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University of Washington School of Medicine
Online News
Vol. 12, No. 21
May 23, 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To view an archived version of Online News on the UW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:
* Neal Futran, director of head and neck surgery at UWMC, named new chair of the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery
* UW and IBM team up with personal-computer users to tackle the food crisis by designing better strains of rice
* Researchers find new mechanisms controlling stem-cell differentiation
* Department of Medicine faculty members Virginia Broudy and Keith Elkon appointed to endowed professorships
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UW FACULTY MEMBER NEAL FUTRAN NAMED CHAIR OF OTOLARYNGOLOGY
UW faculty member Neal Futran has been named the new chair of the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery. Futran, a professor of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery, has been serving as director of head and neck surgery at UW Medical Center. His appointment as chair is effective June 1.
Futran earned a degree in dentistry from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed training in oral surgery and earned his medical degree from the Health Science Center at Brooklyn, Downstate Medical School (State University of New York). He completed his surgical training in otolaryngology and head and neck surgery at the University of Rochester, followed by a fellowship in head and neck oncology and microvascular surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York.
Futran joined the UW faculty in 1995. He is board certified in both otolaryngology and oral and maxillofacial surgery, and has extensive expertise and an active practice in microvascular reconstruction and rehabilitation of complex oncology and trauma cases. He also specializes in skull-base surgery, using both endoscopic and open approaches. Futran's main research activities center on microvascular reconstruction of the head and neck. He is also a co-investigator on a project studying molecular profiles and gene analysis in oral carcinogenesis.
Futran has received many recognitions for his work, including a UWMC Service Excellence Award, a Distinguished Service Award from the American Academy of Otolarynogolgy - Head and Neck Surgery, the Driftwood Teaching Award, and a listing in the Best Doctors in America. He is a fellow of the American Board of Otolaryngology-HNS, the American College of Surgeons, and the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.
Futran's predecessor, Ernest Weymuller, Jr., began his tenure as chair in 1991. Under his leadership, the department has doubled its number of faculty numbers, seen its revenue and research funding increase many times over, and expanded its national prominence in many areas. Weymuller will be devoting more time to resident education and clinical work in special sinus surgery and head and neck cancer.
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UW AND IBM COLLABORATION AIMS TO BUILD BETTER STRAINS OF RICE
As concerns of a global hunger crisis mount, the UW and IBM have launched a new program to develop stronger strains of rice that could produce crops with larger and more nutritious yields.
The UW's Nutritious Rice for the World project will draw on the power of IBM's World Community Grid, a network that allows computer users to donate their unused computing power to science research projects. The IBM grid has nearly a million individual personal computers taking part in its projects, and has a processing power of 167 teraflops, equivalent to one of the top three supercomputers in the world.
The Nutritious Rice for the World project will use that donated computing power to study rice at the protein level and then combine that knowledge with traditional cross-breeding techniques to produce better strains of rice. Using the World Community Grid will allow UW researchers to complete their project in less than two years, compared to the more than 200 years the project would require using conventional computer systems.
The project will run a three-dimensional modeling program created by UW computational biologists to study the structures of the tens of thousands of proteins that make up the building blocks of rice. Understanding the structure is necessary to identify the function of those proteins, and to enable researchers to identify which proteins could help produce more rice grains, ward off pests, resist disease or hold more nutrients.
The project will eventually create the largest and most comprehensive map of rice proteins and their related functions, helping agriculturalists and farmers pinpoint which plants should be selected for cross-breeding to cultivate better crops. The work could enable rice-producing countries to become more immune to future changes in climate, because they can quickly find the right plants for cross-breeding and create strains that are more resistant to changing weather patterns.
The project is being led by Ram Samudrala, associate professor of microbiology, and Michal Guerquin, a research consultant in the Department of Microbiology. The project was started by a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
Anyone with a computer and Internet access can take part in the project. To donate unused computer time, individuals register on the World Community Grid Web site and install a free software program onto their computers. When computers are idle, data is requested from World Community Grid's server. The computers then perform the computations, and send the results back to the server, prompting it for a new piece of work. A screen saver informs people when their computers are being used by the World Community Grid.
