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University of Washington School of Medicine
Online News
Vol. 12, No. 13
March 28, 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To view an archived version of Online News on the UW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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MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN: UW School of Medicine among leaders in U.S. News rankings for medical education and biomedical research
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This week’s news:
* UW scientists uncover how "superbug" Staph aureus resists body's natural defenses and thrives in a harsh chemical environment
* Peter Byers receives lifetime award in genetics from March of Dimes
* UW and Cold Spring Harbor researchers link individually rare DNA deletions and duplications to schizophrenia
* UWTV and UW Medicine film collaborations on brain aneurysms, craniofacial surgery, and neurosurgery earn CINE and NY Film Festival awards
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MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN
Dear Colleagues:
Once again, your remarkable work and dedication have resulted in top recognition in the annual rankings of graduate and professional schools in U.S. News & World Report. In the list released today of programs ranked this year, the UW School of Medicine was ranked the No. 1 medical school in the nation for training primary-care physicians for the 15th consecutive year. Our programs were also ranked No. 1 in family medicine and in rural health for the 17th consecutive year.
The U.S. News rankings, which consider peer assessments, rankings by residency program directors, NIH funding, and other factors, assign just two overall rankings for medical schools: one for biomedical research and the other for primary care. The University of Washington and Harvard University were the only two medical schools in the nation to rank in the top seven for excellence in both of these areas.
In NIH funding, the UW School of Medicine was again second only to Harvard among all U.S. medical schools in grant funding from the NIH. UW Medicine faculty received $579.7 million in NIH funding in 2007 -- $93 million above the third-ranked school in this category, the University of Pennsylvania.
The UW School of Medicine again had the distinction of being the only medical school in the nation ranked in the top 10 in all specialties in the annual survey. In addition to top rankings in family medicine and rural health, the school was No. 4 for teaching students about AIDS, No. 6 in internal medicine, No. 7 in three specialties: geriatrics, pediatrics (tied with Washington University in St. Louis and up from No. 8 last year), and women’s health (up from No. 10 last year), and No. 8 in drug/alcohol abuse (up from No. 10 last year).
The master's degree program in occupational therapy in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine was ranked No. 9 in a tie with New York University and the University of Pittsburgh.
In disciplines that the UW School of Medicine shares with other UW schools and colleges, the UW ranked No. 5 in the nation in biomedical/bioengineering.
Every year, I have the pleasure of writing to you to announce these rankings. And every year, I am reminded, by this and in many other ways, what an honor it is to work with you. I believe that the recognition achieved annually by these rankings is a small part of what makes the UW Medicine community great. Your work accomplishes a great deal on behalf of our mission of improving health for the nation and world through the academic activities of teaching, research, and patient care. Your dedication, perseverance, exceptional talent, and strong service ethic speak to what is best in medicine and science. Thank you for your extraordinary work.
Sincerely,
Paul G. Ramsey, M.D.
CEO, UW Medicine
Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, and
Dean of the School of Medicine
University of Washington
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RESEARCHERS LEARN HOW STAPH AUREUS RESISTS OUR NATURAL DEFENSES
UW researchers have uncovered how the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, including the notorious MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staph aureus) “superbug” strain, resists our body's natural defenses against infection. The work, which was featured on the cover of the March 21 issue of Science, could lead to new ways to fight the bacteria.
Ferric Fang, UW professor of laboratory medicine and microbiology, and his UW colleagues Anthony Richardson and Stephen Libby set out to determine what makes Staph aureus a more dangerous pathogen than other bacteria. They focused on a chemical compound called nitric oxide (NO), a natural antibiotic that our cells excrete to protect us from pathogens. For most bacteria, NO creates an environment that keeps invading microbes from undergoing respiration or fermentation, vital chemical processes that allow bacteria to grow.
The researchers found that Staph aureus has a mechanism that produces lactic acid in the presence of NO, which allows it to maintain its chemical balance and keep growing and thriving in the harsh host environment. When Staph aureus is exposed to NO, it produces the novel enzyme responsible for lactic acid production, along with another enzyme that converts NO to non-toxic products.
When the researchers modified Staph aureus to take away its ability to make lactic acid, the bacteria could no longer tolerate NO. The modified bacteria also lost their ability to survive in host immune cells and cause lethal disease in mice.
MRSA has become an enormous public health problem, the researchers said, by causing both hospital- and community-acquired infections. Since Staph aureus has colonized about one-third of the world's population, they added, traditional antibiotics will probably not be the complete answer to the MRSA problem. Trying to make the bacterium more susceptible to our natural defenses could lead to strategies aimed at de-colonizing the population, according to the researchers.
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PETER BYERS RECIEVES LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FOR GENETICS
The UW's Peter H. Byers, professor of medicine in the Division of Medical Genetics, professor of pathology, and adjunct professor of genome sciences, has received the March of Dimes/Colonel Harland Sanders Award for lifetime achievement in the field of genetic sciences. The award was presented earlier this month at the Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting of the American College of Medical Genetics in Phoenix.
