*****
University of Washington School of Medicine
Online News
Vol. 12, No. 7
Feb. 15, 2008
*****
To view an archived version of Online News on the UW
Medicine Web site, visit:
http://www.uwmedicine.org/Global/NewsAndEvents/somnews/index.htm
*****
This week’s news:
* Team-care approach to depression in older adults can help lower overall health costs, according to UW-led study
* Lori Oliver, assistant attorney general for UW Medicine, receives highest honor from the Washington Attorney General's Office
* UW people honored at Western Student Medical Research Forum, part of annual medical meetings in Carmel, Calif.
* UW Medicine Faculty Development Days coming up Feb. 25-26
* Beneficial bacteria in women may hold clues for slowing HIV transmission, according to research presented at infectious-disease conference
* NHGRI's William Gahl to speak Feb. 21 at inaugural C. Ronald Scott Lecture for biochemical genetics
* Carleen Collins, UW professor of microbiology and expert in microbial pathogenesis, dies at 52
*****
TEAM-CARE APPROACH TO DEPRESSION IN OLDER ADULTS CUTS OVERALL HEALTH COSTS
A team approach to treating depression in older adults, already shown to improve health, can also cut total health-care costs, according to a new study led by the UW. The study appears in the February issue of the American Journal of Managed Care.
Clinical depression affects about 3 million older adults in the United States and is associated with 50 to 70 percent higher health-care expenses, mostly due to an increased use of medical, not mental health, services. In this study, researchers found that adults over 60 who received a year of team care for depression had lower average costs for all of their health care over a four-year period -- about $3,300 less than patients receiving traditional care, even when the cost of the team care treatment is included.
Over the past several years, a multi-center research team has been studying a team care approach called IMPACT (Improving Mood -- Promoting Access to Collaborative Treatment for Late Life Depression). The treatment model features a nurse, social worker or psychologist serving as a depression-care manager. This depression-care manager works with the primary care physician and a consulting psychiatrist to care for depressed patients in their primary care clinic.
Previous studies have shown that the IMPACT program provides powerful health benefits, including significantly decreased depression and chronic physical pain, improved physical functioning and better overall quality of life. The research on collaborative care for depression illustrates how important it is for health organizations to consider implementing such care models, said the study's lead author, Jurgen Unutzer, professor and vice-chair of psychiatry and director of the IMPACT Implementation Center at the UW.
For more information about IMPACT, visit:
http://www.impact-uw.org
*****
LORI OLIVER RECEIVES STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL'S HIGHEST HONOR
Lori Oliver, assistant attorney general in the UW Attorney General’s Office, has received the state’s Excellence Award for her mastery and practice of health-care law for UW Medicine in 2007. The award is the highest performance recognition given by the Washington Attorney General’s Office.
Jack Johnson, chief of the UW Division of the AGO, said Oliver’s client assessments were uniformly rated at the top of the chart in 2007 because she pushed herself to master more of the complex world of health-care law, as well as the business and internal dynamics of UW Medicine.
Through direct advice and through her support of the Enterprise Risk Management project, Johnson said, Oliver helped UW Medicine and the UW to grapple with important compliance issues, in which she often served as an indispensable conduit and translator of information. These efforts produced substantial advances in human subjects research practices, clinical billing, faculty effort reporting, and other areas, he said.
The Attorney General's Office gives out only a few Excellence Awards each year. In addition to Oliver, another UW attorney received an Excellence Award this year. The other recipient was Bill Nicholson, also an assistant attorney general in the UW Attorney General’s Office. Nicholson provides legal support for the UW’s international operations.
*****
UW PEOPLE HONORED AT WESTERN STUDENT MEDICAL RESEARCH FORUM IN CARMEL
The UW School of Medicine was represented by 65 students presenting at the Western Student Medical Research Forum (WSMRF) this month in Carmel, Calif. Several people from the UW were honored for their research abstracts.
John Newman, M.D./Ph.D. student, and Jessica Valentine, second-year medical student, received Western Society for Pediatric Research (WSPR) Subspecialty Awards for their abstracts. Second-year student Jared Kirkham and fourth-year student Brett Schmitz received WAFMR/WSCI Subspecialty Awards for their abstracts. WAFMR is the Western section of the American Federation for Medical Research, and WSCI is the Western Society for Clinical Investigation.
Joseph Planer, research scientist in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Disease in the Department of Medicine, received the Dionesia P. Bertakis Award for his oral presentation. The award is named for the founding executive director of the WSMRF.
*****
UW MEDICINE FACULTY DEVELOPMENT DAYS SCHEDULED FOR FEB. 25-26
The 11th annual UW Medicine Faculty Development Days event has been scheduled for Feb. 25-26, at the UW Center for Urban Horticulture. The event is free to UW Medicine faculty, but registration is required for either one or both days.
The program on Monday, Feb. 25 will focus on tools for academic success, and will cover areas such as defining success in a faculty job, writing and reviewing academic papers, presenting your work, understanding the promotions process, and achieving balance between work and life.
The Tuesday, Feb. 26 program will cover the art of communication, and will include sessions on having difficult conversations, giving feedback, having culturally informed communications, and challenges in professionalism.
