated with scientists from Seton Hall University, Montclair State University, California State University and Zhejiang University of China, investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus type 1 by the modified green tea polyphenol p-EGCG. The modification makes EGCG easier to use in products. The new class of compounds, including p-EGCG, is patent protected, Hsu said.

Untreated cells in the study were correlated with extensive cell death caused by viral infection. EGCG-treated cells had a significant reduction in infection, and p-EGCG-treated cells showed no infection at all.

“The bottom line is that p-EGCG is more effective than EGCG,” Hsu said. “It has no known toxicity. It can be used in preparations because it is much more stable and skin-permeable than EGCG. When we compare EGCG and p-EGCG, EGCG penetrates the skin barrier poorly and is much less effective against the herpes virus.”

The findings show promise for several types of viral infections, including herpes simplex virus type 1, herpes simplex virus type 2 (genital herpes), varicella zoster virus (which causes shingles) and human papillomavirus (which causes genital/oral warts and certain cancers).

“These viral infections are very persistent and difficult to treat. Recurrence is very common,” Hsu said.

Current treatments for these viruses include oral or topical antiviral drugs, which can have numerous side effects and impact quality of life.

“These antiviral drugs can also induce mutations in the virus and cause it to form resistant mutants, which pose a potential threat to humans. If you have a drug-resistant mutant, it could spread out and cause more problems without an immediate strategy for treatment,” Hsu said. “There is a need to develop a new approach, a new treatment for herpes infections based on a different mechanism. Our patented technology appears to fill this gap by developing a new generation of preventive and therapeutic products against viral infections. This technology is based on a modified green tea compound, which is purified and can be further developed into drugs.”

Camellix LLC is also pursuing development of new drugs with modified EGCG molecules to combat viral infections.

The full board will meet at 5:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 28, in the Murphy Building, Pathology Conference Room, BF 103.

For more information, please contact Lauren Neville, 706-724-6100.

In addition to the full board meetings, several board committees also will hold meetings that day. The Medical Center board’s committees will meet from 8-9:45 a.m. in the following locations:

Audit Committee, Children’s Medical Center, Administration Conference Room, BT  1843 Quality Committee Meetings, Children’s Medical Center, Patient Family Centered Care Conference Room, BT  C1931                                                                                                             Finance Committee, Medical Center, Administrative Conference Room, BI 2077

The Health System’s Audit Committee will meet from 10-11:45 a.m. in the Children’s Medical Center, Administrative Conference Room , BT 1843; the Finance Committee will meet from 10:30-11:45 a.m. in the Children’s Medical Center, Patient Family Centered Care Conference Room, BT C1931; and the Planning and Development Committee will meet from 9-11 a.m. in the Medical Center, Clinical Pathology Conference Room, BI 2006.

Compensation Committees for both the Health System and Medical Center, will meet at 10 a.m., Tuesday, Jan. 15, in the Medical Center, Administrative Conference Room, BI 2077.

For more information, call Tracy Townsend at 706-721-6569.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. Deborah Young-Hyman, Professor of Pediatrics and a diabetes and obesity researcher at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, is Co-Editor of the American Diabetes Association’s first reference text covering the major psychosocial issues of diabetes.

Dr. Mark Peyrot,Professor of Sociology at Loyola College and a research faculty member at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, also is Co-Editor of Psychosocial Clinical Guidelines for the Treatment of Patients with Diabetes.

The comprehensive book gives practitioners guidelines to access and prescribe evidence-based treatment for psychosocial problems commonly associated with diabetes. Topics include adjustment to illness, adherence to treatment, depression, interpersonal relationships as well as ethics and safety.

“We wanted to put in the hands of clinicians and researchers the best information available about how living with diabetes affects not only the physical wellbeing of people but their total well-being across the lifespan,” Young-Hyman said. “It can be a vicious cycle: having diabetes increases the risk of poor psychosocial outcomes such as depression and disordered eating behavior which can, in turn, adversely impact their diabetes treatment and disease outcome. Evidence-based strategies contained in this book provide guidelines for behavioral diabetes care and will help caregivers and their patients recognize and successfully cope with these significant  issues in a chronic disease that is now pervasive in our society.”

Young-Hyman chairs the ADA Behavioral Medicine Council’s Psychosocial Clinical Guidelines Writing Committee and is a reviewer for the association’s Book Division. She reviews abstracts for the ADA’s scientific sessions and is a member of its Research Grant Review Panel and an American Association of Diabetes Educators-certified educator. She is a 30-year member of the ADA’s Professional Section: Behavioral Medicine and Psychology.  Young-Hyman served on the American Association of Diabetes Educators 2010 Expert Panel on Monitoring in Diabetes Management.  In 2011, she chaired a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Review Panel reviewing funding requests for community-based childhood obesity research. She is a Fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine and The Obesity Society.