Byers is an attending physician at UW Medical Center, where he is the director of the Medical Genetics Clinic and of the residency program in medical genetics. His primary clinical and research specialty is inherited connective tissue disorders, and he is an international authority on the diagnosis and treatment of osteogenesis imperfecta, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and Marfan syndrome. His laboratory established the concept of parental mosaicism as the reason for the unexpected recurrence of dominant disorders in siblings born to unaffected parents.
A graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Byers came to the UW in 1974 as a fellow in medical genetics and biochemistry. He joined the faculty in 1977 and became a full professor in 1986. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and American Association of Physicians, and a past president of the American Society of Human Genetics and of the American Board of Medical Genetics.
Established in 1986, the March of Dimes/Colonel Harland Sanders Award is given annually to an individual whose lifetime body of research, education, or clinical service has made a significant contribution to the genetic sciences. The March of Dimes is a national non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.
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RESEARCHERS LINK GENETIC ERRORS TO SCHIZOPHRENIA
A team of researchers at the University of Washington and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories has uncovered genetic errors that may shed light on the causes of schizophrenia. The scientists found that deletions and duplications of DNA are three to four times more common in people with the mental disorder, and that many of those errors occur in genes related to brain development and neurological function. The findings, which were replicated by a team at the National Institute of Mental Health, appear in the March 27 online edition of the journal Science.
Schizophrenia, a debilitating psychiatric disorder, affects approximately 1 percent of the population. People with schizophrenia suffer from hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking, and are at risk for unusual or bizarre behaviors. The illness greatly impacts social and occupational functioning and has enormous public health costs.
The team of investigators examined whether the genetic errors, which are individually rare DNA deletions and duplications, contribute to the development of schizophrenia. Some deletions and duplications are common and found in all humans. The researchers studied such mutations that were found only in individuals with the illness, and compared them to mutations found only in healthy persons. They theorized that rare mutations found only in schizophrenic patients would be more likely to disrupt genes related to brain functioning and thus may cause schizophrenia.
The researchers found that in individuals with schizophrenia, mutations were more likely to disrupt signaling genes that help organize brain development. Each mutation was different, and impacted different genes. However, several of the disrupted genes function in related neurobiological pathways.
The findings suggest that schizophrenia is caused by many different mutations in many different genes, with each mutation leading to a disruption in key pathways important to a developing brain. The results have important implications for schizophrenia research. Currently, most genetic studies look for mutations that are shared among different individuals with the illness. These approaches will not work if most patients have different mutations causing their condition.
Fortunately, there are now genomic technologies available that allow researchers to discover rare mutations within each individual with a disorder. As these technologies improve, it will be possible to detect other types of disease-causing mutations and hopefully develop new treatments more specifically targeted to disrupted pathways.
The team was led by UW researchers Tom Walsh, research assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Medical Genetics, Jon McClellan, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and Mary-Claire King, American Cancer Society professor of medicine and genome sciences, and by their Cold Spring Harbor collaborators Shane McCarthy and Jonathan Sebat. The project included many scientists at several institutions, including Evan Eichler, UW associate professor of genome sciences, and his lab colleagues.
This work was supported by many different grants from several foundations and agencies, including the Forrest C. and Frances H. Lattner Foundation, NARSAD, the Simons Foundation, the Stanley Medical Research Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Mental Health Division of the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services.
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UWTV AND UW MEDICINE HONORED FOR MEDICAL FILM COLLABORATIONS
UWTV, the UW television station, was recently honored with two awards for films it made in collaboration with UW Medicine. The films were part of a series called Inside Access, and featured several UW physicians.
One film, called Brain Aneurysms, received a CINE Golden Eagle award, given in recognition of the highest production standards in filmmaking and videography. The film followed two patients who benefited from innovative, life-saving medical and surgical techniques at the UW Medicine Brain Aneurysm Center at Harborview. The film included Laligam Sekhar, professor and vice chairman of neurosurgery; Gavin Britz, assistant professor of neurosurgery; and Raj Ghodke, assistant professor of radiology and neurological surgery.
The other film, Daniel's Story: Craniofacial and Neurosurgery, received a New York Festivals International Film and Video Award. The competition honors outstanding work in informational, educational, and industrial film and video. The film related the story of a boy who was born with part of his brain on the outside of his body. It featured Richard Ellenbogen, professor and chairman of neurosurgery; Theodore Roberts, professor emeritus of neurosurgery; Michael Cunningham, associate professor of pediatrics; and Joseph Gruss, professor of surgery and chief of plastic surgery at Seattle Children's Hospital.
Brain Aneurysms can be viewed online at the UWTV Web site, at:
http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayevent.aspx?rID=4125
Daniel's Story can also be viewed online here:
http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayevent.aspx?rID=11274
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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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