For more information, or to register and take part in the Nutritious Rice for the World project, visit:
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/
Protein researcher David Baker, UW professor of biochemistry, is also leading a project that relies on donated computer power for science research. Baker's project, called Rosetta@home, is aimed at understanding basic protein structures that are important for human health and disease. That project can be found at:
http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/
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RESEARCHERS FIND NEW MECHANISMS CONTROLLING STEM-CELL DIFFERENTIATION
A group of researchers at the UW has found that the differentiation of stem cells is controlled by both the transcription of genes into RNA and the translation of RNA into proteins. Scientists had previously believed that differentiation, the formation of specialized cells from stem cells, was controlled mainly by which genes in those cells were transcribed into RNA.
Transcription is the process through which genetic information is turned into RNA, one of the intermediate steps to creating the basic proteins that are the building blocks of cells. Translation is one of the later steps in that process, and involves RNA being turned into amino acids that make up proteins.
In addition to discovering the role of translation in the process of stem-cell differentiation, the UW researchers have uncovered some of the regulatory circuits that help control that process. Controlling protein translation may serve as a type of quality-control mechanism, the researchers said, ensuring that stem cells differentiate only when they receive the right environmental cues. It may also ensure that only the correct proteins for a specific cell type -- a heart muscle cell in an area of heart tissue, for instance -- are made.
The research was led by Prabha Sampath, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pathology, and Charles Murry, professor of pathology and bioengineering, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Biology, and co-director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine. The results of the study appear in the May issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell.
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BROUDY AND ELKON APPOINTED TO ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS
Two faculty members in the Department of Medicine were recently appointed to endowed professorships. Virginia C. Broudy, professor and vice chair of medicine at the UW and chief of medicine at Harborview Medical Center, has been appointed the first holder of the Scripps Endowed Professorship in Hematology. The professorship was founded with a $500,000 gift from Christy and Ed Scripps in gratitude for care received at Harborview by Mrs. Scripps’ mother.
Broudy, a graduate of Harvard College, received her M.D. at the University of California, San Francisco, and completed residency and a fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at Oregon Health and Science University. She then came to UW as a senior hematology fellow and joined the faculty in 1987, becoming professor of medicine in 1998. She served as acting division head from 2002 to 2004. Broudy has published widely on hematopoiesis, myeloproliferative diseases, HIV, and other topics in hematology/oncology, as well as medical education.
She has served on a number of committees and task forces for the School of Medicine, the Department of Medicine, and Harborview and has held many leadership positions for the American Cancer Society, American Society of Hematology, Puget Sound Blood Center, and other organizations. She is currently secretary-treasurer and a councilor of the Western Association of Physicians. She is active in teaching students, residents, and fellows and attends at Harborview and the Madison Clinic. A fellow of the American College of Physicians, Broudy is listed among the Best Doctors in America and Seattle’s Top Doctors. She has received both the Paul B. Beeson Award for outstanding clinical teaching by a faculty member and the Outstanding Attending of the Year Award from the medical house staff.
Keith B. Elkon, professor of medicine and head of the Division of Rheumatology, has been appointed the first holder of the Mart Mannik, M.D.-Lucile T. Henderson Endowed Professorship in Rheumatology. The professorship honors Mannik, former head of the division, and is supported by a $3.2 million bequest from the estate of Lucile Evelyn Townsend Henderson of Seattle.
Following medical school at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, Elkon completed postgraduate training at Johannesburg General Hospital and at Guy’s Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital, London. He joined the faculty at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, becoming professor of medicine in 1993, and directing the graduate program in immunology and the rheumatology research program during his time there. He came to UW as division head in 2001. Elkon is also an adjunct professor of immunology.
Elkon leads an active research program investigating mechanisms of autoimmune disease and the role of apoptosis, or cell death, in tolerance and autoimmunity. He currently holds funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Lupus Research Institute, the Dana Foundation, and the Alliance for Lupus Researach. He has published more than 170 research papers, reviews, and editorials in his field. He was a speaker at a symposium for the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prizes.
Elkon teaches and mentors students, residents, and fellows in medicine, as well as graduate students in immunology, and directs the rheumatology fellowship training program. He has served on boards and committees for the Lupus Research Institute, Alliance for Lupus Research, SLE Foundation, NIH, and others, and he consults for several international funding agencies. He directed the NIH-sponsored Specialized Center of Research in SLE from 1994 to 1998.
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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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