Young-Hyman researches obesity and related metabolic disorders from infancy to adulthood. She also studies the interplay between psychosocial and physiologic factors effecting chronic disease outcomes – development of obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and cardiovascular risk. Her studies have helped elucidate the conundrum of how type 1 diabetes treatment can increase hunger in patients struggling to maintain a healthy weight and how the disease can produce a preoccupation with food.  She has more than two decades of experience in the family-based treatment of psychosocial issues related to acute and chronic illness with a specialty in diabetes.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The last six months Dr. James E. Carroll spent in Kuwait were in 1990 and as a hostage in the U.S. Embassy. Starting this January, he’s going back for six months as a Fulbright Scholar.

“I really want to go back to Kuwait and finish it up right,” said Carroll, Chief of the Section of Pediatric Neurology at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University. He will come full circle, returning to Kuwait University Faculty of Medicine to teach, treat patients and study cerebral palsy in the small Arab state on the Persian Gulf.

Last time, he’d decided to leave his job at MCG and move wife Shirley and their then-seven children to Kuwait potentially for good. This time, Carroll is definitely going and coming back.

Carroll moved his family to Kuwait in 1988 to take a job as Director of the Pediatric Training Program for the university. He taught medical students – in Kuwait medical school is six years and includes essentially two years of undergraduate education – as well as registrars, which are similar to residents in the United States. Life was generally good in Kuwait, one of the smallest and richest countries in the world. There were ocean breezes and Kuwaitis got free health care. But there were problems as well learning a difficult language, living with an often subservient view of women as well as summer temperatures averaging about 100 degrees.

It was the oppressive summers that sent his wife and children back to the states in 1990. Carroll, who typically did the same, had drawn the short straw that year and remained behind to help take care of patients and oversee the registrars.

His wife of more than 40 years called him that Aug. 2, sharing news reports that Kuwait’s northern neighbor, Iraq, was poised to invade and urging him to come home. “I said, ‘Everything is fine here. Nothing is happening.’” The next day Iraqi jets were strafing the city, tanks and troops were on the streets and people were shooting at each other.

“In our family lore, whenever I tell Shirley everything is going to be alright, needless to say, it isn’t,” Carroll chuckles. Within no time the Iraqis had taken over the hospital and the new hospital commander was asking to see Carroll. “I knew it was bad because they were taking Americans prisoner.” He ended up at the Embassy with about 26 other assorted individuals and a handful of remaining diplomats. Water and electricity were cut off, so the significant food stores were mostly ruined. “We had like 6,000 cans of tuna,” Carroll said. The hostages could see and hear the ocean and sometimes slept atop a three-story Marine barrack to catch a nighttime breeze and relief from the staggering summer heat. Carroll spent his time reading, swimming and running laps on the embassy’s five acres which were now encircled by tanks.  He sent encrypted emails to his wife. The hostages took guard duty and if the Iraqi’s invaded the embassy, that encryption device was one of things that needed to be destroyed. Carroll also assumed a natural role as the embassy’s staff physician.

“It was pretty scary because we thought we were going to die,” said the characteristically calm Carroll.  He remembers one night, a diplomat coming in, rubbing his hair and declaring them “toast.”

That December, Sadam Hussein announced that he would let Westerners go. Glad but hardly confident, they turned themselves into the Iraqi Secret Service. They were taken to an airport hangar where they figured again they were about to die. When Carroll finally arrived in Frankfurt, he decided he just might live.

He has returned to the country intermittently in the years since, the first time was less than six months later to try to reclaim any possessions he could find. His wedding pictures were among the items lost forever.

Still, he looks forward to his return. “I am excited about it,” Carroll said. Nervous? “Why would I be? I like the people. I like the culture. It’s like getting back on a horse.”

It also may be an opportunity to write a final chapter or two. During captivity, Carroll kept a diary, which was widely publicized by media outlets in the immediate aftermath of his release, and he started but never finished a book about the experience.

Carroll is among about 1,100 Fulbright scholars for 2012-13. The program, sponsored by the U.S. government, is designed to enhance understanding between citizens of the United States and other countries. Since its establishment in 1946, 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and scientists have taught, studied, conducted research and exchanged ideas around the world.

His epidemiological studies in Kuwait will seek the causes of cerebral palsy, a wide range of disabilities resulting from genetic defects or birth injuries affecting the brain. At GHS Children’s Medical Center, Carroll treats children and young adults with conditions that are barely detectable to those that are physically and mentally incapacitating. He also does stem cell research to aid patient recovery.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. Alvin V. Terry Jr., pharmacologist and Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, has been named a Regents’ Professor by the University System of Georgia.

Regents’ Professorships are awarded to outstanding faculty members of Georgia’s four research universities with the unanimous recommendation of the university’s President, the Dean of the graduate school, the administrative Dean, the academic Dean, and three other faculty members named by the President.  Approval of the Chancellor and the University System’s Committee on Education, Research and Extension also is required and professorships are granted initially for three years.

