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University of Washington School of Medicine
Online News
Vol. 12, No. 12
March 21, 2008
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To view an archived version of Online News on the UW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:
* UW medical students paired with residency programs on national Match Day
* Scientists create new enzyme molecules from scratch using computational design
* As part of World TB Day, UW co-sponsors public forum March 24 on tuberculosis in Washington state
* Pediatric specialty unit wins national award for work on children's environmental health
* American Cancer Society ceremony honors Seattle-area cancer-research grant recipients
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UW STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN RESIDENCY MATCH DAY
On Thursday, students in the UW School of Medicine joined more than 15,000 other medical students around the country in participating in the National Resident Matching Program, which pairs them with medical residency programs throughout the nation. Of the 167 graduating students at the UW medical school, 157 of them participated in Match Day; another 10 students who had previously graduated from the UW entered the matching program this year. Ninety-seven percent of the UW students matched with programs initially, and the remaining students secured positions in the post-match scramble.
There were 30 UW students who matched with UW-affiliated hospitals, and several more will complete family medicine residencies within UW programs at Valley Medical Center in Renton, Swedish Hospital, and Providence-St. Peters in Olympia. Another 18 UW students matched with either one-year or categorical programs within the WWAMI region.
Out of the UW graduating class, 48 percent went into primary care specialties, including family practice, internal medicine, and pediatrics. The number of students matching in obstetrics and gynecology, 18, increased from 9 in each of the past two years. Family medicine also saw an increase, with 24 students matching this year, up from 18 in 2007. About 14 percent of UW graduates matched into family medicine residencies, compared with only about 7.6 percent nationwide.
UW graduate medical education programs also had a successful Match Day. The programs filled nearly all of the available 197 residency slots through the match, with the rest filled in the post-match scramble.
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MOLECULAR ENGINEERS DESIGN NEW ENZYMES FROM SCRATCH
A UW-led research group has designed new enzymes from scratch using computer modeling, the group reports in the March 19 issue of the journal Nature. Enzymes can help trigger, speed up, and otherwise control chemical reactions, and engineered enzymes can be put to use in biomedical or biotech research, environmental cleanup, and other industries.
A group led by David Baker, UW professor of biochemistry and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has been using computer models to predict the structure of proteins and design new protein structures not previously found in the natural world. Baker and his colleagues have also been working on designing and testing new enzymes to fit specific needs.
In the March 7 edition of the journal Science, Baker and his group discussed their attempts in designing enzymes that could break bonds between carbon atoms. Carbon bonds are the mainstay of all types of materials derived from living things, from fossil fuels to food. Being able to break carbon bonds more quickly and efficiently could lead to improvements in cleaning up organic waste and in developing renewable energy sources.
For the project reported in Nature, the researchers created eight computer designs for enzymes to fit into a chemical reaction, known as the Kemp elimination reaction, that does not have any natural enzymes. They also used a technique called directed evolution, which uses several rounds of random mutations and shuffling to create variants of the enzyme molecule, to fine-tune the computer-designed enzyme.
The computer-designed molecules are nowhere near naturally occurring enzymes in being able to speed up chemical reactions, Baker said. However, combining computational design with directed molecular evolution could become a powerful way to create new enzyme catalysts for chemical reactions that don't have naturally occurring ones, he added. Computer-based design can also give scientists a testing ground for refining knowledge about how enzymes work.
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UW CO-SPONSORS WASHINGTON FORUM ON TUBERCULOSIS
The UW and other institutions and agencies in Washington state are hosting a public forum next week on tuberculosis, as part of World TB Day, a series of events coordinated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Washington state event, called Talk TB: Stop TB, will be held from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Monday, March 24, at Town Hall Seattle, 1119 Eighth Ave. The event is free and open to all, and members of the community are welcome. The forum will focus on increasing public awareness and dialog about TB. It will include a panel-led discussion, with questions from the audience.
The UW is co-sponsoring the event, along with the state Department of Health's Tuberculosis Program, the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, the American Lung Association of Washington, Public Health Seattle/King County, and RESULTS, a non-profit fighting world hunger and poverty.
For more information, contact Sherry Carlson, 360-236-3528, sherry.carlson@doh.wa.gov
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PEDIATRIC SPECIALTY UNIT RECEIVES NATIONAL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE
The UW Northwest Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit is one of ten national winners of the 2007 Children’s Environmental Health Excellence Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These awards recognize efforts to protect children from environmental health risks at the local, regional, national, and international level.
The award-winning unit is based at Harborview Medical Center and directed by Catherine Karr, UW associate professor of pediatrics and environmental health sciences. Pediatricians see children with environmental-exposure concerns at Harborview’s Occupational and Environmental Medicine Clinic. They also provide free consultation to physicians, nurses, public health agencies and the community about pediatric environmental health issues.
The EPA recognized the UW unit for being a leader in building health professional capacity in academic, public health, and community circles, and for its commitment to ensuring that health-care trainees are equipped to address pediatric environmental health. The group works to integrate environmental health into the UW pediatric residency curriculum, conduct an environmental health residency conference series, build continuing medical education programs on pesticides and child health, and mentor medical students and trainees in pediatric environmental health.
For more information about the unit, visit http://depts.washington.edu/pehsu .
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AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY PRESENTS GRANT FUNDING TO SEATTLE RESEARCHERS
The American Cancer Society presented its annual Legacy and Leadership Research Awards for Seattle-area cancer research at a special ceremony last Thursday, March 13, at the UW campus. The event was co-sponsored by UW Medicine, and included several faculty members and researchers as speakers and grant recipients. Richard Ellenbogen, professor and chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery, was the keynote speaker.
The Legacy and Leadership Research Awards included more than $5 million in grants given to 12 researchers from the UW, Group Health Cooperative, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Four researchers in the UW School of Medicine received grants, including: Kimberly Lindstrom, senior fellow in the Department of Genome Sciences; Paul Nghiem, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Dermatology; Elizabeth Vig, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine; and Edith Wang, associate professor of pharmacology.
The ACS has donated about $35 million to the UW since the 1950s, and has provided grant funding for many of the top researchers at the UW and in the Seattle area, including Nobel Prize recipients Leland Hartwell and E. Donnall Thomas.
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Justin Reedy, editor:
206-685-0382, jreedy@u.washington.edu
Online News is copyright 2008. All rights, including electronic
redistribution, are reserved.
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