Vishal Dahya (M.D., ’14) was the lead author of a recent study that had encouraging results for HIV-positive people who’ve been getting long-term treatment.

The study, which Dahya presented at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, was reported on the website TheBody.com. Researchers found that the HIV-positive people they studied — people on long-term antiretroviral therapy — had no higher calcium scores than the population as a whole. Those scores are related to calcium buildup in plaques, which is seen as evidence of coronary artery disease.

Dahya, a first-year resident in the FSU College of Medicine Internal Medicine Residency Program at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, was also among HIV researchers interviewed by thebodypro.com on whether this had been a bad year for research on an HIV cure.

“Regardless of the diagnosis, regardless of disease, we have to stay positive in everything that we're doing,” Dahya replied. “Research has its downturns and upturns, but we have to be able to stay positive, because it's a process.

“Going back and trying to find the exact mechanisms that caused the relapses will definitely help prevent it from happening again, and also be able to further our research so we can get to that point in which we can find that cure.”

October 2014

Florida State University is working with the American Geriatrics Society and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to update the Physician’s Guide to Assessing and Counseling Older Drivers. Over the next three years, led by College of Medicine Geriatrics Professor Alice Pomidor, the organizations are taking a whole new approach to expand the guide.

“Most helper organizations have a great tendency to say, ‘This is important. You should know this. Here.’ — and they develop handouts that get thrown away,” said Pomidor, who heads the editorial board for this Older Adult Driver Project and chairs the AGS Public Education Committee. “We’re doing it a bit differently, by providing the information in multiple formats and having people choose which one is right for them.”

One broad goal of the AGS is to disseminate geriatrics knowledge not just to other physicians but also to nurses, pharmacists, social workers, physical and occupational therapists and other health-care providers, in addition to caregivers and older adults themselves. Not surprisingly, the plan is to make this updated guide useful to those same groups.

“There’s been sort of a medicalization of the issues with older drivers, where everybody says, ‘Oh, the doctors need to stop everybody,’” she said. “Well, if the doctors only see you once every six months, and then they see you for 15 minutes, the whole notion that people somehow have the magic ability to tell whether you should drive becomes ludicrous. You have to be trained how to assess the skill set and how to assess the physical capabilities for driving.”

Much of the content from the previous guidelines remains valid, Pomidor said, though some updating is needed. “We know more now, for example, about what is an effective way to assess someone’s thinking,” she said. “The old standard used to be the Mini-Mental State Exam, but it really has little ability to predict how someone will do as a driver. There are different ways to test someone’s cognition which are actually much more helpful.”

New automotive technology also will be incorporated. “Can you turn your head and look over your shoulder?” Pomidor said. “If not, you need a vehicle that has a rear-view backup camera.”

The target date for the new education and outreach programs is 2017. Meantime, NHTSA has an entire web page devoted to older drivers: http://www.nhtsa.gov/Driving+Safety/Older+Drivers. In Florida, the Safe Mobility for Life Coalition has a wealth of information and resources about older adult drivers and road users at http://www.flsams.org/.

Ken Brummel-Smith, chair of the Department of Geriatrics at the College of Medicine, has been appointed to the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Grant Advisory Board. The appointment was effective Oct. 1 for a period of two years and was made by Florida Surgeon General John H. Armstrong.

Hao Wang, a biomedical sciences graduate student at the Florida State University College of Medicine, has published a manuscript in the October issue of PLOS ONE, an international, open-access, peer-reviewed scentific journal.

Wang's article, "The Role of LARP6 and Nonmuscle Myosin in Partitioning of Collagen mRNAs to the ER Membrane," was produced in the lab of Professor Branko Stefanovic.

 

 The FSU College of Medicine (CoM) has adopted policies for carrying out human subjects research by faculty, staff, students and others affiliated with the College. The policies establish a centralized, faculty-based review process for CoM-affiliated human subjects research. They were developed by a collaboration of department chairs and faculty members, with approval from the dean and the College of Medicine executive committee.

The internal review process is a necessary step approximately two to three weeks prior to submitting a new College of Medicine-affiliated human subjects research proposal to the FSU Institutional Review Board (IRB). IRB renewals and amendments are not required to go through the review process, only first submissions. In research involving external funding, the process will not impede or delay sponsor applications.

Information about the process

College of Medicine-affiliated investigators may access the review process via online submission using our SharePoint Intranet. You can access the intranet site with your College of Medicine user name and password by clicking on this link:

Online submission form

A step-by-step “user guide” for investigators on how to navigate the online submission system is located on the SharePoint Intranet site.