Terry, Director of GHSU’s Small Animal Behavior Core laboratory, earned his doctorate in pharmacology at the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy and completed his postdoctoral training at MCG. He joined the MCG faculty immediately after completing his training and joined the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy faculty in 1994. He directed the college’s Graduate Program in Clinical and Experimental Therapeutics from 1999-2005, began a joint appointment at MCG in 2003 and joined the MCG faculty full time two years later.

He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, has served on numerous study sections of the National Institutes of Health and two Veterans Affairs Special Emphasis Panels on research on Gulf War illness in veterans. He has served as a consultant for an Environmental Protection Agency Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act Scientific Advisory Panel.

Terry’s researches the role of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in memory dysfunction, including the impact of pharmaceutical and toxicological agents, such as chemical warfare agents.  His lab also focuses on drug discovery and development strategies for the treatment of illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. He is an educator at MCG and the GHSU College of Graduate Studies and serves as a relief pharmacist for chain and independent retail pharmacies.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. Adviye Ergul, physiologist and Professor at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, has been selected as Co-Chair of the American Heart Association’s Brain 3 Review Panel.

The panel reviews a wide range of grant applications on topics such as the blood-brain barrier, brain immunology and inflammation, cell therapies in stroke, cerebral blood flow and metabolism, cerebral edema, ischemic cell death, cerebral plasticity and repair and vascular dementia.

Ergul is a member of the AHA’s Council on High Blood Pressure Research Leadership Committee. A Fellow of the AHA, she has received the association’s Scientist Development and Established Investigator Awards. As a graduate student at the University of Miami School of Medicine, she received a fellowship from the AHA Florida Affiliate and as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Georgia she received a grant-in-aid award from the Georgia Affiliate.

She researches the vascular dysfunction, including blood vessel remodeling, that occurs in diabetes in the brain, increasing the risk for stroke. Her studies have shown that an established intravenous antibiotic can reduce that dangerous remodeling as well as bleeding that often follows a stroke. Diabetics are at risk for some unfortunate synergy in stroke, where a blood clot causes the stroke and leaking from the blood vessels follows, increasing the damage. Her research is funded by the AHA, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Ergul, Director of the MCG Department of Physiology Graduate Program, received the 2012 GHSU Distinguished Research Faculty Award.

AUGUSTA, Ga. -  Dr. Stephen Black, a cell and molecular physiologist in the Vascular Biology Center at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, has been elected to the Council of the Society for Free Radical Biology and Medicine. He also will serve as the Chair of the Fundraising/Sponsorship Committee.

The 23-member council governs all aspects of the professional organization for scientists and clinicians with an interest in the research and medical applications of free radical chemistry, redox biology and antioxidants. Additionally, the Council appoints editorial board members for the society’s journal, Free Radical Biology and Medicine.

Black is a member of the society’s Lifetime Achievement and Nominations/Leadership Development Committees, an abstract reviewer for annual meetings and a junior investigator judge. He previously served on the Discovery Award Selection Committee.

Black researches persistent pulmonary hypertension in newborns, perinatal stroke and acute lung injury with an emphasis on the roles of reactive oxygen species in cell signaling and how derangements in the production of these free radicals underlie many diseases. He is Program Director on an $11.3 million National Institutes of Health grant identifying key, destructive events of acute lung injury and developing a cocktail of therapies to block them. Black is principal investigator on four additional NIH grants as well as a past recipient of a grant from the Foundation Leducq, a French foundation supporting international efforts to combat cardiovascular disease.

Black is Scientific Director of GHSU’s Cardiovascular Discovery Institute. He is on the editorial board of the journals Medical Science Monitor, Journal of Chinese Clinical Medicine and Pulmonary Circulation. He recently served a five-year term on the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Board of Scientific Counselors and is a member of the institute’s Placenta and Neonatology Study Section. He chairs the American Heart Association – Vascular Biology Clinical study section. He also serves as an abstract and symposium reviewer for Pediatric Academic Societies.

Campus will also be closed Jan. 1 for the New Year’s holiday. Campus will reopen on Jan. 2.

GHSU announced earlier this year plans to begin construction for a project that will enhance the section of Laney Walker Boulevard that runs through the university’s campus. The current design concept is intended to make the roadway safer for the estimated 8,500 students, staff and faculty who cross it daily and beautify the streetscape.

Primarily funded through a GDOT Transportation Enhancement Grant with additional funds from the university, the project will create two lanes of traffic, rather than the current four; eliminate curbside parking between 15^th Street and R.A. Dent Boulevard; add bicycle lanes on either side of the road; incorporate slightly elevated crosswalks that comply with Americans with Disabilities Act standards; and add more trees, grassy areas and plant beds.

Construction is expected to begin in spring 2013 and conclude by the fall.

For more information, contact the GHSU Office of Community Affairs at 706-721-4413.

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