UW School of Medicine Online News 10-26-07

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University of Washington School of Medicine

Online News

Vol. 11, No. 42
Oct. 26, 2007
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To view an archived version of Online News on the UW
Medicine Web site, visit:
http://www.uwmedicine.org/Global/NewsAndEvents/somnews/index.htm

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This week’s news:

* Rene Levy, professor of pharmaceutics and neurological surgery, named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

* New approach builds better proteins inside a computer, UW researchers report in Nature

* Richard Goodman honored with Robert Petersdorf Seattle VA Teaching Award

* Larry Dewey, director of Idaho psychiatry residency program, honored as health-care hero for work to expand psychiatric care for veterans

* Faye Wattleton, woman's rights leader and former president of Planned Parenthood, will speak at Hogness Symposium on Oct. 31


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RENE LEVY NAMED FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE

Rene H. Levy, professor of pharmaceutics in the School of Pharmacy and of neurological surgery in the School of Medicine, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Levy was elected to the Section on Pharmaceutical Sciences for distinguished contributions to the treatment of epilepsy, and for fostering the development and rational use of new drugs and therapeutic modalities.

Levy, who joined the UW faculty in 1970 just after earning his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of California, San Francisco, has conducted many studies in drug metabolism and drug interactions. For nearly 30 years he has worked on old and new anti-epilepsy drugs, seeking to understand their interactions with other drugs and unusual reactions that some patients have to the drugs. He also developed the Metabolism and Transport Drug Interaction Database and is a former chair of the Department of Pharmaceutics.

Levy is one of five UW faculty members elected as AAAS fellows this year. The others are Aimee H. Bakken, Toby Bradshaw, Jr., Conway B. Leovy, and Dennis P. Lettenmaier.

Levy may be reached at rhlevy@u.washington.edu


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COMPUTER PROJECT HELPS PREDICT STRUCTURE OF PROTEIN

With the aid of thousands of home computers around the world, UW and Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have made a breakthrough in predicting the three-dimensional structure of a naturally occurring protein. The scientists reported their work online this month in the journal Nature.

David Baker, UW professor of biochemistry and an HHMI investigator, led a team of researchers that was trying to use computational methods to predict protein structure. Understanding a protein's complex structure can help scientists understand its function and can suggest new ideas for designing drugs to affect that protein.

For their work, Baker and his colleagues relied on Rosetta@home, a project that harnesses the computing power of more than 150,000 home computer users around the world to tackle the complex problems of protein structure prediction.

The researchers used data from Rosetta@home to predict, for the first time, the structure of a small, naturally occurring globular protein using only the sequence of amino acids that make up the protein. The findings suggest that computer prediction of protein structures, at least for smaller proteins, can provide very accurate models for what those proteins look like in nature.

To learn more about the research, visit the HHMI Web site:
http://www.hhmi.org//news/baker20071017.html

For more information about Rosetta@home or to sign up and donate your extra computer power to the project, visit:
http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/


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RICHARD GOODMAN RECEIVES SEATTLE VA TEACHING AWARD

Richard Goodman, associate professor of medicine, has received the Robert G. Petersdorf Seattle VA Teaching Award. The award recognizes outstanding teaching and service to students, residents, fellows, nurses, and staff at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System.

Goodman is a faculty member in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and was recently named section head at the VA. He has been a physician there since 1993, and has served as medical director of the Medical Specialties Clinic, Pulmonary Outpatient Clinic, and the Medical ICU.

The award is named for the late Robert G. Petersdorf, a physician and administrator who led tremendous growth of the UW Department of Medicine in the 1960s and 70s and became a national leader in academic medicine.

Goodman may be reached at goodmanr@u.washington.edu


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IDAHO RESIDENCY DIRECTOR LARRY DEWEY HONORED AS HEALTH-CARE HERO

Larry Dewey, a UW faculty member in the Idaho WWAMI medical education program, has received the Physician Hero award of the Idaho Health-Care Heroes program. Dewey, a psychiatrist at the Boise VA Medical Center, was recognized for his work in developing patient-centered mental health programs for veterans and their families.

Dewey is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and directs the Idaho Advanced Clinician Track in the UW's psychiatry residency program. Dewey helped start the residency program, which has training sites that include the Boise VA, St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, St. Luke's Regional Medical Center, and the Family Medicine Outpatient Clinic in Boise.

When Dewey joined the Boise VA more than 20 years ago, the hospital had very limited mental health services, with only two psychiatrists on staff. Dewey has helped expand the program many times over, with 10 psychiatrists and four outreach clinics now serving 4,000 outpatients and conducting 35,000 outpatient visits.

larry.dewey@va.gov


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FAYE WATTLETON, FORMER PLANNED PARENTHOOD LEADER, TO SPEAK AT HOGNESS SYMPOSIUM

Faye Wattleton, president for the Center for the Advancement of Women and former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, will give the 18th Hogness Symposium on Health Care lecture Wednesday, Oct. 31, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in Hogness Auditorium, Room A-420 of the UW Health Sciences Center. The title of her lecture is Life on the Line -- Fair Treatment is an Unfinished Agenda.

Wattleton has spent her career taking action against injustices and, specifically, improving the lives of women. She was the youngest person and first woman named to the presidency of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the oldest and largest reproductive health organization in the United States. From 1978 to 1992 she led the organization in defining the national debate over reproductive rights and health, and in shaping family planning policies and programs around the world.

Today she is president of the Center for the Advancement of Women, a not-for-profit research, policy development and education institution created in 1995 to advance women's equality and full participation in society.

The symposium is free and registration is not required.


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Justin Reedy, editor:
206-685-0382, jreedy@u.washington.edu

Online News is copyright 2007. All rights, including electronic
redistribution, are reserved.

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