The event includes a complimentary continental breakfast and box lunch. The Center for Urban Horticulture is on the northeastern edge of campus, at 3501 N.E. 41st St.
To register, visit:
http://tinyurl.com/2h5ats
For more information, contact Barbara Mahoney at bmahoney@u.washington.edu
*****
BENEFICIAL BACTERIA IN WOMEN MAY GIVE CLUES FOR SLOWING HIV TRANSMISSION
Beneficial bacteria found in healthy women help to reduce the amount of vaginal HIV among HIV-infected women and make it more difficult for the virus to spread, boosting the possibility that good bacteria might someday be tapped in the fight against HIV.
The findings come from physicians and scientists at the UW and the University of Rochester Medical Center, who worked together in an effort to learn more about how HIV survives and spreads from person to person. The study included 57 women in Seattle and Rochester, and was conducted through the Women's HIV Interdisciplinary Network (WHIN), which is based at the UW.
The team studied the vaginal environment, examining the mix of bacteria that reside there and taking into account several other factors. Physicians tracked the level of HIV virus in the vagina as well as infection by common sexually transmitted diseases like trichomoniasis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia, and other more common types of vaginal infections.
Physicians also monitored the levels of beneficial bacteria known as Lactobacillus in the vagina, as well as hydrogen peroxide, which is produced by the bacteria and hinders the virus. They also measured the level of HIV in the women's blood and the rate of progression of the disease overall.
The team found that women with hydrogen-peroxide-producing Lactobacillus in the vagina had lower levels of HIV virus in genital secretions -- what physicians call the genital viral load. Physicians know that the lower the level of HIV in the sexual tract, the less likely that the virus will be spread from person to person through sexual contact.
Scientists have previously recognized from laboratory studies that Lactobacillus might give women some natural protection against HIV. The bacteria, commonly found in most women, bind to the virus and secrete hydrogen peroxide. The bacteria are a close cousin of the Lactobacillus bacteria found in the small intestine, a type of good bacteria widely found in yogurt.
The research was presented this month at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston by Jane Hitti, UW associate professor of obstetrics & gynecology. Robert Coombs, UW professor of laboratory medicine and of medicine, is the principal investigator for the WHIN study.
*****
NHGRI ADMINISTRATOR WILLIAM GAHL TO SPEAK AT INAUGURAL SCOTT LECTURE
William Gahl, clinical director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), will give the inaugural lecture for the C. Ronald Scott Lecture Series in Biochemical Genetics, at 8 a.m., Thursday, Feb. 21, in Wright Auditorium, Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center. His lecture is titled Therapy for Metabolic Disorders.
Gahl studies rare inborn errors of metabolism through the observation and treatment of patients in the clinic and through biochemical, molecular biological, and cell biological investigations in the laboratory. His group focuses on a number of disorders, including cystinosis, Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome, alkaptonuria, and sialic acid diseases.
The new biochemical genetics lecture series of the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Genetics and Developmental Medicine, honors Scott, UW professor of pediatrics, for his more than 40 years of service to the UW, Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, and families with metabolic diseases. Scott is co-director of the Genetics Program, University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities. The C. Ronald Scott Lecture Series is funded by a gift from the Yuhan Foundation, Seoul, Korea.
To watch a live Web broadcast of the Scott Lecture, or Pediatrics Grand Rounds lectures at Children's Hospital, visit:
http://tinyurl.com/2fbuwf
*****
CARLEEN COLLINS, PROFESSOR OF MICROBIOLOGY, DIES AT 52
UW faculty member Carleen Collins, a prominent microbiologist and expert in microbial pathogenesis, died Tuesday, Feb. 12, of complications from lung cancer. She was 52.
Collins was a UW professor of microbiology. She earned her bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees in microbiology from UCLA, and completed her postdoctoral training at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She studied at the University of Umea, Sweden, as a Fulbright scholar. She rose to full professor at the University of Miami School of Medicine, where she taught and headed a microbiology research laboratory. In 2002, Collins moved to Seattle, becoming professor of microbiology at the UW.
Her career was focused on the molecular mechanisms of bacterial virulence, with a specific emphasis on the activities and structures of bacterial exotoxins. She made major contributions to the understanding of diseases caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes, ubiquitous bacteria that cause a wide spectrum of disease, including infections of the skin and throat, food poisoning, and toxic shock syndrome. She also made major contributions to understanding the mechanisms by which bacterial virulence factors are regulated. Recently, Collins had embarked upon a new area of research to understand how bacteria promote disease through interaction with specific insects as part of their transmission to humans.
A memorial service, open to the public, will be held at 1 p.m., Friday, Feb. 15, at the Center for Urban Horticulture, University of Washington. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that all donations be made to either the American Cancer Society or a fund in Collins' name at the UW. For additional information regarding the UW fund, please contact Sam Miller at millersi@u.washington.edu .
*****
Justin Reedy, editor:
206-685-0382, jreedy@u.washington.edu
Online News is copyright 2008. All rights, including electronic
redistribution, are reserved.
*****