An image from Professor Yi Zhou's lab has made the cover of Biological Psychiatry. The image (seen above) appears in Volume 78, Issue 6 dated September 15, 2015.

Professor Alice Pomidor is co-editor of a newly published book about exercise and aging. A chapter of ‘Exercise for Aging Adults: A Guide for Practitioners’ is authored by Professor Kenneth Brummel-Smith. The chapter, 'Motivational Interviewing for Older Adults,' has a companion video available online. Pomidor worked with University of Connecticut Professor Gail Sullivan to produce the work.

Associate Professor Sanjay Kumar recently authored a chapter in the neuroscience textbook 'Neuromethods: Ionotropic Glutamate Receptor Technologies.' Kumar's chapter is titled: Functional Detection of Novel Triheteromeric NMDA Receptors. The book is the 106th volume of Neuromethods.

Oct. 5, 2015

To honor the late Florida Sen. Durell “Doc” Peaden, the College of Medicine hosted a ceremony in which the auditorium and rural medical program were both named for him. About 200 former colleagues, friends and family members came to remember the Crestview physician and legislator.

FSU President John Thrasher, Sen. Al Lawson, Senior Associate Dean Myra Hurt and Dean John P. Fogarty recounted Peaden stories — from his working with fellow legislators to create the college to his weekly calls to check on his “kids” after it was established.

In a video clip, Peaden described what it was like to create the country’s first medical school in more than 20 years. From the perspective of a family physician, he compared it to a breech birth – difficult but possible.

In the days leading up to the event, brass letters went up spelling out “DURELL PEADEN AUDITORIUM,” and a plaque was mounted on the atrium wall outside the auditorium so future students would know why it was named for him. Both the letters and the plaque were concealed. So during the ceremony, when Thrasher and Fogarty unveiled them, a round of applause went up from the crowd. A small replica of the plaque was presented to Peaden’s widow, Nancy Peaden, along with a bouquet of flowers. The unexpected gift caused her to weep. It read:
 

DURELL “DOC” PEADEN, M.D., J.D.: 1945-2015

Here at the College of Medicine, people mostly remember Durell Peaden as the influential legislator who in 2000 shepherded the bill establishing this school. But his support went well beyond legislative skill. He donated thousands of dollars in scholarship money, showed unwavering interest in students’ well-being and always looked out for the college’s best interests.

Another side to Peaden is more widely known in his rural hometown of Crestview. His neighbors knew him as “Doc,” the country doctor who offered patient-centered care before anyone even used that phrase. In a letter to the Crestview Bulletin after Peaden died, Mayor Davide Cadle wrote: “We remember Dr. Peaden as the physician who cared for our families and would sit by the bedside of a sick child, all night if necessary.”

No wonder Peaden was so passionate about this medical school designed to nurture compassionate physicians for underserved areas. No wonder he and College of Medicine godmother Myra Hurt clicked when they met in 1998 to brainstorm an unconventional new medical school. Separately, both had been envisioning the same apprentice-style program focused on primary care for all Floridians – the kind of care he’d been delivering for years.

Welcome to Doc Peaden’s auditorium.

The People Living with And Inspired by Diabetes (PLAID) Journal started by Maguire Medical Library Director and Editor in Chief Martin Wood is discussed in a Q & A session on Healthline.com. Wood answered questions such as how PLAID came to be and how the format is different from other diabetes journals.

March 2016

  Gail Bellamy has been involved with the American Public Health Association since her first conference with the association over 30 years ago. Now, the director of the Center for Rural Health Research and Policy can add vice chair of the Executive Board to her list of positions held.
  “I’ve been on the Executive Board since the end of our 2013 conference,” she said. “I’m starting my third year, and I was elected vice chair at the end of our 2015 conference.”
  APHA is a 501(c)(3) organization of over 25,000 members from various vocations within public health, ranging from dental hygienists to epidemiologists to physicians. Bellamy’s newest role is her highest office yet.
  “We have a governing council that looks at policy, and they are also elected from our membership,” she said. “We are elected by that governing council to provide that other level of leadership. If something comes up that needs immediate attention from the executive director, the treasurer, speaker for the Governing Council, chair and vice chair, and the APHA key staff will be involved.”
  Despite her longevity with the organization, Bellamy is humble about her current position: “What the vice chair does is step in whenever the chair is unable to fulfill their obligations or their role. That’s not a big deal.”
  Other responsibilities are a big deal.
  “As vice chair, I chair the Governance Committee,” she said. “It ensures the Executive Board runs effectively. We get involved with situations like conflicts of interest, not just on the Executive Board but in the leadership throughout APHA, which includes people who serve on various boards and subjects throughout the agency.”
  When asked how she saw her future with APHA, Bellamy was contemplative.
  “I’ve had friends who, since I was president of the National Rural Health Association a long time ago, have asked me if I’m interested in running for president of APHA,” she said. “I don’t know at this particular time that I want to take that much more time away from the college. I look, and I say, ‘OK, No. 1, do I have that kind of energy? And No. 2, what could I bring to that?’ I’ve got lots of time to think about it.”

For the third time this year, the lab of Associate Professor Daniel Kaplan is having a paper published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The paper, titled "The Replication Initiation Protein Sld3/Treslin Orchestrates the Assembly of the Replication Fork Helicase during S Phase," is in the Nov. 6 edition. Research Faculty Irina Bruck and Kaplan are the co-authors.

A paper entitled "Evolution of a Protein Folding Nucleus" from Dr. Michael Blaber's lab was accepted for publication in Protein Science. It was selected for a special issue on protein evolution and design. The work was coauthored by Drs. Xue Xia and Liam Longo who are former graduate students from the Blaber Lab.

"The folding nucleus is a cryptic element within protein primary structure that enables an efficient folding pathway and is the postulated heritable element in the evolution of protein architecture," said Blaber.