Researchers at the UI played a key role in a landmark gene therapy breakthrough reported Sunday, April 27, in an online article in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study reported improvement in vision following gene transfer to the retina in three patients with an inherited form of blindness known as Leber congenital amaurosis or LCA.

The study was carried out at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia by an international team led by the University of Pennsylvania, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the Second University of Naples and the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (both in Italy), the UI and several other American institutions.

Dr. Edwin Stone, UI professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, led the genetic testing portion of the study.

Full press release.

Boyd Knosp has been appointed to the new position of associate dean for information technology (IT) in the CCOM, effective May 5. Knosp will be responsible for providing leadership and setting the strategic direction for IT that supports the research and academic missions of the College. He will work closely with IT colleagues across the university to ensure that researchers and educators in the medical school have access to new and existing technologies to support their work.

Knosp will report jointly to Executive Dean Peter Densen and to Associate Vice President for Information Systems Lee Carmen.

“I am truly pleased that Boyd has agreed to join the University of Iowa Health Care team,” said UI Vice President for Medical Affairs Jean Robillard. “Our research and education enterprises are large and complex. They rely on information technology in ways we could not have imagined a few years ago, and Boyd is uniquely well suited to help us advance our ambitious academic agenda.”

Knosp has served as manager of research services with the UI Information Technology Services since 2001. During that time, he has been responsible for providing IT support for researchers across the campus and leading the E-Research project, an effort that created a strategic plan for research IT at the UI. Prior to that, he was director of the Image Analysis Facility, a central research facility that served researchers and others on the UI health campus. A native of Jefferson, Iowa, Knosp holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the UI. He has worked at the UI since 1985.

At the end of this semester, Dr. Lisa Kaufman will be leaving the University of Iowa to share her wisdom and skills with medical students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. We would like to give her something to help her remember the many people whose lives she has touched. Would you please help us by contributing to an electronic scrapbook? Just leave a comment below. Share a memory, wish her well, and help her know how she made a difference!

Your comments will be presented to her at a reception on Thursday, May 1, at 2:20 pm in the MERF Atrium.

Please join us in the scrapbook and at the reception.

Dr. Charles Helms, UI professor of internal medicine, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to conduct vaccine policy research in Australia.

Helms, an infectious diseases specialist and medical director of the Office of Clinical Quality, Safety and Performance Improvement at UI Hospitals and Clinics, will travel to New South Wales, Australia in 2009 to study their new policy of health care worker immunization. In 2006, New South Wales implemented a plan that requires the screening and vaccination of all health care workers for preventable diseases. Its goal is to radically reduce the transmission of such diseases among health care workers and to patients.

As part of his Fulbright-supported research, hosted by the University of Sydney, Helms will evaluate the impact of the vaccination plan through data analysis and interviews with Australian public health officials, health policy leaders, health care facility directors, medical and nursing staff, patient and public policy advocates, and other groups.

Full news release.

Dr. Val Sheffield, UI professor of pediatrics and Martin and Ruth Carver Chair in Genetics, has been renewed through August 2013 as an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

Sheffield, also holds an appointment in ophthalmology and visual sciences and is a pediatrician with UI Children’s Hospital. He was first appointed as an associate HHMI investigator in 1997 and promoted to full HHMI investigator in 2003.

Sheffield’s research focuses on identifying and understanding genes that cause human diseases. In the past year alone, he has contributed to genetic findings on scoliosis, autism and glaucoma. His research also includes congenital heart defects and hereditary eye diseases, including macular dystrophies and retinitis pigmentosa. He has advanced understanding of a rare genetic disorder called Bardet-Biedl syndrome, which can cause obesity, diabetes and hypertension. The advancement in the understanding of this rare disorder has provided insight into the cause of common obesity and hypertension. He also has been involved in the Human Genome Project and the Rat Genome Project.

Full news release.

Dr. Kristi Ferguson, director of the CCOM’s Office of Consultation and Research in Medical Education, received the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Medical Education Laureate award at the annual meeting of the Central Group on Educational Affairs in April. The award recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions to medical education and been actively involved in the organization.

Ferguson has been a staff member at OCRME since 1983 and was named its director in August 1996.

Leaders of the University of Iowa Dance Marathon Allocations Committee today announced they have allocated a total of $526,657 for spring 2008.

The committee approved initial allocation of $20,000 to the Pharmacy Co-pay Program that will pay up to $1,000 to help with the cost of the medicine associated with pediatric cancer.

Dance Marathon will also fund the purchase cost of $32,500 for a Vein Viewer that uses near-infrared light and other technologies to illuminate veins in “real time.” The technology helps remove the guesswork in finding a vein, thus alleviating the pain of multiple needle sticks for patients.

The “Dancing In Our Hearts” fund also received an allocation of $100,000. In the situation that a child passes away, Dance Marathon will help support some of the family’s financial burden of memorial and funeral costs.

An additional contribution of $5,500 this year will aid the Ronald McDonald House in Iowa City. Dance Marathon will help fund the renovation of the 20-plus-year-old playroom for the families that stay there throughout the year.

Complete list of Dance Marathon allocated projects.

University of Iowa Children’s Hospital in Iowa City is one of six children’s hospitals in the United States selected to receive a $100,000 grant from the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions to develop a Safe Escape Program. The grant will allow UI Children’s Hospital to offer families of children with disabilities and special health care needs education, information and equipment to prepare for safe escape during emergencies.

“We are thrilled to have received such a generous grant that will allow us to provide safety tools and resources focused on emergencies and evacuation to families who are often overwhelmed by their children’s daily needs,” said Michael Artman, M.D., physician-in-chief at UI Children’s Hospital. “These families often do not have the resources or training to plan for emergencies or natural disasters.”

Full news release.

The UI held its first Conference on Obesity on April 8, co-sponsored by the UI Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) and the UI Institute for Biomedical Imaging. Designed to stimulate discussion across research disciplines and generate possibilities for clinical and translational science grant proposals, the conference focused on six different topics related to obesity. In breakout sessions following the main presentations, faculty shared their perspectives on issues, then collectively considered areas that might be addressed by a future multi-disciplinary research collaborations.

Organizers hope the conference and subsequent publicity can help create networking opportunities among researchers working on similar or related topics.

Obesity Conference Article Series

Organizers of a conference on obesity designed to stimulate discussion across research disciplines called the conference “a big step forward” toward the development of grant proposals for clinical and translational science. More than 80 persons, mainly faculty from the UI, participated in the conference held April 8 at the Iowa Memorial Union. The conference was co-sponsored by the UI Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) and the UI Institute for Biomedical Imaging.

“We wanted researchers from many colleges and many disciplines to get together with the goal of stimulating discussion that will lead to grant proposals,” said Gary Hunninghake, MD, director of the ICTS. “It’s clear we achieved that goal. This conference is the beginning of what I am convinced will be some dynamic and exciting research collaborations.”

The conference focused on six topics in obesity: nutrition, behavior and exercise, community/health disparity, epidemiology, pediatrics, and imaging/biology. Topic facilitators gave an overview of some of the facets of their topic. During breakout sessions which followed, faculty shared their perspectives on the issues and then collectively considered gaps in knowledge that might be addressed by a multi-disciplinary research collaboration.

According to Peg Nopoulos, MD, Director of the Translational Technologies and Resources section of the ICTS and organizer of the conference, those sessions helped connect researchers who, in many cases, were unaware of the work each other was doing. Read the rest of this entry »